King Richard II: Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition 9781350084759, 9781350084766, 9781350287211

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King Richard II

Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition The aim of the Critical Tradition series is to increase our knowledge of how Shakespeare’s plays were received and understood by critics, editors and general readers. Each volume traces the course of Shakespeare criticism, play-by-play, from the earliest items of recorded criticism to the beginnings of the modern period. The focus of the documentary material is from the late eighteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. The series makes a major contribution to our understanding of the plays and of the traditions of Shakespearian criticism as they have developed from century to century. The introduction to each volume constitutes an important chapter of literary history, tracing the entire critical career of each play from the beginnings to the present day. Series editors:

Professor Sir Brian Vickers, fellow of the British Academy and Emeritus Professor, ETH Zürich, Switzerland Professor Joseph Candido, University of Arkansas, USA Series titles: Coriolanus Edited by David George 978-1-3501-5783-5 King Henry V Edited by Joseph Candido 978-1-4742-5805-0 King John Edited by Joseph Candido 978-1-3502-6001-6 The Tempest Edited by Brinda S. L. Charry 978-1-3500-8707-1

King Richard II Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition Revised Edition Edited by Charles R. Forker With a new introduction by Nicholas F. Radel

THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE and the Arden Shakespeare logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain by The Athlone Press 1998 This revised edition published by The Arden Shakespeare 2022 Copyright © Charles R. Forker, 1998, 2022 Introduction copyright © Nicholas F. Radel, 2022 Charles R. Forker and Nicholas F. Radel have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any thirdparty websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-8475-9 ePDF: 978-1-3502-8721-1 eBook: 978-1-3502-8722-8 Series: Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www​.bloomsbury​.com and sign up for our newsletters.



For George and Kathleen

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Contents General editor’s preface General editors’ preface to the revised editions Preface

x xv xvi

Introduction 1 Introduction to the revised edition  Nicholas F. Radel 64 1 Edward Capell, various notes on Richard II, 1780 111 2 Edmond Malone and others, supplementary remarks on Richard II, 1780 116 3 Thomas Davies, on the deposition scene in Richard II, 1784 118 4 Edmond Malone, edition of Shakespeare, 1790 119 5 Joseph Ritson, Shakespeare’s part-authorship of Richard II and other notes, 1793 126 6 George Steevens, notes on Richard II, 1793 129 7 George Chalmers, on the date and political significance of Richard II, 1799 133 8 Charles Dibdin, Richard II inferior to Richard III, 1800 136 9 Francis Douce, Richard II and the memento mori tradition, 1807 138 10 Charles Lamb, Marlowe’s Edward II compared to Richard II, 1808 140 11 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on Richard II and the history play, 1813 141 12 William Hazlitt, a critique of Edmund Kean as Richard II, 1815 147 13 Richard Wroughton, advertisement of an adaptation of Richard II, 1815 151 14 A.W. von Schlegel, Richard II and the unity of Shakespeare’s history plays, 1815 153 15 Nathan Drake, a sympathetic view of Richard II, 1817 156 16 William Hazlitt, characterization in Richard II, 1817 159 17 John Hamilton Reynolds, the poetry of Richard II and the other histories, 1817 164 18 Augustine Skottowe, Richard II and the truth of history, 1824 166 19 George Daniel, prefatory remarks on Richard II, 1831 169 20 Henry Nelson Coleridge, another version of Coleridge on Richard II, 1836 172 21 Henry Hallam, on the scene of Aumerle’s pardon in Richard II, 1837–39 180 22 Thomas Campbell, general comments on Richard II, 1838 182 23 Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, Richard II and history, 1838 184 24 Charles Knight, the pictorial edition of Richard II, 1838 198

viii 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Contents John Payne Collier, on the existence of two plays on Richard II’s reign, 1842 215 Hermann Ulrici, kingship and the morality of Richard II, 1846 220 Gulian C. Verplanck, critical remarks on Richard II, 1847 226 Hartley Coleridge, a comment on Richard II, 1851 230 François P. G. Guizot, history, character, and divine right in Richard II, 1852 231 Henry N. Hudson, historical truth and characterization in Richard II, 1852 235 Henry Reed, history as tragedy in Richard II, 1855 239 William Watkiss Lloyd, the political morality of Richard II, 1856 247 Richard Grant White, Richard II, Daniel’s Civil Wars, and the play’s date, 1859 256 G.G. Gervinus, the characterization and artistry of Richard II, 1863 260 John A. Heraud, the play’s divided authorship and Shakespeare’s attitude to divine right, 1865 274 Henry N. Hudson, further observations on Richard II, 1872 278 Richard Simpson, Richard II and Elizabethan politics, 1874 283 Edward Dowden, the immaturity of Richard II and the realism of Bolingbroke, 1875 290 A. C. Swinburne, an unsympathetic view of Richard II, 1875 298 F.J. Furnivall, the topicality of Richard II and the character of its protagonist, 1877 301 Denton J. Snider, Richard II and the right of revolution, 1877 304 P.A. Daniel, time problems in Richard II, 1879 319 Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare’s concern with costume in Richard II, 1885 321 A.W. Verity, Marlowe’s influence on Richard II, 1886 324 Richard Grant White, Richard III and Richard II compared, 1886 329 Havelock Ellis, on the inferiority of Richard II to Marlowe’s Edward II, 1887 331 Frank A. Marshall, the theatrical weakness of Richard II, 1888 332 Walter Pater, ritual and lyricism in Richard II, 1889 336 P. A. Daniel, a nonpolitical reason for omitting the deposition scene from the early quartos of Richard II, 1890 344 Cyril Ransome, character disclosure and dramatic symmetry in Richard II, 1890 346 E.K. Chambers, the artistry of Richard II, 1891 360 C.H. Herford, miscellaneous comments on Richard II, 1893 367 Beverley E. Warner, characterization and history in Richard II, 1894 380 Barrett Wendell, Richard II as an archaic masterpiece, 1894 392 Frederick S. Boas, diseased will and sentimentalism in Richard II, 1896 396 Georg Brandes, Edward II and Richard II contrasted, 1898 403

 Contents ix 57 C.E. Montague, on F.R. Benson’s portrayal of Richard II, 1899 408 58 Sidney Lee, Benson’s Richard II and the acting of minor roles, 1900  413 59 W.B. Yeats, Richard II and Henry V as emblems of refinement and vulgarity, 1901 415 60 Frederick S. Boas, the relation of Woodstock to Richard II, 1902 422 61 Felix E. Schelling, Shakespeare’s independence in Richard II, 1902 426 62 H.F. Prevost Battersby, on Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s Richard II, 1903  429 63 Richard G. Moulton, Richard II, the divine right of kings, and the pendulum of history, 1903 433 64 A. C. Swinburne, an iconoclastic view of Richard II, 1903 435 65 A.C. Bradley, on Richard II and tragedy, 1904 442 66 Stopford A. Brooke, purgation through tragic suffering in Richard II, 1905  446 67 Morton Luce, Richard II a disappointing failure, 1905 460 68 George Pierce Baker, Richard II and the weaknesses and strengths of the chronicle play, 1907 468 69 Sir Walter Raleigh, weakness and the philosophic strain in the character of Richard II, 1907 474 70 George Saintsbury, Richard II as an imperfect but rhetorically unique drama, 1907 477 71 Ashley H. Thorndike, structure, style, and characterization in Richard II, 1908 485 72 A. C. Bradley, further comments on Richard II, 1909 488 73 G.S. Gordon, patriotism and the absence of moral order in Richard II, 1909 490 74 Charlotte Porter, the subtle artistry of Act I, 1910 493 75 C.F. Tucker Brooke, miscellaneous comments on Richard II, 1911 499 76 John Masefield, Richard II as a tragedy of double treachery, 1911 504 77 Hardin Craig, from an introduction to Richard II, 1912 507 78 Ivor B. John, from an introduction to Richard II, 1912 511 79 Brander Matthews, dramaturgical weakness and psychological strength in Richard II, 1913 523 80 Lacy Collison-Morley, Alessandro Manzoni’s anti-classical perspective on Richard II, 1916 527 81 Wilhelm Creizenach, miscellaneous comments on Richard II, 1916 532 82 J.A.R. Marriott, historical context and Richard II as a tragedy of political amateurism, 1918 536 Notes A select bibliography Index

543 582 596

General editor’s preface The aim of this series is to increase our knowledge of how Shakespeare’s plays were received and understood by critics, editors and general readers. His work, with its enormous range of represented situations, characters, styles and moods, has always been a challenge, both to the capacity of readers and to their critical systems. Two main reactions may be expected: either the system is expanded to match the plays or the plays are reduced to fit the system. If we study his reception in the neoclassic period, as I have done in my six-volume anthology of primary texts, Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, 1623–1801 (London and Boston, 1974–81), we see his plays being cropped – literally, cut, drastically adapted – to accommodate the prevailing notions of decorum and propriety. If not hacked about for the stage, they were evaluated by literary-critical criteria which seem to us self-evidently anachronistic and inappropriate, and found wanting. Yet despite this frequent mismatch between system and artefact, the focus of neoclassic critical theory on issues of characterization, structure and style did enable many writers to respond to the experience of reading or seeing his plays in a fresh and personal way. Since most of the eighteenth-century material has been dealt with in the previouslymentioned collection, the main emphasis in this series will be on documenting the period 1790 to 1920. While the major Romantic critics (Coleridge, Hazlitt, Keats) have been often studied, and will need less representation here, there are many interesting and important writers of the early nineteenth century who have seldom attracted attention from modern historians. As one moves on chronologically, into the Victorian period, our knowledge becomes even more thin and patchy. But there was a continuous, indeed constantly increasing, stream of publications in England, America, France and Germany, hardly known today. (See my select bibliography of the ‘History of Shakespeare Criticism’ in the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, Third Edition, Volume 2: 1500–1700, ed. Douglas Sedge, Cambridge University Press; 2011.) This period saw the founding of the Shakespeare Society by J. P. Collier in 1840, which produced a huge number of publications by 1853, when it unfortunately collapsed, following Collier’s exposure as a forger. In 1873 the New Shakespere Society was founded by F. J. Furnivall, and over the following twenty years produced some eight series of publications, including its Transactions, which contain many important critical and scholarly essays, a group of reprints of early quartos, allusion books, bibliographies and much else. This was also the period in which the first journals devoted exclusively to Shakespeare appeared, some short-lived, such as Poet Lore (Philadelphia 1889–97) and Shakespeariana (Philadelphia 1883), Noctes Shakspearianae (Winchester College, 1887) or New Shakespeareana (the organ of the Shakespeare Society of New York), but at least one still with us, the Jahrbuch of the Deutsche Shakespeare Gesellschaft, which appeared as such from 1865 to 1963, was

 General Editor’s Preface xi divided into separate volumes for West and East Germany in 1964–65, but happily reunited in 1991. Shakespeare’s plays were constantly edited and reprinted in this period. Of the complete editions, the two great peaks are the ‘third variorum’ edition of James Boswell, Jr. in twenty-one volumes (1821); the apotheosis of the eighteenth-century editions by Johnson, Steevens and Malone, and the Cambridge edition by William G. Clark, John Glover and W. Aldis Wright in nine volumes (1863–66), which in turn provided the text for the enormously long-lived one-volume ‘Globe edition’ (1864). The Cambridge edition, which presented Shakespeare’s text with minimum annotation, broke with the eighteenth-century tradition of reprinting all the important footnotes from every earlier edition, an incremental process which burdened the page but certainly led to a great dissemination of knowledge about Shakespeare’s plays. That service was recommenced on a new and more coherent plan in 1871 by Dr H. H. Furness with his Variorum Edition of separate plays, continued by his son H. H. Furness, Jr. (fifteen titles by 1908), and revived in our time as the New Variorum Shakespeare, currently under the aegis of the Modern Language Association of America. But in addition to these well-known scholarly editions, a vast number of competing sets of the plays were issued for and absorbed by an apparently insatiable public. Their popularity can be judged by the remarkable number of reprints and re-editions enjoyed, for instance, by Charles Knight’s ‘Pictorial edition’ (8 vols., 1838–43): followed by his ‘Library edition’ (12 vols., 1842–44), re-christened in 1850–52 the ‘National edition’, not easily distinguishable from Knight’s own ‘Cabinet edition’ (16 vols., 1847–48), not to mention his ‘Imperial edition’, ‘Blackfriars edition’, all of which being followed by a host of spinoffs of their constituent material; or those by J. P. Collier (8 vols., 1842–4, 6 vols., 1858, 8 vols., 1878, now described as having ‘the Purest Text and the Briefest Notes’), or Alexander Dyce (6 vols., 1857; 9 vols., 1846–47; 10 vols., 1880–81, 1895–1901). Other notable editions came from J. O. Halliwell (16 vols., 1853–65); Howard Staunton (3 vols., 1856–60; 8 vols., 1872; 6 vols., 1860, 1873, 1894; 15 vols., 1881); John Dicks, whose ‘shilling edition’ (1861) had reputedly sold a million copies by 1868, but was undercut by the ‘Shakespeare for Sixpence’ edition (Cardiff, 1897); Nicolaus Delius (7 vols., 1854–61), the text of which was reused by F. J. Furnivall for his one-volume ‘Leopold edition’ (1877, ‘100th Thousand’ by 1910); Edward Dowden (12 vols., 1882– 83); F. A. Marshall and Henry Irving in the ‘Henry Irving edition’ (8 vols., 1888–90); C. H. Herford’s ‘Eversley edition’ (10 vols., 1899); the ‘Stratford town edition’ by A. H. Bullen and others (10 vols., 1904–07); the ‘University Press’ edition with notes by Sidney Lee and important introductions to the individual plays by over thirty critics ( 40 vols., 1906–09); and many, many more, as yet unchronicled by bibliographers. America also launched a vigorous tradition of Shakespeare editing, starting with Gulian C. Verplanck’s edition (3 vols., New York 1844–47), continuing with those by H. N. Hudson (11 vols., Boston 1851–56 and 20 vols., 1880–81); R.G. White (12 vols., Boston 1857–66, 1888), and the ‘Riverside edition’ (3 vols., Boston 1883); J. A. Morgan, the ‘Bankside edition’ (22 vols., New York, 1888–1906), with parallel texts of the plays from the quartos and folio; W. J. Rolfe, a larger edition (40 vols., New York 1871–96), and a smaller or ‘Friendly edition’ (20 vols., New York 1884); and two notable editions by women, Mary Cowden Clarke’s (2 vols., 1860, 4 vols., 1864), and the ‘First Folio

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edition’ by Charlotte E. Porter and Helen A. Clarke (40 vols., New York 1903–13). These editions often included biographical material, illustrative notes, accounts of Shakespeare’s sources, excerpts from contemporary ballads and plays, attempts to ascertain the chronology of his writings and much else. The fortunate – largely middleclass – purchasers of these sets had access to a surprisingly wide range of material, much of it based on a sound historical knowledge. In addition to the complete works, there were countless editions of the individual plays and poems, many of them of a high scholarly standard (the best-known being the original ‘Arden edition’, ed. W. J. Craig and R. H. Case in 39 vols., 1899–1924), not to mention numerous facsimiles of the folios and quartos. The more we study the Victorian period, the less likely we shall be to indulge such facile dismissals of it as Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians (1918). Where Strachey could follow the common practice of rejecting the values of the preceding age, we now should have sufficient historical distance to place the scholarly and critical output of that period into a coherent perspective. Nineteenth-century scholars produced a number of studies that held their place as authorities for many years, and can still be used with profit. For Shakespeare’s language there was E. A. Abbott, A Shakespearian Grammar (1869; many editions); Alexander Schmidt, Shakespeare-Lexicon (Berlin, 1874–5, 1886), revised and extended by Gregor Sarrazin (2 vols., Berlin, 1902); and Wilhelm Franz, Shakespeare-Grammatik (Halle, 1898–1900, 1909; Heidelberg, 1924). It is only very recently that modern works, such as Marvin Spevack, A Shakespeare Thesaurus (Hildesheim, 1993), have added anything new. On the fundamental issue of the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, such as his collaboration with John Fletcher in Henry VIII, the division of labour independently proposed for that play by Samuel Hickson and James Spedding in 1847 and 1850 has been largely confirmed by Jonathan Hope in The Authorship of Shakespeare’s Plays (Cambridge, 1994). In other areas we now have more reliable tools to work with than the Victorians, but it was they who laid the basis for many of our scholarly approaches to Shakespeare. As for their Shakespeare criticism, while a few authors are still known and read – A. C. Bradley for his Shakespearean Tragedy (1904), Walter Pater for his essay on ‘Shakespeare’s English Kings’ in Appreciations (1880) – the majority are simply unknown. Among the English critics who clearly deserve to be revalued are Richard Simpson, for his essays on Shakespeare’s historical plays; R. G. Moulton, for his Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist (1885; 3rd ed. 1906); Edward Dowden; and F. S. Boas. As for the many German critics whose work was eagerly translated into English – A. W. Schlegel, Hermann Ulrici, G. G. Gervinus, Karl Elze, Wilhelm Creizenach – who today can give any account of their writings? *** Charles Forker’s volume on Richard II makes an illuminating companion to Joseph Candido’s King John, the first volume in this series. The two plays, traditionally placed next in order of composition, were frequently juxtaposed by commentators (see the index to each volume). The two editors, who are among the leading contemporary scholars on Shakespeare’s history plays, bring much bibliographical and historical

 General Editor’s Preface xiii expertise to bear. They have collaborated on a valuable bibliography of Henry V in the Garland Shakespeare Bibliography series (New York, 1983), and are each producing editions of their respective plays, Professor Candido preparing King John for the Variorum series, while Professor Forker is editing Richard II for the newest New Arden edition. Their meticulous documentation allows us to see that Shakespeare’s history plays, thought to have been neglected until ‘discovered’ by Lily B. Campbell and E. M. W. Tillyard in the 1940s, in fact produced a vigorous critical tradition in the early nineteenth century, which yielded a number of outstanding studies, long lost from view. One major issue, emerging in the late 1830s, concerned the historicity of Richard II. T.P. Courtenay (No. 23), rigorously evaluating Shakespeare according to the truth of the chronicles, in effect documented Shakespeare’s creative adaptation of his sources, although he hardly approved, believing that Shakespeare would have produced better drama if he’d known more history. In the same year Charles Knight (No. 24), in one of his enormously popular editions, defended Shakespeare’s handling of his sources on artistic grounds (‘This is creation, not alteration’). As Professor Forker writes, the disagreement between Courtenay and Knight is symbolic of two opposed views of drama, one as containing factual record, the other embodying transhistorical truth. By the time that the autodidact William Watkiss Lloyd (No. 32) discussed the play in 1856, the sources could be seen as an inspiration, not documentarily binding, while in 1885 Oscar Wilde (No. 43) simply dismissed the issue by remarking that the aesthetic value of Shakespeare depends not on facts but on truth. Although the factual school were discredited, their objections certainly stimulated the recognition of Shakespeare’s artistic freedom in handling his sources. As I have remarked elsewhere, whenever, in the last 300 years, Shakespeare has been attacked, many writers have leaped to his defence. In this way a critical tradition establishes itself by the working of an internal dialectic. Another major issue, valuably discussed by nineteenth-century critics, concerned the play’s politics. Reading their biographies, one is struck by how many of them – English, French, American – were lawyers and parliamentarians, men in public life who were daily confronted with political realities. In Europe, especially after 1848, political struggles had a much greater meaning and impact than they have in the fading years of our century, where, as the final section of Professor Forker’s introduction shows, the self-righteous feminist concern with ‘gender polities’ or the New Historicist obsession with transgression and subversion can only seem like trivializations of human political behaviour. The profoundly felt, and sharply disagreeing, evaluations of the ‘political morality’ or ‘political philosophy’ of Richard II by W.W. Lloyd (No. 32) in 1856, and by two American writers, Henry Hudson (No. 30) in 1852, and Denton Snider (No. 41) in 1877, reveal a degree of involvement in the play as actually relevant that few writers today could muster. We have become so blasé about the machinery of politics and the corruptions of politicians that the issues of tyranny, liberty and revolution can barely move us. The period covered in such detail by this volume also witnessed several important developments in the appreciation of the play’s language and dramatic structure. While the neoclassic disapproval of puns and wordplay persisted from Thomas Davies (No.

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3) in 1784 to Henry Hallam (No. 21) and Thomas Campbell (No. 22) in the late 1830s, a countermovement, justifying punning as a legitimate defining element of character and situation, had begun with Schlegel and Coleridge, and was extended by the German scholars Gervinus (No. 34) in 1863 and Creizenach (No. 81) in 1916. It was not until the twentieth century, however, that we find a conscious acceptance of the play’s rhetoric, in the work of George Saintsbury (No. 70) in 1907, Ashley Thorndike (No. 71) in 1908 and Hardin Craig (No. 77) in 1912, and even here voices can still be heard attacking the play’s use of rhyme, rhetoric and wordplay, from Swinburne (No. 39) in 1875 to Morton Luce (No. 67) in 1905 and Ivor B. John (No. 78) in 1912. These dissenting voices remind us that traditions are composed of many different strands. A growing understanding of the play’s dramatic structure, so violently criticized by neoclassic judges, developed out of the increasing volume of commentary on the contrasting presentation of Richard and Bolingbroke. While this period did not see the rediscovery of Elizabethan dramatic conventions, it does include many good examples of that direct response to characters in drama, as if they were real people, which is a constant element in the history of dramatic criticism. There are memorable reactions to Richard II by Charles Knight (No. 24), and to Bolingbroke by Henry Hudson (No. 30), in each of their editions, widely read in England and America, and a growing recognition of the symmetrical, indeed chiastic, relation between the two protagonists, by Denton Snider (No. 41) in 1877, Cyril Ransome (No. 50) in 1890, E. K. Chambers (No. 51) in 1891, C. H. Herford (No. 52) in 1893 and Hardin Craig (No. 77) in 1912. These are critical essays showing a penetration and intelligence to which many modern critics would be glad to aspire. Other elements in the play’s structure were also gradually understood. The scene (IH​.​iv) where Richard’s Queen overhears the gardeners’ discussion about the weeding needed in their little realm, dismissed by Francis Gentleman in 1774 as ‘totally unessential to the fable’, was vindicated by Gervinus (No. 34) in 1863 as a simple but effective allegory, a reading extended by Stopford Brooke (No. 66) in 1905, and much elaborated in our times. Although this series does not attempt to document theatrical history, except where it impinges on the literary critical tradition as recorded in editions and commentary, Charles Forker draws attention to the slow but sure way that Richard II established itself in the theatre, thanks to its adoption by such leading actors as Frank Benson, Beerbohm Tree and John Gielgud, and he prints some refreshing theatrical notices from the turn of the century by C. E. Montague (No. 57), Sidney Lee (No. 58) and W.B. Yeats (No. 59), including the amusingly iconoclastic notice of ‘King Richard the Secondary’ by H. F. Battersby (No. 62). The range and excellence of so many of the critics here recovered from obscurity remind us how vital it is not to lose contact with the past, and with a critical tradition of interpreting Shakespeare that still has much to teach us. Brian Vickers 1996

General editors’ preface to the revised editions The reprinted and expanded editions of the earlier volumes in the Critical Tradition series (1996–2005) are intended to give a clearer picture of how the play has been received by scholars and critics in the last twenty or so years. Each reprinted volume consists of two distinct parts: (1) the complete text of the original book, and (2) a new Supplementary Introduction covering all significant scholarship on the play from the date of the initial publication of the book down to the present day. The Supplementary Introduction will document significant continuities as well as noteworthy – sometimes abrupt – changes in the critical tradition. Each editor has been given free rein on the structure and level of analysis in the Supplementary Introduction. The various segments of each essay are designed to highlight important strains of scholarly inquiry so that the reader can locate specific areas of interest or interpretative emphasis. This new edition will serve as an enhanced and convenient critical guide to all students of Shakespeare undertaking serious scholarship on these plays. Brian Vickers and Joseph Candido 2021

Preface This collection is intended to carry forward the historical scholarship of Brian Vickers’s six-volume Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage (London, 1974–81) by offering a detailed account of the critical reputation of Richard II between 1780 and 1920 chronologically arranged. Because the series of which it is a part highlights the tradition in English, I have confined my selections in most cases to writings in this language, continental criticism being included only when it was influential enough to appear in translation. The single exception is the great novelist Manzoni’s important anti-neoclassical defence of Richard II, published in 1820 but not fully translated until 1984; Lacy Collison-Morley drew attention to Manzoni’s work in 1916, thus bringing it belatedly within the orbit of English critical consciousness, and, since it is relatively brief, I have reprinted an English version of the Italian writer’s letter to M. Chauvet as an adjunct to the extract from Collison-Morley (No. 80) with the kind permission of the translator. Generally speaking, I have also excluded theatrical history except in the several cases where this bears significantly on interpretive issues or helps clarify the reception of the play itself rather than merely offering reaction to particular actors or effects of staging. As will appear, the stage history of Richard II and the play’s changing critical status in Shakespeare’s canon became inextricably entwined. My introduction seeks to trace the popularity and critical estimation of Richard II from Elizabethan times to the present, offering some sense of the modulating responses, shifting perspectives and changing methodological currents that mark the historical stream, while at the same time noting recurrences and continuities. The carefully annotated Garland bibliography of commentary on Richard II by the late Josephine A. Roberts (2 vols., New York, 1988) provides a virtually exhaustive list of books and essays (especially of post–Second World War writings) and may be consulted by anyone who seeks greater detail than I have been able to supply. For the texts contained in this anthology I have normally used the first edition; but in cases when later editions incorporated revisions, I have sometimes preferred these, always, of course, noting the fact. Occasionally, in instances where the original printing of an essay is virtually inaccessible because of its rarity or remote location, I have included a bibliographical reference, including pagination, to a more readily available reprint. In editing each item, I have silently removed the quotation marks enclosing set-off quotations and otherwise normalized the use of such punctuation to bring the American style into conformity with modern British usage. I have also consistently removed the full stop after the Roman numeral in references to kings and normalized the spelling of ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘Shakespearian’ throughout, even in titles and bibliographical citations. The names and spellings of Shakespearian characters have also been regularized according to standard modern practice. In order to conserve space I have often run a brief set-off quotation into the text and omitted

 Preface xvii lines from longer Shakespearian extracts (noting the excisions by act, scene and line number in square brackets) when the context can be easily understood without them. For the most part, I have made no attempt to normalize differences in American and British spelling or, apart from proper names, to take account of other orthographical inconsistencies. I have usually retained the sometimes archaic or eccentric punctuation of the originals except in the rare instances where simple comprehensibility seemed to require an alteration. In cases where confusion or ambiguity might otherwise arise (as in the distinction between Richard II as a character and Richard II as a title), I have also silently altered typography and italicization. My general aim, nevertheless, has been to preserve the character of the original texts in as many respects as practicable. I have retained the footnotes of the original documents except in the very few cases where they are redundant. Apart from the normalization of proper names as previously mentioned, I have made no effort to regularize the form of documentation, although, when possible (since the original citations are sometimes confusingly or unclearly abbreviated), I have tried to clarify them by adding in square brackets information that modern scholars consider requisite. All the footnotes for each document, including those by the original author and those added for explanatory reasons by the present editor, are numbered consecutively in a single system, but numbers for the interpolated notes are distinguished from those of the original ones by being enclosed in square brackets. Thus 1, 3 and 5 indicate notes by the author; [2], [4] and [6] refer to my own editorial annotations. It has sometimes been necessary to summarize omitted material, to clarify transitions between excerpts and always to document Shakespearian or other quotations (when the original omits such documentation) within the text proper. Additions of this kind are invariably placed in square brackets. Ellipsis dots indicate omissions from the original in the customary manner – three at the start or in the midst of a sentence, four at the end. Centred asterisks designate longer omissions. Interpolated references to acts, scenes and lines of Shakespeare’s works accord with G. Blakemore Evans’s Riverside Shakespeare (Boston, 1974), although Shakespearian passages quoted within the documents themselves are reproduced as they appear in the original, since it will be obvious that interpretation is often tied to a particular reading in or version of a text. Act, scene and line references to Marlowe’s Edward II, a play that recurs not infrequently in the discussion of Richard II, are taken from my own Revels edition of that play (Manchester, 1994). Quotations from other sources are documented, when possible, in the explanatory notes. Translations of passages from classical works, unless otherwise specified, come from the Loeb Classical Library. In many respects this volume represents a collaborative effort, for in ways that may be less than obvious, I have received invaluable assistance from many quarters. I owe a special debt of gratitude to the reference departments of the British Library, the Shakespeare Institute of Birmingham University, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the University of Toronto Library and the Indiana University Library (including its rare book adjunct, the Lilly Library). My librarian colleague Anthony W. Shipps, who is the most renowned and ingenious finder of sources of obscure quotations known to me, has been especially generous and resourceful in his efforts on my behalf. Among the reference staff at the Indiana University Library, I must also single out for special mention Ann Bristow, David K. Frasier, Jeffrey Graf and Clay Housholder. My friend

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Joseph Candido of the University of Arkansas, who has edited the parallel volume on King John in this series, honoured me with much helpful advice and saved me from numerous pitfalls; he also allowed me to consult in manuscript his bibliography of works on Shakespeare’s second tetralogy which proved immensely useful in the writing of my introduction. Timothy Long and Ian Thomson, distinguished colleagues in Classical Studies at Indiana University, provided helpful advice on matters pertaining to their discipline; Alfred David, Kenneth Johnston and Stuart M. Sperry of the English Department at Indiana, and Diana Carr, Gilbert Chaitin, Samuel N. Rosenberg and Mark Musa of French and Italian also offered their assistance on various points. S. P. Cerasano of Colgate University, Russell F. Locke of Emma Willard School, Eric S. Rump of York University and Jeremy Ward of the Manchester Grammar School deserve mention for their encouragement and willingness to assist, and I must also thank Laurence P. Senelick of Tufts University for permission to reprint his expert translation of Manzoni’s Lettre à M. Chauvet, originally published in Richard II: Critical Essays, ed. Jeanne T. Newlin (New York, 1984). Barbara A. Johnson rendered invaluable assistance by helping to prepare the index. Lastly, it is a pleasure to express special gratitude to Brian Vickers, distinguished editor of the Critical Tradition volumes, who persuaded me to undertake this project longer ago than I like to remember, who saved me from various blunders and who, in the face of unforeseen delays, has been unfailingly patient, courteous and supportive. Professor Vickers, who describes himself justly as an ‘interventionist’ editor, devoted many hours to a detailed scrutiny of my manuscript and offered many valuable suggestions for its improvement, especially in regard to the completeness and enrichment of the documentation. This volume would be much the poorer but for his assiduous, learned and painstaking involvement. C.R.F.

Introduction

I Beginnings to 1774 There is every reason to believe that in its own age Richard II enjoyed high esteem. Six quarto editions were published within the first four decades of its inception – 1597, 1598 (two), 1608, 1615, and 1634 – and it is the only play by Shakespeare to have provoked three editions within a two-year span. Francis Meres listed the play first among Shakespeare’s ‘tragedies’ in his Palladis Tamia (1598), and apart from public presentations (one by the King’s Men at the Globe is recorded as late as 12 June 1631), there is evidence of at least two private performances – one at the London house of Sir Edward Hoby in Canon Row on 9 December 1595, possibly to entertain Sir Robert Cecil, and the other on board the good ship Dragon off the coast of Sierra Leone on 30 September 1607, when the companions of her master, William Keeling, en route to the East Indies, put on an amateur performance in the presence of Captain William Hawkins.1 Queen Elizabeth, probably referring to Shakespeare’s drama, told William Lambarde that the tragedy had been widely presented – as many as forty times – ‘in open streets and houses’.2 Thomas Heywood borrowed language from the Flint Castle episode and imitated the garden scene in his If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody (1604–5); later the amateur writer Robert Baron plundered the rhetoric of Richard II along with that of other plays in his Cyprian Academy (1647), a pastoral romance, and his tragedy, Mirza (1655).3 John Trussell in 1636 and George Daniel in 1649 were apparently familiar enough with the stage business of the scene in which the Duke of York discovers Aumerle’s treason (5.2) to allude to it in writings of their own, although neither author specifically mentions Shakespeare’s play by name.4 That the rhetoric, gnomic wisdom, and figurative language of Richard II attracted readers, writers, and compilers appears from the numerous excerpts of the drama that were incorporated into fashionable florilegia such as England’s Parnassus (1600) and John Bodenham’s Belvedere, or the Garden of the Muses (1600). The first of these miscellanies quotes the play seven times, while the second prints forty-seven passages from it – a higher number than from any other drama – thus establishing Richard II as Bodenham’s favourite play. John Cotgrave’s English Treasury of Wit and Language (1655) includes only two extracts from the tragedy, but this apparent falling off at mid-century is somewhat misleading.5 The Shakespeare Allusion-Book shows that from 1591 to 1700 Richard II, at least insofar as its poetry is concerned, not only remained the most popular of the dramatist’s history plays after the two parts of Henry IV

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King Richard II

and Richard III, but that the number of allusions recorded in the second half of the seventeenth century (17) nearly equals that from the earlier period (18).6  The miscellanists, apart from their plundering of Richard II and other plays for moral ‘sentences’ or detachable quotations on general themes,7 were also attracted to memorable pieces of description such as Gaunt’s famous praise of England (see, for instance, England’s Parnassus, p. 348). Dryden, in the first genuinely critical statement on the play (in the Preface to his adaptation of Troilus and Cressida, 1679), established the tradition of admiring set pieces from Richard II by singling out York’s ‘passionate description’ of Richard’s humiliation as he is led captive by Bolingbroke through the London streets (5.2.23–36): ‘the painting of it is so lively, and the words so moving, that I have scarce read any thing comparable to it, in any other language’.8 Gerard Langbaine, the first historian of the English theatre, in his Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691), echoed Dryden, also calling attention to Nahum Tate’s more general statement in the dedicatory epistle to his adaptation of Richard II (1681) that Shakespeare’s history contains ‘some Master Touches . . . that will Vie with the best Roman Poets’.9 By 1694 Dryden’s praise of York’s speech had achieved the status of received opinion, being endorsed by Charles Gildon in his trenchant refutation of Thomas Rymer’s ridicule of Othello. After quoting more than twice as much of the scene as Dryden had done, the better to illustrate Shakespeare’s perfect harmony of word and idea, Gildon amplifies Dryden’s enthusiasm rhapsodically:  Are not all the Beautys of Thought joyn’d with all those of expression? Is it possible any thing that has but the least Humanity shou’d be dull enough not to relish, not to be mov’d, nay transported with this? I must confess it has fir’d me, so that I think our Critic [i.e., Rymer] better deserves the arraignment Tiberius gave the Poet for ill representing Agamemnon. . . . But to Blaspheme such a visible Excellence Merits the highest contempt, if not a greater Punishment.10

For a more comprehensive notion of early Neoclassical responses to Richard II, however, we must consult the adaptations of the play by Tate and Theobald. Tate’s alteration reflects the characteristic insistence of Neoclassic criticism on clarity of plot and consistency of character, as well as a general intolerance of Shakespeare’s rich ethical and political ambiguities, especially in the treatment of Richard, Bolingbroke, and York. With the object of heroicizing the tragic protagonist, portraying him as ‘an Active, Prudent Prince, Preferring the Good of his Subjects to his own private Pleasure’ (sig. A2), Tate removed all traces of Richard’s neurotic weakness, self-pity, and moral blindness; innocent of Gloucester’s death and even of wronging Hereford (since he only borrows rather than confiscates his rival’s inheritance to meet a national emergency), the young king becomes a model of royal dignity, modest courage, bravery in battle, gentlemanly manners, husbandly devotion, and respect for his elders. Tate seeks to increase our pity for Richard by enlarging the role of his suffering queen (at the same time giving added scope to the talents of a leading lady) and by adding starvation to the prisoner’s other indignities. Richard’s manliness is stressed by the introduction of classical allusions to Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, and by doubling the number of assassins he is able to strike down before himself falling victim to Exton’s blade. In order to balance

 Introduction 3 the heightened nobility of the king, Tate transforms Bolingbroke into a manifest hypocrite and manipulative usurper, punishing him at the end by heavier emphasis on his tortured conscience than Shakespeare had employed. York also becomes a wholly noble figure who, instead of voluntarily deserting Richard, is forced into Bolingbroke’s camp by being captured; even then, making a nice distinction between the office and the man, he retains strong emotional loyalty to his former sovereign while his ‘Allegiance follows still the Crown’ (p. 44) in deference to the larger good of national stability.  Tate rigorously prunes the drama of its fanciful wordplay and more extravagant Elizabethan conceits, at the same time adding a comic scene with ignorant tradesmen reminiscent of the Jack Cade episodes of 2 Henry VI which the adapter ‘judg’d necessary to help off the heaviness of the Tale’ (sig. A3). This addition therefore initiates a long tradition in the critical reception of the play that one of its most damaging limitations as a theatre piece is the unusual absence of comic relief. Richard’s muchquoted utterance on divine right, ‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea . . .’ (3.2.54 ff.), Tate puts into the mouth of Carlisle, thus transforming it from an enrichment of tragic characterization into a choric expression of royalist orthodoxy. In 1680, however, when the play was first performed, censors, in the wake of the recent frenzy stirred up by Titus Oates and the Popish Plot, were so fearful of any play representing the successful deposition of a reigning monarch that they prohibited it on the second day; and even after Tate had reluctantly disguised the action the following year, by giving the characters fictional names in a remote foreign setting and by retitling the piece The Sicilian Usurper, they banned it yet again.11 Richard II, as its putative connection with Essex’s rebellion in 1601 should remind us,12 remained, even in its mutilated form, a politically suggestive and therefore dangerous play – as threatening to Charles II, in official eyes at least, as it had been to Elizabeth I.  Lewis Theobald’s regularization and simplification of the play in 1719 was even more thoroughgoing than Tate’s. In his preface to the published text (1720) the adapter announces that his intention was to interweave the ‘many scatter’d Beauties’ of the original into ‘a regular Fable’, imposing ‘Unity of Action’ upon the disparate variety of Shakespeare’s play and altering the whole so as to ‘support . . . the Dignity of the Characters’ (sig. Aa).13 Crediting Shakespeare with ‘the most wonderful Genius, and the warmest Imagination of any Poet since . . . Homer’, Theobald nevertheless felt the need to reform or delete the poet’s ‘Transgressions of Fancy’, his ‘false Images, hard Metaphors, and Flights, where the Eye of Judgment cannot trace him’ (sig. Aav). A Prologue refers to the ‘rude, Historick Plan of Shakespeare’s chronicle play and promises that the altered version ‘Keeps all his Gold, and throws his Dross away’ (sig. Bb3); it also disclaims any purpose of suggesting parallels to current affairs, obviously aiming to disarm the kind of censorship that had doomed Tate’s version.  In the interests of classical compression and symmetry, Theobald eliminates the first two acts of Shakespeare’s drama, commencing the action with Richard’s return from Ireland and making everything take place within the Tower of London or its immediate precincts. Theobald’s Richard, like Tate’s, is cleansed of deviousness, tyranny, wilfulness, and moral astigmatism; contrite for his misgovernment (which has resulted not from any want of goodness but only from flattery and bad advice), the king determines to

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King Richard II

relinquish his crown almost from the start so as not to ‘embroil / A Nation’s Safety in my doubtful Quarrel’ (p. 12). The queen reinforces this softer, more pacific conception of her consort by asserting that his ‘Virtues, not [his] Scepter, make [him] rich’ (p. 11). She also explains, when she reminds him that a dying lion wounds the earth in rage, that she is urging upon him only royalty of ‘Soul’, not physical resistance, since she would spare him the ‘Toils of Regal Pow’r’ (p. 45), to which the vulgar Bolingbroke is welcome. Theobald also evinces an eighteenth-century taste for sentimental romance in tragedy by inventing the character of Lady Percy, Northumberland’s daughter, and by making her passion for Aumerle, who remains loyal to Richard and dies for his allegiance, a kind of echo to the tragic love of the queen for her husband. He carries the sentimentalization even further by having Exton murder Richard at the moment of his parting from the queen, by having Lady Percy commit suicide in despair after Aumerle’s execution, and by having York (who, in a direct reversal of Shakespeare, begs futilely for his son’s life) die loyally of a broken heart beside his fallen sovereign. With Gaunt excised from the cast, Theobald can transfer much of time-honoured Lancaster’s dignity to York; he reduces Bolingbroke’s role to the simple function of usurper, while making Aumerle and Exton, whose roles are greatly expanded, balance each other as loyal servants – the first as unambiguously virtuous as the second is wicked.  Theobald was clearly attracted to Richard II by the many fine speeches that could be savoured, as in the anthologies mentioned earlier, for their eloquence alone and apart from any specific speaker or dramatic context. Thus he did not scruple to reset Shakespeare’s poetic jewels in new settings and situations: the speech of York that Dryden had praised so highly becomes Aumerle’s description of Richard’s unpopular reception in Wales; Bolingbroke’s bitter rejoinder to Gaunt on banishment, ‘O who can hold a Fire within his Hand, / By thinking on the frosty Caucasus’ (p. 40), serves Aumerle as a reaction to frustration in love; the dying Gaunt’s famous laudation of England is reassigned to Aumerle on his way to the scaffold; and Bolingbroke’s charge that Bushy and Green have broken ‘the Possession of a Royal Bed, / And stain[ed] the Beauty of a fair Queen’s Cheeks’ (p. 57) loses its homosexual overtones to become Richard’s own thrust at Northumberland, who is separating him from his spouse. Among the several revealing features of Theobald’s adaptation, although it affects the text of the play not at all, is his extended citation in the published preface of parallel passages between Shakespeare and the classics; these are painstakingly assembled to correct the vulgar error of Ben Jonson and others that Shakespeare was ignorant of the ancients. The evidence is scarcely telling, but the attempt shows how eager Theobald and his age were to bring Shakespeare within the ambit of classical learning and respectability.  That Shakespeare’s histories in general and Richard II in particular were less admired than the ‘just and regular Tragedy’ of Shakespeare’s later phase comes out clearly in Gildon’s Laws of Poetry Explain’d and Illustrated of 1721. Recognizing that the chronicle plays constituted an independent genre supposedly conceived to instruct audiences ignorant of their own past, Gildon opines that such attempts represent ‘a very poor and mean undertaking for a great poet’ as well as being generally too inaccurate in detail and too selective in examples to convey general truth. As for taking up Richard II as a subject for the theatre, Gildon ‘can see no reason why [Shakespeare]

 Introduction 5 made choice of the most despicable character of all our kings, unless it was for the sake of two or three fine descriptions and some agreeable topics or common places, in which some of our modern Play-wrights have endeavour’d to imitate him’. In any case the dramatist, if he did not deliberately ‘falsify’ the character of ‘the most abandon’d tyrant that ever sat on the English throne, guilty of the most barbarous oppressions, most servilely fearful in adversity and most intolerably insolent when the danger was either remov’d or at some distance’, at least failed to ‘justly represent’ his most glaring faults.14 It is obvious that Gildon shared the opinion of both Tate and Theobald that Richard II, as dramatized by Shakespeare, was too ignoble and unheroica figure to command the respect required of a properly tragic protagonist.  Editors and men of the theatre during the period continued to play fast and loose with the text of Richard II. When Charles Johnson adapted As You Like It for the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane in 1723, in order to convert the wrestling match between Charles and Orlando into a chivalric spectacle, he lifted material from Shakespeare’s Lists-atCoventry scene (Richard II, 1.3), perhaps assuming that the theft would go unnoticed inasmuch as Theobald had discarded this episode in his adaptation of the tragedy three years earlier.15 When Pope published his notorious edition of Shakespeare in 1725, ‘degrading’ to the foot of the page passages that he considered unworthy of the poet and therefore probably spurious, he was of course assuming that the proper business of the discerning editor was to distinguish between ‘characteristic Excellencies’ and ‘great defects’, especially in an author ‘that as he has certainly written better so he has perhaps written worse than any other’.16 Pope ascribed much that he disliked in Shakespeare to the fact that the dramatist was an actor who, by the nature of his profession, must satisfy more vulgar tastes than might otherwise be the case. We are therefore hardly surprised to find him marginalizing those lines and speeches from Richard II that exemplify the standard features of early Shakespearian style so generally repugnant to Neoclassical decorum –– rhyming, punning, wordplay, extended conceits, and the like. Pope particularly despised the numerous rhyming passages of the tragedy and believed these ‘so much inferior to the rest of the writing that they appear to me to be of a different hand’; and he went on to support this judgement by suggesting that ‘the context does every where exactly (and frequently much better) connect without the inserted Rhymes, except in a very few places’.17 It is instructive also to note that Pope banished to footnotes several of the verbal details that seem today so vital to the characterization of the king and so tellingly effective in performance, such as Richard’s self-conscious proposal for a weeping contest with Aumerle (3.3.164–71), the king’s bitter wordplay on ‘the base court’ (3.3.176–82), the bucket-and-well speech (4.1.186–9), the address to the mirror (4.1.281–9), and Richard’s fancy at his parting from the queen, that the ‘senseless brands’ of the fire weep in sympathy with him (5.1.47–50). From Pope’s perspective all these were verbal extravagances ill-suited to the rational dignity of a suffering monarch.  Theobald was no fonder of the histories as a group than Gildon had been. In the course of preparing his own edition of the plays, he wrote to William Warburton in 1730, after finishing King Lear, that he was less enthusiastic about ‘the historical sett’, classifying Richard II (with King John and Richard III) as being ‘of the middling stamp’ – less ‘full of entertainment and fine things’ than 1 and 2 Henry IV, Henry

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King Richard II

V, and Henry VIII, but certainly superior to 1, 2 and 3 Henry VI.18 When his sevenvolume edition appeared three years later, it contained a note on the speech in which Bolingbroke compares his banishment to ‘a long apprenticehood’ which must result, even after gaining ‘freedom’, in his being ‘a journeyman to grief ’ (1.3.268–74). That a great nobleman should invoke the experience of a common tradesman to express personal unhappiness seemed to Theobald ‘not in sublime Taste’, but since he did not doubt the authenticity of the passage (even though he was supplying it from the then suspect quarto text), he reluctantly printed it, judging that ‘the Lines are not so despicable as to deserve being quite lost’.19 Sublimity of expression was also the concern of William Smith, a distinguished classicist, who in a heavily annotated translation of Longinus (1739) frequently invoked Shakespearian examples to illustrate Longinian principles. Smith quotes Gaunt’s popular speech beginning ‘This royal throne of kings . . .’ (2.1.40–6) to exemplify Longinus’s precept that circumlocution or periphrasis is an effective rhetorical means of exalting the emotions and therefore of producing sublimity: ‘Shakespeare . . . has made sick John of Gaunt pour out such a Multitude [of periphrases] to express England as never was nor ever will be met with again.’ And he added (with guarded approval), ‘Some of them indeed sound very finely, at least in the Ears of an Englishman.20 Meanwhile the play’s potentiality for political subversion had again been exploited in a revival at Covent Garden on 6 February 1738, a production designed to curry favour with audiences who were pressing for a war with Spain by identifying George II’s prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, with Bushy, Bagot, and the other favourites who restrained Richard from conducting a more aggressive policy against France.21 As for ranking Richard II according to its excellence among the other Shakespearian dramas of its type, William Warburton in his 1747 edition of the works seems to have been in general accord with his correspondent, Theobald: whereas Theobald had assigned Richard II to a ‘middling’ position among the histories, Warburton divided all the plays into tragedies and comedies and placed Richard II in ‘Class III’ (next to last) of the tragedies.22 By 1748 Warburton’s edition had attracted the negative criticism of the barrister Thomas Edwards, who first anonymously, and then under his own name, ridiculed the pretensions of editors such as Warburton and Pope who high-handedly emended or eliminated Shakespeare’s lines according to their own sense of what a great poet should or should not have written. Among his many other strictures Edwards took strong exception to Pope’s notion that the rhyming lines of Richard II could be eliminated without impairing the general sense of the passages in which they occur, and in one instance (1.1.152–200) he showed how vital they are to our understanding of the scene. ‘Nor are these rhyming verses in so despicable a taste as they are represented’, he continued; ‘on the contrary, what both of the persons [i.e., Mowbray and Bolingbroke] say about the value of their good name and honour contains sentiments by no means unworthy of their birth and nobility’.23 Edwards represents a refreshing voice of common-sense protest against the more extreme liberties of the Neoclassical editors. But his justification of a rhymed passage in Richard II on the ground that it expresses worthy sentiments is entirely typical of such writers as the anonymous essayist of 1748, one ‘N.S.’, who valued Shakespearian plays chiefly for their unequalled power ‘to inculcate some prudential maxim, or moral precept’; as King Lear, for instance,

 Introduction 7 instructs us on the ‘fatal consequences of filial ingratitude’, so Richard II teaches us to remark ‘the instability of human Greatness’.24  In the third quarter of the eighteenth century Richard II continued to stimulate commentary on its deficiencies of form and characterization. In 1753–4 the novelist and translator, Charlotte Lennox, a friend of Dr Johnson, published a two-volume work on Shakespeare’s sources, the chief burden of which was to show how the dramatist had mishandled his source material. Her discussion of Richard II speaks of Shakespeare’s failure to construct ‘one entire Action, wrought up with a Variety of beautiful Incidents, which at once delight and instruct the Mind’, producing instead ‘a Dramatick Narration of Historical Facts, and a successive Series of Actions and Events which are only interesting as they are true, and only pleasing as they are gracefully told’. We recognize here, of course, the old judgement about the absence of classical unity to which Theobald’s adaptation had made such a radical response. Lennox strongly objects to the ‘Impropriety of making [York] press so ardently the Execution of a beloved Son’, a ‘too glaring’ violation of probability, and also to the unlikelihood of the queen’s being the last to learn of her husband’s capture. She also remarks the breach of decorum in having mere gardeners so cogently allegorize ‘a beautiful System of Politics’.25 For the historian and philosopher David Hume, however, Shakespeare’s politics, at least as dramatized in the histories, were surprisingly unenlightened if not downright retrograde – a truth amply proved by the dramatist’s failure to address the important issue of ‘civil liberty’; in 1754 he pointed out, for instance, that Gaunt’s ‘elaborate panegyric of England’ in Richard II contains ‘not a word of [England’s] constitution, as anywise different from or superior to that of other European kingdoms’ – an omission Hume cannot imagine ‘any English author that wrote since the restoration [of Charles II]’ making.26  Those who wished to defend Shakespeare from the common charge of classical ignorance found a new spokesman in Christopher Smart whose periodical essay, ‘A Brief Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare’ (1756), attempted to establish the playwright’s claim to ‘letters’ by citing various passages ‘borrowed from the ancients’ (‘possibly inspired by the ancients’ would be more precise phrasing). Although Smart acknowledged that the dramatist was negligent of detail, like Theobald before him, he printed numerous passages from Greek and Latin authors whom he believed Shakespeare had imitated. For Richard II’s ‘Dear earth I do salute thee with my hand’ (3.2.6 ff.) and the Gardener’s speech about the unequal political balance of Richard against Bolingbroke (3.3.84 ff.), for example, Smart suggested sources in Homer’s Iliad.27 In a popular volume by Henry Home, Lord Kames, however, readers could consult a more varied commentary on Shakespeare’s particular beauties and defects. Originally published in 1762 and often reprinted, Kames’s Elements of Criticism surveyed various categories of literary excellence and deficiency, taking many examples from Shakespeare and from Richard II in particular. Richard’s indignation at the disloyalty of his horse Barbary, for instance, served Kames as a fine example of effective self-deception in dramatic characterization. But the preponderance of Kames’s commentary on Richard II is negative; the Gardener’s likening of ‘dangling apricots’ to ‘unruly children’ who ‘make their sire / Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight’ (3.4.29–31)

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King Richard II

exemplifies an ‘extremely improper’ use of simile – an ‘error’ into which the ‘fertility of Shakespeare’s vein’ occasionally ‘betrays him’ – because such language is not that of a man such as the Gardener ‘in his ordinary state of mind’. By the same token Kames finds Shakespeare guilty in Richard II of linking through simile two elements that are too distantly or faintly related, such as the comparison of the crown to ‘a deep well / That owes two buckets’ (4.1.184–5); such a comparison, he insists, ‘fatigues the mind with its obscurity’. Again he condemns as ‘unnatural’ Richard’s hyperbole in imagining that by weeping he and Aumerle can ‘make foul weather with despised tears’ (3.3.161), and as ‘a gross absurdity’ the confounding of the literal with the figurative in the Duchess of Gloucester’s wish that ‘Mowbray’s sins’ may weigh ‘so heavy in his bosom / That they may break his foaming courser’s back’ (1.2.50–1).28 In these last instances we observe the Neoclassicist’s clear distaste for anything that smacks of Elizabethan conceited writing, ingenuity of expression, or linguistic wit, even if, as in the case of Richard’s speeches, such ingenuity helps to characterize the speaker’s psychological state.  Dr Johnson’s scattered remarks on Richard II, most of them embedded in the notes to his famous edition of 1765, undoubtedly constitute the most important criticism of the century on our play; and, as the various documents collected in this volume show, they continued to be cited regularly up to the time of Coleridge and well beyond. In many ways Johnson epitomizes Augustan attitudes to the tragedy, displaying with piercing intelligence, independence of judgement, and magisterial gravitas, both the strengths and limitations of the criticism of his age. It is notable that in a decade when admiration for Shakespeare had become a species of idolatry, Richard II continued to be regarded as one of the playwright’s lesser achievements. The relatively low estimate was, of course, partly due to the play’s uncertain genre. In the famous Preface to his edition, Johnson noted Shakespeare’s tendency to confound history and tragedy, with the result that a mixed play such as Richard II was likely (because of its mere ‘chronological succession’) to have little ‘unity of action’ and no clear plan or limits; the action after all could be extended in the dramas on successive reigns.29 Like others, Johnson concluded that Richard II had been revised by the author, but thought that even so ‘it is not finished at last with the happy force of some other of his tragedies, nor can be said much to affect the passions, or enlarge the understanding’ (p. 452). He was also the first to call attention to Shakespeare’s manipulation of audience sympathy toward Richard in the scene in which the king returns from Ireland, it being apparently ‘the design of the poet to raise Richard to esteem in his fall’; Shakespeare, however, ‘gives him only passive fortitude, the virtue of a confessor rather than of a king’. And Johnson duly notes the characterizational shift: ‘In his prosperity we saw him imperious and oppressive, but in his distress he is wise, patient, and pious’ (p. 440).  Johnson is predictably unsympathetic with the quibbles and more fanciful metaphors of the play, following Theobald in his condemnation of Bolingbroke’s pun on ‘journeyman’ (pp. 431–2) and Pope and Kames in his distaste for Richard’s bucketand-well speech, although, significantly in the latter case, he is the first to remark the appropriateness of Bolingbroke’s being identified with the ‘empty’ bucket (p. 447). Neoclassical decorum compelled Johnson to disapprove of the vulgarity of comparing

 Introduction 9 royal flesh to ‘paste and cover’, a metaphor ‘taken from a “pie”’ (p. 441); and Johnson thinks that Richard’s fantasy of being buried in the king’s highway ‘deviate[s] from the pathetick to the ridiculous’ (p. 443); the queen’s ‘execration’ of the Gardener who brings her ill tidings is ‘somewhat ludicrous, and unsuitable to her condition’ (p. 444), while Richard’s speech on the weeping fire (which Pope had degraded) amounts to ‘childish prattle’ of a kind the poet ‘should have spared’ us (p. 449). Anachronisms also draw Johnson’s implied censure – the Italian fashions of Richard’s court (p. 433) and the mention of a rapier (p. 445), for instance, which properly belong to Elizabethan rather than to medieval England. Augustan taste also made little allowance for scenes of choric reflection or commentary. Accordingly Johnson regarded the conversation between Salisbury and the Captain (2.4) as ‘unartfully and irregularly thrust into an improper place’; it had perhaps been transposed from its original and more logical position in the third act, for in ‘a drama so desultory and erratick’, such transpositions might easily occur. Curiously, however, he admired the Captain’s ‘enumeration of prodigies’ as being ‘in the highest degree poetical and striking’ (p. 438). Staunch Tory that he was, Johnson underlined the important effect of Carlisle’s baleful prophecy, linking it with Richard’s earlier assertion of the ‘indefeasible right’ of kings (p. 439), so as ‘to impress [Shakespeare’s] auditors with dislike of the deposal of Richard’ (p. 448); moreover Johnson is careful to point out that the doctrine of divine right, so often imputed to James I, is clearly of earlier origin. Ever vigilant on details of dramatic form, Johnson also suggests that the first act of the play ought logically to conclude with Bolingbroke’s banishment (i.e. 1.3) in order to allow the necessary interval for Gaunt ‘to accompany his son, return and fall sick’ (p. 432); he is also the first critic to suggest that Richard II was designed as the initial play in a series and that the entire tetralogy ‘should be considered . . . as one work, upon one plan, only broken into parts by the necessity of exhibition’ (p. 522).  Edward Capell’s contribution to Shakespearian criticism was chiefly that of a textual scholar. In a probing introduction to his own edition of the works (1768), Capell emphasized the importance of the generally despised quartos, being the first to recognize that the 1597 text of Richard II was the true basis of the Folio version and observing also that, in this play as well as the other histories, Shakespeare had followed Holinshed and the other chroniclers ‘pretty closely . . . not only for their matter but even sometimes in their expressions’; he added that anyone who ‘would rightly judge’ the histories ‘must acquaint himself with these authors’.30 In 1773 George Steevens published The Plays of William Shakespeare, a revision of Johnson’s 1765 edition, which featured an appendix containing many new notes by both writers. One of the most insightful of Steevens’s annotations was the perception that York’s address to the queen, ‘Come sister – cousin, I would say – pray pardon me’ (Richard II, 2.2.105), represents ‘one of Shakespeare’s touches of nature’ since the speaker in his perturbation momentarily confuses his interlocutor with the recently deceased Duchess of Gloucester, who ‘is uppermost in his mind’. He also noted that the same wordplay on ‘rue’ (meaning both the plant and sorrow) that Shakespeare had introduced into the garden scene of Richard II (3.4.105–6) recurs in Hamlet (4.5.181–3).31 Although this last point is merely incidental, it constitutes the first of a long line of links between the two tragedies that later critics were to pursue. 

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King Richard II

Despite its unpopularity, at least compared with later Shakespearian tragedies, Richard II continued to survive –in altered versions of course – as a piece for the stage. The young Irish actor Francis Gentleman adapted the play for Simpson’s theatre in Bath where it was performed on 17 March 1755;32 unfortunately no text of this version survives. A different adaptation by James Goodhall was published in 1772, a version that the author had attempted unsuccessfully to persuade Garrick to act at Drury Lane, but that was never staged.33 In his ‘Preface’, Goodhall avers that Shakespeare’s history ‘has sentimental Language and Beauty, equal to the first Pieces of that immortal Poet’ but that as it is ‘defective in many Particulars, greatly incorrect, and abounding with indifferent Puns, put into more indifferent Verse’, he has endeavoured to preserve ‘the striking Beauties’ while ameliorating ‘the less glaring Faults’. He also announces that he has omitted Exton’s onstage murder of the king, ‘an Incident too shocking for a refined Age to see’, substituting a mere report of the violence in strict Neoclassical fashion; at the same time he argues for the stageworthiness of the piece: ‘The Part of Richard would add lustre to the Abilities of the best Player – and certainly so great, so noble a remain of Shakespeare, must engage the Attention of the most refined Audience’ (sigs. A3–A4). In spite of significant changes and the addition of much new verse badly ‘imitated’ from the style of the original, but typographically distinguished from it on the page, Goodhall’s version is closer in some ways to Shakespeare than the earlier plays by Tate and Theobald. Richard’s arrogance, irresponsibility, and self-indulgence are to some extent preserved; York’s defection to Bolingbroke is kept (although the effect of disloyalty is softened by reason of its being reported and partly excused by his duchess); and Bolingbroke forgives Aumerle as in Shakespeare. Goodhall seems nevertheless to have been conscious of earlier negative criticism of the play. The allegorizing gardeners of the original have been replaced by a scene of lamentation on the part of the queen and Emilia, her freshly invented lady-in-waiting, while the scene of choric commentary between Salisbury and the Welsh Captain (2.4) has been eliminated, the omens of disaster (which Johnson had admired) being worked into a later speech by Salisbury. Goodhall adds a scene in which Aumerle conspires at length with Carlisle, Salisbury, and the Abbot of Westminster; and he causes both Richard and Bolingbroke to confess their faults more moralistically than Shakespeare would ever have countenanced. As in the earlier adaptations Gaunt has been removed, but Goodhall, unlike his predecessors, did not trouble to reassign his popular aria on England to a different character.  From his comments on Richard II in Bell’s Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays (1774), we can readily see why Francis Gentleman at an earlier point had judged it necessary to alter the play for stage presentation, and we can even guess at the nature of the changes he made. Like Lennox and Kames before him, Gentleman notes the ‘exquisite style and fancy’ of the gardeners’ language as being inappropriately ‘superior to persons in such low stations’, remarking that the entire scene (which Goodhall had removed) is ‘totally unessential to the fable, however poetically beautiful’.34 Sharing the blindness of his age to the more serious or emotionally complex potentialities of verbal wit, Gentleman reiterates the Neoclassical distaste for puns, especially for Gaunt’s wordplay on his name, expressing astonishment that a man in health ‘would so quibble on a word’, let alone someone who ‘suppos[ed] himself near death’; and, like

 Introduction 11 several of his predecessors, he is equally condemnatory of Richard’s bucket-and-well speech whose later lines are ‘pregnant with the most ludicrous quibble’.35 With Pope he abhors Shakespeare’s ‘unnecessary rhimes which frequently occur in this play’ and from which ‘Patience suffers many shocks’.36 Gentleman would also excise from the drama some ‘thirty-nine indented lines’ of Richard’s prison soliloquy, especially ‘for recitation’, as these ‘tend more to puzzle conception, than to inform judgment’; the poet seems here ‘to have indulged his own fancy, without consulting either the stage or the closet’.37 Not wholly unreceptive to the tragedy, however, Gentleman shows a certain perceptiveness about the characterization of the protagonist, even though he cannot approve of Richard’s unheroic behaviour. He notes, for instance, that the king’s speech beginning ‘Dear earth, I do salute thee . . .’ (3.2.6 ff.) ‘is pathetic and fanciful, but rather romantic and ill adapted to the serious important situation of his affairs’, a point of which the speaker himself becomes conscious when he ‘call[s] it a senseless conjuration’; and he goes on to observe that later in the same scene when Richard accepts his defeat by Bolingbroke (3.2.209 ff.), he ‘discovers his true character, a most wretched shamefull pusillanimity, a cowardice and despondency that would stigmatize a private man, much more a monarch, who from birth, education, and station, ought to think with more magnanimity and act with more resolution’. In Act IV when Richard affects to depose himself by washing away his balm ‘With [his] own tears’ (4.1.207 ff.), Gentleman suggests that the king ‘shows some degree of insanity, for which his distressful situation may, as he all through shows a feeble mind, apologize’.38 In such comments we can discern, however faintly, the beginnings of a more psychological analysis of the fallen monarch than had hitherto prevailed and, with it, the distant approach of a more Romantic appreciation of the play. 

II  Capell to Ward  Criticism of Richard II during the final quarter of the eighteenth century continued to be dominated by editors and annotators of the text. In 1780 Capell (No. 1), in the tradition of Johnson, suggested a logical improvement in the act division of the play, and, like Edwards before him, attacked Pope and his followers for their presumptuous suppression of passages they considered spurious. In 1784 Thomas Davies (No. 3) deprecated the deposition scene as falling ‘infinitely short’ of Shakespeare’s ‘usual powers’ because of its excessive resort to ‘quibble and conceit’, which he took to be evidence of a date of composition ‘much earlier’ than 1597. Andrew Becket in his so-called Concordance to Shakespeare (1787), really a gathering of quotations, challenged an over-adventurous emendation made earlier by Steevens.39 But it was Edmond Malone who probably did more than anyone else to sum up and therefore to establish the critical tradition of Richard II at the end of the century. In the Johnson-Steevens edition of 1778 Malone published his influential conclusions on the chronology of the plays (dating Richard II 1597),40 following it up two years later with

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King Richard II

his Supplemental Observations (No. 2), in which he commented on Garrick’s considered decision not to act the title role and on the continued failure of the play to achieve popular success in the theatre. Malone’s most monumental achievement, however, was his edition of the plays in 1790 (No. 4), the extensive notes of which embodied most of the significant scholarship of his predecessors, often condensing, reshaping, and correcting the observations of previous commentators as well as adding new material. In his notes on Richard II Malone ranges over a variety of subjects; he compares and selects from variant readings; he recognizes the general superiority of the quarto to the Folio text; he suggests occasional emendations on such grounds as inadvertent transpositions or omissions in the printing house; he calls attention to the existence of an earlier play on the same subject (which he believes to be the one performed in aid of the Essex conspirators); he points out historical inaccuracies and inconsistencies; he glosses unusual words; he argues that the deposition scene (not printed until 1608) was written at the same time as the rest of the play; he rejects the more reckless alterations of Warburton and Pope; and he casts doubt upon Johnson’s theory of revision.  Malone’s edition immediately stimulated reaction from rival scholars. Joseph Ritson, who delighted in debunking the work of fellow editors (especially Malone), contributed numerous notes to Steevens’s edition of 1793 (No. 5), one of which boldly grouped Richard II with several other early plays as belonging to a class of dramas originally written by ‘some inferior playwright’ and merely retouched by Shakespeare. Steevens himself, whose edition (a second revision of Johnson’s) was intended to displace Malone’s, not only reprinted some of his own earlier notes but added valuable new ones. In addition to clarifying historical and linguistic points and pointing to verbal parallels in Milton and elsewhere in Shakespeare, he offered occasional aesthetic judgements; an interesting example of the latter is his admiration for Richard’s likening of himself to the rising sun that ‘fires the proud tops of the eastern pines’ (3.2.42) – a passage of which he remarks, ‘It is not easy to point out an image more striking and beautiful than this, in any poet, whether ancient or modern’ (No. 6.6). In 1799 the antiquarian George Chalmers (No. 7) took up the recurring issue of Shakespeare’s chronology, seeking to date the play to 1596 on the basis of its supposed allusions to recent events in Ireland, thus reinforcing the intermittent but continuing preoccupation of critics with the idea of Richard II as a topical commentary on Elizabethan politics; in addition, Chalmers underlined the point, expressed earlier by Johnson, that Shakespeare was already thinking in terms of a cycle or series of histories. In commentators such as Malone and Steevens, with their interest in the historical, linguistic, and social context of Shakespearian drama, we can glimpse the dim beginnings of a Romantic tendency to identify the playwright’s greatness with his cultural universality.  Romanticism, represented by the generation of critics after Malone, revolutionized and permanently altered appreciation of Richard II. The reinvention of Hamlet as an early nineteenth-century intellectual and man of feeling, agonizingly conflicted by self-consciousness and indecision, was the age’s most noticeable Shakespearian obsession; and it became increasingly tempting to see the largely passive character of Richard as a prolepsis of the type. But broader and more fundamental critical assumptions were clearly emerging as well – the turn to an organic as opposed to a merely mechanical or rules-imposed conception of dramatic form; the notion of

 Introduction 13 psychological complexity and uniqueness in characterization as having value in its own right, apart from overt didactic purposes; and the growing awareness that the history plays as a group comprised a quasi-epic dramatization of national heritage and identity. Even the eighteenth-century detestation of quibbles and puns was subjected to modification and revision. For our play, and indeed for most plays in the canon, the most influential voices were those of Coleridge (Nos. 11 and 20), Hazlitt (Nos. 12 and 16), and Schlegel (No. 14). Dibdin in 1800 (No. 8) and Douce in 1807 (No. 9) clung to the older tradition, the first opining that the play was probably ‘written in a hurry’ and greatly inferior to Richard III, the second making the purely historical suggestion that Richard’s musings on the death of kings (3.2.160–3) were probably indebted to the medieval iconography of the danse macabre. Though his statement is brief and highly specific, Lamb (No. 10) in 1808 properly opened the door to revaluation by inviting comparison of the play to Marlowe’s Edward II, thus helping to place Shakespeare’s play in the larger corpus of Elizabethan drama and initiating a long series of such comparative judgements.  But it was Coleridge in 1813, partly borrowing from Schlegel, who reinforced the conception of Richard II as the key to Shakespeare’s blending of epic and tragic elements in the English histories, and which powerfully inspired patriotism; having no fictional characters like Henry IV, it was ‘the first and most admirable’ of the ‘purely historical plays’. Coleridge also emphasized the beautiful consistency (or ‘keeping of ... character’) in figures such as York, Bolingbroke, and the king, and defended Gaunt’s punning on his name as psychologically valid. Coleridge was the first critic to comment in detail on the language of the drama and (as presented by his nephew in 1836) to notice the appropriateness of specific passages to individual speakers, as well as its artful anticipation of future actions and ideas. But most important of all, perhaps, was Coleridge’s sensitive response to the mixture of weakness and dignity in the protagonist – to Richard’s ‘wantonness of spirit in external show’, ‘feminine friendism’, and ‘attention to’ the ‘decorum’ of his exalted rank. The impact of Hazlitt was nearly as significant as Coleridge’s. Despite being a perceptive reviewer of stage plays, he shared the antitheatrical prejudices of Coleridge and Lamb, noting, for instance, that Edmund Kean’s famous portrayal of Richard II – albeit in Wroughton’s crudely mutilated version of 1815 (see No. 13) – missed the essential quality of the character by stressing the king’s ‘passion’ rather than his ‘pathos’. For Hazlitt even the greatest Romantic actor of the age could only circumscribe and delimit Shakespeare’s infinite richness and imaginative subtlety of characterization. In Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (1817) Hazlitt finely observed the play’s chiastic principle of structure, Bolingbroke mounting to the throne by the same degrees with which Richard sinks towards the grave; and he went on to distinguish perceptively between Henry VI and Richard II, two weak monarchs whom a more superficial dramatist might have failed to individualize. Schlegel, the great German Romantic (translated for English readers in 1815), saw in Shakespeare’s cycle the universal model of world politics with its pattern of recurring usurpations, revolts, and loyalties betrayed, of weakness and strength in leaders, and of civil and foreign conflicts within and between nations;41 nor did he neglect to approach the character of Richard from a fully sympathetic and tragic perspective, perceiving in the young monarch ‘a noble kingly nature, at first obscured by levity and the errors of

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King Richard II

an unbridled youth’ but ‘afterwards purified by misfortune, and rendered by it more highly and splendidly illustrious’.  Although sympathetic assessments of Richard’s character (particularly after his fall) continued to accumulate, negative voices on the disappointing qualities of Richard II could still be heard. Bardolatry had not yet wholly won the day. In 1817 Drake (No. 15) rhapsodized about the king’s ‘unexpected virtues of humility, fortitude, and resignation’, asserting that we feel not only ‘love and pity’ but also ‘admiration’ for the fallen monarch; Daniel (No. 19) in 1831 admired Richard’s ‘charity and forgiveness’ in defeat and the ‘piety and wisdom that shed a radiance’ on the close of the play. But in 1817 Keats’s friend Reynolds (No. 17) found Richard II and the histories as a group imaginatively constrained by the chronicle source material: ‘The poetry is for the most part ironed and manacled with a chain of facts, and cannot get free’; Lamb, who in 1824 wrote an epilogue to an amateur performance of the tragedy, could refer to its title character as ‘that Royal Splenetic’ in his ‘shower of passions fierce and thick’;42 Skottowe (No. 18) in 1824 found the play deficient in characterization, Richard himself being the only figure ‘that can be deemed a dramatic portrait’ and the entire drama with its overlong speeches ‘heavy’ and ‘indifferent’; the proto-feminist Anna Brownell Jameson, in 1832 surveying historical women as dramatized on the stage, stated flatly that ‘There is no female character of any interest’ in Richard II, the queen of the play taking ‘the same passive part in the drama that she does in history’;43 Henry Hallam (No. 21) protested in 1839 against the ‘ill conceived and worse executed’ scene in which Aumerle’s mother pleads for her son’s life, objecting especially to the ‘stupid quibble’ on ‘pardonnemoy’ (5.3.119); and Thomas Campbell (No. 22), still clinging to Neoclassical canons of taste as late as 1838, also found the ‘disposition to play upon words’ a blemish on the drama’s eloquence, although he praised the ‘march of incidents’ as ‘perspicuous and progressively affecting’.  A year after Victoria came to the throne, two works of scholarship appeared that in some sense were to set the terms of critical discourse on Richard II for the remainder of the century. The first was Thomas Courtenay’s series of articles on the accuracies and inaccuracies of Shakespeare’s treatment of medieval history (No. 23); the second was Charles Knight’s widely read ‘Pictorial Edition’ of Shakespeare’s works (No. 24). Concerned as he was with the pedagogical utility of the histories for youthful readers, Courtenay took it as a virtue that Shakespeare was remarkably faithful to the facts and spirit of Richard’s final years, at least in comparison with other reigns; and although he allowed that any dramatist must take liberties with fact – liberties which he painstakingly, even pedantically, documented – he nevertheless found obvious satisfaction in declaring the major characters ‘sufficiently true to nature and to history’. Courtenay’s attention to historical detail was not of course entirely new (Steevens, Malone, and Campbell among others had already addressed specific points), but as the first full-dress investigation of the play’s factual background, his essay, however well intended, came for many to symbolize reductive literal-mindedness and prosaic interpretation of a kind that slighted artistic freedom and creativity. Courtenay, after all, seemed to take it naively for granted that Shakespeare had merely attempted to portray the historical king insofar as his knowledge and theatrical circumstances would allow. Knight became the earliest and one of the most passionate spokesmen of the reactive camp, claiming for the poet

 Introduction 15 the title of ‘truest historian’ (though in the present case he conceded Shakespeare’s general fidelity to the chronicles) and going on to make a point that would be endlessly reiterated by later critics – that Richard himself is portrayed as embodying the nature of a poet. The perception of Knight as a champion of artistic liberty was further supported by his depreciation of Samuel Daniel’s Civil Wars (which he believed Shakespeare had drawn upon for certain details); Daniel’s tedious poem, in Knight’s view, smacked too much of mere chronicle and ‘want[ed] the fire’ of true poetry such as the dramatist would supply. Dissenting fiercely from Dr Johnson’s oracular pronouncements on Richard II, and taking his cue from the French Romantic, Philarète Chasles, Knight contested the common opinion that the play endorses the doctrine of indefeasible right, insisting instead on Shakespeare’s ‘marvellous impartiality’ in politics. It would be hard to overstate the impact on future generations of Knight’s contention that in this play, especially, the business of Shakespeare was ‘with universal humanity, and not with a fragment of it’, the dramatist casting himself as ‘indeed, the poet of a nation in his glowing and genial patriotism, but never the poet of a party.’ Whereas Johnson had attributed a ‘passive fortitude’ to Richard, Knight saw rather ‘passionate weakness’, that of ‘a fallen man’ as well as ‘a fallen king’, the inspired originality and variegated unity of whose conception transcended mere ‘historical propriety’ and produced ‘the evolvement of the truth under the poetical form’. Knight was the first critic to declare that ‘we love Richard even for his faults’ since these are what link him indissolubly to ‘our common humanity’. Generally speaking, then, the criticism of Courtenay and Knight amounted to a debate between those who located the value of Richard II in its efficacy as historical record effectively dramatized, and those who wished to celebrate its poetic and transhistorical rendering of universal human suffering.  Criticism of the play during the forties and fifties tended to reflect this polarity in various ways. Historical interest continued to manifest itself in John Payne Collier’s reprinting of Shakespeare’s major sources,44 and in his 1842 reconsideration of the date (1593–7?) and discussion of Simon Forman’s account of a lost drama on Richard II, which Collier tentatively identified with the play revived on behalf of the Essex insurrection (No. 25). The German Romantic Ulrici (No. 26), Englished in 1846, disparaged Courtenay in the tradition of Knight, celebrating Shakespeare’s comparatively minor deviations from history and arguing that Richard’s ‘want of self-control’ and weakness of will precipitate an ethical crisis fundamental to the drama – namely that the king’s ‘divine nature will not protect him’ if ‘he acts contrary to his calling’. In the middleclass solemnity of his moral idealism, however, Ulrici was as concerned with historical validity as Courtenay had been, insisting that Shakespeare in Richard II represents both ‘mediaeval and modern history from its most essential point of view’. Revealingly, Ulrici mentions the ‘great popularity’ of the play in ‘recent times’ –  a popularity that he attributes not only to ‘delineation of character’ but also to the ‘highly finished style . . . in which historical truth is so wonderfully blended with poetical beauty of language’; and far from belittling the rhymed passages, as earlier critics had done, Ulrici considered the ‘lyrical elements’ of the play appropriate to its subject. The American Verplanck (No. 27), whose richly illustrated edition of Shakespeare in 1847 recalls that of Knight, was somewhat less enthusiastic than Ulrici. For him Richard II, having a ‘purely historical and political interest’, fell short of the more inventive plays based on, but not

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King Richard II

restricted to, historical matter and was therefore comparatively cold – more notable for pageantry than for tragic intensity; nevertheless it enforced the ‘great moral lesson of the emptiness and uncertainty of human greatness’. Not surprisingly, Coleridge’s son Hartley, in his brief statement of 1851 (No. 28), seconded his father’s well known admiration of the play, stressing particularly its structural excellence and judging both its ‘political wisdom’ and its ‘philosophy’ akin to Hamlet in impressiveness; unlike the elder Coleridge, however, Hartley eccentrically pronounced the secondary characters – all indeed except Richard – to be mere ‘nobodies’.  Having experienced revolution at first hand, the distinguished French statesman François Guizot (No. 29) would have been in an excellent position in 1852 to appreciate the unique merits of Richard II. Although with Courtenay he found the tragedy ‘sufficiently conformable to history’, his judgement that the king is ‘one of the profoundest conceptions of Shakespeare’ was much closer to Knight. Guizot brilliantly articulated the ‘alarming truthfulness’ of the dramatist’s political vision, noting especially in the character of York ‘perfidy considered as a means of conduct, treason almost justified by the dominant principle of personal interest, and desertion almost rendered legitimate by the consideration of the risk that would be run by remaining faithful’. The perceptive Frenchman was clearly among the first to recognize in Richard II the complex and subtle relatedness of individual personality to the intractabilities of historical movement and political force. Still another critic to regard the play as dramatizing both specific history and universal truth was the American editor Henry Hudson (Nos. 30 and 36), whose critical opinions were widely cited on both sides of the Atlantic well into the present century. Like Verplanck, Hudson pointed to the absence of fictional characters and the relatively strict adherence to fact; yet within these limits he judged Shakespeare to have written with maximal imaginative freedom, ‘unstraitened and uncramped’. Heavily influenced by Coleridge and Hazlitt, Hudson was much taken by the subtlety of the characterization, especially of Bolingbroke whose ‘noiseless potency of will’ and carefully hidden motivation make him ‘the centre and spring-head’ of the action. Nor was Hudson’s analysis of Richard, the receiver of the action, less acute; for he noted that although ‘will, understanding, imagination, and conscience are all strong and vigorous’ in the youthful king, these ‘never grow to cohesion and unity’. Hudson thus contributed importantly to the increasingly prominent psychological strain in discussions of Richard II – a tendency well illustrated by his use, apparently for the first time, of the term ‘sentimentalist’ as applied to the self-delusive aspects of Richard’s character. In a later expansion of these remarks (1872) Hudson would claim that Richard and Bolingbroke are ‘among the wisest and strongest of Shakespeare’s historical delineations’, at the same time expatiating further on the concept of political impartiality originally introduced by Chasles and Knight.  The work of Henry Hope Reed in 1855 (No. 31) built on that of Schlegel, Drake, and Daniel in emphasizing Richard’s moral and spiritual regeneration and on Knight in reiterating the idea that the king’s character and the history of his reign constitute a single conception ‘so that the poet is the historian’. Reed’s most original contribution, however, was his argument that in the obscure quarrel that opens the play the dramatist deliberately weights our sympathy on the side of Mowbray, a partisanship that negatively affects the critic’s moral estimate of both Bolingbroke

 Introduction 17 and the king. Reed, too, seems to reflect Verplanck in noting Shakespeare’s restricted freedom in the treatment of historical sources. William Watkiss Lloyd’s discussion of the political morality of Richard II in 1856 (No. 32) contrasts strongly with Reed’s in its harsh condemnation of Mowbray and its contempt for the theory of divine right. Lloyd’s essay in fact introduced a hard-headed, even cynical, note in the developing interpretation of the play, laying more stress than had yet been employed on the Realpolitik of the action and on the ‘blind royalism’ of such figures as Gaunt and York. In Lloyd’s view the fall of Richard and rise of Bolingbroke dramatize the transition ‘from a child’s caprice to the vigorous sway of a grown and exercised man’; this action, however, involves the exchange of one evil for others: ‘The country, to rid itself of a tyrant, flies to a deliverer who is utterly unscrupulous, who will make those who take part with him accessaries to deception, fraud, and ultimately murder’. Among the more prescient of Lloyd’s remarks was his observation that ‘The best commentator on the character of Richard would be a great actor’; for only a year afterwards Charles Kean, the son of Edmund, mounted a London production of Richard II that attempted to realize on stage the fidelity to history and the archaeological realism that antiquarian critics such as Courtenay and the illustrators of Knight and Verplanck had been so diligent in restoring.  Kean’s Richard II, which featured his wife Ellen Tree as the queen, was undoubtedly the most successful revival of the play since Elizabethan times (it ran for 112 nights), clearly bettering both his father’s more limited success in Wroughton’s altered version of 1815 and Macready’s revivals of 1813–5, 1829, and 1850 (which lasted only a few evenings).45 Ironically, the Romantic highlighting of Richard’s pathos at the expense of exploring the complexity of the play’s political issues or the ambiguity of Bolingbroke’s motives would have disappointed Lloyd. But Kean, who wrote a preface to his drastically abbreviated but otherwise textually respectful acting version, typified popular taste at mid-century in presenting a blend of carefully reconstructed spectacle from the age of Chaucer and Wycliffe with lachrymose Victorian emotionalism, although, as one reviewer pointed out, the severity of the cuts could have the contrary effect of diminishing sympathy for Richard.46 Kean took understandable pride in his elaborate sets, costumes, and music (all founded on the best antiquarian scholarship of the day), even giving visual substance to the triumphal procession of Richard and Bolingbroke into London, ‘so beautifully described’ by York in the speech that Dryden had praised.47 Two additional scholarly efforts brought the decade of the fifties to a close, rounding out the criticism of the period with still further attempts to contextualize the tragedy: the first was Thomas Ray Eaton’s plodding commentary on the biblical allusions and parallels (1858);48 the second was Richard Grant White’s 1859 reinvestigation of the date (he was the first to argue for 1594–5, which present-day scholars generally accept). White also reopened the complex matter of the relation of Richard II to Daniel’s Civil Wars (No. 33), a subject originally broached by Knight and carried forward by Hudson.  The proliferation of commentary on Richard II that began in the 1860s and continued unabated for the rest of the century is clear evidence that in Victorian eyes the play had achieved unshakable status as an important – even a major – work. Textual and historical scholarship multiplied exponentially, but in parallel with the quasi-scientific interest in the play as a historical document, there sprang up also a variety of aesthetic

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King Richard II

commentators who sought to judge the drama from the perspective of its personal and political morality as well as of its poetic and emotional refinement. A long succession of editions, most of them designed for school children or older students, appeared in England and the United States between 1867 and 1920. Most of these were derivative, often containing potted summaries or excerpts of earlier criticism, historical background, treatment of sources, and explanatory notes and glosses; most, too, were unabashedly didactic in their treatment of the major characters. But their substantial number (I count at least thirty-one excluding reprints and revisions) proves that the Duke of Marlborough, whom Coleridge had cited (see No. 11, n. [2]), was voicing an incipient national trend when he confessed that he had learned most of his history from Shakespeare.49 The earlier editors of student texts tended to judge Richard harshly as childish, effeminate, conniving, cowardly, contemptible, despotic, self-indulgent, and irresolute, and to set up Bolingbroke as more manly, patriotic, and kinglike despite his dissimulation. But as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, greater sympathy for the protagonist gradually emerged, while his inadequacy as a symbol of national virility and royal integrity continued to be strongly implied. Although the school texts were essentially synthetic, making little attempt to break new critical ground, they can nevertheless be credited with occasional insights of value and even of originality. George Robinson in 1867, for instance, seems to have been the first to attempt to explicate the difficult clock imagery of Richard’s prison soliloquy, while F.H. Ahn in 1870 pointed to the historical parallel between Exton’s murder of Richard and the martyrdom of Thomas à Becket. Later on, A.F. Watt suggested that York’s insistence on the condemnation of his own son (which had repelled many previous commentators) might be read as a parody of Gaunt’s earlier treatment of Bolingbroke at the Coventry lists; Watt also noted perceptively the effective ‘contrast between the silent and the talking king in the deposition scene’.50  The strain of high-minded moralism in the criticism of Ulrici and others, invariably linked with assessing the characters of Richard and Bolingbroke, was urgently pursued by several writers during the later decades of Victoria’s reign. Of these the most influential were probably Gervinus (No. 34), Heraud (No. 35), Hudson (No. 36), and Dowden (No. 38). Gervinus in 1863, following Ulrici, insists that Shakespeare duly qualified the traditional sanctity of kingship, observing that ‘no balm can absolve the ruler of his duties’, and suggesting that in the end the play asks us to prefer ‘dutiful illegality’ to ‘duty-forgetting legitimacy’. Indeed, the mention of Milton’s First Defence of the English People in this context makes it clear that the German critic discerned a hint of unconscious proto-republicanism in the dramatist’s political thought. Gervinus defends Richard’s self-conscious conceits and wordplay as true to the psychology of the character, finding it appropriate that a pleasure-loving monarch such as Richard should solace himself with the luxury of royal woe. He clearly admires the ‘profound’ statesmanship of Bolingbroke, a ‘king by nature’ rather than by birth, as much as he recoils from the ‘servile loyalty’ of the turncoat York and the ambitious time-serving of Northumberland, who symbolically embodies Henry IV’s future punishment. In 1865 Heraud, a friend of Coleridge, took the more indulgent view that Shakespeare’s Richard ‘sinks as much from the irresistible course of events as from his own errors’ and, in any event ‘is dignified by his griefs’. He nevertheless recognised the ‘needful

 Introduction 19 limits’ on royal prerogative that the play dramatizes, judging the poet’s attitude toward monarchy as being at once consistent with the prejudices of his own age and aware of the necessary and fundamental change already incipient. Like Gervinus, therefore, he could regard the dramatist as in some sense ‘the poet of progress’. Heraud was thus the first critic to see Richard II as the tragedy not only of a particular king but also of a theory of kingship. Even more moving to him than the loss of the protagonist was the loss of the idea of which he had been the incarnation. Interested chiefly in the character of Richard, the ‘principal, if not only, object of [Shakespeare’s] care’, Heraud says little about the secondary figures, even going so far as to suggest (in the spirit of Pope) that the inferior parts of the drama might be by a different hand.  Hudson contributed significantly to discussion of the play’s politics in 1872 by stressing the subtle import of the opening scene, in which he saw the shrewdly strategic Bolingbroke manoeuvring Richard and Mowbray into his toils and announcing himself in a veiled way as the avenger of Gloucester’s murder; for Hudson the banishment episode was also crucial in revealing Richard to be just as disingenuous, if not as farsighted, as his great enemy. And he observed, in addition, that Richard’s seeming triumph in ridding himself of both Mowbray and Bolingbroke is partly vitiated by the king’s tendency to ‘self-applause’ and ‘leakiness of mind’. Elsewhere in the same study he condemns both the Richard of history and the Richard of the play as ‘a wordy whimperer’, a ‘pampered and emasculated voluptuary’ who presumptuously and hollowheartedly believes that the nation exists only ‘to serve his private will and pleasure’.51 Hudson went on to praise Shakespeare’s ‘mightiness’ in conspicuously addressing ‘the grounds and principles of man’s social being . . . in this drama’, reasserting Knight’s point about impartiality: ‘The claims of legitimacy and of revolution, of divine right, personal merit, and public choice, the doctrines of the monarchical, the aristocratic, the popular origin of the State, – all these are by turns urged in their most rational or most plausible aspects, but merely in the order and on the footing of dramatic propriety, the Poet himself discovering no preferences or repugnances concerning them.’ In 1875, however, Edward Dowden produced the most widely read work of Shakespearian criticism (it was endlessly reprinted) until A.C. Bradley’s famous lectures on Shakespearian tragedy in 1904. In his condemnation of Richard and praise of Bolingbroke Dowden generally chimed with Hudson, nevertheless putting his own stamp on his assessment of the fallen king by emphasizing the character’s emotional and intellectual boyishness and his persistent aestheticization of life. Borrowing heavily from the German critic, F.A.T. Kreyssig, Dowden introduced the term ‘dilettante’ for the first time into English critiques of the play and insisted that in sentimentalizing and theatricalizing his situation, Richard ‘has a kind of artistic relation to life, without being an artist’; he ‘is an amateur in living’. Dowden thus became the high priest of what we may call the muscular school of Victorian moralism, arguing that no amount of ‘rhetorical piety’ or ‘pseudo-poetic pathos’, however charming in superficial effect, could ‘compensate the want of true and manly patriotism’. With unabashed smugness Dowden quotes the Book of Common Prayer, noting that never does Richard ‘truly and earnestly repent, and intend to lead a new life’, but rather indulges, not least in his prison soliloquy, in ‘mockery wisdom’ and ‘mockery passion’; even the groom’s affection, in this critic’s estimation, is half for Richard’s horse rather than for his former

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rider. Not surprisingly, Dowden’s judgement of Bolingbroke, with his ‘dauntless’ courage and carefully circumscribed ambition, is thoroughly benign.  Discussion of the political content of Richard II continued during the final quarter of the century in the analyses of D.J. Snider (No. 41) and Cyril Ransome (No. 50). Like Gervinus and Heraud, Snider had pronounced libertarian inclinations, arguing in 1877 that the play deliberately subordinates Richard’s sacramental claims to the ‘national principle’ of the people’s welfare, and shows the king, far from being ‘above the law’, to be ‘its creature’. Emphasis on the patriotic and nationalistic aspects of the tragedy goes back at least as far as Schlegel, but Snider concluded explicitly that sound rule in this drama is seen to be rooted in ‘the liberties of the subject’ – liberties violated by Richard and symbolically represented by the hereditary rights of Bolingbroke. Snider thus interprets the play as demonstrating revolution to be a regrettable but necessary privileging of the nation above the individual. Snider’s major advance over previous commentators lay in his perception that the play’s political ideas are closely tied to its structure. This he saw as a symmetrically calculated design, with a dual focus of interest on the simultaneous loss and acquisition of a realm; and he shrewdly observed, in the case of Bolingbroke, how difficult it is to disentangle conscious from unconscious motives. Despite his stress on Richard’s failures of rule, Snider, elaborating on Knight, was impressed by the character’s ‘complete success’ as a poet. In passing, Snider also noted another significant idea of the play, namely its dramatization of ‘the transition from feudalism … to the modern world’. To be sure, he applied this notion specifically to the quarrel of the nobles in Act I, but the point was to have broader applicability in the criticism of later generations.  Snider’s essay was the first detailed, if overschematic, discussion of the play’s structure. Ransome’s even longer piece thirteen years later covered some of the same ground but attempted to present the play to a popular audience (the author was a well-known historian) as an artful mingling of political history and the progressive revelation of character – especially of Richard and Bolingbroke. Ransome’s scene-by-scene account can be wearisome to anyone who knows the play already, but his interpretation of motives, often derived from rhetorical nuances and reading between the lines, betrays thoughtfulness as well as occasional ingenuity. He based his conception of the tragedy as a two-part structure with rising and falling action on Addison’s famous comment on the double characters (sinless and fallen) of Milton’s Adam and Eve: thus we see Richard first in prosperity and then in adversity, each phase of the character revealing different traits and provoking contrasting reactions. Ransome concludes that Richard II, despite its want of exciting action and its tendency to ‘prolixity’ and ‘over-refinement of sentiment’ – particularly in the deposition scene – is remarkable for ‘symmetry’ and balance in the disposition of characters and incidents.  The school of impressionistic and art-for-art’s-sake criticism, typified by Swinburne (Nos. 39 and 64), Wilde (No. 43), Pater (No. 48), and Yeats (No. 59), although united in its hatred of bourgeois moralism and its distaste for the ‘scientific’ scholarship represented by the likes of Simpson (No. 37), Furnivall (No. 40), and P.A. Daniel (Nos. 42 and 49), expressed astonishingly varied opinions on Richard II. Swinburne’s extravagant condemnation of the play in 1875 (even though he acknowledged a certain impressiveness in the conception of the protagonist) was based on his judgement of

 Introduction 21 its immaturity: he censured the weak characterization of the subordinate figures, ‘fitful, shifting, vaporous’, its too frequent ‘relapse into rhyme and rhyming epigram’, and the crudities and ‘bad taste’ of the scene in which Aumerle is pardoned. In an unacknowledged obeisance to Lamb, he also compared the drama (especially the abdication scene) unfavourably to its counterpart in Marlowe. Redoubling the fervour of his attack almost three decades later, Swinburne went on to criticize what he saw as the inappropriate stylistic influence of Robert Greene, also deploring the ‘inadequate’ exposition of the action (especially in the ‘unclear’ quarrel scenes), the ‘monstrous nullity’ of York’s character, and the ‘vile sample of royalty’ exemplified in Richard’s tyrannical actions and more supine expressions of weakness. Although a spiritual chasm separated Swinburne’s critical assumptions from those of Dowden, we catch a hint of the latter’s machismo in Swinburne’s disgust (in opposition to Coleridge) for Richard’s supposed patriotism on returning from Ireland: ‘It is exquisitely pretty and utterly unimaginable as the utterance of a man.’ In contrast Oscar Wilde seems to have admired the drama, but in his article of 1885, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, he underscored the essential realism of the chronicle plays as an aspect of their cultural significance, arguing that historical accuracy in the costuming of Richard II constitutes a vital element in such realism.  Among the aesthetes of Shakespearian interpretation, however, Walter Pater was clearly the doyen. In 1889 Pater emphasized the exquisite tone, ritualistic dignity, and lyrical texture of the tragedy. Pater’s essay on ‘Shakespeare’s English Kings’ underscored the ‘irony of kingship’, of which Richard II was the most poignant example because of the striking contrast between his divine-right ‘pretensions’ and the ‘actual necessities of his destiny’. Pater was the first to note the concept and effect of inverted rite or sacramental degradation in the liturgical style of Richard’s self-deposition in Act IV, a theme that later critics such as John Dover Wilson and Ernst Kantorowicz would endorse and develop; and Pater, too, anticipated formalist criticism such as Richard Altick’s analysis of ‘symphonic imagery’ in the play by comparing it to a finely conceived ‘musical composition’ in which all the parts possess ‘a certain concentration’, ‘a simple continuity’, and ‘an evenness in execution’.52 Pater’s responsiveness to the ‘sweet-tongued’ eloquence of the fallen king had been partly informed by the memory of Charles Kean’s stage characterization – like ‘an exquisite performance on the violin’. Yeats’s remarks over a decade later were similarly prompted by a theatrical experience – a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon where a sequence of the histories was being performed by F.R. Benson’s Shakespearian company. With a kind of adolescent zest and more than a touch of snobbery, Yeats set out to demolish the ‘utilitarianism’ of Dowden and his successors who, worshipping vulgar ‘success’ and despising refinement of sensibility in political figures as an evidence of weakness, regarded Henry V as Shakespeare’s quintessential hero and Richard II as a characteristically unEnglish, if not contemptible personification of failure. For Yeats, as for Pater, Richard incarnated ‘wildness and imagination and eccentricity’ – the very antithesis of ‘commonplace emotions and conventional ideals’ in contrast to which ‘vessel of porcelain’ the victor of Agincourt was a mere ‘vessel of clay’. The ‘gross vices, the coarse nerves, of one who is to rule among violent people’ – a figure ‘as remorseless and undistinguished as some natural force’ – thus served Yeats as a foil to display Richard’s exuberance, ‘capricious fancy’,

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King Richard II

‘dreamy dignity’, personal elegance, and witty charm, with the added implication that Bolingbroke already adumbrates the less flattering qualities of his son. Yeats’s almost awestruck privileging of Richard’s iridescent personality, to the virtual exclusion of the political disasters which his reign occasioned, reads today like special pleading and invites the charge of preciousness; it nevertheless represents an extreme in the history of sympathetic responses to the character that remains historically significant. Yeats was also notable for reinforcing the mythopoeic strain in commentary on the chronicle plays that had begun as early as Schlegel and Coleridge.  As a footnote to Yeats on Richard II, we may also remark two additional essays, both of which were also prompted by Benson’s stage portrayal of the deposed monarch at the turn of the century – C.E. Montague’s jaunty but ultimately Pateresque account of Richard as the consummate artist (No. 57) and Sir Sidney Lee’s more historically oriented defence of producing Shakespearian plays according to the original repertory system of the Elizabethans, with major actors performing secondary as well as primary roles (No. 58). On the perennial question of Richard’s character Montague conies down harshly against Dowden and F.S. Boas (who had expatiated in 1896 on the king’s emotional instability, ‘puerile’ fancy, and diseased will; see No. 55). Montague validates Richard’s passion for expressing with artistic precision the unique quality of his own individualized perceptions and experience, citing by way of analogy such supreme masters of language as Blake, Wordsworth, Flaubert, and Stevenson.53 Lee stresses the dramatic importance of minor roles in Shakespeare, giving as a telling instance the performance of Edward Warburton, who played Gaunt to Benson’s Richard, and observing that the excellence of his delivery of the great speech on England lay in its becoming the deeply moving utterance of a dying man and not merely ‘a detached declamation of patriotism’. An anonymous review of Benson’s London appearance in Richard II ratified Montague’s and Yeats’s high estimate of the excellence of the actor’s achievement, while pointing out that no stage tradition of the title character had yet been established despite the memory of the two Keans and Macready, and that the precarious history of the tragedy on stage was perhaps owing to its want of ‘the very essence of drama – the conflict of wills’; the reviewer went on to observe, somewhat curiously, that the character of Bolingbroke after his banishment dwindles into ‘statuesque nonentity’.54 The unrestrained subjectivism of Swinburne and the ‘soft’ school of critical aestheticism that followed were bound to provoke negative reaction, whether stated or covert. Accordingly, the last three decades of the century produced an impressive array of scholars who, though by no means uninterested in the subtleties of Shakespeare’s art, sought to found their commentary on a heightened respect for documentable fact and historical research, in a reinvigorated concern with philological and textual detail, and in a greater awareness of the dramatist’s professional, political, and social context. The symbolic embodiment of this counterthrust was the New Shakespeare Society, founded in 1873 by F.J. Furnivall (who crossed swords in print with Swinburne), and in whose Transactions much of the new, more ‘objective’ scholarship was published. Renewed interest in the topical implications of the history plays, a concern that Chalmers had raised as early as 1799, became a prominent evidence of the movement. Perhaps the most significant contribution in this vein

 Introduction 23 was Richard Simpson’s ‘The Politics of Shakespeare’s Historical Plays’ (1874). Read originally to the newly established society, this paper argued for the first time in detail that Richard II and the other chronicle plays in fact seized upon the controversial issues of Elizabeth’s reign, thinly disguising them under the historical parallels that made such dangerous subversion possible. A convert to Catholicism and naturally sympathetic to the Elizabethan recusants, Simpson was able to throw new light on Richard II by showing how closely the barbed censure of the king’s favouritism and his other follies and injustices, built into the action and dialogue of the play, paralleled what was being published abroad and circulated at home by the enemies of Elizabeth, Leicester, and Burghley; in the new spirit of energetic historicism Simpson had unearthed much of his evidence in such archives as the Public Record Office. The following year John Wesley Hales, a close associate of Furnivall, published a brief article re-opening the long-debated issue of whether Shakespeare’s Richard II was the play revived in 1601 by the Essex conspirators; the new point in Hales’s piece, again the fruit of archival research, was his citation of a generally neglected account of the conspirators’ trial which mentions that the play solicited on their behalf was that of ‘the deposing and killing of Richard II’ – a description that seemed to fit Shakespeare’s tragedy like a glove.55 In an 1877 introduction to a collected edition of Shakespeare, Furnivall himself endorsed the notion that Richard II was the play resurrected by the Essex supporters, at the same time agreeing with Simpson as to its implied attack on Elizabeth’s powerful favourites. The effect of all these pieces, of course, was to stress both the personal weakness and public tyranny of Richard’s character, but the puritanical Furnivall was especially unforgiving: ‘This degenerate son of the Black Prince, the flower of warriors, is shown in Shakespeare’s pages as a mere royal sham.’ The dean of the ‘scientific’ school clearly had critical preferences of his own. Awakened interest in historical scholarship extended even to the amateur John Bulloch, a humble brass-worker of Aberdeen, who educated himself in Shake spearian textual studies and in 1878 published a volume of suggested emendations, including many for Richard II. Most of these are too fanciful and linguistically or metrically naive to pass muster by modern standards, but some were taken seriously enough at the time to get into the notes of Clark and Wright’s 1863–6 Cambridge edition of Shakespeare.56 More weighty and pedantically detailed were Henry Halford Vaughan’s New Readings and New Renderings of Shakespeare’s Tragedies (1878–86), a three-volume work on the histories and Cymbeline (despite its misleading title) surveying the disputed readings of previous editors and seeking to clarify the text by suggested new emendations, tracing out the logic of difficult passages, and elucidating Shakespeare’s departures from historical fact in the tradition of Courtenay. Among the 184 almost unreadable pages devoted to Richard II are protracted explications of Gaunt’s praise of England and Richard’s prison soliloquy.57 P.A. Daniel, still another textual specialist and commentator on doubtful passages, took to analysing the plots of Shakespeare’s plays with respect to their time schemes and, in the case of the chronicle plays, pointing out expansions and compressions of historical time. Daniel’s discussion of the time element in Richard II, delivered before the New Shakespeare Society in 1879, although pedestrian in methodology, bore significantly on the interpretation of Bolingbroke’s

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King Richard II

motivation, since it took note of the fact that, according to the text, Bolingbroke’s preparations for return to England are revealed almost before he could have begun to serve his sentence of banishment abroad. Eleven years later Daniel published a facsimile of the first quarto (1597), to which he prefaced an interesting new theory on why the deposition scene had been omitted (the missing passage, it will be recalled, was not included until the quarto of 1608, some years after Elizabeth’s death). The standard explanation, of course, had been censorship, and the Abbot of Westminster’s line, ‘A woeful pageant have we here beheld’ (4.1.321), had usually been taken to apply to the excised episode of Richard’s public humiliation. Daniel proposed that the ‘woeful pageant’ might equally well describe ‘the ascent of the throne by Bolingbroke, and his acclamation as Henry IV’ (cf. 4.1.111–3) – an action not omitted from Q1 – and speculated that Richard’s ‘want of manliness’ had already been sufficiently dramatized in earlier episodes as to make the further demonstration of his weakness dramatically redundant. Two further examples of the scholarlyhistorical approach to Richard II may be mentioned – namely F. G. Fleay’s analysis of the actors’ lists (1881) and W.G. Boswell-Stone’s scene-by-scene comparison of the play with Holinshed (1896). Fleay, who generally eschewed interpretive criticism, devoted himself assiduously to the study of metrics, Elizabethan phraseology, topical allusions, and authorship attribution; in addition he became one of the first serious students of Tudor and Stuart theatrical history. Calculating the prominence of Elizabethan actors on the basis of their appearance and placement in cast-lists, and citing John Davies of Hereford (who in 1611 alluded to the tradition that the dramatist had ‘played some kingly parts’), Fleay countered the received wisdom that Shakespeare had acted only secondary characters and concluded that there is ‘little doubt’ that he himself took the title role in Richard II. Boswell-Stone’s Shakespeare’s Holinshed reprints passages from the chronicle with an obvious relevance to Richard II and the other histories, adding cross-references to other sources in footnotes and thus re-presenting much of Courtenay’s material in a more systematic and detailed fashion.58 Along with the emphasis on historical background came a heightened concern with the influence upon Shakespeare of Marlowe and other dramatic predecessors and contemporaries. Lamb had long since opened the door to comparisons of Richard II with Marlowe’s Edward II, and Swinburne, taking up the hint in 1875, used Marlowe’s play as a hammer to bludgeon the Shakespearian counterpart. But it was A.W. Verity (No. 44) who in 1886 produced the first sustained discussion of Marlowe’s influence on Shakespeare. Verity was particularly interested in the impact of Marlowe’s verse upon Shakespeare’s style, and thought that in Richard II the latter dramatist hovered uncertainly between the strengths of Marlovian blank verse and the weaker rhyming tendency of Greene. Verity acknowledged the greater complexity of character and interest in Richard II (as compared with Richard III) but concurred with Swinburne, though less dogmatically, on Marlowe’s tragedy being stronger dramatically than the work apparently modelled upon it. A corollary, incidentally, of Verity’s praise of Edward II (he would later produce an influential edition of the drama)59 was his belief that Marlowe had virtually invented the history play as a coherent genre – an idea that was to hold sway until twentieth-century scholars established the Henry VI plays as genuinely Shakespearian and of earlier composition than Marlowe’s tragedy.

 Introduction 25 Significantly, however, Verity noted that the garden scene, as well as the episode of the groom in Shakespeare’s play were beyond Marlowe’s powers: such ‘stooping to small things’, he pointed out, lends ‘convincing individuality’ to Shakespeare, ‘bringing home to us the terrible truth of what he describes.’ Thirteen years later when Verity produced a text of Richard II for use in schools, he felt prudishly compelled to remark the squalid ‘repulsiveness’ of Marlowe’s handling of the death scene in Edward II – an effect ‘altogether alien from the infinitely finer taste of Shakespeare’; nevertheless he repeated his earlier judgement on the immature style of the later play, citing as unmistakable evidence of it Richard’s overingenious clock simile in the prison soliloquy.60 The pioneer sexologist Havelock Ellis (No. 46) and the Danish critic Georg Brandes (No. 56) pursued comparison of the two tragedies further in 1887 and 1898 respectively. Ellis ratified the judgement of Swinburne and Verity that Richard II with its ‘exuberant eloquence’ and its ‘facile and diffuse poetry’ was ‘distinctly inferior’ to Edward II, while Brandes strenuously disagreed – partly, to be sure, on account of his homophobic disgust for the ‘unnatural’ eroticism of Marlowe’s protagonist, but partly also because he found Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘better composed’, its action ‘more concentrated’, the Vitality of its style’ more ‘full-blooded’, and its avoidance of sensational violence more ‘modern’ and tactful. Many commentators during the final quarter of the century, however much they may have venerated Richard II as a work of art, continued to lament its anaemic fortune on the boards. When Macready’s Reminiscences were belatedly published in 1875, admirers learned of the actor’s own reservations about the drama he had undertaken to revive so many years earlier: the passion and beauty of the play’s language, Macready suggests, tended to blind the most sympathetic readers ‘to the absence of any marked idiosyncrasy in the persons . . . and to the want of strong purpose in any of them. Not one does anything to cause a result. All seem floated along on the tides of circumstance. Nothing has its source in premeditation.’61 An anonymous essayist of 1882 compiled a colourful stage history of the tragedy from Restoration times to the revival of Charles Kean, illustrating its uncertain fate with British audiences over a period of almost two centuries; and three years later the drama critic William Archer, a friend of Shaw and Granville Barker, called for the creation of a National Theatre in which such neglected plays as Richard II (‘practically dead to us so far as stage representation is concerned’) could become a part of the permanent repertory.62 Perhaps the harshest words about Richard II as a stage piece were written by Francis Marshall (No. 47), a friend and collaborator of the actor-manager Henry Irving, who contributed a critical introduction to the play in the so-called Irving edition of Shakespeare (1888). Marshall judged nearly all the characters to be too inconsistent and unattractive to be successfully embodied in performance, and the whole to constitute one of the dramatist’s ‘weakest plays’; he even thought the ‘fine speeches’ were undercut by others which are ‘tedious and weak’ largely because of their rhymes.63 Especially condemnatory of the tergiversation of York, Marshall even goes so far as to suggest that Shakespeare may have intended the character as a topical satire on the politicians of Elizabeth’s reign.64 The mindset of Richard Simpson had obviously been contagious. On the American stage Richard II seems to have been received as indifferently as in England. An unsigned review of Edwin Booth’s portrayal of the hapless king in 1878,

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although it commended the ‘intellectual value’ of Booth’s achievement, remarked that the subject of ‘divinely ordained majesty’ coming to grief, being ‘unfamiliar’ to republican theatregoers, ‘must needs seem remote or motiveless’; and William Winter, who edited the promptbook of Booth’s adaptation the same year, observed that the tragedy, being ‘one of suffering more than of action’ and portraying, as it does, the anguish of dethronement, ‘is not pathetic to the universal heart’.65 Asia Booth Clarke, the sister and biographer of the actor, described in 1882 how her brother had decided to revive Richard II, having ‘never seen the character acted’; for even though his father, Junius Brutus Booth, had many years earlier appeared in the part, the play ‘had fallen into disuse.’ The younger Booth was attracted to the role on account of ‘its eloquence and force’, but after a performance in Chicago in 1879 (when a crazed gunman shot at him from the audience), no American production of Richard II was mounted until Maurice Evans’s revival of 1937. As Winter observed in 1893 (despite his admiration for Booth’s artistry), ‘Richard the Second has never flourished on the stage’, principally because it is ‘a pageant rather than [a] drama.’66 It is worth noting, however, in connection with the cultural importance of Richard II in nineteenth-century America, that Abraham Lincoln, whose taste for the theatre and particularly for Shakespeare is well known, was especially fond of Richard’s great ‘hollow crown’ speech, often reading it aloud during his presidency as a diversion from the onerous burdens of office; Lincoln’s friend and private secretary John Hay reported this habit in an article of 1890.67 Walt Whitman was also a great lover of the tragedy, calling it ‘one of the best of the plays’ in its ‘vehemence, power, and even its grace’.68 Critical interest in Richard II and the companion histories seems to have been particularly active during the final decade and a half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth. Essays, both specific and more general – most of them by academic editors and literary historians – appeared at this period. The overall effect was to establish commentary on the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries even more firmly as a specialized subject for university lecturers and other professional authorities. Richard Grant White (No. 45), as his earlier piece on the relationship of Daniel’s historical poem to Richard II already makes clear, was chiefly interested in the chronology of the plays and the light which a study of Shakespeare’s developing style might throw upon such problems. White, whose brief discussion of Richard II was published posthumously in 1886, asserted that this play, although it postdated Richard III, represented the dramatist’s ‘first great step toward originality in style’; however, in breaking away from the ‘style and spirit’ of his earlier tragedy, Shakespeare ‘went too far’ and produced ‘a tragic dramatic poem rather than an historical play.’ One of the most valuable contributions of the period, still cited today, was an acutely perceptive introduction to the text in 1891 by the still youthful E. K. Chambers (No. 51). Chambers speaks of the abiding problems of kingship and government which the play so poignantly lays bare, dramatizing not for an age only but for all time the Virgilian ‘tears of things’ in national life, and proving upon our pulses the tragedy of kings who fail in their devotion to the people’s cause. Like others before and after him, Chambers underlines the intimate connections of Richard II to the later plays of the tetralogy without slighting the unique characterization, structure, and style that define its appeal as an independent drama. It was the special excellence of Chambers’s

 Introduction 27 graceful and cultivated analysis to fuse Pater’s aesthetic sensitivity to the title character with the cooler and more common-sense perspective of historically and politically oriented criticism. A more comprehensive treatment was the 1893 introduction to the play by C.H. Herford (No. 52), the magisterial editor of Ben Jonson. Herford pointed out that the more ornate and florid aspects of the play’s style are justified by their concentration in the roles of Richard and Gaunt and thus become an effective feature of the characterization. He also noted, however, the ‘unequal’ quality of the play, Richard and Bolingbroke being its only truly three-dimensional characters: adversity ‘brings out the perfume’ of Richard’s nature whereas ‘the ambitious adventurer and the national deliverer’ are subtly blended in the conception of Bolingbroke. York and Aumerle, who embody the greatest psychological interest apart from Richard and his cousin, represent ‘that grosser kind of loyalty which is little more than a refined form of cowardice.’ Herford offered a more detailed and schematic account than had yet been provided of Shakespeare’s departures from his sources, noting that the two most important of the dramatist’s inventions – the scenes of Gaunt’s death and Richard’s deposition – ‘give us the soul of the story, that inner truth which the facts left unexpressed.’ He also defined the ‘tragic’ element of the play as deriving from two distinct traditions – that of ‘Guilt and Nemesis’ (in the working out of revenge for Gloucester’s murder) and that of ‘Character at discord with Circumstance’ (in Richard’s dethronement and death). Naturally enough, as the turn of the century approached, much of the academic commentary on Richard II refined upon or extended that of earlier scholars. Beverley Warner (No. 53) contributed a long chapter in the tradition of Courtenay (1894), fleshing out the medieval background of Richard’s reign and trying to show how such knowledge aids interpretation of the frequently unexplained or ambiguous motivation of the characters; the evidence, he implied, tends to ameliorate our final estimate of the king and to darken that of Bolingbroke. Unfortunately, Warner tended to treat historical persons and dramatic characters as virtually interchange able.69 The same year Barret Wendell (No. 54), describing the transitional nature of Richard II, emphasized, like many before him, the artificialities of speech and conventions of form that, ironically, lent a kind of ‘archaic’ artistry to the play, making it less ‘human’ but more polished than Marlowe’s corresponding tragedy, as well as an improvement over King John, which mingles ‘human vitality with the old quasi-operatic conventions’ and so confuses and disturbs the impression of unity. For his opinion on the qualified superiority of Edward II to Shakespeare’s tragedy Wendell was obviously indebted to such predecessors as Lamb, Swinburne, Verity, Ellis, and Herford. F.S. Boas (Nos. 55 and 60), whose hostile view of Richard’s character has already been mentioned in connection with Montague’s praise, borrowed much of his contempt for the protagonist’s sentimentalism, ‘incontinent imagination’, and political incompetence from Dowden, though he had probably read Swinburne’s effusive denigration of 1875 as well; but in 1902 Boas went on to make a more original contribution in his Fortnightly Review essay, ‘A PreShakespearian Richard II’, which described a recently discovered anonymous play on earlier events in the reign (now known as Woodstock), and which served Shakespeare, so Boas argued, as the ‘indispensable’ first part of a two-part drama to which Richard II formed the conclusion. A signal virtue of Boas’s piece was his enumeration and

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clarification of the several Elizabethan plays on Richard II, lost and extant – a genuine boon to critics and dramatic historians of future generations, who were thus finally liberated from the confusions and ambiguities of much older scholarship. Like Boas’s Shakespeare and His Predecessors (1896), Felix Schilling’s The English Chronicle Play (1902; No. 61) considered Richard II in the context of a whole body of drama, much of it non-Shakespearian; but unlike Boas (whose article on Woodstock came out simultaneously), he believed that Shakespeare disregarded the anonymous drama, if he knew it at all. For Schelling (as for Wolfgang Keller, who had edited Woodstock in 1899), the manuscript drama contained too many details at odds with Shakespeare’s plotting to have served as its structural forepiece. As for the perennial comparison to Marlowe, Schelling stresses Shakespeare’s independence from Edward II – his endowing of a parallel subject with ‘poetic delicacy and a more searching insight into character’, and his effective contrast between a king who ‘plays with his sorrow as if it were a bauble’ and a usurper who stands as ‘the embodiment of worldly sagacity and circumspection’. The subjectivist romanticism of Pater and Yeats had not quite died out by 1903 when the Irish poet and writer of tales, H.F.P. Battersby (No. 62), published his eccentric reaction to Beerbohm Tree’s new London production of Richard II. In this archly condescending review, it is not easy to tell whether the writer expresses greater superiority to the play itself or to Tree’s elaborately spectacular mounting of it: for though he admires some of the famous speeches, he considers that the drama ‘is smothered in poetry’ – poetry that too often gets in the way of the play’s true interest, which is not history but the psychology of its title figure. At the same time, however, he suggests that the producer’s cuts, which eliminated subsidiary episodes and therefore provided scant relief from Richard himself, remind us ironically of Shakespeare’s dramatic wisdom – his instinctive recognition ‘that neurotic studies are apt to harp upon the nerves’. Implicit in Battersby’s notice seems to be the old-fashioned prejudice, which harks back to Lamb and Coleridge, that Shakespeare’s art is too subtle and complex for successful translation to the modern stage. A second reviewer of the same production was more impressed than Battersby by the ‘fantasy and artistic execution’ of the mise en scène but complained familiarly that Richard II ‘is one of Shakespeare’s least acceptable’ plays ‘because it is deficient in dramatic tension.’70 With these assessments, however, we should contrast the opinion of Marion Dudley Cran, who wrote that Tree’s realization of the title character was ‘profoundly suggestive’, combining ‘all the selfdestroying analysis of a Hamlet, all the imperiousness of a Nero, and all the yielding moral fibre of a Charles I; there never was a stranger blend of strength and weakness, or a better type of intellectual power betrayed by passionate feeling.’71 Throughout the Edwardian age and indeed until the end of World War I, negative views of Richard II continued to find expression. Swinburne’s 1903 condemnation has already been mentioned, although we should note that even Swinburne found individual features of the drama to praise. A.C. Bradley (Nos. 65 and 72) commented only briefly on the play as a subsidiary and largely deviant example of the tragic principles he was seeking to define in the greater Shakespearian dramas on which his lectures focused. Richard II, he observed in 1904, did indeed dramatize the powerlessness of a dignified public figure whose fall affects society as a whole, but

 Introduction 29 its basic conflicts were too external, too political, and insufficiently inward to scale the heights of tragic feeling. Five years later, however, he called attention to the play as an illustration of Shakespeare’s moral complexity, an ‘inextricable tangle of right and unright’ that refused to divide characters into sheep and goats. It is somewhat ironic that Bradley, who for later generations would become the primary emblem of ‘character criticism’, left the probing of Richard’s many-sided personality to others. After Swinburne, Stopford Brooke (No. 66). Morton Luce (No. 67), George Pierce Baker (No. 68), C.F. Tucker Brooke (No. 75), and Brander Matthews (No. 79), though not without qualification, were the chief voices of depreciation. Writing in 1905, Stopford Brooke believed Richard II to be ‘inferior in dramatic strength and vitality’ to Richard III, although both plays came short of the later histories, in which Shakespeare shows greater freedom and invention in the handling of history and more interweaving of secondary figures with the major ones. He was impressed by the changes and development in the king’s character (especially his ultimate purgation of selfishness), by the ‘loveliness of the poetry’, by the contrasting kinds of weakness in Richard and York, and by the effectiveness of the garden scene. But Brooke judged the entire fourth act to be a dramatic mistake, its opening quarrel being ‘a drag on the movement of the play’ and its exposure of the monarch to ‘cruel mockery’ a surprising violation of Shakespeare’s usual ‘exquisite delicacy’ as well as ‘clumsy’, overlong, and, in the case of the mirror episode, inappropriately ‘sensational’. As for the scene in which York pleads against his own son – unpopular, to be sure, with critics as early as Charlotte Lennox – this ‘offends the natural instinct of the heart’. In his Handbook to Shakespeare, published the same year, Luce, who had clearly taken Swinburne and perhaps Marshall to heart, stated flatly that he liked Richard II ‘the least’ of all the dramatist’s works; in support of so uncompromising a position he speaks of ‘the weakest of scenes, situations, characters, [and] incidents’, and also of an ‘experimental’ style that in its more than occasional bathos ‘becomes almost burlesque’. Probably no more negative judgement of the play exists (Luce describes Richard himself as ‘a character so over-subtilized that he becomes a caricature’); several of Luce’s insights nevertheless broke new ground, especially his pointing to the Henry VI plays as providing ‘a far clearer outline sketch’ of Richard’s character than could be found in Marlowe’s Edward II. In 1907 George Pierce Baker, the celebrated American teacher of play-writing, approached Richard II and the histories from the perspective of a practical man of the theatre. Rooted in the values of dramatic realism and the well-made play, Baker predictably found much to object to in Shakespeare’s handling of so diverse and cluttered a source as Holinshed. Conceding that Richard II, unlike most of the other chronicle plays, was unified around a focal character, he asserted nonetheless that audiences invariably crave a compelling hero or fascinating villain and do not ‘care for a weakling’ like Richard. For Baker, also, the histories were too constrained by a ‘sense of fact’ (Gildon, Reynolds, and Verplanck, one recalls, had entertained similar prejudices), and in Richard II especially, he found the actions related to each other merely as historical causes and effects rather than ‘casually’, so that the characters were forever ‘explain[ing] themselves in long speeches rather than by significant and connotative action’. Interestingly, Baker singled out the episode in which Aumerle’s

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conspiracy is revealed – a scene based directly on the chronicles – as a striking and admirable exception to this anti-dramatic tendency in the play. Matthews, writing in 1913, was equally interested in theatrical craftsmanship, and shared Baker’s dramaturgical presuppositions. He speaks, for instance, of Shakespeare’s utilizing ‘the insecure framework of a historical novel cut into dialogue.’ As for Richard II itself, though ‘rich in truthful character-delineation’ (Matthews calls the protagonist ‘a masterpiece of psychologic veracity’), the tragedy is ‘poor not only in theatrical effect, but in essential dramatic force.’ Matthews quotes Macready on the lamentable absence of ‘premeditation’ and assertive will in the play, and pronounces it essentially ‘epic or even elegiac rather than dramatic.’ He also suggests, curiously, that a reason for the ‘dramaturgic weakness’ may lie in Shakespeare’s having lacked ‘the support of any previous play’, ‘an old piece to better as best he could’ (as was the case, for instance, with The Comedy of Errors). Another supposed reason was the dramatist’s greater interest in characterization than in artful construction – Molière’s mistake in Le Misanthrope. Such strictures did not pass without protest. In 1915, for instance, F.J.G. Meehan (known as Brother Leo) stoutly defended the dramatic viability of Richard II against Matthews and his ilk by arguing that the principle of contrast so splendidly realized throughout the tragedy – but especially in Richard’s encounters with the queen and Bolingbroke – makes the play inherently dramatic.72 Tucker Brooke in 1911 had already observed that by ‘evolving plot out of the conflict of antagonistic types of character’ Shakespeare ‘attained some of his greatest triumphs’, nor did he entirely dismiss Richard II since he admired the ‘structural unity’ that the clash between the king and Bolingbroke made possible. Nevertheless Tucker Brooke minced no words about what he saw as the play’s flaws. More historically oriented than Baker or Matthews, he underscored Shakespeare’s indebtedness to Marlowe’s Edward II, which he thought ‘a finer drama’ than its less vigorous successor, the early challenge scenes of which ‘read almost like flashy imitations of Sir Walter Scott’. ‘Some of Richard’s long speeches’, he wrote, ‘exceed in vapidity what the spectator will patiently endure from even a confessedly weak hero’; moreover Richard’s ‘painted and artificial’ kingship makes him come off ‘less like the born sovereign than the enthroned parvenu’, and therefore falsifies the portrait of the historical monarch. Broadly speaking, the admirers of Richard II during this period outnumbered the detractors. The most notable of these were Walter Raleigh (No. 69), George Saintsbury (No, 70), A.H. Thorndike (No. 71), Charlotte Endymion Porter (No. 74), John Masefield (No. 76), Ivor B. John (No. 78), and Wilhelm Creizenach (No. 81). Raleigh in 1907 appreciated the descent to ordinary humanness in the second Richard, coming as it did after the melodramatic monster of Richard III, and saw the later play as the Romeo and Juliet of the histories – ‘an almost purely lyrical drama, swift and simple.’ The same year Saintsbury offered the most discriminating account of the play’s verse and texture yet provided, judging it ‘the most carefully written of all Shakespeare’s plays’ as well as superior to Marlowe’s Edward II in its more unified characterization, though a lesser work than King John. Saintsbury points to the unrooted and discontinuous presentation of Richard’s character, which nevertheless insinuates itself into our minds as the conception of a whole and believable man – a figure who embodies ‘“the literary temperament” with a vengeance.’ The contribution of Thorndike, who in 1908 was tracing English tragedy from its beginnings to the nineteenth century, was to stress

 Introduction 31 the medieval theme of ‘the vanquishment of a prince by scornful Fortune’ and its accompanying moral, ‘the hollowness and uncertainty of earthly grandeur.’ Thorndike also pointed out the choric function of the female characters, noting that Shakespeare had distributed their appearances throughout the play ‘to supply a relief ’ from the episodes of greater action and tension; and he repeated Saintsbury’s point that in the ‘consistency and subtlety’ of the characters the dramatist had excelled Marlowe. The American bluestocking Charlotte Porter, in her important edition of 1910, brilliantly analysed the often disparaged opening scenes of Richard II, showing how their subtle ‘innuendo’ and their interplay of ‘situation and character’ create tense expectation and foreshadow the tragedy to come; like Thorndike, she was responsive (in a protofeminist way) to the importance of the women. Porter must be credited too with correcting the misinformation of Charles Knight and Richard Grant White in respect of the confused and confusing relationship of Shakespeare’s play to Daniel’s Civil Wars. Among the Georgians, the poet laureate Masefield was probably the most justly admired commentator on Richard II. A frankly introductory volume addressed to the general reader, Masefield’s William Shakespeare (1911) makes no claim to specialized scholarship or expertise; but its acute description of the play in question as a tragedy of double treachery – ‘the treachery of a king to his duty as a king, and the treachery of a subject to his duty as a subject’ – sums up the work with appealing trenchancy. We can discern the romantic mindset of Yeats, another poet-critic, in Masefield’s account of Richard’s rejection: ‘The world cares little for the rare and the interesting’ but rather ‘calls for the rough and common virtue that guides a plough in a furrow, and sergeantly chaffs by the camp fires. . . . The tragedy of the sensitive soul, always acute, becomes terrible when that soul is made king . . . by one of the accidents of life.’ And Masefield notices a cognate truth that contributes to the tragic effect: ‘Men who sacrifice themselves are a king’s only props. Richard allies himself with men who prefer to sacrifice the country.’ For Masefield, then, Richard II is ‘spiritual tragedy’ whose subtler beauties are caviar to the general and need empathetic interpretation to bring out ‘the greatness of Shakespeare’s vision’. The introduction to the Arden edition (1912) by Ivor John is both longer and more pedestrian than Masefield’s pithy summation, but it too is guardedly favourable to the play. John believed that Shakespeare’s Richard II had relied on a lost drama, as King John had relied on The Troublesome Reign, and denied that Shakespeare’s play could have been the one performed on behalf of the Essex rebels. But he went on to stress the tragic configuration of events in conjunction with the ‘Soul’s Tragedy’ of Richard’s ruminative character, which distantly prefigures Hamlet and even King Lear. Admitting that Richard is difficult to like, John traces our gradually increasing sympathy for him; at the same time he defends Bolingbroke, arguing that the cynical view of the ‘vile politician’ on which so many previous critics have insisted has been improperly influenced by the less sympathetic and independently imagined character of 1 and 2 Henry IV. In 1914 William Dinsmore Briggs, who had edited Edward II, praised Richard II for exceeding its Marlovian predecessor in intellectual quality, combining in its title character the passion of Edward with the intelligence of Richard III.73 Then, three hundred years after the dramatist’s death, Lacy Collison Morley published Shakespeare in Italy (1916; No. 80), a work that called the attention of English readers to the important but hitherto ignored defence of Richard II by the great Romantic poet and novelist Manzoni against Neoclassical rules-

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mongering. Finally, in the same year as Collison-Morley’s book, the German scholar Creizenach and the American critic J.F.A. Pyre briefly commended specific features of Richard II. Creizenach, although he questioned Shakespeare’s avoidance of constitutional issues and the representation of ‘the burgher classes’ in the play, nevertheless praised the garden scene as an effective pause in ‘the inexorable and tragic march of Fate’, and reiterated the Romantic dictum, originally introduced by Schlegel and Coleridge, that the frequent punning of Gaunt and Richard enrich characterization. Discussing the element of pathos in Shakespeare’s histories, Pyre made the pregnant suggestion that the dramatist, who had separated the pathos of Prince Arthur and Constance from the title figure in King John, thus producing ‘a mixed effect’, remedied the ‘defect of the preceding play’ by making pathos a more central motif in Richard II.74 Ever since Schlegel, who conceived of the chronicle plays as composing a gigantic panorama of national character and destiny, interest in the political and thematic interconnections of the separate dramas had flourished. The final category of critics to deserve inclusion in this survey of Edwardian and Georgian commentators may be loosely defined as those with a marked concern for the historico-political ideas of Richard II. The leading representatives of this emphasis were Richard Moulton (No. 63), G.S. Gordon (No. 73), Hardin Craig (No. 77), and J.A.R. Marriott (No. 82). Moulton saw the histories in 1903 as illustrating a grand principle of temporal oscillation, or ‘pendulum-like alternation’, punctuated by ‘parentheses of emphasised rest’; within this pattern Richard II marks a critical moment by articulating (especially in the ‘hollow crown’ speech) the doctrine of divine right that informs the politics of the entire cycle, and therefore functions as an ideological starting-point for subsequent movement. In his 1909 edition Gordon located the thematic centre of the play in ‘the insufficiency and failure’ of patriotism when the state is ‘selfish and disordered’: although every character ‘from the king to his gardener’ is a patriot and royalist according to his own lights, patriotism without moral order can only spell civil strife. According to Gordon, therefore, Richard’s deposition and death dramatize only the disastrous beginning of a more far-reaching national tragedy. Both Moulton and Gordon were already groping their way toward what Tillyard would later describe as the Tudor myth. In the introduction to a later edition (1912), Craig reconsidered Shakespeare’s use of sources, known and probable (Holinshed, Stow, and Daniel), noting in the case of Daniel’s supposed influence the ‘idea of Nemesis’ that accompanies Bolingbroke’s usurpation, and analysing afresh the changes in political outlook that Shakespeare’s departures imply. Craig also reiterated Herford’s point on ‘plain’ and ‘rhetorical’ verse styles of the drama, nevertheless refining upon Herford by suggesting that Shakespeare varies these styles with unexpected complexity. Marriott, a professional historian and politician, observed the play in 1918 against the background of the entire life and reign of the historical Richard, concluding, like Courtenay but unlike Tucker Brooke, that Shakespeare was true in spirit to the perplexing reality of the past. Marriott underlines the political amateurism that he sees as applying equally to the medieval Richard and to Shakespeare’s protagonist – an amateurism resulting as much from the actual circumstances of the reign as from the king’s psychological unfitness to rule. He goes on to raise the interesting question of whether the tradition of inspired amateurism in British government (as opposed to the characteristic German reliance on political expertise) is salutary or potentially dangerous. That Marriott was writing in the midst of the Great War is of course far from irrelevant. We may conclude this

 Introduction 33 section with the mention of Sir Adolphus William Ward, the distinguished historian of dramatic literature, who in a British Academy lecture of 1919, briefly pointed out the alignment of Shakespeare’s ideas of political and social order in Richard II with those of the Elizabethan philosopher Richard Hooker.75

III 1920 to the Present The high status which our own century has increasingly accorded Richard II as a masterpiece in its own right – and no longer as merely the prelude to Henry IV and Henry V – can be quickly established. One obvious sign was the publication of Matthew Black’s New Variorum edition in 1955, long after most of the other major plays had received such treatment at the hands of Howard Furness and his son between 1871 and 1928. In its ample collations, this volume (despite its eccentric choice of the First Folio for copy text) provides the most detailed account of the play’s textual history yet assembled, and brings together the relevant historical documents including sources, a valuable calendar of performances, and material on the putative connection with the Essex rebellion. Equally significant was the appearance in 1988 of Josephine Roberts’s two-volume bibliography, a comprehensive, almost exhaustive compilation annotating 2,662 books and articles (the great majority dating from after World War II), covering virtually every aspect of the play – including editions, textual studies, sources and influences, translations, stage history, and interpretive criticism. (Anyone who undertakes to trace the critical fortunes of Richard II in detail, particularly in recent decades, will find Roberts’s work indispensable.) Still a third evidence of rising esteem is an impressive series of successful stage productions from John Gielgud’s revival at the Old Vic in 1929 to a current National Theatre production with the actress Fiona Shaw in the title role (1995–96)76 Richard II is no longer a play that actors shun or undertake with misgivings, as was noted as early as 1948 by a critic who spoke of it as having become ‘almost the favourite of Shakespeare’s plays’.77 Given the explosion of critical interest in this drama, especially during the latter half of our century, I can do little more in what follows than attempt to suggest the broader trends, directions, and preoccupations that appear to define the contours of post-World War I criticism. My examples, it goes without saying, are intended to be representative rather than finally determinative, and, necessarily, comprise but a small fraction of what is available.

(1) To the 1980s and Beyond: Historiography, Religio-political Criticism, Topicality, Characterization, Genre Studies, Theme and Structure, Style, Imagery, Theatrical Self-Consciousness, and the Psychoanalytic Approach Schlegel, Ulrici, and Gervinus had long since recognized the importance of the histories as a sustained hymn to national pride in dramatic form and an effective illustration

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of the political nature of humankind. But in the period between the world wars, textual, historiographical, and source study had the effect of elevating the histories to fresh prominence as a unified cycle. With the rehabilitation of the Henry VI plays (formerly the playground of ‘disintegrators’) as at least mainly Shakespearian, and with new emphasis on the medieval heritage of the Elizabethan intellectual climate, Richard II rapidly came to be seen as a key play in Shakespeare’s two intentionally linked tetralogies – the group of eight dramatizing a momentous century of religiopolitical upheaval and providential teleology stretching from the deposition of Richard to the establishment of the Tudors.78 The landmark study that not only revalued the entire sequence artistically and intellectually but set the critical agenda for most of the century was E.M.W. Tillyard’s Shakespeare’s History Plays (London, 1944). With a nostalgic idealism doubtless influenced by the brutish realities of the world conflict during which it was published, this volume articulated what came to be referred to as the ‘Tudor myth’, arguing that Richard II’s dethronement, a violation of divine as well as political order, unleashed the confusion and civil strife that only ended with Richard Ill’s defeat at Bosworth and Henry VII’s inauguration of a new dynasty which nevertheless assimilated Lancastrian and Yorkist blood. Tillyard’s ideologically conservative assumptions about the Elizabethan mindset were rooted in a late-medieval view of cosmic harmony, social hierarchy, and religious stability, these in turn yielding a view of the political order (and especially of monarchy) based on analogies between the human and the divine, and conceived as a working out of the national destiny under the Providence of God. The germ of such ideas could be found in Polydore Vergil and Edward Hall, chroniclers earlier than Holinshed, so that a collateral effect of the new orientation was heightened consciousness about a wider diversity of Shakespearian sources and influences than had hitherto been emphasized. For Richard II these included Woodstock, Daniel’s Civil Wars, the Minor for Magistrates, the Homilies on obedience, and French accounts by Froissart, Créton, and the anonymous author of the Traïson more sympathetic to the king than their English counterparts. Closely linked with Tillyard’s overarching thesis about the violation and restoration of order, was the doctrine of divine right, so central to Richard’s own self-conception and to the ceremonial emphasis of the play’s style and rhetoric, especially in the deposition scene. Dover Wilson’s Cambridge edition of 1939, which drew upon Pater, had already stressed the sacramental strain in Richard II, interpreting the fall of the king as a royal sacrifice, its elements of ritual and mystery resembling the Catholic Mass. Ernst H. Kantorowicz gave further impetus to the conception of Richard as the martyrking in The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957), which traced the idea of the monarch’s person as simultaneously containing the Body Politic (which was eternal and semi-divine) and the Body Personal (which was mortal and natural). Paul N. Siegel in 1968 argued (against Roland M. Frye) that Shakespeare portrayed Richard as a Christ figure.79 Two further spurs to emphasis on the supernatural royalism of the drama appeared in the work of Philip Edwards and Frank W. Brownlow. Edwards in 1970 compared Richard II and Lear as characters in whom Shakespeare depicts the inseparability of office and man, observing that Richard,

 Introduction 35 a ‘sacred’ monarch, only comes to apprehend the mystical union of person and role through the loss of his crown, though he remains temperamentally incapable of ever achieving the unity himself. Brownlow contended in 1977 that whereas Shakespeare in earlier histories had examined monarchy chiefly as an hereditary and legal institution, he turned in Richard II to its religious implications and to the tragedy of its loss.80 Inevitably the so-called medieval-orthodox approach to the play and to the ‘tetralogy’ in which it figured so causatively provoked a multitude of varied responses. In 1957 Derek Traversi, taking up the fashion of critical ‘close reading’, elaborated Tillyard’s thesis about violated order, seeing Richard II as a dramatic conflict between two symbolic opponents, the one embodying feudal, emotional, and sacramental values, and the other modern, pragmatic, and rationalist ones; for him the entire sequence from Richard II to Henry V dramatized the consequences of national sacrilege (despite Richard’s moral flaws) and the sad transition from a world of absolutes to one of relativism and expediency. M.M. Reese in 1961 likewise accepted the fundamental orthodoxy of the histories, but went further to stress the values of social cohesion, charity, and mutual obligation that the plays as a group recommend; for Reese the moral deficiencies of both Richard and Bolingbroke reflect the diseased nature of society as a body, a condition from which England was only delivered in the reign of Henry V. The thematic integrity of the second tetralogy as a sequence unified by a dense pattern of interconnections at many levels including character, language, and incident was the burden of an influential essay by Alvin Kernan in 1969; he too regarded Richard II as embodying a world of medieval ceremony and stability from which Bolingbroke and his successor represent a symbolic wrenching away.81 The voices of scepticism, however, were not long silent. As early as 1953 Robert A. Law challenged Tillyard’s notion of a unified sequence of two tetralogies, arguing that the links between the plays tend to be pragmatic, ideologically superficial, and absent from the sources, while Peter G. Phialas in 1961 took issue with the same critic’s concept of medievalism in Richard II. The impotency of Richard’s reign, Phialas argued, contrasted more significantly with the heroic vitality of the past, the world of Edward III and the Black Prince, than with Tudor pragmatism. To this view Robert Hapgood suggested a corrective in 1963, positing three symbolic eras in the play, with Richard’s flattery-dominated reign filling the transitional space between the chivalrous values of Edward III and the political manipulativeness of Henry IV.82 The most violent attempt to subvert Tillyard and his school was the quasi-Marxist discussion of Shakespeare’s kings produced by the Polish critic Jan Kott in Shakespeare Our Contemporary, translated into English (London, 1964). Kott chopped the metaphysical head off Tillyard’s religio-medieval archetype of historical process, erecting instead his own grimmer determinism – a ‘Grand Mechanism’ that operates in politics to ensure continuous cycles of violence, treason, warfare, and internecine savagery. According to Kott, Shakespeare’s kings, including Richard II, merely teach us the hollowness of any claim to anointed majesty; but in the aftermath of his deposition, Richard finally acquires the tragic insight into ultimate chaos that makes him a prototype of Lear. Kott’s profound pessimism, influenced obviously by the totalitarian regime under which he wrote, foreshadows the cynicism of materialist and New-Historicist critics of the 1980s and 1990s, who have sometimes

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seemed to interpret the histories as merely power struggles involving inequalities of class and gender. Scepticism, of course, took more moderate forms than Kott’s. A 1965 essay on Richard II and Henry IV by Arthur Humphreys suggested that Shakespeare qualifies his apparent endorsement of divine right by insisting on the king’s contractual obligation to govern justly and protect the rights of subjects – a standard which Richard tyrannously violates for more than half of the play. Our final sympathy for his suffering must therefore be weighed against the suffering he has caused. Humphreys also argued, against the more extreme proponents of royal ‘sacredness’, that, far from serving merely as a Machiavellian foil to the protagonist, Bolingbroke becomes a tragic figure in his own right, suffering genuine guilt and experiencing real concern for the health of his realm. In a similar vein John R. Elliott maintained a year later that Richard violates the ideals of medieval kingship (which actually set limits on kingly power and under certain conditions allowed the unseating of monarchs), behaving on the contrary more like a Tudor prince with pretensions to anointed absolutism and a heavy stress on blind obedience. Vilification of Bolingbroke, which had been a legacy of the nee-orthodox critics, was also contested by A.L. French, who pointed out in 1967 that Shakespeare so conceived the early acts of Richard II as to focus more on the king’s neurotic abdication of the throne than on Henry’s usurpation of it. French, however, thought that the dramatist blurred his final effect by shifting the point of view late in the play, so that audiences were encouraged to accept Richard’s own self-pitying belief in his forcible dethronement. The next year an even more jaundiced account of Richard II by Wilbur Sanders appeared. For this writer, the play presents a climate of moral obscurity that vitiates simplistic conceptions of medieval order or Tillyardian ‘world pictures’: none of the major characters is able to preserve integrity in the face of threatening realities and political complexity. Richard’s sentimental unwillingness fully to confront his own predicament, Bolingbroke’s hypocrisy and hollowness, and York’s deluded attempt to remain neutral all result in an unsatisfactory opposition between failed traditionalism (as embodied in Gaunt, Carlisle, and the Gardeners) and the harsh ‘necessity’ of new men like Bolingbroke and Northumberland.83 Dissatisfaction with what came to be thought of as the Tory-high church reading of Richard II and the second tetralogy as a whole continued throughout the 1970s. H.A. Kelly’s Divine Providence in the England of Shakespeare’s Histories (Cambridge, Mass., 1970) re-examined the multiple source materials and historical traditions out of which the plays grew, identifying the various ‘myths’ (Yorkist, Lancastrian, Tudor) which writers of different bias constructed from the events. He concluded that Tillyard’s so-called Tudor myth has no true basis in the chronicles Shakespeare read, but rather that it constitutes a sort of ‘Platonic form’ manufactured by modern criticism. As for the notion of providential punishment falling upon England in consequence of Richard’s deposition, Kelly finds little evidence to support it in the plays, which in any case are separate works with their own independent moral orientations. Richard II, moreover, draws equally upon both Yorkist and Lancastrian perspectives. Robert Ornstein produced a further challenge to the orthodox line in A Kingdom for a Stage: The Achievement of Shakespeare’s History Plays (Cambridge, Mass., 1972). Like Kelly, Ornstein rejects the concept of the histories as a defence of official hierarchy and degree,

 Introduction 37 emphasizing instead the web of personal and social relationships which Shakespeare shows to be the true basis of political harmony. In Ornstein’s eyes the dramatist fully justifies the need for Richard’s removal by exposing his threat to an ordered society and to its legal foundations. Moody E. Prior, Edna Zwick Boris, and Peter Milward undermined the Tillyardian position still further. In The Drama of Power: Studies in Shakespeare’s History Plays (Evanston, Ill., 1973) Prior drew attention to sixteenthcentury realists such as Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and Bacon, whose pragmatic description of politics cut athwart official Tudor pronouncements and necessarily modified popular attitudes, including Shakespeare’s. He also pointed to restrictions on royal power as institutionalized in Parliament and the law, explaining in addition that ‘divine right’ as a full-fledged theory had to wait until the seventeenth century to be authoritatively promulgated. Boris in Shakespeare’s English Kings, the People, and the Law: A Study in the Relationship Between the Tudor Constitution and the English History Plays (Rutherford, N.J., 1978) traced a changing conception of government in the two tetralogies from feudal notions of authority to modern constitutionalism, involving a balance among the Crown, the law, and the people. In Richard II, Boris concludes, Shakespeare carefully shows how the king destroys this balance and how Bolingbroke, given his disadvantages as a usurper, tries to re-establish it. Writing from a Roman Catholic perspective at the end of the decade, Peter Milward implied that Richard II’s attachment to the theory of divine right is presented more as a pretext for oppression than as a valid doctrine of royal power; he nevertheless believed that Shakespeare stopped short of rejecting the sacramentality of kingship altogether.84 The polarizing tendencies of criticism from the political left and right were bound to draw some interpreters to middle ground. Five critics who in their different ways represent the spirit of compromise and synthesis during the middle decades of our century were A.P. Rossiter, Ernest William Talbert, Leonard F. Dean, Norman Rabkin, and John Jump. In 1954 Rossiter suggested that a salient characteristic of the histories as a group was the opposition of two competing systems of value which, in their unresolved dialectic, created ‘ambivalence’. He went on to speak of Richard II as a play of discontinuities in characterization, political ideas, and style; for him the collision of the king with Bolingbroke symbolized the clash of incompatible worlds, not only of political outlook but also of human personality and experience, fact and fantasy both having their claims on our sympathy. The view of history presented is therefore ‘obscure’, being one in which ‘men are compelled, constrained, baffled and bent by circumstances in which their actions do not express their characters’ (p. 37).85 Talbert in 1962 returned to the problem of order in Richard II, recognizing both the Elizabethan disapproval of rebellion and the valid grounds for deposition, as reflected in theatrical censorship and in the thinking of Sir Thomas Smith, Richard Hooker, and Sir Philip Sidney. Like Kelly, Talbert illustrated Shakespeare’s incorporation of Yorkist and Lancastrian attitudes and his marrying of disparate perspectives. Five years later Dean found scant support in Richard II for any consistent or preconceived theory of history and emphasized the dramatist’s search for meaning in the conflicting materials available to him. The result, he concluded, was an ironic view of the politics of the play, in which, for instance, the deposition scene gives equal weight to Richard’s sense of betrayal as the Lord’s anointed and to Bolingbroke’s belief in his role as a restorer

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of civil justice and stability, neither of the two viewpoints finally prevailing. In the same year Rabkin’s concept of ‘complementarity’ independently produced a similar view: Shakespeare subjects his audience to an impossible choice between Richard and Bolingbroke, two equally unsatisfactory alternatives, so as to generate ‘a tragic understanding’ of ‘man as a political animal’ and to raise ‘our gravest doubts about the possibility of human virtue in the public world’ (p. 88). Finally in 1975 Jump observed both providential and humanist ideas of history in a play that lays as much stress on Richard’s willful inviting of disaster as on his victimization in a cosmic scheme of sacrifice, punishment, and providential delivery.86 The flurry of interest in Tudor political theory and historiography also redirected scholarship toward topicality in the histories, a subject almost forgotten since the days of Richard Simpson. Evelyn Albright initiated the revival in 1927 by wrongheadedly attempting to prove that Richard II subversively supported the ambitions of Essex, that the drama was prompted by Sir John Hayward’s suppressed Life of Henry IV (not published until 1599 but supposedly available earlier), and that Bolingbroke was a thinly disguised characterization of the frustrated earl. Ray Heffner’s able refutation of Albright’s argument did not however deter Lily Campbell from contending in her more sensible volume of 1947 that Shakespeare’s histories were indeed conceived as ‘mirrors’ of Elizabethan political controversy and discontent. After discussing a wide variety of medieval and Renaissance writers on monarchy and rebellion, Campbell pointed to parallels between Elizabeth and Richard II, noting for instance that the murder of Gloucester in the play may have evoked memories of Mary Queen of Scots’s execution. Campbell, however, makes no claim for a crudely propagandistic dramatist; she doubts that Shakespeare was a committed Essex partisan or that he wrote Richard II with the earl’s approaching treason in view, observing that the play treats the issue of revolution with such even-handedness that it could just as easily have served to warn viewers against revolt as to encourage it.87 More than two decades later David Bevington published Tudor Drama and Politics: A Critical Approach to Topical Meaning (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), a more far-ranging and cautious treatment of the subject than Campbell’s. Bevington’s remarks on Richard II are brief, but he too underscored the dangerous political climate in which the play was written and performed, nevertheless exonerating Shakespeare from any seditious motive. On grounds of its style and dramatic context, scholarship had long believed that the deposition scene, missing from the Elizabethan quartos of Richard II and not included until 1608, must have been written at the same time as the rest of the play but had been censored (on stage as well as in the printing house?) for its offensiveness to the queen and her regime. The traditional view was challenged by David Bergeron, who proposed that the scene represents a later addition to the text, written at some point after 1601 when the Essex conspirators commissioned a revival of the drama. Unlike most previous critics, Bergeron finds no obvious hiatus in the early editions and believes that the shorter version, lacking the pathos of Richard’s mirror episode, would be more effective as propaganda for the Essex faction. Although his article has been much cited, it seems to have failed to persuade the majority of scholars, and the older view consequently remains the standard one. In the later context of New-Historicist obsession with subversive potential in the histories, Leeds Barroll carefully sifted the

 Introduction 39 evidence surrounding the 1601 revival. Pointing to important distinctions between Hayward’s Henry IV and Shakespeare’s Richard II, and noting that the players were treated with signal leniency, he usefully counters the received opinion that the play was considered politically threatening.88 The larger effect of Barroll’s essay, then, has been to submit the whole notion of dangerous topicality in the histories to fresh and more searching scrutiny. And as all the authors in this paragraph attest, agreement that Shakespeare’s play was the one performed on the day before Essex’s rising is now virtually universal. Character criticism in some form is ever with us. Not surprisingly, there has been great variety. Early in our period (1939) Mark Van Doren played a variation on the tunes of Pater and Yeats by pronouncing Richard II ‘a great minor poet’ whose luxuriant eloquence is expended too dominantly on his own woe; although the king falls short of tragic stature, he represents the first of the dramatist’s self-dramatizing characters. G. Wilson Knight, publishing in the same war-torn year as Tillyard, rhapsodized on the crown as the symbol of the nation’s soul and believed that Richard, despite his profound weakness, achieves through suffering a heightened apprehension of its mystical symbolism. The following year John Palmer analyzed the characters of Richard and Bolingbroke as political figures whose public speeches are at variance with their true intentions. Although critics have customarily contrasted Richard of Bordeaux with Richard III, the two kings, in Palmer’s view, share the quality of being artists – the one a specialist in fantasy, the other a master craftsman of political action. Harold C. Goddard in 1951 approached the character of Richard II yet more negatively, judging him to be so solipsistically in love with language as to be incapable of grasping the reality which words denote. Cowardly, hypocritical, and sentimental, he fails even to convince us of his bravery at Pomfret, for his single act of physical aggression toward the assassins only discloses the violence that has lurked all along under his false passivity. In 1955 Irby Cauthen, anticipating Siegel’s 1968 discussion (mentioned earlier in connection with divine-right theory in the play), took Richard’s sense of martyrdom seriously, urging the consistency with which Shakespeare presents the analogy to Christ and finding support for it not only in the king’s biblical allusions but also in the imagery of the crown, blood, washing, and tears. In his New Arden edition of 1956 Peter Ure stressed Richard’s tragic ‘passion’, which finally dominates the play and displaces Bolingbroke to secondary importance, simultaneously rejecting the popular tendency to interpret the character as an actor or poet. For Ure the deposition scene gives us the spectacle of dispossessed majesty, but it is Shakespeare, not Richard, who stages it.89 Divergent analyses of the major figures continued to appear in the following two decades. S.C. Sen Gupta, acknowledging the inconsistent political ideas which Richard II contains, argued in 1964 that these are used to characterize the various speakers rather than to promote any unified view of history, however complex. Sen Gupta believes that Richard must take more blame than Bolingbroke for the deposition, and, somewhat simplistically, takes the exiled duke at his word when he claims that he returns to England solely for his patrimony; according to this critic, it is only after his return that Lancaster becomes aware of the broader possibilities of his situation. One of the subtler discussions of the protagonist was

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Ruth Nevo’s 1972 essay on Richard’s progressive self-awareness in the tragedy, his struggle for self-possession taking him through ‘challenge, temptation or dilemma, disintegration, and despair to the final recognition in which all is confronted’ (p. 30); thus he ultimately experiences tragic ‘catharsis’ and regains a modicum of ‘lost heroic value’ (p. 95). A year afterwards Harold Folland suggested that Richard manipulates Bolingbroke rhetorically so as to induce guilt in the usurper and thus to snatch a ‘pallid victory’ from defeat. Lois Potter also saw the elaborate rhetoric of the king (in the tradition of Hamlet’s ‘antic disposition’) as a psychological weapon rather than evidence of weakness, for in the early acts of the play Richard tends to speak tersely and with irony so as to deflate the orotundities of others. Potter argued that Richard deliberately equivocates and deviously misleads his hearers, a trait that Shakespeare may have derived from a suggestion in Holinshed. The result of this aspect of the characterization, then, according to Potter, is to display the protagonist not only as a king of sorrows but also as ‘sharp-tongued, self-mocking, and quite unresigned’ (p. 40). Samuel Schoenbaum also stressed Richard’s political sophistication, particularly in his handling of the opening quarrel, believing that the king miscalculates only in the appropriation of Gaunt’s property. He also observes that Shakespeare could have been prompted by both sympathetic and unsympathetic portraits of the king in earlier plays such as Jack Straw and Woodstock.90 The theatrical strain in Richard’s personality continued to be especially popular with critics. As early as 1952 George Bonnard located the most interesting conflict of the play as residing not between the king and his rival but within Richard the ‘actor’, who is forever pretending to be other than he is, inventing situations in which he can effectively perform various roles, all of them fundamentally insincere. Like Ure, Bonnard regards Bolingbroke as dramatically subordinate. A decade later Anne Righter invoked the term ‘player king’ to describe Richard – a concept that Shakespeare would develop further in other guilty kings such as Henry IV, Claudius, and Macbeth. She noted perceptively that the theatrical metaphor in Richard II bears significantly upon Richard’s crisis of identity and his increasing sense of the unreality of kingship. Finally in 1968 James Winny used the same phrase for the title of a work that treats not only Richard but also Bolingbroke and Prince Hal as player kings. Winny also pursues the notion of identity as raised by Richard II’s obsession with names, titles, and the surfaces of life, which ironically deny him access to his innermost self. This book also explores the recurring theme of the strong father discredited by a weak or morally wayward son, thus probing the ironies inherent in the contrasting yet parallel sons of the drama – Richard, Bolingbroke, Aumerle, and Hal.91 The history plays had always presented problems of fluid or loosely defined genre. Schlegel’s old notion of a great epic in dramatic form seemed in part to ignore the varied admixtures of tragic and comic material; Richard III and Richard II laid claim to being tragedies, yet their emphasis on nationalism and political struggle, in addition to their open-endedness, seemed to rob them of the elevating mystery of personal suffering and to deny them the closure associated with tragedy, at any rate in Bradley’s sense of the term. Although history and tragedy could never be wholly exclusive terms, numerous critics of the fifties, sixties, and seventies concerned themselves with the question of which genre predominates in Richard II.

 Introduction 41 In 1952 Allardyce Nicoll noted that although Richard is Shakespeare’s earliest protagonist of psychological complexity, his public role prevents him from rising to the tragic greatness he might otherwise have achieved. Irving Ribner, who in 1957 contributed the most substantial study of the formal properties of the chronicle play, stressed the influence of the medieval morality, with the impressionable young king being exposed to both good and evil influences in the advice of Gaunt, Carlisle, and the flatterers. In a slightly later essay, Ribner chose Richard II to exemplify the perfect union of history and tragedy, arguing that moral guilt becomes inseparable from Bolingbroke’s victory, and moral victory from Richard’s surrender. Michael Quinn, writing in 1959, also emphasized the fusion of ethical and political themes, believing that the major concerns of divine right, honour, and patience apply equally to Richard as man and king; in his title, however, Quinn applied the term ‘personal tragedy’ to Richard’s fall. For R.J. Dorius, a year later, the root values of the histories were prudence and economy, an emphasis that essentially excluded them from the tragic category; in Richard II he pointed to the twin images of gardener and physician as elucidating the proper function of a king, and Richard’s less than tragic defection from duty. R.F. Hill derived the rhetorical elaboration of Richard II from the techniques of Senecan tragedy, seeing an important dramatic limitation in the privileging of language over action. Also struck by the artifice of the play, William L. Halstead in 1964 addressed Shakespeare’s difficulties in melding history with tragedy, suggesting that the scene in which Richard moves from false confidence to surrender and despair (3.2) constitutes a tragedy in little; the dramatist’s difficulty in sustaining the tragic mode throughout nevertheless produced a hybrid drama in which Richard is a ‘martyr only to himself ’ (p. 33). Admiring the play’s design as ‘a masterpiece of structure’ (p. 120), Virgil Whitaker judged it the very model of de casibus tragedy, though, lacking the power to move pity and fear, it fell short of ‘profoundly satisfying tragedy’ (p. 122). H.M. Richmond gave the politics of Richard II precedence over tragedy in 1967, believing that none of the characters is as important as the pattern which their interaction creates; Richard does indeed have a tragic phase in the play, but he moves beyond it into epic vitality, an ‘heroic apotheosis’ and ‘vindication of that archetypal authority that he had far too casually lost’ (p. 138).92 1968 was a banner year for genre studies. Robert Heilman regarded Richard II as oscillating between tragedy and melodrama but finally coming down on the side of the latter, because the title figure in his sentimentalism is never able to move beyond aestheticized suffering into the realm of moral responsibility. Nicholas Brooke refused to decide between tragedy and history in the play since it managed to dramatize the deposition of a king from the triple perspective of the divine, political, and personal orders. And John Elliott argued that Shakespeare had produced an unusual combination of the two genres by departing from the simple pattern of rise and fall to convey the episodic nature of historical process, and altering Holinshed to make the internal conflicts of Gaunt and York (as well as Richard), more poignant, so balancing a sense of the undulation of events against the finality of tragedy. In 1973 Moody Prior wrote of Richard II as marking a new stage in the evolution of Shakespearian tragedy – a modification of the de casibus model to explore the protagonist’s search for selfawareness and the deeper meanings of his experience.93

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Nineteenth-century critics (with the significant exceptions of Swinburne and Marshall) had ruefully noted the absence of comedy in Richard II, the received wisdom having stemmed in part from Coleridge’s solemn respect for Shakespeare’s characterization of the feeble and rather fussy Duke of York. This traditional view came under increasing attack during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1972 Waldo McNeir reconsidered the episodes of Aumerle’s conspiracy and pardon, in the past often treated as excrescences, finding in them a comic spirit that would be developed further in the later plays of the tetralogy; the integration of these scenes into the play resulted in ‘a sophisticated combination of history and comedy’ (p. 815). Two years later Sheldon Zitner developed a similar idea, describing the comic portrayal of York as ‘harsh geriatric slapstick’ which significantly undercuts the statelier aspects of the drama and relates in a new mode to the themes of power, justice, and mercy. Zitner thought that the comic elements already betray Shakespeare’s dissatisfaction with the strictest kind of historical tragedy. The notion of calculated parody in Richard II was explored in 1983 by Joan Hartwig, who attempted to illustrate the principle of comic scenes working by analogy to comment ironically on more serious ones. She argues, for instance, that the duchess’s frantic kneeling to beg for Aumerle’s life not only echoes Bolingbroke’s action before Richard at Flint Castle but also looks forward to Richard’s humiliation in the deposition and prison scenes, the latter of which contains verbal reminiscences of ‘the beggar and the king’ and reminds us of the setting of the ‘word . . . Against the word’ that had been the comic situation when the duchess and her husband had pleaded against each other. Zitner’s interpretation of the Aumerle conspiracy scenes was contested in 1985 by James Black, who argued that, instead of undermining the ceremonial splendour of the play, the comic episodes produce the very opposite effect: since Richard dramatizes his own deposition by drawing upon the cardboard stylization of the medieval Passion plays, Aumerle, by his loyalty, actually helps to rehabilitate the image of a mystically powerful monarch. Not all critics, however, were converted to the doctrine of an essentially comic York. In 1979 James Riddell revived Coleridge’s high opinion of the character, seeing him as the venerable upholder of magnanimity, a Renaissance value that derives from Cicero and Seneca. The duke’s condemnation of his own son is a measure of his willingness to sacrifice a personal for a public good and sets him in vivid contrast to the self-indulgence of Richard. Most recently, John Halverson, borrowing attitudes from the theatre of the absurd, has extended the concept of parody from the York-Aumerle subplot to encompass the play as a whole. Halverson’s reductive reading, which typifies the fashionable spirit of ‘postmodern’ cynicism that has latterly invaded Shakespearian commentary, lays heavy stress on the king’s posturing, on his childish obsession with self, on his rhetorical extravagance, and on his supposed trivialization of ceremony, all of which, this critic believes, conduces to the deflation of majesty and produces not a tragedy at all but a ‘lamentable comedy’.94 If the impure and absorptive genre of the history play borrowed freely from tragedy and comedy, why should it be content with only these? In 1965 Charles Forker opened a fresh avenue of enquiry by discussing the pastoral theme in the histories as the underside of epic, relating it to the dichotomy of both public versus private life and order versus chaos in the cycle as a whole. In Richard II the king’s escapist temperament and the play’s allegorical moralizing on political

 Introduction 43 disorder in the garden scene are both associated with traditions of pastoral through their links with the green world and the imagery of nature.95 With the New Criticism, which tended to assume the ‘organic’ uniqueness of literary works, came innumerable studies of the play’s internal coherence and thematic unity. These employed a diversity of techniques involving close observation of image patterns, texture, style, language, structure, symbolism, and ‘metadrama’ or the idea of artistic reflexiveness. Brents Stirling published an early essay on the structural unity of Richard II (1951), locating three pivotal actions in which Bolingbroke exposes his duplicitous character – his accepting of Richard’s surrender at Flint Castle, his imprisonment of Richard at the end of the deposition scene, and his disclaiming of responsibility for Richard’s murder at the hands of Exton. Caroline Spurgeon’s pioneer Shakespeare’s Imagery and What It Tells Us (Cambridge, 1935) launched the study of metaphorical patterns in the entire canon but sought their meanings in the dramatist’s life rather than in individual plays. The more sophisticated study by Richard Altick in 1947 (mentioned above in connection with Pater) showed how Shakespeare in Richard II weaves a complex matrix of iterative metaphor and symbol which gathers energy and reinforces meanings cumulatively like themes in a musical composition. Later writers explored various symbolic motifs in a more specialized way. Peter Ure examined the symbolism of Richard’s mirror (1955), Arthur Suzman the recurring action and language of rise and fall (1956), S.K. Heninger the sun-king analogy (1960), Robert Hapgood the idea of robbery (1965), Kathryn Harris the sun and water pattern (1970), Stanley Maveety the myth of the Fall (1973), Ernest Gilman the relevance of Bushy’s reference to ‘perspective’ paintings (2.2.14–27) – which yield contrary images depending on the angle of vision (1976), and Elizabeth Sacks the imagery of generation and pregnancy (1980).96 Discussions of style ranged even further afield. In 1957 M.M. Mahood contributed a subtle analysis of ambivalence in Richard II, showing how wordplay and double meanings create a conflict between verbal scepticism and verbal magic that helps define the conflict between Richard and Bolingbroke; Richard’s tragedy has to do with his struggle to learn the difference between words and their referents. Robert Hapgood in 1963 analyzed the various means, verbal and otherwise, by which Shakespeare shifts sympathy toward and away from Richard and Bolingbroke by making the audience psychologically complicit in the altered perceptions. The same year Joan Webber contrasted the different attitudes toward rhetoric that Richard and Bolingbroke evince – the one conservative and attached to the ancient authority of words, the other revolutionary in its attraction to expressive spontaneity: Richard’s rhetoric loses authority because of the fatal separation between form and content. In a similar vein Anne Barton in 1971 claimed that Richard’s defeat is related to his unavailing attempts to transform words into facts, while the balance of power shifts to a Bolingbroke whose silences prove more forceful than speech-making. Ruth Nevo’s 1972 essay (mentioned above) on Richard II’s developing consciousness of his inner self contains interesting comments on style, as, for instance, the king’s shift of pronouns from the royal ‘we’ to the more personal ‘I’. Richard’s absorption in eloquence, ritual, and myth is also the burden of Richard Lanham’s 1976 treatment of the play, one of the central ironies being that the king lacks insight into the crucial difference between metaphors and

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literal truths, whereas Bolingbroke never confuses ceremony with power. Donald Friedman analysed Gaunt’s dying speech, arguing that his angry rhetoric encapsulates the frustration that pervades the tragedy as a whole and illustrates a gap in the play’s language between sign and thing signified. In 1977 Stephen Booth studied the tortuous syntax and confusing sentence structure of the early scenes of Richard II, contending that this style is a conscious device to mystify the audience about past events and to characterize the king as indecisive and ineffectual; after his return from Ireland, Richard’s sentences, though still extravagant, take on a new clarity that gains him sympathy. Speech-act theory (derived from the linguist J.L. Austin’s concept of the inherently performative nature of language) was applied to Richard II in a 1979 study by Joseph Porter. Porter sees the play as inhabiting two distinct linguistic climates – Richard’s (whose attitude towards words is absolutist and univocal) and Bolingbroke’s (who takes a more relativistic and pragmatic attitude); the king’s sacred and immutable view of naming, for instance, contrasts with his rival’s more secular and variable view of it.97 The most detailed analysis of the rhetorical styles of the play as yet has been made by John Baxter (1980). Baxter observed a range of stylistic modes, the most prominent of which are the ‘plain’ and the ‘golden’, the one being used principally for moral statement and the other to express emotional conditions. But Shakespeare modifies these categories, as Baxter illustrates, to create various permutations that suit particular situations and reflect particular characters. Marion Trousdale’s 1982 study of Renaissance rhetorical theory, drawing upon treatises by Aristotle and Erasmus, shed fresh light on the way Shakespeare organized and elaborated his historical materials in Richard II, de-emphasizing causal links between episodes. According to Trousdale, rich amplification and variation of words and ideas according to certain topoi control the design of the play rather than ‘a tightly structured pattern of events’ (p. 69). In 1983 John Blanpied, with an approach similar to Booth’s, noted the transition after the second act from a highly formal and mannered style to the more searching and emotionally flexible one of the final three acts. Blanpied interprets the soliloquy at Pomfret negatively, treating it as a parody of Richard’s unsuccessful attempt to free himself from the prison of words. Finally, Philip Brockbank studied the interplay between ‘the styles of theatrical poetry and historical events’ in Richard II, showing how ‘the larger processes of human community’ counterpoint ‘the more poignantly focused, personal processes of the individual life’ (p. 57). In Brockbank’s view Shakespeare employs structural symmetry to show how power is lost or frustrated, while the stylistic variations serve to dramatize the collapse of monarchical dignity (with its ceremonial eloquence) and its replacement by more peremptory and casual attitudes to authority.98 Increasing fascination with the self-consciousness and self-dramatizing aspects of the title character bore fruit in work that emphasized the self-referential and performative aspects of the play’s style. In 1963 Sir John Gielgud, who had himself been one of the great Richards of the century, stressed the special challenges faced by an actor of the title role – especially the necessity of balancing the exquisite musicality of the verse against Richard’s vanity and callousness; he also discussed the importance of variety in the other voices and the need for tonal harmony, nuanced gesture, and

 Introduction 45 subtle changes of tempo. John Russell Brown observed the careful pattern of wide and narrow focus in Richard II – the effective shifting back and forth from crowded and public scenes to more intimate ones in a way that causes the audience to modify their responses (1966). Like others, James L. Calderwood in 1971 derived significance from the contrast between Richard’s sacramental-poetic understanding of language and Bolingbroke’s utilitarian-scientific conception of it. But he went beyond this to treat the king’s sense of a painful divorce between metaphors and life as a ‘metadramatic’ reflection of the dramatist’s own problems with rendering external truth and the marking of an important advance toward internalized authority in Shakespeare’s theatrical aesthetic; in 1979 Calderwood expanded his 1971 essay to apply the concept to the entire second tetralogy. The ‘choreography’ of Richard II – its configuration of exits, entrances, and gestures – was addressed by Philip McGuire in 1979 in such a way as to show the unity of connection among themes, ideas, and physical movements.99 Preoccupied (like Hapgood and Booth) with the role of the audience in Richard II, Phyllis Rackin in 1985 discussed Shakespeare’s ingenious manipulation of response to the characters so that spectators are trapped into altering their initial attitudes to Richard, Bolingbroke, and York. Focusing (like Ure) on the mirror episode in 1988, A.D. Nuttall explored the idea of narcissism in the play, arguing that Richard’s contemplation of his image in the glass objectifies the self and so triggers a flash of unendurable self-understanding. Four years later, having discovered a shift in Richard II’s reign from ceremonies that embodied genuine beliefs to those that were merely spectacles, Naomi Liebler analyzed the tournament scenes as symptomatic of the ‘crisis of ritual’ (p. 225) that pervades the play generally, reflecting a society gradually abandoning the old values in favour of a ‘new order . . . more disordered’ (p. 226) than the one it replaces.100 Although psychoanalytic commentary on Richard II emerged in fragmentary form as early as the 1920s, the first sustained critique came in 1958, when James McPeek, influenced by Ernest Jones, diagnosed the protagonist as suffering from a God-complex. Elements in Richard’s behaviour that more historically-minded critics had derived from medieval and Renaissance culture McPeek was pleased to sum up as ‘diseased mentality, acutely observed’ (p. 381). Norman Holland in his Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare (New York, 1966) summarized kindred work (pp. 259–60), noting that the eminent psychotherapist and literary scholar, Dr S.A. Tannenbaum, had regarded York’s misaddressing of the queen as his sister at 2.2.105 as a Freudian slip (George Steevens, one recalls, had noticed the same mistake as a praiseworthy detail of characterization in 1773). Holland also comments on M.P. Taylor’s discussion of the York-Aumerle relationship as carrying oedipal suggestions. Robert Reed and William Toole were also attracted to what they saw as the psychopathology of Richard II: in 1964 Reed analyzed the character as a ‘psychotic’ with weak libido and strong death wish; in 1978 Toole concentrated on Richard’s ‘psychological transformation’ (p. 176) from arrogance, anger, and maudlin sentimentality to genuine pride and a more mature awareness of others. By 1981 the study of father-son relationships in the histories, already discussed by Winny in 1968, had expanded significantly. Coppélia Kahn saw the two tetralogies as progressively exploring the need of fathers to establish their masculinity. Richard II, Kahn believes, contrasts two images of kingship – maternal (nurturing) versus paternal (power-oriented)

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– identifying these with Richard and Bolingbroke respectively. Kahn also touches upon the element of guilt in the relationships between York and Aumerle and between Henry IV and Hal. Three years later Scott McMillin wrote on perception and identity in Richard II as related to experiences of loss, absence, negativity, nothingness, and the unseen, with special interest in the way Shakespeare makes qualities of psychological inwardness perceptible on the stage. Among other episodes, McMillin analyses Richard’s shattering of the mirror, his parting from the queen, and his meditation in prison as moments that attempt with only partial success to give dramatic substance to what is essentially invisible.101 In a highly original and suggestive essay of 1986, the bibliographical scholar, Randall McCleod, pointed to the possibility of subtle links between the typographically unstable forms of the names of Richard and Bolingbroke in the stage directions and speech prefixes of the first quarto (1597) and the shifting psychological and political identities of these characters as the tragedy unfolds.102

(2) Recent Trends: Feminism, New Historicism, Cultural Materialism, Stage centred Criticism, Postmodernist Approaches, and the Survival of Liberal-Humanist Commentary Within the last two decades or so, the lure of ‘theory’, the collapse of common assumptions, and the rise of competing but overlapping ‘discourses’ have tended to balkanize Shakespearian studies. Feminism, gender studies, psychoanalytic approaches, poststructuralism, New Historicism, Cultural Materialism, and performance-centred readings, together with the vigorous survival of more traditional kinds of criticism, have all contributed to a de-centering that makes dominant trends perilous to chart. To complicate matters further, such labels as New Historicism and Cultural Materialism have been used by practitioners and non-practitioners alike in a range of senses. Generally speaking, the New Historicists have been followers of the American critic Stephen Greenblatt, who regards history itself as a ‘text’, and therefore as demanding of complex interpretation as the literary works whose social and political values are seen as the product of an identifiable historical or ‘cultural’ situation. The tendency of this school has been to minimize the aesthetic inspiration, formal cohesiveness, and authorial individuality of a given work in favour of a concern with its supposed challenges to the ‘dominant ideology’ or to hegemonies of class and gender. Cultural Materialism, a related but chiefly British movement, has been associated with such critics as Raymond Williams, Alan Sinfield, Jonathan Dollimore, and Catherine Belsey, who derive their social, economic, and political attitudes from Marxist analysis, and who stress the radicalism which they believe to be subversively embodied in Renaissance texts. Both schools reflect the ideas of such continental theorists as Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Mikail Bakhtin; reject traditional religious absolutes as well as (for the most part) literary formalism; and embrace a relativistic, sceptical, and subjectivist understanding of language and history. Both, too, have often tended to reduce Shakespearian dramas to tracts on class-gender conflict or to some other species of power relations. Such approaches have naturally provoked clarion dissent from more traditionally-minded

 Introduction 47 scholars. One of the most persistent, formidable, articulate, and witty of these is Richard Levin, whose recent series of essays attacking feminist and other ideologically strident methodologies has helped not only to clarify issues but also to make interpretation of Shakespeare a major battleground of the hotly contested ‘culture wars’ of the late twentieth century.103 Of the more politically oriented discourses, feminism seems to have taken the vanguard, and Richard II with its marginalized women – and indeed the entire second tetralogy – could scarcely be ignored in such a context. Juliet Dusinberre in Shakespeare and the Nature of Women (New York, 1975) led the first assault on conventional male wisdom by arguing that the dramatist subtly exposed the dominant culture of masculinity in the play by showing the women to inhabit a world of family loyalties more basic and less manipulable than the political world of their male counterparts. Picking up a point made in 1832 by the long-forgotten Anna Jameson, Margaret Ranald once more asserted in 1980 that the second tetralogy contains no female characters of importance. Linda Bamber in 1982, resisting the temptation to assimilate Shakespeare into feminist ideology, espoused the technique of critiquing the patriarchal culture embedded in Shakespeare’s texts so as to isolate and define the ‘feminine Otherness’ of characters like Richard II’s queen, who, in the garden scene, dramatizes the existence of ‘a female principle apart from history’ (pp. 140–1). But the most historically conscious of the feminist readings of Richard II, drawing upon the work of both Kahn (mentioned above) and Bamber, was published in 1991 by Graham Holderness. Holderness comments on all three of the women in the play, agreeing that it can be read as dramatizing ‘a deep-seated structural injustice’ (p. 180) in the social positioning of women, but grappling also with the problem of historicizing feminist ideas in Renaissance culture; the ‘materialist feminism’ of this perspective allows him to conclude that ‘if sixteenth-century patriarchy was an unstable ideological system, a site of contestation and struggle, then it was capable of producing a drama [i.e. Richard II] in which the historical contradictions entailed in the construction of gender could be foregrounded and interrogated’ (p. 182). The same year Jeannie Grant Moore, taking up the play’s images of mirror and perspective glass, focused on Richard’s queen as an oblique way of reading the feminism subversively present in the tragedy: her infrequent appearances, her weeping, and her childlessness all reflect her husband’s ‘nothingness’ (p. 32) but finally conduce, ironically, to produce a more positive sense of her presence as a woman.104 Another group of studies have re-opened questions of political ideology in Richard II, most of them from the perspective of materialism and historical contextualization. In 1980 J.H. Hexter attempted to explain why Shakespeare laid more stress on Richard’s violation of Bolingbroke’s property rights than on the broader-based unsuitability of the king to rule, as a way of justifying his deposition; the reason offered (supported by a legal decision of 1603 that ran against royal prerogative) is that Elizabethans were especially sensitive to the laws of property and to royal encroachments on their rights. In Shakespeare’s History (New York, 1985), Graham Holderness contested the old providentialist historiography of Tillyard and Dover Wilson to suggest that the play dramatizes not a conflict between royal sacralism (a false idealization of medieval order) and Machiavellian modernism, but rather a contestation of Richard’s unsuccessful

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attempt to replace feudal values (with their traditional concept of contractual obligation between sovereign and nobility) with the more modern and radical practices of an absolutist king. For Holderness, consequently, the theory of divine right becomes an important but essentially delusive ingredient in Richard’s construction of his own role; and Gaunt and York find themselves divided between their belief in feudal bonds and their loyalty to a monarch who violates these. Seen in such terms, Bolingbroke’s victory is more in the nature of a feudal reaction than a true revolution. From a similarly leftward direction, Leonard Tennenhouse in 1986 discussed Bolingbroke’s dethroning of Richard as an example of a ‘carnivalesque’ disruption (the adjective derives from Bakhtin) that destabilizes a corrupt or failed system of authority and, through the vital agency of popular support, restores the body politic to health. Revisiting Holinshed and other historical materials in 1989, Sandra Fischer studied the idea of economic indebtedness as an element in historical process, applying this idea to a strand of metaphor in the second tetralogy; she contrasts Richard II’s economic inepitude with Bolingbroke’s greater awareness of the vital links between economy and power.105 Adopting a New-Historicist stance, Christopher Pye discussed the politico theatrical implications of the king’s presence in The Regal Phantasm: Shakespeare and the Politics of Spectacle (London, 1990). In Richard II Pye analyzes the king’s attempt to stage and elaborate his own tragedy – an action that ironically tends to reinforce the power it subverts. The feminist-materialist critic Catherine Belsey applied postmodernist notions of historiography and language to the play in 1991; rejecting the nostalgia for hierarchy and autocracy, which she discerns in the criticism of Tillyard and his school, Belsey asserts that the ‘issue’ of the play ‘is power’ (p. 32) – power which she proceeds to analyze in terms of a Derridian difference between names and things and the ‘struggle to fix meaning’ (p. 33) in a climate of linguistic instability. In the real world, the political world in which Bolingbroke lives, the complex relation of names to things entails both union and separation; ‘Richard transgresses this system of differences when he tries to remake the meaning of kingship in the image of his own desires’ (p. 35).106 Finally, in Reading Holinshed’s Chronicles (Chicago, 1994), Annabel Patterson reinterprets Shakespeare’s major source to illustrate how surprisingly left of centre is the chronicler’s political orientation. Whereas Hall tended to treat the fall of Richard II in terms of personalities, Holinshed focused more on parliamentary resistance to the royal prerogative. Although Shakespeare’s drama compromises between the two emphases, it nevertheless preserves some of the proto-Miltonic attitude toward deposing and killing kings that can be discerned in a careful rereading of Holinshed. One wonders whether Patterson remembered Gervinus, who had also invoked the spirit of Milton. The doctrine that Shakespearian plays must necessarily be analyzed not as literary works to be pondered in the library but as scripts for actors (as in the work of John Styan, Alan Dessen, John Russell Brown, and others) has lately approached the status of dogma. A fine recent example of this critical posture is Phyllis Rackin’s Stages of History: Shakespeare’s English Chronicles (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990). Discussing the histories topically rather than devoting chapters to individual plays, Rackin argues that the dramatist’s ‘playhouse constituted an arena where cultural change was not simply represented but rehearsed and enacted’ (p. ix): the issues thus staged include conflicting ways of reading history, problems of causation, effects of anachronism,

 Introduction 49 the subversion of patriarchy, and the demystification of privilege and status through parody, burlesque, and the incorporation of critiques from below. Applied to Richard II, Rackin’s approach yields a two-sided view of the tragedy of deposition – on the one hand nostalgic celebration of medieval mystery and mythic loss, on the other an unsettling anticipation of Elizabethan disquietude – in which the original audience is imagined as becoming ‘complicit in the destruction of the historical world they came to see celebrated’ (p. 129). Three pieces by Harry Berger (in 1985, 1989 and 1996) represent the backlash to the ‘New Histrionicism’ of Rackin and other like-minded writers, although Berger’s particular targets are Richard Levin and Gary Taylor. In the first essay, Berger combines a psychoanalytic approach with both metadramatic and politically engaged criticism to ‘excavate’ dark, subterranean, and obliquely implied conflicts between Bolingbroke and Gaunt that any acted version of the play, being more tied to surface meanings, would necessarily repress. By means of an elaborately subtle – perhaps oversubtle – close reading of key speeches in the opening three scenes of Richard II, Berger discerns guilt, hidden hostilities, and competitiveness between father and son which underlie the ritual formalities of their speech and which get displaced into verbal aggressions upon other characters. Confessedly ‘antitheatrical’ and ‘doggedly textual in orientation’ (p. 213), this essay constitutes a polemic of sorts against the limitations of ‘stage-centered’ readings of Shakespeare, which cannot adequately expose buried ‘latencies in the text’ (p. 226). In the second study Berger continues his assault on the kind of criticism that restricts interpretation of drama to the supposedly unmediated experience of an imagined, theoretically neutral, and psychologically engaged audience, banishing from consideration the relational complexities, verbal ambiguities, and ideological nuances that are only available to sophisticated and alert readers outside the theatre. Drawing upon speech-act theory, however, he nevertheless attempts to construct a critical methodology ‘that remains text-centered but focuses on the interlocutory politics and theatrical features of performed drama’ (p. xiv). He then tries to put the theory of ‘auditory imagination’ into practice by closely analyzing both the deposition scene of Richard II (4.1) and the episode of the king’s landing in Wales (3.2). The king’s performance of the rite of discoronation with its aftermath ‘is a work of genius’ (p. 73) both politically and psychologically, for it forces upon Bolingbroke the role of scapegoat, bearer of guilt, shadow king, and usurper, darkening his entire future reign, while at the same time dramatizing Richard’s own strength by reenacting his self-deposition. As for the histrionics of Richard’s performance upon returning from Ireland, the king, far from being a mere narcissist, behaves with political as well as theatrical aplomb, controling the reactions of others by listening to how they hear him and how he hears himself. The effect of Berger’s complex ‘interlocutory’ emphasis is to counteract the traditional view of Richard as essentially passive and politically feeble. In still a third and somewhat more balanced essay, Berger refines his earlier ideas into a detailed and nuanced reading of the drama as a whole. Considering Shakespeare’s creative challenge in negotiating the shift from chronicle narrative to theatrical enactment, he analyses the dramatist’s development of ‘the art of representing self-representation, that is, the art of representing speakers who seem aware that in their words and actions they represent themselves to others, speakers who try to control the effects of their self-representation

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and who thus use their language the way actors do in an effort to impose on their auditors a particular interpretation of the persons they pretend to be’ (p. 238).107 Susan Wells and Edgar Schell, writing in 1985 and 1990 respectively, illustrate how widely contemporary approaches to Richard II can diverge. Fiercely theoretical, abstract, and somewhat opaque (she is indebted to Paul de Man and Frederic Jameson), Wells attempts to negotiate the gap between an Elizabethan audience’s ideological response to the new state (as represented by Bolingbroke’s dethronement of Richard) and a modern audience’s appropriation of the same text from a more egalitarian perspective, integrating in her interpretation of the politics both historical and contemporary significances. Rather than simply allegorizing the contest between Richard and Bolingbroke as a ‘conflict between archaic and modern state structures’ (p. 38) – between a doomed but attractive medieval order and a cold, omnicompetent modern one – Shakespeare shows the two antagonists in their different ways struggling to conjoin the heterogeneous elements of ‘the modern state, customary society, private property, and private subjectivity’ (p. 40). Richard, who attempts to play the role of both a feudal and an absolute monarch, proves incapable of adjusting to the new order and retreats into private subjectivity. Bolingbroke, in contrast, is able to use his subjectivity instrumentally as a tool of power. In Wells’s reading Richard II becomes a complex dialectic between public and private life involving the political, social, and private dimensions of both major characters. In a much more traditional vein, Schell studies a crux in the plotting and time scheme of the play by adducing precedents from medieval drama. Critics have often interpreted the scene in which Richard expropriates Gaunt’s estates (2.1) as reflecting negatively on Bolingbroke’s ambition, for we learn in the same episode that the exiled duke is already preparing his invasion of England before he could have known about the confiscation of his property. (As noted above, P.A. Daniel had raised this issue over a century earlier by calling attention to the compression of time in his study of 1879.) Schell opposes the time-based interpretation of Bolingbroke’s hypocrisy as too rationalistic and literal-minded, citing medieval plays such as The Slaughter of the Innocents and The Castle of Perseverance which use the technique of ‘layering’ (p. 257), i.e., the deliberate overlapping of past and future events. The two essays by Wells and Schell conveniently symbolize the divide that has opened up between the older and newer approaches to historicizing Richard II.108 I conclude this survey of twentieth-century commentary on our play by noticing two masterful essays from the later 1980s which show that formalist and liberalhumanist assumptions about the ideological and aesthetic premises of Richard II are still with us and can yet be used as the basis of fresh insight. The first is a lecture by Northrop Frye originally delivered in an undergraduate course at the University of Toronto; the second is a brief introduction by Harold Bloom to a collection of modern criticism on the play. Like Tillyard, Frye accepts Shakespeare’s unsceptical use of ‘the Tudor mystique of royalty’ with its doctrine of the ‘Lord’s anointed’ (p. 55), wisely pointing out that ‘all ideologies sooner or later get to be circumvented by cynicism and defended by hysteria’ (p. 57); but he also recognizes the ‘terrible dilemma’ – ‘the central theme of Richard II’ – posed by the need to choose between ‘a weak king de jure and a de facto power’ who, even though sacramentally unsanctioned, satisfies ‘the order of nature

 Introduction 51 and the will of God’ which ‘demand a strong central ruler’ (p. 57). Frye distinguishes sagely between abstract justice and political morality, the latter of which, in terms of Shakespeare’s play, becomes the more important area of transgression for both Richard and Bolingbroke, since a ‘successful leader’ in Elizabethan terms cannot afford to get too ‘hung up on moral principles’ (p. 61). Drawing a line between hypocrisy and the need for maintaining a persona, Frye also points out how important a construction of ‘the dramatic self ’ becomes in public leadership as opposed to the revelation of ‘some hidden inner essence’ (p. 60). As presented by Shakespeare, then, the issue between Richard and Bolingbroke is one in which ‘both sides are right’ (p. 59). This essay contains penetrating estimates of the central characters: threatened by his rival, Richard throws himself ‘into the elegiac role of one who has lost his throne before he has actually lost it’, his imaginative ‘mental schedule’ being ‘so different from those of people who advance one step at a time’ (pp. 65-6); and Bolingbroke, who ‘doesn’t let himself become aware of the full implications of what he’s doing’, is ‘neither a puppet of circumstances nor a deliberately unscrupulous usurper’ (p. 58). Frye is also sensitive to the biblical imagery, showing how allusions to the Cain-Abel story appear in both the first and final scenes, thus helping to frame the dramatic symmetry of the play. In addition he illuminates the difficult and problematic prison soliloquy, commenting on the double concept of time it explores – ‘time as rhythm and proportion’ (p. 69).109 Bloom’s comment that ‘Shakespeare’s most original quality’ in Richard II ‘was the representation of change through [the king’s] self-overhearing’ (p. 1) anticipates Berger; but borrowing a concept from Freud, Bloom goes on to note the protagonist’s ‘moral masochism’ – ‘a theatrical tendency in which the ego dramatizes its doom-eagerness in order to achieve a priority in self-destructiveness’ (p. 2). Like Frye, Bloom fastens upon Richard’s sense of ‘the king’s two bodies’ but points to a kind of dialectic between them in the play that actually violates the mystical assertion of their union: Richard is both his own victim, or rather the victim of his own imagination, and the sacrifice that becomes inevitable when the distance between the king as he should be and the actual legitimate monarch becomes too great. The shock of his own increasing consciousness of that distance is what changes Richard from a rapacious and blustering weakling into a self-parodying ritual victim. In this change, Richard does not acquire any human dignity, but he does begin to incarnate an extraordinary aesthetic dignity, both lyrical and dramatic. I think he becomes Shakespeare’s first implicit experiment in representation. . . . (p. 3)

In words that hark back to Pater (but with a difference) Bloom concludes that Richard II is ‘the tragedy of a self-indulgent poet rather than the fall of a great king’; and he finds an ‘aesthetic dignity in Richard’s rhetoric of decline and fall, but not in the actual way that he dies’ (p. 5).110 Frye and Bloom provide some evidence, perhaps, that what began some years ago as a needed correction or qualification of the Tillyard school of critical response to Richard II has grown too riotously in the direction of overcorrection. Having swung to what nowadays looks like a leftward extreme, it may be time for the pendulum of academic criticism to reverse direction.

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Looking back over the commentary of the period represented by this anthology, much of it now forgotten or ignored, one is struck by the several ways in which nineteenth- and early twentieth-century critics adumbrated current preoccupations and concerns. Our contemporary obsession with contextualizing the chronicle plays, with attempting to see them as the products of specific intellectual and political circumstances, can perhaps be compared to the work of such earlier scholars as Courtenay, Collier, White, Herford, Warner, Boas, Schelling, Moulton, Craig, and Marriott – men not only interested in fleshing out the historical background of Richard II as this could be studied in the play’s sources or recovered from ancillary materials that illuminate medieval and Renaissance England, but also in considering how Shakespeare conformed to, or deviated from, the supposed orthodoxies of his age. By implication if not directly, for instance, early critics often raised the still pertinent question of whether the play endorses or contests the doctrine of divine right to which Richard clings so tenaciously. And a corollary interest, naturally, was the degree to which Shakespeare intended his audience to be more or less sympathetic with the deposed king and his deposer. Indeed some writers, such as Knight and Hudson, subscribed to the doctrine, popular more recently with ‘New Critics’ and proponents of ambiguity and ambivalence in Shakespeare’s art, that the dramatist stood carefully aloof from the struggle between Richard and Bolingbroke, steadfastly refusing to become a partisan. From Lamb onwards commentators drew attention to Marlowe’s earlier tragedy on a dethroned king, seeking to throw light on Shakespeare’s achievement by debating which of the two dramas was the finer. And in collateral efforts to historicize Richard II, early investigators engaged persistently in trying to sort out the relation of Shakespeare’s tragedy to the several other plays of the period, lost and extant, that dramatized the same reign. Topicality in the histories – an issue already broached by early discussions of the play’s possible ties to the Essex rebels, and in other ways by searchers for half-hidden commentary on Elizabethan politics such as Chalmers, Simpson, and Marshall – has become in our own time a staple of New-Historicist and ‘materialist’ criticism. As we have noted already, even feminism, which nowadays so prominently informs discussions of the tragedy, had its precursors in writers such as Jameson and Porter. Whatever their ideological slants, however, the critics anthologized in this volume tended to accept an epistemologically objective past and therefore a more or less firm distinction between the fixity of historical truth and the fluidity of the artistic imagination. To such recent commentators on Richard II as Rackin, Holderness, Belsey, Wells, and Berger, such clarity no longer seems possible. A good many points that present-day interpreters often take for granted were introduced by critics of the period on which this collection focuses. It was Creizenach, for instance, who noticed the absence of the middle classes from Richard II, thus raising by implication the issues of class-consciousness and power distribution, of which recent critics have made so much; and more than a half century before Creizenach, Gervinus had invoked Milton’s republican sympathies to suggest that Shakespeare’s view of royal absolutism was anything but unqualified. Douce and Thorndike underscored the importance of medieval concepts by calling attention respectively to Richard’s memento mori sensibility and the de casibus tradition of his fall. And in a related vein, Pater pointed for the first time to the emotional power of ritual solemnity and sacral violation in Richard’s discrowning. From

 Introduction 53 the mid-eighteenth century onwards, older critics struggled with the apparent weakness or inappropriateness of the Aumerle plot in Act V, often, like Lennox, Hallam, and Stopford Brooke, condemning it outright. Gradually, however, thoughtful readers such as Marshall and Baker were able to suggest possible justifications for the episode and even to discover dramaturgical merits in it; and it was Marshall who planted the seed that would grow to maturity in the analyses of McNeir, Zitner, Hartwig, and others, who argued for the thematic integration of the York-Aumerle material into the play on the grounds of its parodic or comic relation to the whole. The perennial problem of mixed or uncertain genre in the histories was addressed by the earlier writers as well. Schlegel’s idea of national Epic as a feature of the entire cycle became a foundation stone of Romantic criticism, and, in the case of Richard II, the doubtful compatibility of high tragedy with chronicle subject matter prompted much discussion as well. The functions of comic and pastoral elements in the play were later concerns, but these could hardly have been addressed until the principle of generic impurity, strongly implied by the older critics, had been established. The tendency of Coleridge, Hazlitt, and other Romantics to regard Richard II as a poem whose characterization, language, and ideas were too subtle for the crudities of stage presentation lingered well into the Victorian age and beyond; but the very persistence of antitheatrical prejudice can undoubtedly be credited in large measure with the strength of twentieth-century counter-reactions. Performance-centred assumptions have lately become orthodox, although, as noted above, Berger has reactivated the older notion of Richard II as a play for the study. Fairly early in the nineteenth century Richard’s extreme self-consciousness of speech and role gave rise to the concepts of royal actor and poet king; Coleridge, Knight, and Dowden among others touched upon these ideas – ideas that would be developed further in Bonnard, Righter, and Winny’s treatments of the player-monarch, in Calderwood’s concept of metadrama, in Porter’s application of speech-act theory to the play, in Nuttall’s discussion of the theme of narcissism, and in Rackin’s notion of the inherent performativity of historical characters and events. Considerations of the poetic artifice, varying styles, and rhetorical traditions of the tragedy also came to the fore in early days, as did heightened approval of the psychological depth with which both major and subordinate characters are imagined. Coleridge, Hazlitt, Hudson, Gervinus, Pater, Ransome, Chambers, Montague, Yeats, and Porter, for instance, are still worth consulting on these matters. As with any Shakespearian drama, the critical history of Richard II describes a protracted and labyrinthine continuum. We therefore sometimes forget that our supposedly fresh insights are frequently reinventions or reformulations of what in truth was perceived by our forebears. The editor hopes that this collection will help modern students of Richard II to become better acquainted with, and so to reassess, the origins of much current thinking on the play.

Notes 1 Edmond Malone in 1821 was the first to document the 1631 performance in his ‘Historical Account of the English Stage’; see Black’s New Variorum edition of Richard II (Philadelphia, 1955), p. 568, and G.E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline

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Stage (Oxford, 1941–68), I, 24. For the performances at Hoby’s house and aboard the Dragon, see Black, pp. 576 and 567–8 respectively. Although neither of the latter performances can be conclusively identified with Shakespeare’s play, the likelihood in both cases is great. See also Yoshiko Kawachi, Calendar of English Renaissance Drama 1558–1642 (New York, 1986), pp. 90, 208, 141. I.A. Shapiro doubts that the play at Hoby’s residence was Richard II; see ‘Richard II or Richard III or . . .?’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 9 (1958), 204–6. 2 See John Nichols, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1823), III, 552. Ray Heffner, however, argues against the identification of this tragedy with Shakespeare’s play; see ‘Shakespeare, Hayward, and Essex’, PMLA, 45 (1930), 754–80. 3 See Charles R. Forker, ‘Shakespeare’s Histories and Heywood’s If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 66 (1965), 166–78; also Forker, ‘Robert Baron’s Use of Webster, Shakespeare, and other Elizabethans’, Anglia, 83 (1965), 176–98. 4 See Trussell, A Continuation of the Collection of the History of England, beginning where Samuel Daniell Esquire ended (1636), sig. F6V; and Daniel, Trinarchodia (1649), ed. A.B. Grosart, The Poems of George Daniel (1878), IV, 17 (‘The Raigne of Henry the Fourth’, stanzas 64–66); see Black, pp. 569–70. 5 The passages in England’s Parnassus (1600), sometimes misattributed, are as follows: 1.1.177–9 (p. 113), 1.3.292–3 (p. 280), 1.3.302–3 (p. 280), 2.1.5–14 (p. 54), 2.1.40–55 (p. 348), 3.2.54–7 (p. 156), 3.2.61–2 (p. 3). For Bodenham see Charles Crawford, ‘Belvedere, or the Garden of the Muses’, Englische Studien, 43 (1910–11), 198–228.For Cotgrave see G.E. Bentley, ‘John Cotgrave’s English Treasury of Wit and Language and the Elizabethan Drama’, Studies in Philology, 40 (1943), 186–203. 6 See The Shakespeare Allusion-Book: A Collection of Allusions to Shakespeare From 1591 to 1700, ed. C.M. Ingleby et al., with a Preface by E.K. Chambers (London, 1932), II, 540. 7 The compilers of both England’s Parnassus and Belvedere, for instance, quote Richard’s ‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea / Can wash the balm from an anointed king’ (3.2.54-55) under the heading ‘Kings’ (England’s Parnassus, 1600 edn., p. 156; Belevedere, ed. James Crossley for the Spenser Society, 1875, p. 58). 8 See Brian Vickers, Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage (London, 1974–81), I, 265. 9 Nahum Tate, ‘The History of King Richard the Second,’ Acted at the Theatre Royal, Under the Name of the ‘Sicilian Usurper’ (London, 1681), sig. A3V; see also Vickers, I, 325. 10 Gildon’s ‘Some Reflections on Mr.Rymer’s Short View of Tragedy [1692] and an Attempt at a Vindication of Shakespeare’ was addressed to Dryden and is contained in Gildon, Miscellaneous Letters and Essays on Several Subjects in Prose and Verse (London, 1694). For the quoted words, see Vickers, II, 84. 11 Tate’s adaptation opened at the Theatre Royal on 12 December 1680 and was apparently prohibited after the second performance the following day; the retitled version, The Sicilian Usurper, seems to have been produced early in 1681, the year of publication. 12 In connection with Essex’s trial for treason, Augustine Phillips, one of Shakespeare’s fellow players at the Globe, testified that Sir Charles Percy and other supporters of the rebellious earl had arranged with the company ‘to have the play of the deposyng and kyllyng of Kyng Rychard the second to be played’ on Saturday, 7 February 1601, before the rising – apparently in aid of the earl’s cause, although the players themselves knew nothing of the impending insurrection. Phillips said that the actors were reluctant to revive this drama, ‘holdyng that play of Kyng Richard to be so old & so long out of vse

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15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

as they shold have small or no Company at yt’, but agreed nevertheless on the promise of forty shillings ‘more than their ordynary’ for their pains; see Black (ed.), Richard II, p. 581. Since other plays on the same reign existed at the time, there is some doubt as to whether or not the play performed on this occasion was Shakespeare’s Richard II; the general consensus, however, is now in favour of Shakespeare’s drama. See Theobald, The Tragedy of King Richard the II; As it is Acted at the Theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, Alter’d from Shakespeare . . . (London, 1720). The play, which opened 10 December 1719 and had at least ten performances, was moderately successful; a performance on 7 January 1721 produced receipts of £86, 9s, the third highest for a Shakespeare play that season (see Black, p. 570). Charles Gildon, The Laws of Poetry Explain’d and Illustrated (London, 1721), pp. 156–9; I quote from the reprint in Vickers, II, 370–1. Gildon had apparently changed his mind about the accuracy with which Shakespeare represented the historical Richard II; in 1710 he wrote that the dramatist ‘has drawn Richard’s, Character according to the best Accounts of History’, even to the ‘Whimsical and Extravagant’ elements in his makeup ‘in which our Poet has ever observ’d the Likeness’. In the same place he went on to observe that although the play was not rich in ‘Topics’, it nevertheless contained ‘several Speeches which are worth remarking’ – particularly Gaunt’s dying words to York and the king, which ‘are Very Moral and Good . . . ’; see Gildon’s Remarks on the Plays of Shakespeare, in the volume appended to Rowe’s six-volume Works of Mr. William Shakespeare (London, 1710), VII, 341–2, and Vickers, II, 247–8. See Charles Johnson, Love in a Forest, A Comedy (London, 1723), pp. 9–11. The play ran from 9 to 15 January 1723. Alexander Pope (ed.), The Works of Shakespeare, Collated and Corrected, 6 vols. (London, 1725), I, i-iv; see also Vickers, II, 403–5. Pope (ed.), Works, Ill​.i​i, 96; Vickers, II, 416. See Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, ed. John Nichols (London, 1817), II, 386; see also Vickers, II, 459. Theobald (ed.), The Works of Shakespeare, Collated with the Oldest Copies and Corrected, with Notes, Explanatory and Critical (London, 1733), III, 271; see also Vickers, II, 502. Smith, Dionysius Longinus, ‘Onthe Sublime’: Translated from the Greek, with Notes and Observations (1739), 2nd edn. (London, 1743), pp. 168–9; see also Vickers, III, 101. See Black (ed.), Richard II, p. 571; also G.G. Gervinus, Shakespeare Commentaries, trans. F.E. Bunnètt (London, 1877), p. 280. See also No. 24, note [8]. See William Warburton (ed.), The Works of Shakespeare in Eight Volumes . . . (London, 1747), Preface. Warburton reserves ‘Class IV’ among both tragedies and comedies for plays ‘certainly not of Shakespeare’ in toto; see also Vickers, III, 226. Edwards, The Canons of Criticism, and Glossary, being a Supplement to Mr. Warburton’s Edition of Shakespeare . . . , 2nd edn.(London, 1750), pp. 26–8; Vickers, III, 401–2. ‘N.S.’, ‘Remarks on the Tragedy of the Orphan [by Otway]’, Gentleman’s Magazine, 18 (November 1748), 502–6, (December 1748), 551–3; see Vickers, III, 329. Lennox, Shakespeare Illustrated: or the Novels and Histories, On which the Plays of Shakespeare are Founded, Collected and Translated from the Original Authors, with Critical Remarks (London, 1753–4), III, 114–15; see also Vickers, IV, 135–6. See Hume’s ‘Appendix to the Reign of Elizabeth’ (1754) in his History of Great Britain (1756), V, 469 n.; see also Vickers, IV, 48 n. 36.

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27 Smart, ‘A Brief Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare’, Universal Visiter and Monthly Memorialist (January 1756); see Vickers, IV, 201–2. 28 Lord Kames, Elements of Criticism (1762), 6th edn. (Edinburgh, 1785), I, 160–3; II, 217–18; II, 262–3; II, 316–17. See also Vickers, IV, 472, 482–3, 485, 488, 493. 29 Samuel Johnson (ed.), The Plays of William Shakespeare, in Eight Volumes, with the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added Notes by Sam. Johnson (London, 1765), I. I quote from the more accessible edition of Johnson’s Shakespearian writings by Arthur Sherbo: Johnson on Shakespeare, 2 vols. (New Haven, 1968), I, 68. Succeeding citations of Johnson give the relevant pages of this volume parenthetically in the text. 30 Capell (ed.), Mr. William Shakespeare his Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies . . . with an Introduction; Whereto will be added, in some other Volumes, Notes, critical and explanatory, and a Body of Various Readings entire, 10 vols. (London, 1768), I, 6–7, 53–4. The references are to Vickers, V, 305–6, 321. 31 See The Plays of William Shakespeare. In ten volumes. With the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens (London, 1773), V, 155; X, 277. See also Vickers, V, 528, 540. Steevens reprinted his comment on York’s speech in his revised edition of 1793 (see No. 6.3). 32 See Allardyce Nicoll, A History of English Drama (Cambridge, 1952–9), III, 385. 33 Goodhall, King Richard II, A Tragedy Alter’d from Shakespeare, and the Stile Imitated (Manchester, 1772). For Garrick’s original intention and then refusal to revive Richard II, see No. 2.2. 34 Bell’s Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, As they are now performed at the Theatres Royal in London . . . With Notes Critical and Illustrative; By the Authors of the Dramatic Censor (London, 1774), VII, 58, 56; see also Vickers, VI, 17, 30. 35 Bell’s Shakespeare, VII, 26; Vickers, VI, 75 n. 83. 36 Bell’s Shakespeare, VII, 7; Vickers, VI, 75 n. 88. 37 Bell’s Shakespeare, VII, 82; Vickers, VI, 103. 38 Bell’s Shakespeare, VII, 44, 50, 66; Vickers, VI, 103. 39 [Becket], A Concordance to Shakespeare: Suited to all the Editions: In which the distinguished and parallel Passages in the Plays . . . are methodically arranged. To which are added, Three Hundred Notes and Illustrations . . . (London, 1787), p. 103. Steevens had proposed to emend Gaunt’s phrase ‘inky blots’ (Richard II, 2.1.64) to ‘inky bolts’; Becket, who was publishing anonymously, asked sceptically, ‘What are inky bolts’? or what have inky bolts to do with parchment bonds?’ 40 Malone later revised his date for Richard II to 1593; see No. 4.1. 41 For an illuminating discussion of the political (mainly anti-Napoleonic) implications of Romantic criticism on Shakespeare (including that of Schlegel), see Jonathan Bate (ed.), The Romantics on Shakespeare (London, 1992), pp. 1–36. 42 From Mrs. Leicester’s School and Other Writings in Prose and Verse; see Alfred Ainger (ed.), The Life and Works of Charles Lamb (London, 1899–1900), VI, 221. 43 Jameson, Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, and Historical (London, 1832), II, 238. 44 See Collier (ed.), Shakespeare’s Library (London, 1844), a two-volume addendum to Collier’s edition of the Works (London, 1842–44). 45 See Kathleen M.D. Barker, ‘Macready’s Early Productions of King Richard II’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 23 (1972), 95–100. 46 See Henry Morley, The Journal of a London Playgoer from 1851 to 1866 (London, 1866), pp. 141–4.

 Introduction 57 47 Charles Kean (ed.), Shakespeare’s Play of King Richard II, Arranged for Representation at the Princess’s Theatre, with Historical and Explanatory Notes (London, 1857), pp. v–x. 48 Eaton, Shakespeare and the Bible (London, 1858), chap. XI, pp. 75–90. 49 In addition to its historical subject, the virtual absence of bawdy language, sexual content, and stage violence undoubtedly made Richard II an attractive text for study in Victorian schools and colleges. A partial list of student editions – or editions that would be appropriate for student use –follows (for titles, see the Bibliography): H.G. Robinson (Edinburgh, 1867); W.G. Clark and W.A. Wright (Oxford, 1869); F.H. Ahn (Treves, 1870); David Morris (London, 1873); William J. Rolfe (New York, 1876); J.M.D. Meiklejohn (London, 1880); Anonymous (London, c. 1881); Charles Wordsworth (London, 1883); Kenneth S. Deighton (London, 1890); E.K. Chambers (London, 1891) (No. 51); Alfred Waites (New York, 1892); C.H. Herford (London, 1893) (No. 52); William Barry (Boston, 1894); Israel Gollancz (London, 1895); Thomas Donovan (London, 1896); R. Brimley Johnson (Edinburgh and London, 1898); W.J. Abel (London, 1899); A.W. Verity (Cambridge, 1899); John Dennis (London, 1900); C.W. Crook (London, 1903); E.A. Phillips (London, c. 1904); William Allan Neilson (Boston, 1906); A.F. Watt (London, c. 1907); James Hugh Moffatt (New York, 1908); George Stuart Gordon (Oxford, 1909) (No. 73); Henry N. Hudson (London, c. 1910); Hardin Craig (New York, 1912) (No. 77); F.J. Harvey Darton (London, c. 1914); Henry Noble MacCracken (New York, 1914); J.H. Lobban, (Cambridge, 1918); Richard Wilson (London, 1920). 50 See H.G. Robinson (ed.), King Richard the Second (Edinburgh, 1867), p. 103; F.H. Ahn (ed.), The Tragedy of King Richard II (Treves, 1870), pp. 14–15; A.F. Watt (ed.), King Richard the Second (London, c. 1907), pp. xvii, xix. 51 H.N. Hudson, Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters (Boston, 1872), II, 52. 52 See J.D. Wilson (ed.), King Richard II (Cambridge, 1939), pp. x–xvi; E. H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957), pp. 24–41; and Richard D. Altick, ‘Symphonic Imagery in Richard II’, PMLA, 62 (1947), 339–65. 53 See also ‘On the Actual Spot’ in C.E. Montague, Dramatic Values (London, 1910), pp. 100–6, in which the critic, recalling Benson’s acting of Richard’s surrender to Bolingbroke at the historic site of the action (Flint Castle), comments interestingly on the difference between physical and imaginative truth: ‘at the touch of a great play’ the actual stones of the castle ‘dwindled’ in interest. 54 Unsigned review of Benson’s Richard II at the Lyceum Theatre, London Times (16 March 1900), p. 6. 55 J.W. Hales, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II’, The Academy, 8 (20 November 1875), 529; reprinted in Notes and Essays on Shakespeare (London, 1884), pp. 205–8. 56 John Bulloch, Studies on the Text of Shakespeare: With Numerous Emendations and Appendices (London, 1878). This volume collects individual emendations, many from earlier years – hence Clark and Wright’s use of them in 1863–6. 57 H.H. Vaughan, New Readings and New Renderings of Shakespeare’s Tragedies (London, 1878–86), I, 97–281. 58 F.G. Fleay, ‘On the Actors’ Lists, 1578–1642’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 9 (1881), 51–2; W.G. Boswell-Stone, Shakespeare’s Holinshed: The Chronicle and the Historical Plays Compared (London, 1896), pp. 77–130. 59 A.W. Verity (ed.), Marlowe’s Edward the Second (London, 1896).

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60 A.W. Verity (ed.), King Richard II Edited with Introduction, Notes, Glossary and Appendix (Cambridge, 1899), pp. xi–xii, xviii. 61 Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart, (ed.), Macready’s Reminiscences and Selections From His Diaries and Letters (New York, 1875), p. 50. 62 See Anon., ‘King Richard the Second’, All the Year Round, 30 (18 November 1882), 389–95; and William Archer, ‘The Stage of Greater Britain’, National Review, 6, no. 33 (November, 1885), 408–9, reprinted in About the Theatre: Essays and Studies (London, 1886), pp. 273–5. 63 Despite Marshall’s low opinion of Richard II, his collaborator Henry Irving planned a picturesque production of the tragedy in 1896 with sets designed by the gifted American painter Edwin A. Abbey. For financial and health reasons the production had to be jettisoned, but, according to Bram Stoker, who published his Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (New York, 1906), ‘It was a bitter grief to [the actor] that he had to abandon the idea of playing the part’ (II, 85). 64 Opposed opinions on the character of York continued to be almost as striking as those on Richard and Bolingbroke. With Marshall’s distaste for the old man we may contrast the view of C.W. Crook, who wrote that York’s ‘divided inclination between obedience and justice, and his desire that his duty to the King shall be done at any cost, make him a lovable character in the play’; see Crook (ed.), The Tragedy of King Richard II (London, 1903), p. xx. 65 Unsigned review in the New York Daily Tribune (30 November 1878), p. 5; William Winter (ed.), The Prompt-Book . . . Shakespeare’s Tragedy of King Richard II as Presented by Edwin Booth . . . (New York, 1878), p. 3. See also George B. Bryan, ‘Edwin Booth’s Richard II (1875)’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 24 (1973), 383–9. 66 See Asia Booth Clarke, The Elder and Younger Booth (London, 1882), pp. 172–3; New York Times (31 January 1937), XI.3; and William Winter, Life and Art of Edwin Booth (New York and London, 1893), pp. 201–6. 67 John Hay, ‘Life in the White House in the Time of Lincoln’, Century Magazine, 41 (November 1890), 33–7. 68 See Horace L. Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden (July 16, 1888 – October 31, 1888) (New York, 1908), pp. 245–6. 69 Ten years earlier A.S.G. Canning had published Thoughts on Shakespeare’s Historical Plays (London, 1884), which contained a long chapter covering some of the same ground as Warner; the book was reprinted in 1907 as Shakespeare Studied in Six Plays. Canning’s pedestrian handling of Richard II seems to have been almost univerally ignored. 70 J.T. Grein, ‘His Majesty’s Theatre: King Richard II’, The Sunday Special (10 September 1903); reprinted in Grein, Dramatic Criticism, 1903–1904 (London, 1905), pp. 106–11. 71 Cran, Herbert Beerbohm Tree (London, 1907), p. 61. 72 [Francis Joseph Gallagher Meehan], Contrast in Shakespeare’s Historical Plays (Washington, D.C., 1915), pp. 59–67. 73 William Dinsmore Briggs (ed.), Edward II (London, 1914), pp. cxiii–cxv. 74 J.F.A. Pyre, ‘Shakespeare’s Pathos’ in Shakespeare Studies by Members of the Department of English of the University of Wisconsin to Commemorate the ThreeHundreth Anniversary of the Death of William Shakespeare (Madison, Wis., 1916), pp. 66–9. 75 A.W. Ward, ‘Shakespeare and the Makers of Virginia’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 9 (1919–20), 172–3.

 Introduction 59 76 See Matthew W. Black (ed.), The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, New Variorum Edition (Philadelphia, 1955); Josephine A. Roberts (comp.), ‘Richard II’: An Annotated Bibliography, 2 vols. (New York and London, 1988); and Malcolm Page, ‘Richard II’: Text and Performance (Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1987). Page concentrates on four especially successful productions: John Barton’s Royal Shakespeare Company production (1973–4) with Richard Pasco and Ian Richardson alternating as Richard and Bolingbroke; Zoe Caldwell’s Stratford, Canada, production (1979) with Frank Maradan as Richard; Terry Hands’s Royal Shakespeare Company production (1980–1) with Alan Howard as Richard; and Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du Soleil production (1982–4), which drew on the traditions of Kabuki drama. I must mention in addition three useful surveys of criticism to which my own remarks are substantially indebted: Harold Jenkins, ‘Shakespeare’s History Plays: 1900–1951’, Shakespeare Survey, 6 (1953), 1–15; Dennis H. Burden, ‘Shakespeare History Plays: 1952–1983’, Shakespeare Survey, 38 (1985), 1–18; and Richard Dutton, ‘The Second Tetralogy’ in Stanley Wells (ed.), Shakespeare: A Bibliographical Guide, new edn. (Oxford, 1990), pp. 337–80. 77 Harold Hobson, Theatre (London, 1948), p. 140. Hobson, noting portrayals of the title character by John Gielgud, Maurice Evans, George Hayes, Alec Guinness, and Robert Harris, suggests that the new popularity of the play may be due to the public’s taste for self-pity, lamentation, and hysteria. 78 Peter Alexander in Shakespeare’s ‘Henry VI’ and ‘Richard III (Cambridge, 1929) and Madeleine Doran in ‘Henry VI, Parts II and III’: Their Relation to the ‘Contention’ and the ‘True Tragedy’ (Iowa City, 1928) independently showed that the The Contention and The True Tragedy are ‘bad quartos’ – derived from the good texts of 2 and 3 Henry VI. Among the most significant background studies of the period were Alfred Hart’s Shakespeare and the Homilies (Melbourne, 1934), Hardin Craig’s The Enchanted Glass: The Elizabethan Mind in Literature (New York, 1936), Arthur O. Lovejoy’s The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), Theodore Spencer’s Shakespeare and the Nature of Man (New York, 1942), and E.M.W. Tillyard’s The Elizabethan World Picture (London, 1943). 79 Siegel, Shakespeare in His Time and Ours (Notre Dame, 1968). See also Frye, Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine (Princeton, 1963). 80 See Edwards, ‘Person and Office in Shakespeare’s Plays’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 56 (1970), 93–109; Brownlow, The Tragedy of Richard II’ in Two Shakespearean Sequences: ‘Henry VI’ to ‘Richard II’ and ‘Pericles’ to ‘Timon of Athens’ (Pittsburgh, 1977), pp. 95–111. 81 See Derek A. Traversi, Shakespeare: From ‘Richard II’ to ‘Henry V’ (Stanford, Cal., 1957); M.M. Reese, The Cease of Majesty: A Study of Shakespeare’s History Plays (London, 1961); and Alvin Kernan, ‘The Henriad: Shakespeare’s Major History Plays’, Yale Review, 49 (1969), 3–32, reprinted as ‘From Ritual to History: The English History Play’ in J. Leeds Barroll, Alexander Leggatt, Richard Hosley, and Alvin Kernan, The Revels History of Drama in English: Volume III 1576–1613 (London, 1975), pp. 262–99. 82 See Robert A. Law, ‘Links between Shakespeare’s History Plays’, Studies in Philology, 50 (1953), 168–87; Peter G. Phialas, ‘The Medieval in Richard II’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 12 (1961), 305–10; and Robert Hapgood, ‘Three Eras in Richard II’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 14 (1963), 281–3. 83 See Arthur R. Humphreys, ‘Shakespeare’s Political Justice in Richard II and Henry IV, Stratford Papers on Shakespeare 1964, ed. Berners W. Jackson (Toronto, 1965),

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King Richard II pp. 30–50; John R. Elliott, Jr., ‘Richard II and the Medieval’, Renaissance Papers 1965 (1966), pp. 25–34; A.L. French, ‘Who Deposed Richard the Second?’, Essays in Criticism, 17 (1967), 411–33; and Wilbur Sanders, The Dramatist and the Received Idea: Studies in the Plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 158–93. See Peter Milward, ‘Richard II and Divine Right’, Shakespeare’s View of English History (Tokyo, 1979), pp. 32–50. See A.P. Rossiter, Angel with Horns: Fifteen Lectures on Shakespeare, ed. Graham Storey (London, 1961), pp. 23–39, 40–64. Rossiter’s lectures -were originally delivered at Cambridge in the 1950s; his essay, ‘Ambivalence: The Dialectic of the Histories’, appeared originally in Talking of Shakespeare, ed. John Garrett (London, 1954), pp. 149–71, and was reprinted in Angel with Horns. See E.W. Talbert, The Problem of Order: Elizabethan Political Commonplaces and an Example of Shakespeare’s Art (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1962); Leonard F. Dean, ‘Richard II to Henry V: A Closer View’, in Studies in Honor of De Witt T. Starnes, ed., Thomas P. Harrison et al. (Austin, Tex., 1967), pp. 37–52; Norman Rabkin, ‘The Polity’, in Shakespeare and the Common Understanding (New York, 1967), pp. 80–98; and John Jump, ‘Shakespeare and History’, Critical Quarterly, 17 (1975), 233–44. See Evelyn M. Albright, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II and the Essex Conspiracy’, PMLA, 42 (1927), 686–720; also Albright, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, Hayward’s History of Henry IV, and the Essex Conspiracy’, PMLA, 46 (1931), 694–719. For Heffner’s objections, see Heffner, ‘Shakespeare, Hayward, and Essex’, PMLA, 45 (1930), 754–80, and ‘Shakespeare, Hayward, and Essex Again’, PMLA, 47 (1932), 898–9. See also Lily B. Campbell, Shakespeare’s ‘Histories’: Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy (San Marino, CaL, 1947). See David M. Bergeron, ‘The Deposition Scene in Richard II’, in Renaissance Papers 1974, ed. Dennis G. Donovan and A. Leigh DeNeef (Durham, N.C., 1975), pp. 31–7; and Leeds Barroll, ‘A New History for Shakespeare and His Time’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 39 (1988), 441–64. See Mark Van Doren, ‘Richard II’ in Shakespeare (New York, 1939), pp. 84–95; G. Wilson Knight, The Olive and the Sword: A Study of England’s Shakespeare (London, 1944), revised and reprinted as ‘This Sceptred Isle: A Study of Shakespeare’s Kings’ in The Sovereign Flower: On Shakespeare as the Poet of Royalism . . . (London, 1958), pp. 13–91; John Palmer, ‘Richard of Bordeaux’ in Political Characters of Shakespeare (London, 1945), pp. 118–79; Harold C. Goddard, ‘Richard II’ in The Meaning of Shakespeare (Chicago, 1951), pp. 148–60; Irby B. Cauthen, Jr., ‘Richard II and the Image of the Betrayed Christ’, Renaissance Papers 1954 (Durham, N.C., 1955), pp. 45–8; and Peter Ure (ed.), King Richard II (London, 1956), pp. Ixii–lxxxiii. See S.C. Sen Gupta, Shakespeare’s Historical Plays (London, 1964); Ruth Nevo, ‘Richard II’ in Tragic Form in Shakespeare (Princeton, 1972), pp. 59–95; Harold F. Folland, ‘King Richard’s Pallid Victory’, Shakespeare Survey, 24 (1973), 390–9; Lois Potter, ‘The Antic Disposition of Richard II’, Shakespeare Survey, 27 (1974), 33–41; and S. Schoenbaum, ‘Richard II and the Realities of Power’, Shakespeare Survey, 28 (1975), 1–13. See Georges A. Bonnard, ‘The Actor in Richard II’, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, 87–88 (1952), 87–101; Anne [Barton] Righter, ‘The Player King’ in Shakespeare and the Idea of the Play (New York, 1962), pp. 122–7; and James Winny, ‘The Name of King’ in The Player King: A Theme of Shakespeare’s Histories (New York, 1968), pp. 48–85. See Allardyce Nicoll, ‘Man and Society’ in Shakespeare (London, 1952), pp. 100–32; Irving Ribner, The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare (Princeton, 1957;

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rev. edn. New York, 1965); Ribner, ‘Historical Tragedy: King John, Richard II, Julius Caesar’ in Patterns in Shakespearian Tragedy (London, 1960), pp. 36–64; Michael Quinn, ‘“The King is Not Himself ”: The Personal Tragedy of Richard II’, Studies in Philology, 56 (1959), 169–86; R.J. Dorius, ‘A Little More than a Little’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 11 (1960), 13–26; R.F. Hill, ‘Dramatic Techniques and Interpretation in Richard II’ in Early Shakespeare, ed. John Russell Brown and Bernard Harris (London, 1961), pp. 100–21; William L. Halstead, ‘Artifice and Artistry in Richard II and Othello’ in Sweet Smoke of Rhetoric: A Collection of Renaissance Essays, ed. Natalie Grimes Lawrence and J.A. Reynolds (Coral Gables, Fl., 1964), pp. 19–51; Virgil K. Whitaker, The Minor up to Nature: The Technique of Shakespeare’s Tragedies (San Marino, Cal., 1965); and H.M. Richmond, ‘Richard II’ in Shakespeare’s Political Plays (New York, 1967), pp. 123–40. See Robert B. Heilman, Tragedy and Melodrama: Versions of Experience (Seattle, Wash., 1968); Nicholas Brooke, ‘Richard II’ in Shakespeare’s Early Tragedies (London, 1968), pp. 107–37; John R. Elliott, Jr., ‘History and Tragedy in Richard II’, Studies in English Literature, 8 (1968), 253–71; and Moody E. Prior, ‘Richard II and the Idea of Tragedy’ in The Drama of Power: Studies in Shakespeare’s History Plays (Evanston, III., 1973), pp. 156–82. John Halverson, ‘The Lamentable Comedy of Richard II’, English Literary Renaissance, 24 (1994), 343–69. See Waldo F. McNeir, ‘The Comic Scenes in Richard II, V.ii and iii’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 73 (1972), 815–22; Sheldon P. Zitner, ‘Aumerle’s Conspiracy’, Studies in English Literature, 14 (1974), 239–57; Joan Hartwig, ‘Parody in Richard II’ in Shakespeare’s Analogical Scene: Parody as Structural Syntax (Lincoln, Neb., 1983), pp. 113–34; James Black, ‘The Interlude of the Beggar and the King in Richard II’ in Pageantry in the Shakespearian Theater, ed., David M. Bergeron (Athens, Ga., 1985), pp. 104–13; James A. Riddell, ‘The Admirable Character of York’, Texas Studies in Language and Literature, 21 (1979), 492–502; and Charles R. Forker, ‘Shakespeare’s Chronicle Plays as Historical-Pastoral’, Shakespeare Studies, 1 (1965), 85–104, revised in Fancy’s Images: Contexts, Settings, and Perspectives in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries (Carbondale, Ill., 1990), pp. 79–95, 178–81. See Brents Stirling, ‘Bolingbroke’s “Decision”’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 2 (1951), 27–34; Peter Ure, ‘The Looking-Glass of Richard II’, Philological Quarterly, 34 (1955), 219– 24; Arthur Suzman, ‘Imagery and Symbolism in Richard II’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 7 (1956), 355–70; S.K. Heninger, Jr., ‘The Sun-King Analogy in Richard II’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 11 (1960), 319–27; Robert Hapgood, ‘Falstaffs Vocation’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 16 (1965), 91–8; Kathryn Montgomery Harris, ‘Sun and Water Imagery in Richard II: Its Dramatic Function’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 21 (1970), 157–65; Stanley R. Maveety, ‘A Second Fall of Cursed Man: The Bold Metaphor in Richard II’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 72 (1973), 175–93; Ernest B. Oilman, ‘Richard II and the Perspectives of History’, Renaissance Drama, 7 (1976), 85–115; and Elizabeth Sacks, ‘Conceit’s Expositor: The Lyrical Plays’ in Shakespeare’s Images of Pregnancy (London, 1980), pp. 17–41. See Robert Hapgood, ‘Shakespeare’s Delayed Reactions’, Essays in Criticism, 13 (1963), 9–16; Joan Webber, ‘The Renewal of the King’s Symbolic Role: From Richard II to Henry V’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 4 (1963), 530–8; Anne Barton, ‘Shakespeare and the Limits of Language’, Shakespeare Survey, 24 (1971), 19–30; Richard A. Lanham, ‘The Dramatic Present: Shakespeare’s Henriad’ in The Motives of Eloquence: Literary Rhetoric in the Renaissance (New Haven, 1976), pp.

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King Richard II 190–209; Donald M. Friedman, ‘John of Gaunt and the Rhetoric of Frustration’, ELH, 43 (1976), 279–99; Stephen Booth, ‘Syntax as Rhetoric in Richard II’, Mosaic, 10 (1977), 87–103; and Joseph A. Porter, The Drama of Speech Acts: Shakespeare’s Lancastrian Tetralogy (Berkeley, CaL, 1979), pp. 11–51. See John Baxter, Shakespeare’s Poetic Styles: Verse Into Drama (London, 1980); Marion Trousdale, Shakespeare and the Rhetoricians (London, 1982); John W. Blanpied, ‘Sacrificial Energy in Richard II’ in Time and the Artist in Shakespeare’s English Histories (Newark, Del., 1983), pp. 120–41; and Philip Brockbank, ‘Richard II and the Music of Men’s Lives’, Leeds Studies in English, 14 (1983), 57–73, reprinted in Brockbank, On Shakespeare (Oxford, 1989), pp. 104–21. See John Gielgud, ‘King Richard the Second’ in Stage Directions (London, 1963), pp. 28–35; John Russell Brown, ‘Narrative and Focus: Richard II’ in Shakespeare’s Plays in Performance (London, 1966), pp. 117–30; James L. Calderwood, ‘Richard II: The Fall of Speech’ in Shakespearian Metadrama: The Argument of the Play in ‘Titus Andronicus’, ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and ‘Richard II’ (Minneapolis, 1971), pp. 149–86; Calderwood, ‘“Richard II” to “Henry V”: Variations on the Fall’ in Metadrama in Shakespeare’s Henriad: Richard II to Henry V (Berkeley, Cal., 1979), pp. 10–29; and Philip C. McGuire, ‘Choreography and Language in Richard II’ in The Theatrical Dimension, ed. Philip C. McGuire and David A. Samuelson (New York, 1979), pp. 61–84. See Phyllis Rackin, ‘The Role of the Audience in Shakespeare’s Richard II’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 36 (1985), 262–81; A.D. Nuttall, ‘Ovid’s Narcissus and Shakespeare’s Richard II: The Reflected Self ’ in Ovid Renewed: Ovidian Influences on Literature and Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, ed. Charles Martindale (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 137–50; and Naomi Conn Liebler, ‘The Mockery King of Snow: Richard II and the Sacrifice of Ritual’ in True Rites and Maimed Rites: Ritual and Anti-Ritual in Shakespeare and His Age, ed. Linda Woodbridge and Edward Berry (Chicago, 1992), pp. 220–39. See James A.S. McPeek, ‘Richard and His Shadow World’, American Imago, 15 (1958), 195–212; Robert R. Reed, Jr., ‘Richard II: Portrait of a Psychotic’, Journal of General Education, 16 (1964), 55–67; William B. Toole, III, ‘Psychological Action and Structure in Richard II’, Journal of General Education, 30 (1978), 165–84; Coppélia Kahn, ‘The Shadow of the Male’: Masculine Identity in the History Plays’ in Man’s Estate: Masculine Identity in Shakespeare (Berkeley, Cal., 1981), pp. 47–81; and Scott McMillin, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II: Eyes of Sorrow, Eyes of Desire’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 15 (1984), 40–52. 102 See Random Cloud [R.R. McLeod], ‘The Psychopathology of Everyday Art’, in The Elizabethan Theatre IX, ed., G.R. Hibbard (Waterloo, Ont., 1986), pp. 100–68. See especially Richard L. Levin, ‘Feminist Thematics and Shakespearian Tragedy’, PMLA, 103 (1988), 125–38; ‘Leaking Relativism’, Essays in Criticism, 38 (1988), 267– 77; ‘Unthinkable Thoughts in the New Historicizing of English Renaissance Drama’, New Literary History, 21 (1989), 433–47; The Poetics and Politics of Bardicide’, PMLA, 105 (1990), 491–504; and ‘Ideological Criticism and Pluralism’, in Ivo Kamps, (ed.), Shakespeare Left and Right (New York, 1991), 15–21. See also Brian Vickers, Appropriating Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Quarrels (New Haven, 1993). See Margaret Loftus Ranald, ‘Women and Political Power in Shakespeare’s English Histories’, Topic, 36 (1982), 54–65; Linda Bamber, Comic Women, Tragic Men: A Study of Gender and Genre in Shakespeare (Stanford, Cal., 1982), pp. 135–67; Graham Holderness, ‘“A Woman’s War”: A Feminist Reading of Richard II’ in Shakespeare Left

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and Right, ed. Ivo Kamps (London, 1991), pp. 167–83; and Jeannie Grant Moore, ‘Queen of Sorrow, King of Grief: Reflections and Perspectives in Richard II’, in In Another Country: Feminist Perspectives on Renaissance Drama, ed. Dorothea Kehler and Susan Baker (London, 1991), pp. 19–35. See J.H. Hexter, ‘Property, Monopoly, and Shakespeare’s Richard II’ in Culture and Politics from Puritanism to the Englightenment, ed. Perez Zagorin (Berkeley, Cal., 1980), pp. 1–24; Leonard Tennenhouse, Power on Display: The Politics of Shakespeare’s Genres (New York, 1986), pp. 76–81; and Sandra K. Fischer, ‘“He Means to Pay”: Value and Metaphor in the Lancastrian Tetralogy’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 40 (1989), 149–64. See Catherine Belsey, ‘Making Histories Then and Now: Shakespeare from Richard II to Henry V’ in Uses of History: Marxism, Postmodernism and the Renaissance, ed. Francis Barker, Peter Hulme, and Margaret Iversen (Manchester, 1991), pp. 24–46. See Harry Berger, Jr., ‘Psychoanalyzing the Shakespeare Text: The First Three Scenes of the Henriad’ in Shakespeare and the Question of Theory, ed. Patricia Parker and Geoffrey Hartman (New York, 1985), pp. 210–29; Berger, Imaginary Audition: Shakespeare on Stage and Page (Berkeley, Cal., 1989); and ‘Richard II: A Modern Perspective’ in The Tragedy of Richard II, ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine (New York, 1996), pp. 237–72. See Susan Wells, ‘The Typical Register in Shakespeare’s Richard II’ in The Dialectics of Representation (Baltimore, 1985), pp. 36–44; and Edgar Schell, ‘Richard II and Some Forms of Theatrical Time’, Comparative Drama, 24 (1990), 255–69. Robert Sandler (ed.), Northrop Frye on Shakespeare (New Haven, 1986), pp. 51–81. Harold Bloom, ‘Introduction’ in Modern Critical Interpretations: William Shakespeare’s ‘Richard II’ (New York, 1988), pp. 1–5.

Introduction to the revised edition Nicholas F. Radel

When Charles Forker wrote in his original introduction to this book that ‘the lure of “theory”, the collapse of common assumptions, and the rise of competing but overlapping “discourses” . . . all contributed to a de-centering that makes dominant trends perilous to chart’ (p. 46), he clearly identified an important reality of criticism of Richard II at the turn of the century. Nonetheless, this supplementary introduction attempts to give some order to the development of commentary on the play from the mid-1990s to the present. To this end, it outlines a number of critical frameworks – history, feminism, performance and theory, among others – and explores (in a roughly chronological way) the development of ideas within each. Obviously, there is overlap among these various categories, but the goal of the introduction is to help give the reader an overview of some of the most original and influential additions to scholarship in the years since Forker wrote.

I. New historicism, history and historiography Historical and historiographical concerns have been at the centre of interest in Richard II at least since the mid-twentieth century. But their dominance in recent years can be traced in part to arguments of cultural materialist critics in England and new historicists in the United States beginning in the 1980s. These critics attacked earlier historicists for promoting what they saw as ideologically conservative readings of Shakespeare’s politics deriving from Tillyard and others, and they argued for a more radical playwright and drama than had been imagined even in earlier readings that resisted the mid-century medieval model (see earlier, pp. 34–9).

The Essex conspiracy In many ways, the decisive issue for historical studies of Richard II at the turn of the century is the fact that supporters of the Earl of Essex paid the Lord Chamberlain’s Men to have Richard II staged on 7 February 1601, the eve of the Earl’s abortive uprising. Although the connection between Shakespeare’s play and the Essex conspiracy is an old and contested one (see earlier, pp. 38–9), the idea was given new life in the 1980s as evidence that the theatre had subversive power. And that position was strongly re-articulated at the beginning of our period by the important new historicist Louis

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 65 Montrose, who suggested the conspirators ‘shaped the import of the play to their own dangerous fantasies’ and that Shakespeare and his company were ‘knowingly treading on dangerous ground’ (pp. 70, 72) when they agreed to stage it. Although Montrose acknowledged that it’s naïve to imagine that the staging of a play could impel citizens to political action, he also argued that Elizabethan plays enabled political subversion and ideological dissent because they revealed the theatricality of monarchy. Shakespeare didn’t simply dramatize the mystifications of monarchy to be savoured and enjoyed. Rather, he ‘imaginatively represented the active production of such mystifications’ (p. 97), and Richard II was a paradigmatic example. In effect, new historicists like Montrose reinforced for a new generation of critics the idea that the Essex connection was important to understanding Shakespeare as, at the least, a shrewd analyst of political ideologies, although, as we will see, the issues raised remain far from settled. On the one hand, the Essex connection was widely taken for granted in our period by critics seeking support for arguments concerning even mild Shakespearian heterodoxies. An essay by Jean-Christophe Mayer (2003) is a good example. Mayer argued that Richard II needs to be understood within the context of the extraliterary religious controversies of its age. He rightly saw that these controversies were, themselves, intertwined with the history of the Essex conspirators (many of whom were Catholic, though Essex was not), and he rehearsed the well-known point that Essex himself was associated with the historical Bolingbroke because the Jesuit Robert Parsons had dedicated his polemical and treasonous Conference about the Next Succession (1594) to the Earl. Consequently, Mayer reasoned that Richard II became caught up in the conspiracy because in toying with the question of succession, the play crossed the line separating ‘political support from potential treason’ (p. 116). His essay depended upon a number of assumptions that were – and still are – widely shared, even among critics not specifically interested in the Essex conspiracy: first, the idea that there was a conspiracy by the Essex faction; second, the fact that Shakespeare’s play Richard II was staged on the evening before the supposed coup; and, finally, the conviction that the content of the play supported, implicitly or explicitly, Essex’s insurrectionary goals. Such assumptions endorsed the new historicist position that the play itself dramatized subversive ideas. If Mayer’s essay also seemed to suggest that one’s apprehension of the subversive theme in Richard II depended on one’s knowledge of its revolutionary context – distinguishing as it does between thematic reading and extra-literary or historical context – his widely shared dialectical approach made Shakespeare’s play itself important to our perception that the Essex uprising was, in fact, a political rebellion. To be sure, important critics continued to focus on evidence supporting a relationship between Shakespeare’s play and the Essex uprising. Stanley Wells, for instance, reported in 2003 his discovery of a work of literary criticism exploring Richard II that was written by an Essex conspirator. William Scott’s The Model of Poesy or the Art of Poesy Drawn into a Short or Summary Discourse (pre-1601) is a new critical source that may well belong in this anthology, and, as Wells noted, its existence tends to endorse the Essex connection. In 2008 the distinguished Shakespeare biographer Katherine Duncan-Jones argued reasonably but with no new facts that the decision to commission a performance of Richard II on 7 February 1601 implied the Earl (or his

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supporters) intended to include London’s citizenry in his conspiratorial actions. Even as late as 2018, Stephen Greenblatt concurred, suggesting that for Essex’s men, ‘there was a benefit to be gained from representing to a large public . . . a successful coup d’etat’ (p. 21). On the other hand, archival investigations in the period provided very different readings of the Essex material, so it seems safe to say that support for the connection between Shakespeare’s and Essex’s mutual radicalism is not, in the aggregate, growing. A convenient starting point is a 2003 piece in the London Review of Books by Blair Worden. Worden returned to the Essex trial records to argue that the play performed on 7 February was likely not Shakespeare’s but a now-lost dramatization of John Hayward’s The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henry IIII (1599), a work that was extraordinarily popular on its first printing and burned by authorities on its second. (Hayward himself was charged with treasonous intent and imprisoned.) Worden rightly noted that Hayward (like Parsons) dedicated his book to Essex, a fact Attorney General Edward Coke made much of in his investigations of the Earl. So, Worden reasoned, the connection between Essex and Hayward was stronger than any to be made to Shakespeare. Most critics have not sided with Worden on the question of which play was performed (most continue to believe it was Richard II). But his essay (and its 2006 expansion) anticipated a significant critical reappraisal of the Essex matter by at least two critics, Paul E. J. Hammer (2008) and Jonathan Bate (2009). While asserting his belief that the play performed was Shakespeare’s, Hammer, nevertheless, raised three significant doubts about received history. First, he argued that Essex was probably not intending a coup at all but was, rather, trying to gain access to the queen to petition her about his enemies at court (Edward Coke and Francis Bacon among them); second, that his entry into court was planned for 14 February, and it was only through an unanticipated series of events that Essex acted earlier on 8 February; and, third, that the accepted story of Essex’s ‘rebellion’ was the fabrication of those same enemies who presided over his trial, men who did not consider that the Earl’s actions may have had motives other than rebellion. So, Hammer reasoned, whatever play was performed on 7 February, it could not be evidence for a rebellion that did not take place, and, in any event, was not being planned in the days before the events of 8 February 1601. Hammer’s essay also provided new historical evidence that one man in Essex’s faction, Charles Percy, was, as his name indicates, a descendant of the Percies in Shakespeare’s Henriad and an admirer of Shakespeare. Therefore, the conspirators’ interest in Richard II may have been inspired more by the desire to see themselves as historical players justified in petitioning their queen than actors in a rebellion. Besides, Hammer added, Shakespeare seems to take a dim view of usurpation in Richard II. Hammer’s ideas were in large measure corroborated in a lecture conceived independently by Jonathan Bate and delivered at the British Academy in 2008.1 Bate gave a new dimension to the matter, though, by making the case that Hayward’s tract was influenced by Shakespeare and that evidence Essex’s prosecutors were drawing about the Earl’s motives derived not from Shakespeare’s play but from Hayward’s book. Thus, he tended to remove Shakespeare and his possible intentions from the various accounts of the trial that have come down to us. Bate’s work was also notable for its

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 67 apparent error in dismissing the validity of the famous story of Queen Elizabeth’s conversation with her Tower Archivist, William Lambarde in 1601, in which the queen identified herself with Richard II. It did so on the grounds that the record of this conversation did not appear until the eighteenth century. Four years later, however, Jason Scott-Warren (2012) produced new archival evidence demonstrating the seventeenth-century provenance of the Lambarde document, suggesting that literary scholars have not erred in placing their trust in it. Still, after nearly fifteen years of commentary, it seems fair to say that the agnosticism Leeds Barroll expressed about the Essex connection thirty years ago may be tipping in the balance towards disbelief (see earlier, pp. 38–9).2

The censorship question The long-standing idea that there was something dissident about Richard II can also help us contextualize the question of censorship in relation to lines ostensibly missing from the first-three quartos of the play, a theme developed by one critic, Cyndia Susan Clegg, in a series of studies over nearly the entire period covered in this introduction (from 1997–2017). At issue are the 164 lines that constitute one of the great dramatic moments in early Shakespeare, the so-called deposition scene in Richard II, which appeared in print for the first time only in the fourth, 1608 Quarto. Again, this is not a new topic. Scholars have traditionally assumed the scene was censored in print by authorities, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men or Shakespeare himself to avoid offence to the queen. Although in 1975 David Bergeron rendered a dissenting perspective – suggesting that because the play made sense without these lines they may, in fact, not have been written until after the accession of James I, and, hence, were not censored – his argument had little impact (see earlier, p. 38). Rather, and presumably in response to the new historicism, the censorship issue assumed renewed importance in the 1990s. So, in the early part of the decade Janet Clare argued that the government feared ‘theatre as an arena for inflammatory spectacle’ (1990, p. 49). She continued by suggesting that because Shakespeare abandoned his usual caution in handling his sources, expanding what was a mere suggestion in Holinshed into the elaborated deposition scene that has come down to us, the government almost certainly suppressed it. In 1997 Clare further developed her thesis to critique what she then saw as the new historicism’s overdetermined analysis of discourse and scant regard for material (particularly bibliographical) evidence with respect to the exercise of power. In other words, she shifted the emphasis away from Shakespeare’s supposed dissidence towards the government’s control of dramatic production, arguing that questions of power and representation on stage needed to be negotiated within the ‘complex conditions of restraint’ (p. 169) in Elizabethan culture. In that same year, however, Clegg questioned the validity of Clare’s vision of government control of the press. Clegg argued that there were, clearly, statutory prohibitions against particular kinds of writing – ‘treasonous writing, writing on the succession, and libel’ (p. 435) – but she demonstrated that the occasions were relatively rare when Elizabeth’s government took extraordinary measures to censor

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printed texts. Richard II neither libelled the queen nor violated statutory prohibitions against discussing the succession. Still, Clegg argued, Shakespeare’s text did parallel similar ideas about the power of Parliament found in Robert Parsons’s Conference, a text Elizabethan authorities clearly saw as seditious for advocating resistance theory in relation to the question of succession. And she aptly noted that in the 1608 Quarto, the scene was referenced on the title page as the ‘Parliament Sceane’. Clegg argued, then, that if Richard II was censored, it was because of its thematic overlap with Parsons’s tract (her argument is not unlike Mayer’s). If and when censorship occurred in Elizabethan England, it did so within specific circumstances, and potential cases need to be adjudicated within ‘the local history of texts certainly censored and the practices that suppressed them’ (p. 433). What Clegg resisted primarily was Clare’s notion that imaginative writers typically worked under institutional conditions of restraint that would be more likely imposed on political authors. But neither Clare nor Clegg produced positive (or narrowly empirical) evidence that Richard II was censored, leading later critics to question theirs and others’ methodologies. As Jeremy Lopez suggested in 2008, the censorship narrative is problematically adduced from a lack of evidence, and he attributed this kind of (in his mind typical) move to new historicist methodologies in which critics feel compelled to ‘fill the void between the events of the play and significant political events in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries’ (p. 218). In her fascinating 2010 essay, which was otherwise about the Yorkist bias of editors of Richard II, Emma Smith suggested that bibliographic and political interpretations can become mutually reinforcing: the near consensus of opinion that the ‘deposition scene’ is, in fact, radical leads to the conclusion that it was censored in the early Qq; and its absence from those Qq then tends to suggest it was censored because of its subversive content. Smith, instead, argued that the early quartos are more radical than the later ones because they reduced the power and presence of Richard in favour of the new King Henry – an interpretive point the censorship question tends to obscure. Although both Clegg and Clare refined and elaborated their arguments in a series of essays that without question have increased our knowledge of the conditions under which censorship took place in the early modern period, later scholars have raised cautious doubt about their arguments for censorship of Richard II.3

Resistance theories Still, the idea that Richard II and the Henriad in general explored or supported Elizabethan resistance or republican theories has been long-lived and fruitful. In 1996, David Norbrook published two articles that clarified some new ways forward on the subject of the play’s politics, in both relation and resistance to the new historicism. He argued in ‘The Emperor’s New Body?’ for more nuanced readings of ‘Elizabethan political mentality’, ones that can recover ‘the dimension of political resistance’ (p. 350) often overlooked by old and new historicists alike. The essay in part responded to what Norbrook saw as the critical misuse of Ernst Kantorowicz’s influential book The King’s Two Bodies (1957), a work whose focus on the mystical body of the king,

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 69 he believed, misled critics about the importance of Parliament in political discussion of Elizabethan England. Norbrook developed the point in his second essay, ‘A Liberal Tongue’, which began with the question of why the Essex conspirators would have been attracted to Shakespeare’s play in the first place. His answer was that it represented resistance to the erosion of republican sentiment or aristocratic constitutionalism under the absolutist Richard that would have appealed to Essex – resistance articulated not only by Bolingbroke and Northumberland but also by Gaunt and York. Norbrook’s evidence also depended on local historicizing, his demonstration of the oppositional relationship between the Percy dynasty (members of whom were in the Essex faction) and the monarchy, an opposition that lasted down to the civil war, when the tenth Earl of Northumberland sided with Parliament. From the mid-1990s into the second decade of the twenty-first century, a diverse group of critics responded to Norbrook’s call for more nuanced political readings of Richard II. To demonstrate the play’s resistance to monarchical prerogative, Alzada J. Tipton (1996) read it in light of continental and English theories advocating magistrates’ duty and right to counsel monarchs. For Tipton, Richard is a king who persistently fails to follow the advice of his councillors – unlike Bolingbroke, who is able to ‘draw others to him and involve them in his project’ (p. 58). Thus, the play touches obliquely ‘on Elizabeth’s well-known unwillingness to listen to Parliament’ (p. 64) on particular issues. Ian Ward (1997) saw the play as one in which Richard imitates continental models of absolute monarchy while Bolingbroke works with the English Parliament to create an ideal of mixed governance, thus emphasizing the Parliamentary theme we saw in Clegg.4 A decade later C. M. A. McCauliff (2007) also, like Tipton, took up the question of counsel. But her work was equally interesting because it made a characteristically anti-new historicist move: It placed Shakespeare’s play into a grand or master narrative of the development of political thought somewhere between Aristotelean natural law and later, Lockean concepts of individual rights in a ‘limited, constitutional state’ (p. 13). Nearly ten years after that, Kristin M. S. Bezio (2015) concerned herself primarily with what she argued was a Common Law compact that made the king accountable to and responsible for his entire commonwealth. Richard’s violation of that compact, she argued, justified his deposition. But her larger point tended to reinforce something of the new historical emphasis on resistance: The Henriad, she suggested, focuses on problems of absolutist governance to delegitimize conceptions of divine right monarchy emergent under the Tudors.

The King’s Two Bodies In light of the new revisionist emphasis on history in Shakespeare studies, recent thought has as well returned to Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies. The theory that the monarch’s person simultaneously contained the Body Politic (a mystical embodiment of kingship that endured despite the death of any particular king) and the Body Natural (the mortal body of the king) was essentially a medieval one that persisted into the Elizabethan era (see earlier, p. 34). For Kantorowicz, Richard II gave perfect form to the theory. The king’s tragedy could be read through the psychic disjunction

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produced by Richard’s de-sacralizing of his own person in the deposition scene. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this theory of kingship has proven appealing in the theatre, where it has allowed directors and actors to explore the monarchy as performance by highlighting the double nature of the king’s body. This was, in fact, one of the goals of John Barton’s widely praised production for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1973. In the words of Peter Holland (2013), the attempt to dramatize Kantorowicz was in part Barton’s effort to embed the play ‘into negotiations with its own past’ (p. 217) and explore the connection between the early modern era and the Middle Ages, both of which were interested in distinctions between individuals and their social roles. Margaret Shewring (1996) and Elizabeth Klett (2006) made similar connections in the controversial performance directed by Deborah Warner at the National Theatre in 1995, starring Fiona Shaw. If Shewring saw that the casting of the female Shaw as Richard helped keep the focus on kingship as a theatrical charade, Klett linked the performance specifically to Kantorowicz’s ideas – albeit Kantorowicz himself may not have recognized his point as being primarily about the theatricality or performative nature of the mystical body of the king. Contrary to what we saw in the theatre, critical work tended to follow Norbrook in demystifying readings of Kantorowicz’s book that romanticize the mystical body of the king. Critics didn’t reject Kantorowicz’s relevance to Richard II, but they increasingly attempted to understand it, seemingly ironically, in relation to the constitutionalist, participatory politics explored in the more positivist histories of the play we looked at earlier. Albert Rolls (2000), for instance, saw the play as attempting to work out the contradictions inherent in the king’s position as head and embodiment of the Body Politic (a figure both above and within the law). It did so for Rolls in terms of the conflict between Richard’s trust in sacrament and ritual and Bolingbroke’s faith in a communal notion of the king as head of a corporate body. Rolls further argued that this struggle to some extent reflected differences between Catholic and Protestant understandings of monarchical power, even though neither belief system nor the disputes between them constituted radical thought in early modern England. Therefore, the play itself was not subversive. It represented, rather, the death of Richard’s Body Politic through his deliberate misuses of it, while leaving the power of the mystical body itself intact. The only thing that changes is that Bolingbroke steps into Richard’s place. A few years later, Margaret Jones-Davies (2004) made a similar argument by contextualizing Richard’s misuses of the king’s Body Politic in terms of Elizabethan religious orthodoxy and Puritan heresy. This connection promised, perhaps, more potential subversion, given that these were ideas that would eventually lead England to civil war. But Jones-Davies argued that Bolingbroke combines aspects of absolute and contractual rule in ways that reflect orthodox readings of the conjoining of flesh and spirit, and thus she, too, like Rolls, kept intact an idea of the Body Politic embodied in the king’s usurper. Both, however, revealed the political uses of the king’s mystical body outside sacral imaginings. If such ideas seem counterintuitive, it may be because, as Lorna Hutson (2009) contends, many critics have failed to realize that Kantorowicz himself understood the idea of the king’s bodies, including the Body Politic, to be a fiction that enabled the functioning of law. Turning the traditional understanding of The King’s Two Bodies on

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 71 its head, Hutson (2009) reasoned that Kantorowicz was actually interested in the ways medieval jurists creatively interpreted Roman law in directions more constitutionalist than absolutist. Kantorowicz, she suggested, was not so much concerned with placing all authority on the monarch, but in seeing him (or her) as the mouthpiece of a law negotiated in defence of the public weal through councillors, who exercised their own powers of interpretation of the law on the monarch’s behalf. Interestingly, Hutson connected Kantorowicz’s celebrations of a participatory legal culture in England to developments in naturalistic dramatic fictions that engaged their audiences in exploring, examining and reinventing the circumstances of the narrative. Thus, Richard II invited the audience to judge Richard and his circumstances in relation to this participatory legal culture. Indeed, Hutson read the play against the grain to show that in nearly all the circumstances in which Richard assumes the strength of performative metaphors of his sacral body, he does so with disastrous consequence. One last essay on Kantorowicz is somewhat unrelated to the others we have explored. But it seems intrinsically worthwhile, despite its philosophical (rather than literary) nature. In 2004 the German literary critic and philosopher Anselm Haverkamp argued that Kantorowicz didn’t precisely render the doctrine of the two bodies as the medieval legal scholar Henry de Bracton understood it. Whereas Kantorowicz defined the two bodies as ‘infra et supra’, below and above the law, with the effect of emphasizing two distinct bodies, Bracton constituted the king’s bodies as ‘non sub homine, sed sub deo et sub lege’ (p. 320), not under man but under God and the law, in a paradoxical single body. Thus, Havekamp criticized Kantorowicz’s formulation because it pointed towards a fragmentation of the monarch’s experience that, he believed, did not exist in medieval political theology. Kantorowicz rendered the king Rex imago Christi rather than Dei, but Haverkamp noted to the contrary that Christ did not have two bodies. He had, rather, a single ontological wholeness – and Haverkamp argued that Shakespeare himself grasped this paradox. His significant insight, then, was that Shakespeare came closer to Bracton in rendering Richard’s position than did Kantorowicz. The dramatist recognized the crucial point that the king’s position above the law can only be rendered within the law. Although such philosophical distinctions may seem arcane, a number of scholars have argued for an ontological wholeness in the king’s bodies (see, for instance, Raphael Falco, 2000); and others have resisted the idea that the king is reduced to his Body Natural in the final scenes of the play.5

Cultural materialism and colonial politics The processes whereby historical and political criticism replaced twentieth-century idealizations of Richard as a poet-king and England as a ‘royal throne of kings’ (2.1.40) guided by providence were not new in themselves.6 But the decided turn to local history and material culture, England’s others, and Realpolitik in recent years is certainly remarkable. Of all the modes of the new historicism, it is perhaps what we might call its poetics of material culture that has most fundamentally altered our view of Richard and the play. Works by Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr. (1998), Dennis R. Klinck (1998) and William O. Scott (2002) that explore Richard’s relationship to the land will serve to illustrate.

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Sullivan’s book-length study represented something of a classic new historicist model of scholarship. It explored connections between the visual conception of mapping a location and new ways of valuing place, landscape and the human inhabitants of the land mapped. Placing Richard II within these paradigms, Sullivan made an argument that would have a lasting impact: The king fails to grasp how geography bounds his political authority and English identity. He shares a faulty view of England with Gaunt, who in his famous paean to the ‘sceptred isle’ (2.1.40), sees England from above, as a country on a map, walled in by the sea. In reality, however, England is one country on an island comprising several nations. Sullivan’s insight was seemingly original (though it would become de rigueur in subsequent commentary),7 and his reading of the play through the imagery of mapping pointed importantly to one of Richard’s mistakes as king. Thinking of his kingdom as a single entity, Richard erases distinctions of custom and difference pertaining to the traditional duties of royal stewardship of his land. Klinck explored the land metaphor in more damning terms, arguing that Richard is a wasting tenant of his own kingdom. With a precise awareness of legal metaphor, Klinck explained ‘wasting’ as a legal concept referring to tenants’ allowing their lands to disintegrate or their deliberate destruction of them. When Richard disintegrates Bolingbroke’s property and hands over the Duke’s land to his favourites, he can be understood figuratively to be wasting the land he has been appointed to maintain, an idea the Gardener makes clear. Scott gave yet another spin to such historicizing by locating Richard’s poor stewardship of the land within the transformation from feudal to capital economics in early modern England. Richard leases his kingdom to satisfy a landlord’s need for money rather than adhering to traditional methods by which the monarch offered land in fealty or in copyhold, both of which guaranteed longer periods of tenure and precise rules for inheritance. Leasing debased feudal obligations, and, because the rules of property ownership and inheritance underscored the rights of monarchical succession, Richard debases England itself and his own royal position. These material investigations, then, helped us see in a more precise way what it means to say that the king is the country, that Richard is England. But just as important, they provided us (for better and worse) a view of the king through the cold eye of politics and ideology rather than the sympathetic gaze of psychology. The idealizing notion that English identity is constructed in the history plays through the consolidation of monarchical power under providential guidance also came under direct fire, in particular by scholars considering the nation’s material and political connections with its so-called others, that problematic postcolonial term denoting identity within an oppositional, marginalizing framework. As Sullivan suggested, the geographic provincialism of Gaunt’s ‘sceptred isle’ speech (2.1.40) implicates Shakespeare’s play in a project of nation building that, in Willy Maley’s terms, involves ‘[t]he subordination of the non-English nations of the British Isles’ (1997b, p. 102). Maley rightly debunked the fantasy (including Shakespeare’s) of a unified Britain in the early modern period. But he also urged a complex exploration of the interrelationship among the nations that comprise Britain. Indeed, he wondered if Richard’s dismissive reference to the Irish as ‘rough rug-headed kerns’ (2.1.156) may not, in fact, have been intended to critique the king and the attitudes of his court, given that it derives, via Holinshed, from the Anglo-Irish Richard Stanihurst’s protest of English ideas about his

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 73 Irish countrymen (1997a). That is, Maley speculated that Shakespeare’s representation of Ireland in Richard II reflected an anti-court and not merely an anti-Irish message. Others strongly disagreed, especially Florian Kläger (2006) and Stephen O’Neill (2007). Kläger’s book addressed Shakespeare and Stanihurst along with Edmund Spenser. It differed markedly from Maley by arguing that all three authors addressed questions of English national identity as the relation of a centre to an excluded Irish exterior. Indeed, Kläger referenced ways both Gaunt and the Gardener imagine an England susceptible to outside infection, which, he argued, the play associated with Ireland. O’Neill tended to corroborate Kläger’s ideas by arguing that the English Renaissance stage provided a space in which ‘anxieties about Irish alterity could be negotiated and played out’ (p. 12). Ireland was viewed as a strange land populated with barbarous people, and O’Neill made much of Richard’s describing himself as having been ‘wand’ring with the Antipodes’ (3.2.49) on his return from the island. But this inscription of Richard II into the postcolonial moment has not been limited to Anglo-Irish relations. Some critics already cited (Sullivan and Kläger) and others not yet mentioned saw both Wales and Scotland as countries problematically subsumed into a general identification with the English.8 And one placed France within this orbit of ideas. In 2004, Joan Fitzpatrick noticed how problematic it is, given the history of Welsh resistance, that Richard simply assumes upon his return from Ireland that Wales is part of his kingdom. In a strikingly original formulation of the matter, Lloyd Edward Kermode (2009) suggested that English identity in the second tetralogy does not only develop in opposition to the other but through ‘absorption and similitude’, ‘confusion and incorporation’ (pp. 9, 87). So, through shrewd close reading he noted the linguistic ambiguity in the Welsh captain’s use of ‘we’ (2.4.1, and 2.4.7) to announce the departure of his troops, an ambiguity that modulates between ‘we’, the Welsh, and ‘we’, himself and the English Lord Salisbury. English identity at the border with Wales is constituted as a conjunction that cannot be mapped precisely. Finally, in an essay especially useful for outlining some of the ways France and the rest of Europe figure in Richard II, Margaret Tudeau-Clayton (2010) noted the presence in early modern drama of ‘the motley dressed Englishman’ (p. 65), a character often associated with France, and one of which Richard himself is an example. The figure had racial, gendered and class associations, and it reflected a Europeanized, ‘emergent, protestant bourgeois ideological structure’ (p. 64) in distinction to Bolingbroke’s selfidentification as a ‘true-born Englishman’ (1.3.309). The image, as in that idea of the Irish defined by Kläger, represented England invaded by foreign parasites.

Realpolitik The idea that Richard II, or the conflict between Richard and Bolingbroke, reflects an epochal change from the medieval to a more modern world seemed current at the end of the twentieth century, but has been increasingly complicated in the twenty-first. Two critics writing in 1995, early in our period, nuanced aspects of this received idea in ways that make their work still useful. Naomi Conn Liebler emphasized the disjoining of social rituals in the play from the structures and institutions that gave them meaning

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(see earlier, p. 45), and Thomas M. Greene explored the decay of medieval signs and symbols in terms of a ‘semiotic conflict’ (p. 156) or crisis of representation in the era in which the play was written.9 Yet, despite the strength of both arguments, Liebler’s apparent nostalgia for Richard and Greene’s for the decline of medieval symbols seem in hindsight to represent the end rather than the beginning of something. More recent scholarship questions which of the two kings, Richard or Henry, more fully represents the new, and has, at any rate, favoured political discussion – including the impact of the Italian theorist Niccoló Machiavelli on Shakespeare and his characters – over analysis of a mystical medieval era. The argument that Richard II dramatizes an unhappy shift from a medieval political model to a more modern mode of Machiavellian Realpolitik in the ascension of Bolingbroke is traditional. But recent critics have eroded the boundary between the sacral, medieval monarch, Richard and the Machiavellian usurper, Bolingbroke – as well as that between the providential past and a more morally suspect, instrumental early modern present. So, the old truisms about Shakespeare’s uses of Machiavelli simply have not held. Two critics in particular, John Roe (2002) and Cajsa C. Baldini (2003), saw both Richard and Bolingbroke successfully utilizing Machiavellian strategies, thus challenging the dominant notion going back at least to William Hazlitt (No. 16) that Richard is from the start a flawed king. For Roe, Richard is a competent king who makes a crucial mistake, one that Machiavelli warns against, when he seizes Bolingbroke’s inheritance. From that point on Bolingbroke proves himself more flexible politically. Roe’s larger argument was that Richard II necessarily reproduces the providential outline of history found in its sources but that Shakespeare still dramatizes the Machiavellian idea that political events proceed from previous actions according to a natural logic. For Baldini it was Bolingbroke who makes a mistake when he accedes to the ritual of a de-coronation in the deposition scene. In doing so, he seems to assent to the notion that a crowned prince can now be uncrowned, an error that has obvious consequences for him and his descendants. A third scholar, Mark Bayer (2002), reversed two former political truisms about the play: the one that sees Bolingbroke negatively through his association with Machiavelli, and the other that links Richard rather than Bolingbroke to Elizabeth. In Bayer’s reading, the future Henry IV is, like Elizabeth, a monarch with a flexible conception of the state as a changing social entity. David Womersley (2010) rejected tout court the idea that Shakespeare’s play is about the collapse of a sacral monarchy to be replaced by a less worthy, modern Machiavellianism. Rather, he argued, it is Richard, and not Bolingbroke, who represents the modern. Richard’s absolutist form of kingship would have been regarded with suspicion in Elizabethan England and seen as more appropriate to the continent. Bolingbroke exemplifies an older, more genuinely medieval form of monarchy, one in which the king is more closely aligned with his nobles, ‘more conciliar, and even at moments parliamentary in character’ (p. 285). The play is, thus, about the old re-asserting itself.10 In a later analysis of the relative powers of Richard and Bolingbroke, Harry Berger (2015) reversed course completely. He argued that Richard goads Bolingbroke into usurping the crown, and, especially to his point, that Bolingbroke’s language in the play reveals not a Machiavellian opportunist, as so many have claimed, but a man who is not always aware of his own motives (Berger’s

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 75 essay is an example of inspired close reading). Bolingbroke only gradually comes to understand how he has been manipulated into usurpation. He is full of self-doubt, and thus neither a stage nor textbook Machiavel. A far more provocative point is that Machiavelli was not only a source for Shakespeare but, rather, a political thinker against whose amorality and instrumentality the dramatist shaped a significant intellectual response. So, Tim Spiekerman (2001) argued that in Richard II Shakespeare was interested specifically, as was Machiavelli, in anatomizing what it means to be an effective ruler. But to be sure Shakespeare had little sense that anything good would arise from the hypocrisy, deceit, ambition and violence Machiavelli viewed as necessary to good governance. Spiekerman resisted what he saw as the erasure of Shakespeare’s agency as a political thinker in both the Tillyardian and new historicist frameworks. A perhaps more original contribution to this line of thought, however, was Hugh Grady’s. In an essay (2000) and a later book (2002), Grady argued that Shakespeare followed Michel de Montaigne in grappling with the ‘value-free logic of power’ (2002, p. 67) Machiavelli bequeaths to modernity. Machiavelli, in Grady’s reading, separated instrumental reason from humanist value, and the French essayist responded with an intense private scepticism that contributed to his theorizing a decentred and unfixed individual subjectivity formed in dialectical relation to Machiavellian instrumentality in matters of public power. It is Shakespeare’s own version of this Montaignian subjectivity that we find in the final acts of Richard II, and not, Grady argued pointedly, a ‘Rousseauistic . . . authentic inner self ’ (2002, p. 93) separate from the political realm. Richard’s subjectivity is not in retreat from but in dialogue with the normative linguistic, ideological and political structures from which he has been dissociated by his usurpation. If Grady saw differences between Montaigne and Shakespeare in the dramatist’s exploring this dialectical subjectivity at the point of crises, he, nonetheless, made a powerful case for seeing Richard’s subjectivity within local, Montaignian historical contexts, and thus in its differences not only from Rousseau but also from new historicist theorizations of it as an Althusserian or Foucauldian effect of power. What Grady ultimately revealed was Shakespeare’s powerful response to Machiavelli’s immense challenging of medieval ontology.

Historiography By the start of the new century, some critics had become fatigued with source study. As Jeremy Lopez (2008) put the case, historical source study construes the relationship between Shakespeare and Holinshed as one of dependence that doesn’t necessarily get at the aesthetic aims of Shakespeare, whose purposes for writing were distinctly different from those of his sources. But even before Lopez, the sense of dependence he identifies in traditional source study was being superseded by a more sophisticated analysis of historiography in the history plays. Critics made clear that for Shakespeare history plays and, perhaps, history itself were not simple representations of known truth but rhetorical or aesthetic constructs through which the national heritage could be argued, analysed and interpreted. In other words, the history play, like its content, was being historicized.

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This is a significant point, the cultural complexity of which we can see clearly by placing side-by-side works by Ruth Morse (1995), Catherine Lisak (2002) and Holger Schott Syme (2012). Morse’s and Lisak’s provocative essays concerned Shakespeare’s methods as an historian specifically, while Syme’s book was fundamentally a study of the cultural poetics of what he calls testimonial culture in early modern England. But all three made similar arguments about the ways medieval and early modern historians established their authority not through direct witness or testimony but by situating their accounts in relation to authorities already established. For Morse the idea that a ‘true narration is a matter of recording facts’ is ‘anachronistic’ (p. 123). She argued that Shakespeare’s practice was not unlike that of medieval historians, who were aware of an ‘author’s shaping voice and hand, and crafted their prose accordingly, to create convincing, verisimilar accounts of the past, within conventions broadly classed as rhetorical in a style recognizable as historical’ (pp. 115–16). Medieval historians represented the past by referring to other representations, and their effectiveness was adjudicated comparatively. In Richard II, then, Shakespeare wrote true history in the medieval sense: he was ‘specific and explicit on the crisis in 1399, but tacit and inferential about responsibility; he managed to keep interpretation open and to avoid fixing blame’ (p. 123). A few years later in 2002, Catherine Lisak made a similar point about Elizabethan historiography and its effect on Shakespeare. Her essay was written to add weight to scholarly arguments that the French accounts of Richard’s fall – Jean Créton’s metrical Histoire (c. 1399) and the anonymous Chronique de la traïson et mort de Richard Deux, roy D’Engleterre (c. 1400) – were, in fact, sources for Richard II. But Lisak, too, argued that Shakespeare approached the task of writing a play about Richard as an historian would have done, by searching into possible contradictory versions of the history he was dramatizing ‘to find material that might allow him to offer a truly credible representation of the complexities of kingship’ (p. 99). Indeed, she suggested that this habit of looking widely at sources was part of a ‘subversive impetus’ (p. 100) in Elizabethan historiography and that Shakespeare’s reliance on French sources would have allowed him to harmonize French Ricardian influences with more official Lancastrian ones. Syme was not interested in Shakespeare’s historiographical practices per se. But he argued that in early modern England judicial, testimonial and historiographical authority was typically represented by speakers whose purpose it was to recite scripts considered authoritative – as, for instance, when the Lord Keeper addressed Parliament in the words of the queen. In such a culture, the theatre, in which actors recite scripts, was well situated for fostering a sense of authority about what was being spoken. Hence, Syme read the deposition scene not merely as mimetic representation but, in fact, as a ‘bringing back’ (p. 203) of the narrative found in Holinshed, a re-creating of the effect of the play’s sources, which lent it historical authority. In his particular reading of the scene, Syme suggested that Bolingbroke’s accession to the throne through his own ‘immanent authority’ (p. 203) was one source of his many problems as king in a culture where such direct address was not the norm. While different from Morse’s and Lisak’s arguments, Syme’s does help us understand how the rhetorical historiographical procedures they described were not merely alternate ways of negotiating history but reflections of a radically different orientation of authority, truth and cognition in early England.

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 77 The idea that what counted in historical narrative was, in part, determined by stories and structures of knowledge already known was interpreted in terms of genre as well. Paul Budra (1994) and Michele Stanco (2000) looked specifically at the ways genres that seem to us purely literary shaped historical representation. So, Budra argued that Richard writes himself into, or shapes himself around, the popular form of de casibus tragedy, ‘a vital and well-known vision of historical reality’ (p. 5). The de casibus narrative echoed serious historical inquiry that viewed the history of monarchy as inevitably tragic, and Richard’s own shaping himself to the narrative allowed Shakespeare to conceive Richard’s character as being a ‘self-authored’ one (p. 7). In this Budra departed from critics who saw Richard moving out of history into tragedy in Shakespeare’s oddly structured play. The king’s story was, rather, an indication of the tragic form of history itself. Stanco agreed that traditional literary genres like comedy and tragedy affected the writing of history plays in ways that help explain how they promote an interior focalization on thoughts and subjectivities that cannot be known. But the point was to create a play of perspectives in the drama: Richard’s trajectory partakes of the fatalism of tragedy but is intersected or balanced by providential design. Richard is a legitimate king but also a bad one whose deposition is somewhat justified. There has also been a decided sense in recent discussions of Shakespearian historiography that the playwright doesn’t merely reflect history but influences, moulds and intervenes in its construction. A 1996 study by Pauline Kiernan rejected mimesis as the basis of Shakespeare’s theory of drama and substituted for it Richard Schechner’s understanding of drama as ritual. Kiernan argued that the downfall of Richard is not a ‘dramatization’ but ‘an enactment’ that alters and replaces ‘earlier authorities’ (p. 151) – a perspective that might seem to be validated by Syme’s later work. In other words, when Shakespeare represents Richard sitting on the ground to tell sad stories of the death of kings, he replaces his source in The Mirrour for Magistrates (1559) with Richard’s own fictitious voice. That voice, then, comes to serve as a new basis for future historical understanding, if not for truth per se. Rod Rosenstein (2004) argued that Shakespeare was influenced by, or at least is usefully read in conjunction with, Polydore Vergil’s Historia Anglica (1534), an idea that has not been widely accepted. But he made the fascinating point that in challenging Holinshed’s representation of Richard as a sensualist, Shakespeare exhibited a sensibility more like that found in Vergil. Thus, the playwright forged his own unique readings of history through a balancing of perspectives (and in ways that, perhaps, would be consistent with the kinds of medieval historiography described by Morse and Lisak). Derek Cohen (2002) took such arguments a step further by suggesting that in the second tetralogy Shakespeare comes close to a postmodern rejection of history as grand narrative. Richard’s situation is only one of the different stories of history evident in all four plays of the Henriad, and in the later plays the Yorkist king himself becomes an indeterminate sign of history past, narrativized in different ways by different characters to support their own versions of history. Although he was not interested in the medieval narratological contexts of Shakespearian historiography, Cohen’s argument still revealed a Shakespeare attentive to subjective accounts of history that placed him outside (often positivist) trends in the histories of history dominant in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In short, then, there was a growing understanding that Shakespeare’s achievement moved beyond the

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simpler (though still true) idea that his plays shaped credible interpretations of history learned from the Chroniclers. His plays were increasingly viewed in relation to the discourses through which history was conceived or institutionalized in the period, and Shakespeare himself was emerging as a competent historian in his own right.

Taking stock: A miscellany of views about individual characters and the Garden Scene Budra and Stanco notwithstanding, the emphasis on history in recent Richard II studies has tended to isolate Richard outside the tragic context of the play, which has led to a notable disintegration of sympathy for him. One early instance was Paula Blank’s 1997 essay, which argued that Shakespeare wrote Richard in direct response to the anonymous Woodstock (pre-1595?), a play she saw in large part as being about the dangers of speaking too liberally. Blank read both plays in connection with the reissuing in 1534 of an act against imagining or compassing the death of the monarch. So, Richard II dramatized ‘half-silences’ and the ‘dangers of representing truth too openly’ (p. 333), especially the truth that Richard murdered Gloucester. But far from sympathizing with the king, Blank suggested that his gift for poetry makes him all the more dangerous because it allows him, in the final scenes, to censor or suppress his own tarnished history. In a fine book from 2006, Rebecca Lemon was similarly condemnatory. Lemon studied the persistent fear of treason in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras discoverable in a variety of textual forms to argue that in Richard II Shakespeare investigated various modes of resistance to tyranny, including the linguistic resistance of Gaunt and York and the active resistance of Bolingbroke. Although she noted that Shakespeare failed to endorse such resistance, she saw Richard as ‘a traitor to himself ’, a man who ‘produce[d] his own opposition through his overzealous use of the law’ (p. 53). His role in the play thus frustrates readings that see Richard as tragic and reveal him instead to be a tyrant, a king who places himself above the law and a man who, even in his prison soliloquy, cannot recall his own earlier failures to negotiate justly with his subjects. In a compelling and increasingly influential analysis of the development of the public sphere in early modern England, Jeffrey S. Doty (2010) suggested that Shakespeare explores through Bolingbroke the tensions that accompanied the emergence of popularity as a basis for self-advancement. He also argued that Richard’s critique of Bolingbroke’s courtship to the common people bespeaks the king’s ‘affective divorce’ (p. 195) from his subjects, which Shakespeare saw as a limitation in a monarch. James Phillips (2012) explored Richard II within the context of Greek notions of tragedy and the law. In the Greek model, a tragic figure battles against external forces, and in these terms Phillips sees Richard struggling with the contradictions of English formulations of absolutism and the law: ‘Richard’s tragic fate is to expose the hypocrisy of a body politic that makes room for the absolute and yet expects the absolute to conduct itself in a moderate manner’ (p. 169). The play doesn’t represent Richard’s personal crises so much as a crisis in the English philosophy of sovereignty. But, despite seeing Richard as tragic (even if in a sense different from our usual notion of tragedy), Phillips

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 79 nevertheless faulted him because he ‘compromises the absoluteness of kingship’ in his abdication, following which ‘he becomes a king of words, voluble in his distress’ (p. 170). Finally, in his 2017 book, Sam Gilchrist Hall employed formalist methods to characterize Richard’s ‘degeneracy’ (p. 72) with regard to generation, primogeniture and royal genus – a point Hall contextualized through the tradition of Folly literature in humanist Europe. If, as Forker indicated, there has been a tradition of ‘high-minded moralism’ evidenced by the assessing of Richard’s person in contrast to Bolingbroke’s (see earlier, p. 18), a wide range of criticism in the past twenty years has pointed, rather more polemically, towards the king’s failures. York and Isabel, by contrast, have fared better. In Forker’s highly measured words as the Arden editor, York’s actions in the play are ‘politically untenable’ (2002, p. 30). Yet they have been somewhat redeemed by historical consideration. In an essay that spoke directly to humanist efforts to understand York’s seemingly contradictory actions, Paul Yachnin (2008) argued that we misread Shakespeare when we see his characters as embodying a kind of post-Enlightenment, deep interiority. They are, rather, ‘effects of a particular unfolding sequence of events and actions upon a particularly situated individual’ (p. 132). He saw York, then, largely in terms of his dramatic function as a character who illuminates ‘the effects of political instability on persons and families’ (p. 132). Others – Catherine Lisak (2005), Ken Jackson (2011), Conal Condren (2016) and Christina M. Squitieri (2019) – explored York as a more or less consistent character by way of specific and new contextualizing readings. As part of her rehabilitation of the widely criticized Aumerle scenes in Richard II (5.2 and 5.3), Lisak argued that early modern audience members would not have judged York’s amoral response to Aumerle’s treason outside its political context – as modern audiences tend to do. They would have been more responsive to ‘the divided loyalties that attend the new king’s accession and that create instability not only in the realm but within a single family’ (p. 39). Lisak’s point wasn’t so far from Yachnin’s, but it focused more fully on York’s agency. Her essay as a whole showed how these scenes give new priority to the subjective voices of citizens outside their roles as subjects of the realm. Jackson took a somewhat more extreme stand, reading York as an Abrahamic figure in a Kierkegaardian allegory of ‘the law beyond the law’ (p. 229). The biblical story celebrates faith in God beyond attachment to family, and though York is only a minor example of this religious principle (the major one being Gaunt), the play uses its father–son pairings to explore the priority of authority over and against personal desire. Condren examined the play through the lens of Pyrrhonian scepticism to show that Shakespeare advocates negotiating right and wrong in the politics of the play through a developed sense of balance, contingency of circumstance and constancy of judgement. In his reading, then, York is not inconsistent; he is constant. Finally, in a well-researched historical essay, Squitieri explored the feudal law behind the Aumerle scenes to argue that York bound himself in fealty to the Parliament for the loyalty of his son. Not only would the duke take his oath seriously as a sworn subject of the new king, but the consequences for not doing so would be devastating for him and his family. Significant reappraisal of Isabel’s character appears herein in the discussion of feminist responses to the play. But on one point it is worth pausing now. Helen Ostovich (2007) and Deanne Williams (2013) both called into question the tradition

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(specifically demonstrable only as far back as Nahum Tate’s 1681 adaptation, according to Williams) of representing Isabel onstage as a grown woman rather than the child she historically was during the events portrayed in the play. Although Ostovich drew on Froissart for evidence that Isabel was a self-assertive princess who idolized Richard, she made her case primarily in literary terms. Shakespeare, she reasoned, capitalized on Isabel’s youth and virginity by associating her with the hortus conclusis image of the Virgin in the garden. In this regard, her appearances in the play suggested a sense of the sacred in the secular world that conduces, in the balance, to a more favourable reading of the king. For instance, by presenting Isabel as a virgin, Shakespeare prevents her failure to bear children from counting as evidence of Richard’s sterility. And in her final appearance in the play, Isabel upbraids Richard for abrogating his monarchical responsibilities, and thus may help catalyse his change towards greater dignity in his end. Williams approached the matter from an entirely different perspective. She argued that in returning Isabel to her status as a child, we come closer to understanding the connections between Richard’s court and France that Williams sees as essential to the play. Historically, it was, in part, Richard’s efforts to please Isabel that led to his courtly extravagances. So, in the divorce between Richard and Isabel, the play dramatizes the breaking of a long-standing connection between the French and English. Although the Garden Scene has traditionally been read as an allegory of good medieval governance, recent critics have examined its intimations of republican or even radical ideas. As Norbrook (1996b) noted, the Gardener’s use of the word commonwealth ‘carries an oblique tinge of republican discourse’ (p. 47). Dermot Cavanagh (2001) expounded the theme more fully, reasoning that the scene was one in which Shakespeare introduced a popular voice in confrontation with an aristocratic one, in this case the queen’s. In so doing, he dramatized the essentially radical idea that the state is a commonwealth and, thus, by way of the Gardeners’ commentary directed serious political charges against the ruling orders. Writing from the view of a postcolonial subject, however, Sarbani Chaudhury (2005) was more circumspect with regard to the play’s radicalism. For Chaudhury, the Gardener is contained by his subordinate or marginal role as a servant. Still, and this is a key idea, his words reveal a surplus of meaning through which one might recognize the fall of Richard as the cure to what is wrong with England, and not merely the cause of its disruption.11

II. Feminism Although in the present volume Forker traced significant feminist inquiry on Richard II starting in the 1970s, the paucity of women characters in the Henriad meant that feminist analysis of the play remained somewhat limited. Things began to change, however, with the 1997 publication of Jean E. Howard and Phyllis Rackin’s seminal study, Engendering a Nation. Combining historicist inquiry with nuanced theorizations of gender, Howard and Rackin’s fundamental argument was that the second tetralogy retreated from the vigorous representation of women’s sexuality (and its threat to male authority) that was dominant in the first tetralogy. For the most part, the Henriad confined women to the private or domestic sphere even as it claimed the public

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 81 sphere for men. But, Howard and Rackin argued, Richard himself was associated with feminine modes of behaviour in contrast to the more masculine ones identified with Bolingbroke. So, their brilliant stroke was to show that Richard II destabilized the binary distinctions between male and female, and between patrilineal authority and its subversions, that defined the dramatic conflicts of the first tetralogy. They reclaimed their emphasis on women by demonstrating that these destabilizing factors reflected contemporary anxieties about a female monarch. Still, for all its brilliance, Howard and Rackin’s book did not fully grasp – or so it was thought by later critics – the significant and often subversive roles of the female characters in Richard II. So, three years later Molly Smith (2000) responded directly to Howard and Rackin by arguing that even though there were few women in Richard II, they were not wholly confined to the private sphere. Instead, Smith suggested, Shakespeare gave powerful voices to two women, the Duchesses of Gloucester and York, both of whom challenged masculinist ideologies in the play. When Gaunt, either through age or political reticence, fails to stand for the value of blood and family assaulted in Richard’s apparent murder of Woodstock, the Duchess of Gloucester does so in his place. And in fighting to save Aumerle’s life, the Duchess of York brings Bolingbroke around to an articulation of family affection over public politics. These women’s voices allowed Shakespeare to point to a change in the styles of political leadership between Richard and Bolingbroke, helping us see the new King Henry’s greater attention to family, a value they both espouse, and urging him to a greater responsiveness to his subjects. A few years later, Tsu-Chung Su (2004) helped fill in a blank in Smith’s argument by focusing similarly on Isabel. Reading two types of gendered sorrow in the play, Su distinguished between the ‘historicized’ grief articulated in the logcentric, historical tale of Richard and the ‘hystoricized’ sorrow manifested in Isabel’s barren womb (p. 5). Her point was that Isabel’s womb, which should be the location of patrilineal purpose, conceived only sorrow. Although in making this point, Su risked repeating an out-of-date gendered binary around logos and emotion, her significant idea was that Isabella’s sorrow was a type of perspective device distorting the play’s linear, historical trajectory. Isabel asserted the integrity of her own conflicting feelings and pointed towards the multiple, historically contingent discourses that traversed her subjectivity, thus rejecting Bushy’s counsel that there is one true way to look at events. Both critics, then, not only revealed the importance of women’s voices in Richard II but also showed these voices to be in some ways subversive. Although she didn’t cite Smith and Su, Melissa E. Sanchez (2012) developed similar arguments. Like Smith, Sanchez confronted Howard and Rackin for reading Richard II through a binary logic separating men and women into public and private spheres. Like Smith and Su, she detailed women’s engagement in the political debate and activity of the play, which, she compellingly noted, is ‘all the more striking insofar as it is absent from Shakespeare’s sources’ (p. 99). As a feminist reading of Richard II in this particular period, Sanchez’s analysis was perhaps second only to Howard and Rackin’s, for it made several important methodological points. First, Sanchez combined insights from Kantorowicz and Judith Butler to suggest that women were part of the Body Politic of the play. Second, she argued that how critics represent women shapes our knowledge and experience of their significance. Hence, in a friendly challenge to

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Howard and Rackin, Sanchez clarified exactly what was at stake in Smith’s, Su’s and her own feminist accounts of the women in the play. Equally important, she expanded perceptively what it is that counts as the representation of women in Shakespeare’s play: Sanchez wrote not only about the two duchesses and the queen but also about those women represented in various speeches in which Bolingbroke courted the common people. She also forged a clearer response to the gender binary that threatened to stymie Su, for she suggested that Isabel’s presentiment that something is coming her way is not merely about affect or emotion but an indication of her intelligent reading of the death-bed scene between Richard and Gaunt (at which she is, silently, present). Finally, Sanchez made the shrewd observation that in her confrontation with Bolingbroke, the Duchess of York articulates her desire for her son’s pardon as trumping the king’s claim to authority. Her conclusion, then, brought her back to Kantorowicz and Butler to insist that the women in Richard II help make clear that ‘sovereignty and subjection’ are ‘provisional and mutually sustaining roles’ (p. 111).12 Feminism and gender theory are not concerned, of course, only with women, and in this sense, we might expect the Henriad to anatomize masculinity as well. Jennifer Low (2000) implicitly addressed masculine exercises of power in an essay examining trial by combat in Richard II and the lessons it provides for understanding both Richard and Bolingbroke’s masculinity. But it was, perhaps, Jennifer C. Vaught’s 2008 book that elaborated most perspicuously the emotional effects of the cultural shift from a feudal, warrior-based model of masculinity to the kinds of masculinity articulated by courtiers and gentlemen in the Elizabethan court. Vaught contrasted the stoical restraint and verbal reticence of Bolingbroke to the affect, theatricality and rhetorical excess of Richard, and she linked these differences in character to the two men’s differing relations to the trial by combat, a point, as we saw, made in Low’s essay. But Vaught elaborated the idea by suggesting that Shakespeare had something of a polemical purpose in representing Richard as challenging the feudal definition of the chivalric warrior. As did Christopher Marlowe in Edward II, Shakespeare tended to endorse the man of feeling. Richard redefines his masculine identity in terms of privacy and interiority in ways that make him sympathetic and that ultimately give him legendary status in the Henriad as a whole. In short (and on this point Vaught advanced the insights of Howard and Rackin), Richard uses language and rhetoric much as women do in resisting their powerlessness, and he constructs, through his own private via dolorosa, a sense of authority and agency to counter Bolingbroke’s heartless manipulation of him.

III. Marlowe, sexuality and queer theory Critical interest in the connection between Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II and Shakespeare’s Richard II can be traced back to Charles Lamb (see earlier, p. 13 and No. 10), and that dramatic relationship continued to be explored in our period, as it always has been, in terms of genre, intertext and source. The history plays have always been notoriously difficult to classify generically, but Forker (1996), Eric Sterling (1996) and George L. Geckle (2000) all looked at the relationship between Marlowe and

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 83 Shakespeare to advance, in their own divergent ways, arguments in favour of a generic type. Forker was primarily interested in what he calls the ‘Shakespeare-Marlowe symbiosis’ (p. 90). He argued that Marlowe and Shakespeare work out the shape of an entirely new genre, the chronicle history play, through their symbiotic engagement with one another’s work: Shakespeare learned from Marlowe in composing his first tetralogy, Marlowe borrowed from Shakespeare’s early histories in writing Edward II, and, then, Shakespeare borrowed again from Edward II in composing Richard II.13 Geckle gave greater credit to Shakespeare. Comparing his play to Edward II, Geckle argued that to the extent that events in Richard II have, in Hayden White’s terms, ‘significance as elements of a moral drama’ (p. 24), Shakespeare’s play demonstrates an important quality of ‘history proper’ (p. 115) – this in contrast to Marlowe, who provides a more limited ‘sense of the modern world’, one in which human beings are pitted against one another and find ‘little meaning outside themselves’ (p. 111). Sterling resisted both ways of looking at the Marlowe–Shakespeare connection. He didn’t so much try to define a genre as show how a particular group of plays dramatizing aspects of English history – beginning with John Skelton’s Magnificence (c. 1519), moving through John Bale’s historical dramas, and ending with Shakespeare’s King Lear – were increasingly seditious. Both Edward II and Richard II, then, are representatives of a genre recognizable at least in part through its challenge to established ideologies. Other critics at the turn of the century sought ways to understand the relationships between Marlowe and Shakespeare that did not depend on linguistic echo (perhaps, in part, reflecting the influence of the structuralist and post-structuralist emphasis on ‘intertextuality’). For Richard Hillman (2002) this meant seeking out fields of overlapping discourses in which to understand the English drama anew. So, in the first of several works he developed the case for seeing both Marlowe and Shakespeare in relation to French sources – especially Pierre Matthieu’s closet drama La guisade (1589). Indeed, in a later essay (2005), Hillman exploited his understanding of the rich intertextual relations among French drama, Marlowe and Shakespeare to claim that Shakespeare’s advances in tragic form in Richard II were, in fact, impacted by his knowledge of French traditions. In a later return to the question of influence, Paul Menzer (2012) argued, with a glibness that perhaps belies the seriousness of his intent, that quotations of Marlowe in Richard II show Shakespeare working through an accretion of influences – a form of ‘sampling’ (p. 133), to use his postmodern term – that does not necessarily add up to the thematic and dramatic consistency so many critics hope to discover through their investigations of the play’s intertexts. Menzer’s glibness about thematic consistency notwithstanding, Robert Logan’s Shakespeare’s Marlowe: The Influence of Christopher Marlowe on Shakespeare’s Artistry (2007) deserves careful attention as a study of intertextual influence. Logan was concerned with the ways Shakespeare adapted Marlowe’s ‘dramaturgical techniques and stylistic tendencies in language and syntax’ (p. 2). The result is a stunning analysis of Shakespeare’s response to and improvement on Marlowe’s own advances in the genres of chronicle history and tragedy. Logan borrowed an idea from Stephan Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning (1980) to argue that Edward has, in Greenblatt’s phrase, an absolute ‘will to play’ (p. 219) that ill equips him to be king. Marlowe’s interest in characters who fail to adapt themselves to the moral responsibilities of their roles

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is well known. But Logan pointed out that the playwright was not able to integrate this interest in psychology with the episodic form of the chronicle history play he was helping to fashion. Shakespeare took notice in Richard II, adapting Marlowe’s interest in his characters’ will to play to his own tragic version of the chronicle history form. While Richard has a will to play similar to Edward’s, he is less passive than Marlowe’s king, and Shakespeare explores in him a strength of character that propels him towards a more satisfying tragic resolution. If Richard’s various verbal performances are substitutes for responsible public action, they nevertheless reflect a Marlovian quality, ‘his constant exertion of energy and continuous outpouring of inventiveness’ (p. 102). But Richard doesn’t merely dodge reality, as Edward does; rather, ‘he expresses with absolute consistency the only reality he knows or wants to know . . . with an energy, imagination, and intelligence that awe us’ (p. 102). The play’s tragedy, then, lies in the fact that a man with such talent as Richard’s cannot adapt it to his political role. Logan provided insight into the development of Shakespeare’s tragedy by combining a romantic reading of Richard with the new historicist emphasis on the will to power in the construction of early modern subjectivity.

Sexuality and queer theory The connection between Edward II and Richard II took on renewed importance in the 1990s, when Marlowe’s play became a key document in the queer analysis of the English Renaissance. Indeed, the topic seemed almost to represent a wholly new field of inquiry, at least for studies of Richard II. Perhaps the most important question Richard II raised for sexuality studies wasn’t whether the king exhibits the apparent homoerotic desire Marlowe dramatized in Edward II; it concerned, rather, the institutionalized structures of masculine desire that link the two plays in an era before homosexuality was a recognizable identity construct. In an influential statement in the Arden, Forker pointed out that Bolingbroke’s charge that Bushy and Green engaged the king in homosexual activity echoed Marlowe’s play. But following a long critical practice of distancing homosexuality from readings of Richard II, he also argued that because the charge was clearly inconsistent with the devoted fidelity of Richard’s marriage to Isabel, it was trumped up by Bolingbroke (3.1.11–15 and note). Critics alert to newer theorizations of early modern sexuality spun this moment somewhat differently, however. Mario Digangi (1997) agreed that Bolingbroke’s charges seem contrived. But he also argued that we need to see them within a larger cultural context in which the threat of sodomy had significant social power. Digangi thus posited the idea that Bolingbroke raises the spectre of sodomy to point towards Richard’s failure to produce an heir and so ‘naturalize’ (p. 118) the transfer of political power to himself. In short, he made clear an idea that would resonate widely: If Shakespeare’s king was not homosexual; homosexual behaviour was nonetheless relevant to Richard II. Two essays in particular instanced the significant interpretive distance critics would travel in their understanding of early modern homoeroticism in the 1990s. Maurice Charney (1994) defined Edward II not as a source (in which a work draws on the language and verbal resources of another play) but as a model (in which a work reflects

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 85 general ideas and analogous characters or situations) for Richard II. In this respect, he argued that, among other things, Marlowe’s play modelled sodomy for Shakespeare. But if that theme was explicit in Marlowe, in Shakespeare it was an ‘undeveloped ghost theme’ (p. 33). Sodomy was not directly represented but strongly implied. Charney’s reading of the play, however, tended to limit same-sex desire within the stigmatized term sodomy, making it easily knowable or identifiable as a marginal sexual identity. Three years later, and with the hindsight of a more fully developed commentary on the histories of same-sex sexuality in early modern England, Meredith Skura (1997) located the erotic discourses in both plays in terms of valourized friendship rather than stigmatized sodomy. Skura read Shakespeare’s text to reveal subtle evocations of friendship and love. Richard II demonstrates how important Richard’s friends are to him, and in this sense the king is very much like Edward. But Shakespeare, she argued, leaves behind the ‘erotic violence’ (p. 54) of Marlowe’s play. The point, of course, was that the word friend in early modern England signified the possibility of erotic desire between same-sex couples not stigmatized as sodomy – an important distinction Skura clarified. While many of these readings responded to an emerging understanding, deriving from Michel Foucault, that sexuality had a history, that erotic expression was different in different times and places, none was queer in the sense of exposing the dialectical interrelations of normative and non-normative desires that term has come to signify. For that, we need to look at two other groundbreaking essays, written a decade apart. In 2003, Madhavi Menon dissented from the many readings of Richard II that tended to downplay homosexuality as a significant component in understanding the play (like Forker’s) as well as those that focused on an easily identifiable history of sexual difference (like Charney’s). Menon theorized instead sexualities that have a transhistorical valence and that, rather than being understood as social identities, can be located more perspicuously through rhetoric – in this case metonomy. She read one such metonymy through the Garden Scene of Richard II, which, she suggested, shouldn’t simply be seen as an allegory for good governance. Rather, it’s a scene that tends to absolve Bolingbroke for his political disruptions while it implicates Richard in the corruption of nature. It, therefore, links the king, metonymically, to the unnatural desires evoked by Bolingbroke when he accuses Bushy, Bagot and Green of improper, possibly sexual, relations with the king. Menon’s point was that the king is held accountable for something other than his misgovernance; he is accused in sexual terms that help justify Bolingbroke’s usurpation. But Menon’s larger theoretical point was to reject a Foucauldian reading of the history of sexuality that places early modern sodomy in opposition to modern sexual subjectivities. If we approach sexuality through rhetoric, she suggested, we may at the very least be able to stop thinking of the early modern period as lacking a sexuality that we alone possess in the post-Enlightenment. The queer sense that Richard stands abjectly for something that cannot be expressed in the play as homosexuality per se is developed differently ten years later by Corey McEleney (2013). Ultimately, McEleney critiqued the use value traditional humanism demands of art. But intriguingly, he employed that idea to understand the conflict between Bolingbroke and Richard, both of whom are characterized in the gendered and sexualized terms of generation and utility. Richard represents a threat to social

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order because he is non-generative and his desires, whatever else they may be, are not utilitarian. The king rejects ‘social obligations for the self ’ (p. 151). On this level, McEleney described Richard in terms of the queer theorist Lee Edelman’s understanding of the sinthomosexual, a figure that ‘serves the Symbolic order as a repository for the senseless jouissance that must be evacuated or abjected in order to sustain the fantasy of political cohesion’ (p. 150). Richard, then, is not homosexual but linked to figures (like the modern sinthomosexual) that interfere with the ‘teleological push toward’ social order (p. 150), and who must, therefore, be either deformed or reformed, even himself participating in that process. McEleney gave the idea a final twist by arguing that Shakespeare uses Richard’s own self-reduction as a way of placing his drama beyond suspicion of being something that ‘takes pleasure in “being nothing”’ (p. 160). The essay was an interesting, queer variation on earlier readings – like Walter Pater’s, William Hazlitt’s or W. B. Yeats’s (see earlier, pp. 21–2) – that valourized the virtues in Richard’s pleasures. But the general point is that both Menon and McEleney resisted the abnegation of non-reproductive sexualities and un-generative living written into the structure of Richard II in ways histories of sexual difference did not fully grasp.

IV. Humanist and Christian readings Clearly, the lack of critical sympathy for Richard we saw illustrated earlier is not universal. Traditionally, criticism praised what two of the play’s important editors understood as its ‘balance’ (Gurr 2003, p. 16) or its ‘ambivalences’, the elaboration of truths that are relativistic and competing (Forker 2002, p. 47). Their judgement was surely correct, for a continuing critical tradition emphasizes Richard’s turn towards tragic sympathy at the end of the play. To take only a few examples, Harry Levin (1996) called Richard a ‘lyrical self-questioner’ whose language evokes a ‘context of Proustian memories’ (pp. 18, 20). Jonathan Samuel Shaw (1999) was so sympathetic that he suggested even Gaunt’s complaints about Richard seem personal. What follows from Richard’s glimpse of nothingness are ‘signs of genuine love and pity to Man’ (p. 179). In the Arden edition, Forker documented the play’s shrewd development of a tragic sense of Richard’s interior and multifaceted personality even in the midst of its dramatization of political rebellion. John J. Joughin (2006) linked Richard II to Hamlet in terms of the universality of both plays’ expositions on human grief. Finally, A. A. Ansari (2010), in a rather impressionistic analysis of the existentialist crises that drive Shakespeare’s characters, nevertheless articulated a profound human sympathy for Richard. These types of humanist, even idealist, responses to the play led in several instances to a salutary turning away from the themes of history or tragedy towards an analysis of Richard II and the entire Henriad in terms of family. Writing about what we learn by considering the Henriad as a tetralogy rather than a collection of individual plays, Harry Berger (2015) reasonably suggested that a pervasive theme is the ‘combat between father [Henry] and son [Hal] that frustrates all their attempts at reconciliation or atonement’ (p. 60–1). But, in fact, Sharon Cadman Seelig (1995), David George (2004), Fred B. Tromly (2010) and Joseph Candido (2014) had all already provided some gloss on the question of family relations in Richard II.

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 87 Re-valuing the seeming absurdity of the Aumerle–York scenes in Richard II (5.2 and 5.3), Seelig argued that they encapsulate the problematic relations between fathers and sons that are reproduced throughout the play. Ultimately Seelig placed these familial disorders into a Christian universalizing context that showed them to be problems of an ‘essential fallen human nature’ (p. 364). But the strength of her essay lay in its demonstration of the ways family dynamics complicate the play’s dissection of kingship. David George didn’t focus so much on conflict as the issue of absent or emotionally distant fathers and their weak sons. The young, fatherless Richard is not only childless but increasingly dependent on authority figures, as Isabel makes clear when she chastises his failure to act decisively to counter Bolingbroke. Tromly provided yet another reading of the father–son bond in terms of sons’ struggling with the cultural imperative to honour their fathers, against whom they also harbour resentments – as we see, for instance, in the underlying tensions between Gaunt and Bolingbroke. Candido approached the topic via the new biographically oriented scholarship, wondering if the relationship between Gaunt and Bolingbroke – with Gaunt’s worries about his son’s thrift, and Bolingbroke’s fear for his inheritance – may not have been conditioned by Shakespeare’s own experience in the 1590s. In that decade the dramatist secured a coat of arms, thus ‘gentling’ his position, and he purchased a great house that he might pass on to his son Hamnet. But, as is well known, in 1596 Hamnet died while still a child. All these readings assumed there are human lessons to be taken from Shakespeare that are more important than the historical, political and ideological ones that have loomed so large in commentary on Richard II over the past twenty-five years.

Christian readings Such humanist musings are not unrelated to Christian idealism in Shakespeare studies. The essential question for Christian commentators on Richard II concerns its protagonist’s moral response to his downfall, and critics in our period remained deeply divided on the answer. So, John W. Velz (2004) focused on Richard’s moral failings. In an analysis of the Garden Scene, he reversed course on dominant political readings to give it a more pointed moral one. Linking England to Eden through the metaphor of the garden, he saw Richard as a ‘sinful Adam, not a redeeming Christ’ (p. 139). Richard was a man who fails to take his God-given responsibility seriously and is thus deposed. One prominent critic, Maurice Hunt, returned to Richard II several times over nearly two decades to register an evolving response to the question of Richard’s moral culpability. In 1999, Hunt provided a complex critique of Richard II as a tragic work, one that complicates the old de casibus formula for tragedy by showing Richard’s intellectual absorption in the effort to find alternative selves open to ‘rich spiritual experience’ (p. 12). He suggested, however, that the king ultimately squanders this potential, symbolized by his heroic selfassertion at the end, when he rises violently to defend himself against his murderers. If the play had seemed to promise a new tragedy of the mind, it ultimately retreated from that ideal. In a later essay (2011), Hunt took a different tack, suggesting that

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Richard is unable to grow beyond the bleak prospect of being nothing; ‘he does not die with the blessedness to which he had earlier aspired’ (p. 240). Finally, in his most recent comments (2016), which occur in the context of a deeply felt investigation of Christian thinking in multiple Western writers, Hunt turned to the deposition scene to argue that Richard’s mirror is not an ‘Augustinian glass conferring self-knowledge with divine overtones, but a Renaissance Mirror of Vanity’ (p. 27). Richard fails to see divinity in or through his own face. Hunt provided, then, an explicit moral gloss to the king’s apparent nihilism. For all their pessimism, such readings nevertheless positioned Richard II at the profound heart of Western Christian idealism. But not everyone concurred with their disappointed characterizations of the king. In a fascinating essay about how Richard identifies himself through the personal pronoun I, Joseph Candido (2001) traced a development from the king’s use of an I that represents his Body Natural to one that connects his Body Natural to the mysterious and divine properties of his Body Politic. Candido’s most important point, though, concerned the ending of the play, when Richard self-identifies with an I ‘founded not on elevation and magnification but lowliness and diminishment’ (p. 472). Candido linked Richard’s contentment with ‘being nothing’ to Christian self-effacement, in which ‘nothing, emptiness, absence is paradoxically something’ (p. 472) that makes him visible to God himself. In an essay from 2004 about the various mirroring effects in Richard II, Robert M. Schuler argued that although the play represents a ‘demonic topsyturvy world’ (p. 154), one in which both Richard and Bolingbroke are participant, the king in the end advances in spiritual self-knowledge, with the mirror scene being pivotal to his growth. To be sure, in another essay, Schuler (2006/7) elaborated more fully – and rather dubiously sometimes – the ways Shakespeare represented this inverted world in Richard II. Even so, his focus remained on Richard’s tragic spiritual redemption, and he suggested the king ultimately dies in the holy way outlined by the Ars Moriendi, the popular late-sixteenth-century text outlining a ritual for Christian death. Other critics sought a less idealizing middle ground, especially, and not surprisingly, through historical contextualization. Jean-Christophe Mayer (2006) argued that Shakespeare’s own religious investments or beliefs may have been ‘mixed’ (p. 5), a combination of Catholic and Protestant ideas reflecting the religious debates of his time. Thus, he read Gaunt’s ‘sceptred isle’ (2.1.40) speech, with its evocation of the crusades, as expressing a tension between England’s pride in its separatist heritage as a Protestant state and its nostalgia for a crusading state under Catholic monarchs. In Mayer’s reading, Richard II, and the history plays in general, raised the unsettled question of England’s particular place in a divided Christendom.14 Debora Shuger (2009) came at the question of Richard’s Christian identification from a genuinely new perspective when she argued that rather than staging a transition from medieval sacral monarchy to a more modern version, the play thematized tensions around the conflict between Christian values and traditional aristocratic honour codes. In her reading, Richard stands for these Christian values. While her argument led her to make the perhaps dubious claim that Shakespeare (unlike his sources) obscures Richard’s many failings as king, she made a case for Richard’s modelling atonement and reconciliation,

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 89 patience and piety, none of which he can reconcile with the old aristocratic values put on display by Mowbray and Bolingbroke at the start. Dissenting explicitly from historicist readings focused on the republican politics of Richard II, Adrian Streete (2009) read the play through the Bible and Reformation thinkers such as John Calvin. In doing so, he argued that the work interrogated the preReformation assumption that there was a contiguity between the human and divine. In Richard II the king struggles with the difficulties (both political and psychological) of being a secular ruler analogous to Christ. But Streete did not view Richard’s Christological associations as farce. Rather, they are evoked in the play as a reality that wanes along with the king’s monarchical power, even as they wax in Bolingbroke’s establishing a ‘rival ritual framework that invokes Christ’s atoning status’ (p. 183). If Richard himself fails to live up to the divine, the play does not reject a notion of absolute authority associated with Christ and therefore remains within the framework of such authority. Finally, in a book primarily about religious toleration in the Henriad, Joseph Sterrett (2012) also took Richard’s religious leanings seriously by demonstrating that in the early modern period prayer was often part of a specific strategy for articulating values and perspectives. Richard’s religious professions are not signs of weakness but a representation of his sacred power that continues to haunt characters throughout the Henriad. Critics have also been interested in the multiple ways Richard II was shaped by new cultural processes and representational practices emerging in the Reformation. T. G. Bishop (2000), Hannibal Hamlin (2004), Timothy Rosendale (2003) and James Funk (2019) all explored these ideas through the play’s connection with specific religious texts. Bishop looked at the weakening of a sacramental poetics of embodiment by comparing John Foxe’s description of the disparagement of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in Actes and Monuments (1563) with Shakespeare’s handling of the deposition of Richard, two scenes in which men renounce aspects of their selves. Hamlin placed Shakespeare’s play within a reformed culture of biblical reading by examining its allusions to Psalm 137. Rosendale read the Henriad in relation to the Book of Common Prayer and its understanding of symbols and representation. And Funk examined the ways Northumberland’s and York’s resistances to Richard reflect the discrepant and often paradoxical writings about political obedience in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536). Charlotte Scott (2007) and Isabel Karremann (2010) intervened more philosophically on the subject of Shakespeare and reformed theology. In examining the ways metaphors of the book informed the meanings of characters’ lives in early modern England, Scott argued that Richard, without explicitly mentioning the Bible, places the metaphoric book of Heaven at the centre of his conscience. But he fails to see that the book as an idea was coming increasingly to be seen as symbolic, and so it no longer bore substantive power in the temporal world. Karremann, whose argument belongs primarily to the field of memory studies (see later this chapter), suggested that Reformation efforts to unmake and remake images were related to community rituals that sought to obliterate and reformulate communal memories. She identified this dialect at work in Richard, whose gestures of self-oblivion nevertheless allowed him to re-constitute himself as a mythic king and Christian ideal.

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V. Language, genre and performance Though the movement that has been termed the new formalism may presage a different future, the predominance of historicizing readings of Shakespeare’s plays in the past quarter century led to a relative decline in aesthetic investigations. Yet three critics – Burton Raffel (1996), Leo Salingar (1996) and Charles Forker (2002) – provided useful overviews of the language, verse and rhetoric of Richard II and, more to the point, precise evidence of the ways these underscore theme, characterization and plot. Raffel’s work was perhaps the most focused of the three, for it concentrated on rhyme and what an audience would have taken from hearing it. Obviously, Raffel was aware that rhyme acts as a signal to end a scene or clinch the force of an aphorism, its fundamental uses. But he moved beyond such examples to show how falling into or out of rhyme helps condense or frame ideas, and thus focuses audience attention, especially in a play written entirely in verse. Salingar was more comprehensive than Raffel in analysing a variety of different styles and modes of rhetoric in Richard II. But perhaps his most significant idea was to show how ‘[f]ormal rhetoric’ underlines ‘the basic contrast between Richard’s fantasy and Bolingroke’s realism’ (p. 27), an idea widely understood to be true but not always demonstrated in such detail. Forker explored language with a slightly more up-to-date perspective when he wrote that Richard’s ‘essentialist conception of language obliterates the space between signifier and signified’ (p. 66). He meant Richard imagines that his own signifying voice seamlessly produces his signified divinity. Shakespeare, of course, undermined ‘without entirely repudiating this exalted notion’ (p. 66). But another critic, Patricia Canning (2012), placed greater emphasis on the ways the play undermined not only Richard but the semiotics of sacral monarchy itself. Canning argued that we can see in Shakespeare’s play some of the ways Reformed theology, constituting the word as the key to the Word, confused the one with the other and disrupted the signifying system of the sign itself. The argument also suggested that when Richard creates a figure of himself as a condemned man who is the only person able to depose the king, he drives a wedge between the sign by which the king represents the King. Indeed, Canning continued, through the aural pun on ‘nothing’, pronounced as ‘noting’, the play figures Richard himself semiotically, as a ‘“textual” entity’ (p. 16). As ‘text’, he exposes the idolatrous connection between his individual person, small cap king, and the mystical concept, large cap King. Canning’s essay was not precisely formalist in the sense being examined in this section, but juxtaposing it to the other essays discussed here suggests how concern with language in Shakespeare’s plays was moving towards fascination with the sign under the influence of post-structuralist theory. One last example explores Shakespeare’s language in a highly original way through the visual arts. Stuart Sillars’s 2015 book provocatively argued that in writing Richard II Shakespeare was influenced by pre-modern visual representations of monarchs (including the famous portrait of ‘Richard Enthroned’ [c. 1395] in Westminster Abbey). These works inspired in the playwright stage images that relied on perspectival techniques for centring Richard, until, that is, the moment when he descends into the base court to speak to Bolingbroke in a balanced, face-to-face scene. Even more interesting, Sillars demonstrated that this change in visual perspective was undergirded

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 91 by ‘the collapse of the rich ceremonial structures of language used earlier by the king’ (p. 161).15 In other words, he suggested that the language of the play reflected its rich visual structures.

Genre Genre, of course, is a difficult topic in a play whose early texts associate it with both ‘tragedie’ and ‘history’. But in addition to those critics we’ve already seen who look at Shakespeare’s mixing of genre as an historiographic feature of the play (Budra and Stanco), or those who attempt to define the chronicle history play more precisely (Forker, Sterling and Geckle), two other recent critics, Zenón Luis-Martínez (2008) and Alexander Shurbanov (2010), made notable attempts to define coherent aesthetic effects in Richard II’s mixing of generic modes. Luis-Martínez’s essay suggested that because Richard II is ‘paradigmatic of a conception of history as mournful experience – a mournfulness that is made conspicuous by dramatic rhetoric and structure’ (p. 678) – the play might be understood in terms of Walter Benjamin’s conception of the German Trauerspiel, or mourning play. The Trauerspiel incorporates mourning and serious tragic effect into plays that are fundamentally about human actions in human contexts. As in Richard II, the character typically at the centre of these plays is a monarch who is part tyrant and part martyr, one whose princely virtues and vices are the source of community in them. History and tragedy meet for these monarchs in the many woeful experiences that reveal them in ‘commerce with [their] own temporality’ (p. 676). Luis-Martínez provided, then, an alternative reading to those that see history in Richard II as the realistic background to a story that then turns inconsistently tragic. Shurbanov differed from Luis-Martínez to the extent he accepted the binary of tragedy and history in Richard II as well as the dichotomy between Richard’s early and later actions in the play. But he argued that Shakespeare integrated lyrical modes of writing – the seemingly personal or interior monologic articulation of a speaker – into the fundamentally dialogical structure of the drama. For Shurbanov, it is the lyrical mode of Richard’s thought that allows him and the play to move towards tragedy. Richard makes ‘better headway into our hearts’ than Bolingbroke because his ‘lyrical selfexpression’ (p. 155) has allowed us to know him more intimately. Of course, Richard has long been noted for his poetry, but for Shurbanov the issue was the monologic lyrical forms of his speech and thought. In some ways his argument overlaps Jennifer Vaught’s (1999), which didn’t focus so much on genre as argue that Richard and Isabel speak in lyrical utterances, language that articulates their private emotions while they are in isolation within various spaces of confinement throughout the play. Although Richard II is short on one of the staple ingredients of the chronicle history play as Shakespeare wrote it, comedy does make an appearance, or so some critics argue. In 1991, David Bergeron had interpreted Richard as a ‘mock king’ (p. 37) and suggested that the play had something of a carnival spirit. But five years later, seemingly guided by the political sensibility of her era, Martha Kurtz (1996) countered by pointing out that carnival is popular in spirit and that in Richard II such populism is mocked by arrogant aristocrats. Several years after that, David Ruiter (2003) upheld

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Kurtz’s resistance. Ruiter argued that although the Henriad represents an enduring sense of festivity, Richard fails to embrace that festivity and its communal spirit. For Wai-Fong Cheang (2001) comic theatricality in the history plays revealed the ironies of the historical events portrayed. So, she made the provocative point that the Duchess of York, like Falstaff, empowers herself by creating a comic space that suspends, in this case male, logic. Despite her sense that an early modern audience may have had greater sympathy for York than a modern one, Catherine Lisak (2005) showed that in the comic, indeed farcical, act five scenes focused on the Aumerle defection, Shakespeare parodies popular out-of-date anti-sedition rhetoric to make York’s literalist position about his son’s treason seem ridiculous and old-fashioned. Finally, Joan Hartwig (2006), saw the infamous gauge-throwing scene at 4.1 as typical of Shakespeare’s consistent mixing of comedy and tragedy to defuse further tragic action (unsurprisingly, she linked the scene to the gauge-exchange between Williams and the king in Henry V). Of course, we should not be surprised to find critics still concerned with the nature of Shakespearian tragedy as it is represented in Richard II. For as early as the first Arden edition (1912), Ivor John saw Richard prefiguring Lear as a tragic character. Many critics in our period made such connections lightly, but others explored them in substantial arguments. Two early examples gave a disturbing spin to the question of Richard’s apprehension of his own nothingness. For Sandor Goodhart (1996), Richard’s problem as king is that he destroys both his Body Natural and Body Politic. He does so by failing to see and understand the ways the two overlap to create a metaphysics of divine presence in the medieval world. As a result, he comes to see himself as playing many roles with no content, and thus the play reveals a crucial connection between him, Hamlet, Lear and (Goodhart’s most important point) the condition of modern nihilism. Howard Caygill (2000) came to similar conclusions. But for him Richard’s nothingness is not simply the opposite of being. It is a condition of being not-nothing, bearing a shape that is neither being nor nothingness. Thus, Richard is subject to a final horror, his own perception that he has no self at all. Other critics moved away from this type of romanticizing the play’s seeming nihilism, while still providing insightful accounts of the nature of the tragic experience in Richard II. Forker (2005), for example, provided a detailed comparison of King Lear and Richard II to show that the earlier play ‘marks an imaginative advance toward the realization of what was to become [Shakespeare’s] most titanic, profound and elemental masterpiece’ (p. 32). But he stopped short of suggesting that Richard faces the ‘abyss of metaphysical uncertainty’ (p. 33) that characters in Lear do. The upheaval in Richard II remains fundamentally national and historical. Still other scholars compared Richard II to greater tragedies to find Richard himself lacking tragic stature. So, Hanna Scolnicov (2006) relied on ideas about the self from the French historian Jean-Pierre Vernant to suggest that although Richard anticipates Lear’s developing sense of interiority, he goes to his death with only the glimmerings of a self. Significantly, Scolnicov provided something of a new intertextual connection for the play when she read Richard’s actions in the deposition scene next to Montaigne’s essay ‘How one ought to governe his wil’, especially John Florio’s 1603 translation. James A. Knapp, in an essay from 2014, provided a highly nuanced take on the question of Richard’s stature. He rejected the idea that Richard achieves the ‘emergent

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 93 interiority of modern subjectivity some find in Hamlet’ (p. 95). But Knapp’s point was not to denigrate the play or the character. It was, rather, to resist what he saw as the limitations of dominant historicist (new and old) readings that depict Richard ‘as an emblem of Elizabethan national trauma, recovery, and nostalgia’ (p. 96). Knapp was interested in understanding Richard’s fall as a fully human tragedy, outside the historical debates of the age, and he proposed that we come closer to understanding the nature and meaning of Richard’s tragedy if we approach the character through the modern phenomenological thought of Jean-Luc Marion. Doing so, we see that the king’s tragedy exists precisely in his inability to attain interior self-awareness because he cannot stop playing roles that originate in his imaginative conceits. Hence, he is unable to focus on his material well-being. Only once and only for a moment, in Richard’s ‘surprising reception of the gift of music’ (p. 113) in his final moments of life, does the king experience the world in its phenomenal plenitude outside his personal obsessions. But in this moment ‘Shakespeare offer[s] us something more than an exploration of history or tragedy as the deserved end of a weak monarch or the consequence of a blindness to self-knowledge’ (p. 113). Knapp’s essay was highly original in viewing Richard II as one of a number of types of Shakespearian tragedy, rather than an example within a developmental model.

Performance For many years in the early twentieth century, Richard II was considered too static and overburdened with poetry to make the transition to the stage successfully. But from the middle to the late twentieth century and after, a number of stagings fundamentally changed that perception. We can illustrate by looking at three productions widely judged to be classics by scholars writing in the period covered here: John Barton’s 1973 staging for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in which Richard Pasco and Ian Richardson alternated the roles of the king and Bolingbroke; Deborah Warner’s 1995 production for the Royal National Theatre, with Fiona Shaw in the lead role; and Steven Pimlott’s year 2000 modern dress production for the RSC at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon. Criticism of such productions not only testifies to the play’s stage-worthiness; it also, as Lois Potter (2003) argued, demonstrates that stage performance itself is a type of interpretation, an idea perhaps unthinkable before the 1960s. We’ve seen examples already, in comments on the Kantorowicz connection in Shaw’s Richard and Barton’s RSC production. But critics in our period identified other significant themes in these productions as well. Ralph Berry (1999) argued that Barton’s staging shows us, ‘Richard-with-Bolingbroke’ (p. 75), by which he meant that the production explored the ways both men need each other and end up united in kingship by the close of the play. Grace Tiffany (1999) looked at the Warner/Shaw production to mount a polemical argument about cross-gender casting: when women play men on stage, she argued, they reinforce gender roles and stereotypes because they are responding to perceived feminine characteristics in the roles they play. Tiffany’s usefully astringent comments, however, might be productively balanced against Potter’s, which linked the production’s casting choices to notions of

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gender performativity developed by the feminist philosopher Judith Butler. Although his comments lack historical nuance, Herbert Coursen (2002) argued intriguingly that the televised version of Warner’s production represented Richard as gay. Pimlott’s production, with its setting in a confined space, opened with Richard reciting lines from the king’s final soliloquy: ‘I have been studying how I may compare / This prison where I live unto the world’ (5.5.1–2). Consequently, it has been widely understood to be about the existential crises of its two main characters. As Robyn Bolam (2002) suggested, Pimlott led the audience to see beneath the surface of medieval heraldry to the innerconsciousness of the king. For Samuel West (2004), the actor who played Richard, the production made explicit what is implicit in the play itself: the ways its characters are confined within the space of life. As for audience engagement in these existential matters, Bridget Escolme (2005) noted that the production took place ‘in a theatrical present’ (p. 105) in which the audience took an active role. There were other productions and critics, of course, but the point seems clear: scholars in our period were becoming highly aware of the interpretive validity of theatrical performances. What is probably more surprising in the recent critical history of Richard II is evidence of the increasingly global theatrical appeal of what only seemed to be one of Shakespeare’s more provincial works, a play about the life and death of a minor medieval English king. Since the middle of the twentieth century, there has been an abundance of productions and adaptations of Richard II by world-class directors in locations as far-flung as Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Palestine, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Spain and the United States. We can gain some sense of this variety, and the cultural and political implications of these performances, by looking at recent essays and critical analyses collected in Ton Hoenselaars’s Shakespeare’s History Plays: Performance, Translation and Adaptation in Britain and Abroad (2004). But to understand better what is at stake in the globalization of Richard II, we might note one exemplary essay by Francesca Clare Rayner (2010). Responding to Dennis Kennedy’s (2003) argument that turn-of-thecentury Shakespeare production was ideologically adrift, unfocused in its purpose, reliant on heritage appeal and bowing to postmodern consumerism, Rayner countered with ideas derived from two productions of Richard II in Portugal: Carlos Avilez’s 1995 staging at the Teatro Nacional Doña Maria II in Lisbon and Nuno Cardoso’s 2007 production at the Auditório Carlos Alberto in Porto. Rayner argued that even if it is only an increased knowledge of the playwright’s work, heritage productions bring something to audiences where Shakespeare performance is rare. Her more important point, though, was that the location of a performance makes a difference in terms of its meaning to its audience. Ideas arise in local contexts, and while not all productions endorse resistance in the manner of Brechtian productions from the 1960s, they may still reveal and historicize ideologies in ways conducive to local understanding and social change. So, Rayner suggested that the productions of Richard II she discussed revealed the instability of political power in Portugal in their times. Cardoso in particular used farcical staging and parody to subvert historical tragedy and de-legitimize male political authority. The idea is not, as Rayner clearly saw, that Shakespeare is universal. But local theatres render him particular to different audiences, and in ways that then reflexively enlarge our global comprehension of the playwright and his work.

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VI. Theory, cognition, new formalism and ecocriticism Perhaps the most noteworthy movement in criticism of Richard II in the past decade has been the shift away from dominant historicism towards more formalist and theoretical concerns. Both, of course, have existed in the shadow of historicism throughout the period covered in this introduction, but 2012 was a banner year for declarations of independence from both old and new histories. In that year, Jeremy Lopez edited Richard II: New Critical Essays, the contents of which, taken together, helped guide criticism away from its long overdependence on ideological historicism. The move was deliberate, for in the introduction Lopez called for renewed archival work, a more robust consideration of Shakespeare’s literary intertexts, a new interest in literary and critical forms, and an increase in methodological innovation. In that same year, Neema Parvini published Shakespeare’s History Plays: Rethinking Historicism, a book that anatomized what Parvini saw as the many weaknesses of the new historicism and cultural materialism, with particular concern for the question of the individual. Parvini argued lucidly that developments in evolutionary psychology and neurobiology reveal a more balanced interrelationship between nature and culture than post-structuralist theory allows, and he defended Shakespeare as a thinking human being within the culture of his time. As did Lopez, Parvini spelled out some newer modes of criticism. In the case of Richard II, he focused on what he calls historical formalism, a method that grounds historical insight in the formal observation of individual works rather than seeing them as part of an intertextual network. From such a vantage point, he analysed rhyme in the play to show (at least in part) that Richard uses language as an ideological structure to exert control over others. Parvini imagined Richard as a character who is not merely a product of discourse but one who represents an individual consciously employing language to effect his ends. Richard is, he wrote, the play’s ‘canniest ideological operator’ (p. 192). Clearly, a change was in the works, and in the last few pages of this introduction, it seems most worthwhile to survey a few exemplary studies that gesture towards newer theoretical and formal methods for understanding Richard II.

‘High’ theory Somewhat surprisingly, the so-called high theories of European thinkers such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan had less impact on criticism of Richard II in our period than we might have expected. Although these theorists have indelibly shaped understanding of Shakespeare since the 1970s, relatively few books, chapters or essays over the past twenty-five years relied on them as their primary mode of entry into Richard II. Without question, the most important study among the few was James R. Siemon’s book-length Bakhtinian analysis from 2002. Using Bakhtin in conjunction with both new critical and new historical methods, Siemon attempted to disrupt the oft-fashioned binary around history and theory. In this and other ways, his book was highly original. Siemon approached Richard II through Bakhtin’s ideas about the various and competing languages that exist within any linguistic community

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(what Bakhtin calls ‘heteroglossia’) and the ways any expression or signifying practice (what Bakhtin refers to as an ‘utterance’) occurs within ongoing chains of signification. Indeed, Siemon suggested that Bakhtin’s ‘radically inclusive notion of “utterance”, which understands any signifying practice as an intersection of conflict(s) and contact(s)’ (p. 2), is not unlike Shakespeare’s own uses of language in Richard. Rather than develop his ideas as a unified reading of the play, however, Siemon organized a series of chapters that applied Bakhtin’s concepts to particular interpretive issues, a method that led to several astute re-readings. One example will have to serve: Siemon explored Richard’s final soliloquy as part of an argument challenging Foucauldian understandings of the ‘textuality’ of the subject, in which the individual subject is constructed by language. For Siemon, the king’s celebrated soliloquy about peopling his brain reveals an utterance fraught with heteroglot potential rather than that thing we might call character or subjectivity. It is an utterance at the intersections of ambition and individual desire as well as hierarchy and disobedience, and Richard’s disjunctive words combine in ways that render him, and the monarchy itself, unstable. No wonder, then, that the king misreads the Gospel, setting the word against the word in a way that serves as a synecdoche for his reign – an idea that, as we saw in Canning (2012), has become increasingly commonplace. Two other works of theory – a Derridean essay by Vance Adair (2005) and a Lacanian study by Mark Robson (2010) – were primarily useful for their ruminations on the textuality of the play, while a third by Sophie Emma Battell (2019) was innovative in applying Derridean thought to the issues of Richard’s character. Seeking to refigure the play’s relation to mimesis, Adair made the point that the historical logic of Richard II can be viewed through Derrida’s postal model of communication, which imagines that a text’s meaning (like a letter’s) is always subject to modification in reply. So, Richard is not simply a story presented to the audience as an imitation of reality, an already accomplished communication about a known historical origin; rather, the play tends to overwrite its text in a way that ‘increasingly comes to convey the impression that it is prior as well as posterior to any singular event’ (p. 42). What Adair revealed is the way an historical story like Richard’s cannot remain innocent of its own textual proceeding. Although Robson was primarily concerned with the more philosophical question of how Lacan and Shakespeare speak to one another across history (with a debt paid to Slavoj Žižek), he provided a useful gloss on the mirror scene in exploring the ways Richard’s self-identification emerges dialectically, ‘from outside the self, from the other’ (p. 64), an ongoing process that can only be ended in death. Finally, Battell explored Shakespeare’s play through Derrida’s Monolingualism of the Other (1998) to argue that when Richard loses the capacity to speak in his native, royal language as king, he suffers a linguistic exile similar to that Mowbray and Bolingbroke claim they will experience in banishment.16

Memory and cognition Richard II has also been enriched (as Parvini saw) by very recent advances in the application of cognitive process and theory to literature. In particular, the emerging field of memory studies has moved front and centre. Such work calls into question

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 97 the idea that history is constituted in and through memory. Indeed, two critics – Isabel Karremann (2010) and Jonathan Baldo (2012) – read Richard II through forgetting, and thus positioned it as ‘a chapter in the English Reformation’ (Baldo, p. 46). For Karremann, the play reflects a cultural dialectic of memory and oblivion she associated with Reformation efforts to suppress old rituals that then re-emerge in culturally different forms. Her argument was that oblivion, like memory itself, can be a constitutive force in culture and society – a theoretical point that resonates obviously with Richard’s ritual divestment of himself in the deposition scene. That scene, in which Richard fashions a rite for undoing his kingly self and erasing his own history, nevertheless also allows him to reinstate himself as a mythic, Christ-like figure. In this sense, Richard exploits rituals of oblivion to attain an authority over his own subsequent history that Bolingbroke and Northumberland had hoped to deny him. And he becomes memorialized in the lamentable tales of himself he asks Isabel to recite (tales that are reified by the play). Karremann’s most significant point was that the play ‘stages the appropriative politics behind as well as the reforming properties pertaining to ritual commemoration that were at work in Elizabethan culture’ (p. 34). Ultimately, she argued, Shakespeare’s play reveals how Reformation iconoclasm became part of the process of early modern image-making. Unlike Karremann, who was interested in the local politics of memory in Richard II, Jonathan Baldo considered the play more theoretically or philosophically, seeing it enacting ‘a birth of historical consciousness’, one that ‘originate[d] in traumatic loss’ (p. 11). Baldo associated this loss with the division of Shakespeare’s audience from its pre-Reformation identity. Rather than representing, in the oft-repeated truism, a shift from the medieval to the modern world in the fall of its king, the play represents Richard doing as much to damage medieval structures as does Bolingbroke. The king establishes a ‘dynasty of forgetting’ (p. 10) in his ostentatious breaking of medieval moral arts and his failure to foster England’s collective memory of its historical self. After his fall, Richard spends his time immersed in his memory of the past, but his Christological associations do not, as in Karremann, redeem him; they, rather, affect another forgetting of the medieval by driving a wedge between biblical and English history. Reading Richard through postmodern theory, Baldo argued that he adopts a textual model of memory reliant on forgetting, one that can bring about whole new worlds by forgetting previous ones. Shakespeare viewed historical memory in Richard II as ‘a process of displacement that departs from a retrieval or archival understanding of memory’ (p. 34). That displacement, embodied in Richard, reflects the trauma of the Reformation. Baldo’s analysis was, then, a potent demonstration of Shakespeare’s complex understanding of history not merely as a memorial reconstruction of the past but as a traumatic forgetting of it.17 Another type of cognitive approach that provided insight into Richard II was explored in Miranda Anderson’s (2015) analysis of the play in terms of the Renaissance ‘extended mind’ (p. viii), a cognitive concept that moves beyond Cartesian dualism to explore the ways the body, the external world and both inter- and intra-subjectivities all function as extensions of individual cognition. Although Anderson’s study seemed at first to reinforce received knowledge about the play, it made a significant difference in our perception of Richard’s final moments. When, for example, Anderson suggested

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that Richard’s gaze into the mirror reflects his own egotism, her analysis seemed little different from, say, Maurice Hunt’s Christian argument (2016) that Richard’s self-regard reflects only his worldly vanity. But Anderson replaced the traditional moral and philosophical explorations of nothingness thematized in the conclusion of Richard II with a grim cognitive determinism. Richard’s attempts to assert his subjective interiority devoid of exterior connection could only be futile, she argued. For if the mind is, in fact, an extended one, the withdrawal Richard longs for can only be accomplished in death: ‘death alone seems to bring the regal, fixed, and monolithic subjectivity [Richard] believes in and desires’ (p. 218). The implications are profound, for Anderson’s conclusions go to the heart of our ideas about transcendence in Shakespearian tragedy as well as our idealizations of subjectivity and individuality.

Formalism and history As examples of the new types of historical and formal critical interventions called for by Lopez and Parvini, we might briefly note three fascinating essays by Jonathan P. Lamb (2015), Ruth Morse and David Schalkwyk (2015), and Claire McEachern (2016). Each engaged in its own way the problem of re-connecting historical inquiry to the literaryformalist project. Lamb read Richard II in terms of literary antecedents relatively unexplored in recent criticism: the rise of Senecan tragedy in the 1580s and 1590s as well as the development of neo-stoicism in the works of the Flemish philosopher Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) in the same period. Although Lamb recognized incompatibilities in the two philosophies, he noted that they come together around the notion of selfpossession and constancy. Reversing course on the dominant idea deriving from Kantorowicz that Richard’s stable, integrated self fragments upon his deposition, Lamb argued, to the contrary, that it is only in the deposition scene that Richard achieves a self – a stoic and Senecan sense of self-possession in the face of adversity. To the point, he used formalist methods to ground his historical argument. Lamb traced out selfreflexive pronouns in the play and read them through the double sense they acquire when they are printed as two words, as they usually are in early texts. So, the possessive configuration ‘my self ’ suggests a self that belongs to me as well as its usual reference to a particular individual. Whereas Richard uses the words ‘my self ’ only once in the firstthree acts, both Mowbray and Bolingbroke refer to themselves in this way of claiming self-possession throughout the opening. But ‘in the midst of the deposition, [Richard] says it seven times in seventy-five lines’ (p. 123). Lamb’s methodology put him into dialogue with Joseph Candido (2001), and his earlier formalist work on Richard’s ‘I’, as well as Charles Forker (2001), who suggested that the king’s use of the reflexive pronoun points to ‘the private Richard behind his public façade’ (116n). But it also challenged such readings by focusing on Richard’s identity within a specific historical moment rather than the more idealizing, Christian humanist focus of Candido and Forker. McEachern’s essay focused more on the formal dramaturgical aspects of the play than its language. It attempted to see Shakespeare’s play and its protagonist not against a backdrop of history but as themselves formal iterations of the intellectual

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 99 habits of their age. McEachern made a methodologically bold (even perhaps risky) move by linking Richard II to what she saw as a pattern of discernible thought in the writings of reformed theology: the practice of seeking assurance about one’s salvation through paradoxical ways of knowing about it, such as the fact of one’s doubt itself or one’s suffering. In other words, she connected the dramatic form of the play with the reformed intellectual practice of seeking to recognize the ‘real’ or the ‘true’ through uncertainty. Among other examples, she suggested (innovatively) that there is not one deposition scene in the play but a long unfolding of multiple deposition scenes, which are designed to leave audience members in doubt about both what they do and do not – or cannot – know. But, she continued, we do know that Richard will be deposed, and Shakespeare creates great sympathy for him by exploring the formal disjunction between what we know in advance will be Richard’s end and repeated instances in which the audience might imagine that end will fail to come about. Where commentary traditionally attributed the sympathy we feel for Richard to his imprisonment and poetry, McEachern argued that it is due, rather, to the animation of history through a carefully orchestrated ‘double-thinking tension’ (p. 297) characteristic of its age. Not all will be convinced, but McEachern’s practical historical formalism compares favourably with Derridean and Lacanian theorizations of Richard II’s historical logic as a type of the ‘future anterior’, to use the Lacanian phrase. Much closer to what we might perceive as old-style formalism, Morse and Schalkwyk explored the etymological roots of the word earth as it is used especially in Richard II (which relies on the word significantly more than other Shakespearian plays). What the authors found in these uses was a concern with stewardship, what they called ‘the ethics of governance’: ‘This animated earth, like Eden, invites a serving sovereignty’ (p. 303). Like the other critics we have been exploring, Morse and Schalkwyk, too, brought their formalism to bear on history. Only in this case, it was not the history of England, but that of modern South Africa. For they argued convincingly that Shakespeare helps us understand the linguistic logic that lay beneath apartheid and aspects of the resistance to it, both of which were sometimes couched in terms closer to Shakespeare’s than we may have imagined.

Ecocriticism Finally, as one last example of the new readings that are remaking Richard II for a contemporary audience, we might examine Lynne Bruckner’s intelligent and polemical ecocritical analysis (2013). Bruckner’s was not the only work in our period that dealt with environmental issues in the play, but it articulated vigorously the ways Shakespeare addresses the present. So it seems a suitable essay with which to end. In sum, Bruckner argued that in Richard II Shakespeare makes clear how ‘the living earth too often is held hostage to a combination of financial mandates and politics as usual’ (p. 143). She read such ideas through a deliberate shifting of emphasis from the state or politics to a concern with the earth. Turning to the Garden Scene, Bruckner focused on the ways it represents (in addition to its political allegory) ideas about good stewardship of the land. She suggested that despite its problematic nature, Gaunt’s famous speech

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uses the word earth to signify a ‘living, lively, and nonmechanistic’ environment (p. 133), especially in contrast with the word land, which connotes use value and which Gaunt employs to characterize Richard’s mishandling of the earth.18 The problem, of course, as Gaunt makes clear, and, as has been amply evidenced in earlier work by Dennis R. Klinck (1998) and William O. Scott (2002), is that Richard exploits, rather than cultivates, the earth. Thus, Bruckner reasonably argued, Richard’s failures in the ecocritical sphere result in his fall as surely as do his political errors. Although Bruckner suggested that Richard’s failure to steward his land properly may glance at Elizabeth’s land practices, her real point was that the political expedience with regard to the environment we see in Richard II is directly applicable to our present situation. And she asserted strongly that ecocriticism of Shakespeare that is not presentist is not ecocriticism. Bruckner’s is a powerful argument for how and why Shakespeare, and his play about local history, continue to matter.

VII. Conclusion The extraordinary range of commentary on Richard II written in the past twenty-five years simply cannot be summed up in a few words. By way of conclusion, however, we might think about some things that seem irrevocably different from what we used to know about the play. One sure thing, we will probably never again imagine Shakespeare as an orthodox political thinker. The author of Richard II we now know is someone not only confident in thinking about the great questions of governance in multifaceted and critical ways but also someone richly insightful about what it means to write history. The present author of Richard II apprehends history as a narrative structure, and it would be naïve at this point to think that Shakespeare imagines it as a simple reflection or representation of a truth prior to its formal presentation. In this sense, his work resonates, as we have seen, with modern and postmodern thinkers such as Hayden White and even Jacques Derrida. It now also seems true that although a play like Richard II has relatively little to say about the lives of people who were not aristocrats, Shakespeare reveals a keen awareness of the operations of marginalization in his representation of women and non-English inhabitants of the British Isles. If the old wisdom had been that we would wait for the Henry IV plays to get the full picture of Shakespeare’s grasp of the structure of British society, the author of Richard II seems to lay the theoretical groundwork for understanding exactly how British history was shaped to exclude as many as it included. Perhaps the greatest legacy of the past twenty-five years of commentary, however, is the way it has radically re-oriented our thinking about Richard himself. Newer criticism has given us a Richard who seems less sympathetic in his fallibility, in his petulant misgovernance and headstrong temperament; it has given us a Richard we are less likely to excuse because of his exquisite poetry. Nevertheless, it has positioned him, in many ways, as an ‘Everyman’ character. The new Richard is a figure cut against the background of history as human event, and transcendence seems increasingly less plausible. What is striking is how often critics return to his death and its meaning. His facing the reality of his nonbeing or ‘not-being’, as Caygill (2000) would have it, seems to fascinate even some of

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 101 his toughest critics. Richard’s despair has been reduced in meaning, whether it is seen through Christian or scientific eyes. Perhaps at best we are left with the whisper of hope that Knapp (2014) reserves for him, his own bare glimmer of recognition that he lives in a world filled with others whom he has ignored at his peril. But as for the play itself, what we have is a new Richard II, one poised to speak to a contemporary audience about large questions: our relationship to history, our social responsibilities and the worth of our existence. If the play seems shorter on idealism, it also seems more central and philosophically profound than ever before.19

Notes 1 My comments refer to Bate’s expanded version of his lecture from 2009. He also explored these ideas in his 2009 biography of Shakespeare listed in the bibliography. 2 Although not immediately relevant to Shakespeare’s play, in 2018 Catherine Loomis argued powerfully that Essex’s unannounced intrusion into Elizabeth’s chamber on 28 September 1599 (which Loomis noted was 200 years to the day of Richard II’s deposition) bore threats of sexual violence that would have strong political implications in the period. Hence, Essex’s intentions may have been less innocent than they seemed to Hammer and Bate. 3 See also Clare 1999, 2001, 2006 and Clegg 1999, 2001, 2006, and 2017. In her 2017 book, Clegg provided a usefully expanded discussion of the ways written sources about Richard’s reign shaped audiences’ awarenesses of Shakespeare’s play at the moment of its writing, before the Essex uprising. She elaborated, as well, an argument for how and why the play became associated with rebellion after that event. 4 Ward wrote more expansive (and slightly revised) versions of his argument in two other books: one from 1995 and the other from 1999. 5 The commentary on Kantorowicz is too rich to cover fully. Interested readers might also see works by Chang-Seop Song (1999), Martin Windisch (2006), Richard Halpern (2009), Paul Raffield (2010) and Laura Estill (2011) listed in the bibliography. 6 In-text references to Richard II are to the Arden 3rd Series edition by Charles R. Forker. 7 On Sullivan’s originality, see Cattle (1998), whose essay published the same year provides evidence that no one had noticed this discrepancy in Gaunt’s speech to that point. Joan Fitzpatrick (2004) was also useful on the point, although her emphasis is not materialist. 8 Neil Rhodes (2004) saw Shakespeare complicating his position with regard to Scotland once James becomes king. 9 The citation and bibliographic entry references Greene’s essay as it was reprinted in his book from 2000. 10 Paul Strohm (2005) argued that even though political thought in fifteenth-century England rivalled and anticipated Machiavelli, Richard II was anachronistic in its representation of sacral kingship or royal Christology. 11 Sandra Logan (2007) dissented from such views by pointing out that the potentially subversive effects of the Gardeners’ words are mitigated by Shakespeare’s rendering them in the same rhetorical style as that of the aristocrats in the play. For other

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thoughts on the Garden Scene, see essays by Aaron Landau (2005), Tom Rutter (2008), Susan Payne (2011), Rebecca Laroche and Jennifer Munroe (2014) and Conal Condren (2016) listed in the bibliography. Kavita Mudan Finn and Lea Luecking Frost (2018) link the sexual undertones of Isabel’s speech about bringing forth a prodigy (2.2.64) to Richard’s queer male relations. Problematically, however, their response to Howard and Rackin does not take full account of the development of feminist thinking on Richard II. Interestingly, Forker’s insights seem to be corroborated by the linguistic computer analysis of Thomas Merriam (1996), which suggested that Shakespeare’s histories may have incorporated original writing by Marlowe. See also Avaraham Oz (1998), who interpreted Gaunt’s nostalgia for a crusading England as part of a European mythology of nationhood dependent on conquering the holy land and saving Christianity. In an historical investigation of the ways cartography impacts the Henriad, David Read (1996–7) made a similar point, arguing that the protagonists of the history plays struggle to maintain their places in the centre of the theatre. Readers interested in Derridean interpretations might also see Bennington (2012) and, for another Lacanian critique, Ashby (2015). Anita Gilman Sherman (2018) approached the issue of memory from another direction by looking at ritual and collective memory. Her essay is important for its exploration of the ways the physical gestures of ritual constitute forms of collective memory, which then draw the audience into the action of the play, even those who dissent from the meanings of these rituals. On this point, Bruckner anticipated Morse and Schalkwyk. See also the essay by Jean E. Feerick (2012) on the interconnections of human beings and the earth in the play. A number of people and institutions made this work possible: the Duke Foundation supported my writing during a Summer Residency at the National Humanities Center in Durham, North Carolina. The staff and librarians at the NHC provided a supportive work environment and invaluable bibliographic assistance. The library at Emory University in Atlanta generously extended borrowing privileges to me during a year of research. Finally, and not the least, Elaina Griffith, Interlibrary Loan Librarian at Furman University, was an able research partner from beginning to end.

Select bibliography Adair, Vance (2005) ‘“Tis in reversion that I do possess”: Speculation and Destination in Richard II’. In Holmes, Jonathan and Streete, Adrian (eds) Refiguring Mimesis: Representation in Early Modern Literature, Hatfield, UK, pp. 37–58. Anderson, Miranda (2015) The Renaissance Extended Mind, Houndmills, UK. Ansari, A. A. (2010) The Existential Dramaturgy of William Shakespeare: Character Created through Crisis, Lewiston, NY. Ashby, Richard (2015) ‘“Pierced to the Soul”: The Politics of the Gaze in Richard II’. Shakespeare (British Shakespeare Association), 11 (2): 201–13. Baldini, Cajsa C. (2003) ‘A Courtier or a Prince: Shakespeare’s Richard II as a Dramatization of Conflicting Paradigms of Political Craftsmanship’. Forum Italicum, 37 (1): 56–69.

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 103 Baldo, Jonathan (2012) Memory in Shakespeare’s Histories: Stages of Forgetting in Early Modern England, New York. Bate, Jonathan (2009) Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind, and World of William Shakespeare, New York. Bate, Jonathan (2009) ‘Was Shakespeare an Essex Man?’. Proceedings of the British Academy, 162: 1–28. Battell, Sophie Emma (2019) ‘“Speechless Death”: Nostalgia for the Mother Tongue in Richard II’, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, 155: 78–98. Bayer, Mark (2002) ‘Is a Crown Just a Fancy Hat?: Sovereignty in Richard II’. Explorations in Renaissance Culture, 28 (1): 129–52. Bennington, Geoffrey (2012) ‘Dust’. Oxford Literary Review, 34 (1): 25–49. Berger, Harry (2015) Harrying: Skills of Offense in Shakespeare’s Henriad, New York. Bergeron, David M. (1991) ‘Richard II and Carnival Politics’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 42 (1): 33–43. Berry, Ralph (1999) Tragic Instance: The Sequence of Shakespeare’s Tragedies, Newark, DE. Bezio, Kristin M. S. (2015) Staging Power in Tudor and Stuart English History Plays: History, Political Thought, and the Redefinition of Sovereignty, Farnham, UK. Bishop, T. G. (2000) ‘The Burning Hand: Poetry and Reformation in Shakespeare’s Richard II’. Religion and Literature, 32 (2): 29–47. Blank, Paula (1997) ‘Speaking Freely about Richard II’. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 96 (3): 327–48. Bolam, Robyn (2002) ‘Richard II: Shakespeare and the Languages of the Stage’. In Hattaway, Michael (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays, Cambridge, pp. 141–57. Bruckner, Lynne (2013) ‘“Consuming means, soon preys upon itself ”: Political Expedience and Environmental Degradation in Richard II’. In DiPietro, Cary and Grady, Hugh (eds) Shakespeare and the Urgency of Now: Criticism and Theory in the 21st Century, Houndmills, UK, pp. 126–47. Budra, Paul (1994) ‘Writing the Tragic Self: Richard II’s Sad Stories’. Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme, XVII (4): 5–15. Candido, Joseph (2001) ‘King Richard’s “I”’. Religion and the Arts, 5: 464–83. Candido, Joseph (2014) ‘The History of the Shakespeares and the Shakespeares in the Histories’. In Desai, R. W. (ed.) Shakespeare the Man: New Decipherings, Madison, WI, pp. 17–52. Canning, Patricia (2012) ‘“For I must nothing be”: Kings, Idols, and the Double-Body of the Sign in Early Modern England’. Critical Survey, 24 (3): 1–22. Cattle, Graham (1998) ‘A Note on Shakespeare’s “Sceptred Isle”’. English Language Notes, 36 (1): 19–23. Cavanagh, Dermot (2001) ‘Shakespeare and History’. In Cartmell, Deborah and Scott, Michael (eds) Talking Shakespeare: Shakespeare into the Millennium, Houndmills, UK, pp. 70–82. Caygill, Howard (2000) ‘Shakespeare’s Monster of Nothing’. In Joughin, John J. (ed.) Philosophical Shakespeares, New York, pp. 107–16. Charney, Maurice (1994) ‘Marlowe’s Edward II as Model for Shakespeare’s Richard II’. Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 33: 31–41. Chaudhury, Sarbani (2005) ‘A Post-colonial Reading of the “Garden Scene” in Richard II’. In Chandra, N. D. R. (ed.) Contemporary Literary Criticism: Theory and Practice, Delhi, pp. 341–55.

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Cheang, Wai-Fong (2001) ‘Laughter, Play, and Irony: Rereading the Comic Space in Shakespeare’s Second Tetralogy’. NTU Studies in Language and Literature (National Taiwan University), 10: 51–74. Clare, Janet (1990) ‘Art Made Tongue-Tied by Authority’: Elizabethan and Jacobean Dramatic Censorship, Manchester. Clare, Janet (1997) ‘Historicism and the Question of Censorship in the Renaissance’. English Literary Renaissance, 27: 155–76. Clegg, Cyndia Susan (1997) ‘“By the choise and inuitation of al the realme”: Richard II and Elizabethan Press Censorship’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 48 (4): 432–48. Clegg, Cyndia Susan (2017) Shakespeare’s Reading Audiences: Early Modern Books and Audience Interpretation, Cambridge. Cohen, Derek (2002) ‘History and the Nation in Richard II and Henry IV’. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 42 (2): 293–315. Condren, Conal (2016) ‘Skepticism and Political Constancy: Richard II and the Garden Scene as a “Model of State”’. The Review of Politics, 78: 625–43. Coursen, Herbert (2002) Shakespeare in Space: Recent Shakespeare Productions on Screen, New York. Digangi, Mario (1997) The Homoerotics of Early Modern Drama, Cambridge. Doty, Jeffrey S. (2010) ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, “Popularity,” and the Early Modern Public Sphere’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 61 (2): 183–205. Duncan-Jones, Katherine (2008) ‘The Globe Theatre, February 7, 1601’. In Rabb, Theodore K. and Hollinshead, Byron (eds) I Wish I’d Been There: Twenty Historians Revisit Key Moments in History’, London, pp. 120–33. Escolme, Bridget (2005) Talking to the Audience: Shakespeare, Performance, Self, Abingdon, UK. Estill, Laura (2011) ‘Richard II and the Book of Life’. Studies in English Literature, 15001900, 51 (2): 283–303. Falco, Raphael (2000) Charismatic Authority in Early Modern English Tragedy, Baltimore. Feerick, Jean E. (2012) ‘Groveling with Earth in Kyd and Shakespeare’s Historical Tragedies’. In Feerick, Jean E. and Nardizzi, Vin (eds) The Indistinct Human in Renaissance Literature, New York, pp. 231–52. Finn, Kavita Mudan and Lea Luecking Frost (2018) ‘“Nothing Hath Begot My Something Grief ”: Invisible Queenship in Shakespeare’s Second Tetralogy’. In Finn, Kavita Mudan and Schutte, Valerie, The Palgrave Handbook of Shakespeare’s Queens, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 227–49. Fitzpatrick, Joan (2004) Shakespeare, Spenser, and the Contours of Britain: Reshaping the Atlantic Archipelago, Hartfield, UK. Forker, Charles R. (1996) ‘Marlowe’s Edward II and its Shakespearean Relatives: The Emergence of a Genre’. In Velz, John W. (ed.) Shakespeare’s English Histories: A Quest for Form and Genre, Binghamton, NY, pp. 55–90. Forker, Charles R. (2001) ‘Unstable Identity in Shakespeare’s Richard II’. Renaissance, 54 (1): 3–22. Forker, Charles R. (ed.) (2002) King Richard II, Arden, 3rd series, London. Forker, Charles R. (2005) ‘From Political Revolution to Apocalypse: Richard II as a Precursor of King Lear’. In Schwartz-Gastine, Isabelle (ed.) Richard II de William Shakespeare: Une oeuvre en contexte, Caen, France, pp. 11–33. Funk, James (2019) ‘“Making High Majesty Look Like Itself ”: Eyeing Authority in Shakespeare’s Richard II and Calvin’s Institutes’. ELH, 86 (3): 613–38. Geckle, George L. (2000) ‘Narrativity: Edward II and Richard II’. Renaissance Papers: 99–117.

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 105 George, David (2004) ‘Sons Without Fathers: Shakespeare’s Second Tetralogy’. In Batson, Beatrice (ed.) Shakespeare’s Second Historical Tetralogy: Some Christian Features, West Cornwall, CT, pp. 27–55. Goodhart, Sandor (1996) Sacrificing Commentary: Reading the End of Literature, Baltimore. Grady, Hugh (2000) ‘Shakespeare’s Links to Machiavelli and Montaigne: Constructing Intellectual Modernity in Early Modern Europe’. Comparative Literature, 52 (2): 119–42. Grady, Hugh (2002) Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Montaigne: Power and Subjectivity from Richard II to Hamlet, Oxford. Greenblatt, Stephen (1980) Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, Chicago. Greenblatt, Stephen (2018) Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, New York. Greene, Thomas M. ([1995] 2000) ‘Richard II: The Sign in Bullingbroke’s Window’. In Greene, Poetry, Signs, and Magic, Newark, Delaware, pp. 147–57. Gurr, Andrew (ed.) (2003) King Richard II, The New Cambridge Shakespeare, updated edition, Cambridge. Hall, Sam Gilchrist (2017) Shakespeare’s Folly: Philosophy, Humanism, Critical Theory, New York. Halpern, Richard (2009) ‘The King’s Two Buckets: Kantorowicz, Richard II, and Fiscal Trauerspiel’. Representations, 106 (1): 67–76. Hamlin, Hannibal (2004) Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature, Cambridge. Hammer, Paul E. J. (2008) ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, the Play of 7 February 1601, and the Essex Rising’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 59 (1): 1–35 Hartwig, Joan (2006) ‘“My honor’s pawn”: Gage-Throwing and Word-Play in Shakespeare’s Second Tetralogy’. The CEA Critic, 68 (1–2): 3–11. Haverkamp, Anselm (2004) ‘Richard II, Bracton, and the End of Political Theology’. Law and Literature, 16 (3): 313–26. Hillman, Richard (2002) Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the Politics of France, Houndmills, UK. Hillman, Richard (2005) ‘Richard II, La guisade, and the Invention of Tragic Heroes’. In Schwartz-Gastine, Isabelle (ed.) Richard II de William Shakespeare: Une oeuvre en contexte, Caen, Fr., pp. 87–98. Hoenselaars, Ton (ed.) (2004) Shakespeare’s History Plays: Performance, Translation and Adaptation in Britain and Abroad, Cambridge. Holland, Peter (2013) ‘Performing the Middle Ages’. In Morse, Ruth and Cooper, Helen Medieval Shakespeare: Pasts and Presents, Cambridge, pp. 204–22. Howard, Jean E. and Phyllis Rackin (1997) Engendering a Nation: A Feminist Account of Shakespeare’s English Histories, New York. Hunt, Maurice (1999) ‘The Conversion of Opposites and Tragedy in Richard II’. Explorations in Renaissance Culture, 25 (1): 1–18. Hunt, Maurice (2011) ‘Christian Numerology and Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Richard the Second’. Christianity and Literature, 60 (2): 227–45. Hunt, Maurice (2016) The Divine Face in Four Writers: Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Hesse, and C.S Lewis, New York. Hutson, Lorna (2009) ‘Imagining Justice: Kantorowicz and Shakespeare’. Representations, 106 (1): 118–42. Jackson, Ken (2011) ‘Richard II, Abraham, and the Abrahamic’. In Jackson, Ken and Marotti, Arthur (eds) Shakespeare and Religion: Early Modern and Postmodern Perspectives, Notre Dame, IN, pp. 228–55.

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Jones-Davies, Margaret (2004) ‘Bolingbroke, the “kingdom’s heir”: A Study in Orthodoxy’. In Bertheau, Gilles and Coussement-Boillot, Laetitia (eds) Richard II, William Shakespeare: Lectures d’une oeuvre, Nantes, France, pp. 61–79. Joughin, John J. (2006) ‘Shakespeare’s Memorial Aesthetics’. In Holland, Peter (ed.) Shakespeare, Memory and Performance, Cambridge, pp. 43–62. Kantorowicz, Ernst (1957) The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology, Princeton. Karremann, Isabel (2010) ‘Rites of Oblivion in Shakespearian History Plays’. Shakespeare Survey, 63: 24–36. Kennedy, Dennis (2003) ‘Shakespeare and the Cold War’. In Hoenselaars, Ton and Pujante, Ángel-Luis (eds) Four Hundred Years of Shakespeare in Europe, Newark, DE, pp. 163–79. Kermode, Lloyd Edward (2009) Aliens and Englishness in Elizabethan Drama, Cambridge. Kiernan, Pauline (1996) Shakespeare’s Theory of Drama, Cambridge. Kläger, Florian (2006) Foregone Nations: Constructions of National Identity in Elizabethan Historiography and Literature: Stanihurst, Spenser, Shakespeare, Trier. Klett, Elizabeth (2006) ‘Many Bodies, Many Voices: Performing Androgyny in Fiona Shaw and Deborah Warner’s Richard II’. Theatre Journal, 58 (2): 175–94. Klinck, Dennis R. (1998) ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II as Landlord and Wasting Tenant’. College Literature, 25 (1): 21–34. Knapp, James A. (2014) ‘Richard II’s Silent, Tortured Soul’. In Bates, Jennifer Ann and Wilson, Richard (eds) Shakespeare and Continental Philosophy, Edinburgh, pp. 94–118. Kurtz, Martha A. (1996) ‘“Mock Not”: The Problem of Laughter in Richard II’. University of Toronto Quarterly, 65 (4): 584–99. Lamb, Jonathan P. (2015) ‘The Stylistic Self in Richard II’. Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, 28: 123–51. Landau, Aaron (2005) ‘“I Live With Bread Like You”: Forms of Inclusion in Richard II’. Early Modern Literary Studies, 11 (1): paras. 1–23+. Laroche, Rebecca and Jennifer Munroe (2014) ‘On a Bank of Rue: Or Material Ecofeminist Inquiry and the Garden of Richard II’. Shakespeare Studies, 42: 42–50. Lemon, Rebecca (2006) Treason by Words: Literature, Law, and Rebellion in Shakespeare’s England, Ithaca, NY. Levin, Harry (1996) ‘Sitting Upon the Ground (Richard II, IV, i.)’. In Mucciolo, John M. (ed.) Shakespeare’s Universe: Renaissance Ideas and Conventions. Essays in Honour of W. R. Elton, Aldershot, UK, pp. 3–21. Liebler, Naomi Conn (1995) Shakespeare’s Festive Tragedy: The Ritual Foundations of Genre, New York. Lisak, Catherine (2002) ‘In Search of Richard II: Shakespeare’s Use of Eyewitness Accounts of the Revolution (1399–1400): Conflicting Tales and the Dramatic Structure of the Play (III. 2–3)’. In Dorval, Patricia and Maguin, Jean-Marie (eds) Shakespeare et le Moyen-Age: actes du congrès, 2001, Paris, pp. 95–128. Lisak, Catherine (2005) ‘Readjusting Audience Perspective: The Aumerle Scenes in Richard II’. Bulletin de la Société d’études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, 61: 35–52. Logan, Robert (2007), Shakespeare’s Marlowe: The Influence of Christopher Marlowe on Shakespeare’s Artistry, Aldershot, UK. Logan, Sandra (2007) Text/Events in Early Modern England: Poetics of History. Aldershot, UK. Loomis, Catherine (2018) ‘“A Great Reckoning in a Little Room”: Elizabeth, Essex, and Royal Interruptions’. In Bertolet, Anna Riehl (ed.) Queens Matter in Early Modern Studies, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 53–66.

 Introduction to the Revised Edition 107 Lopez, Jeremy (2008) ‘Eating Richard II’. Shakespeare Studies, 36: 207–28. Lopez, Jeremy (ed.) (2012) Richard II: New Critical Essays, Abingdon, UK. Low, Jennifer (2000) ‘“Those Proud Titles Thou Hast Won”: Sovereignty, Power, and Combat in Shakespeare’s Second Tetralogy’. Comparative Drama, 34 (3): 269–90. Luis-Martínez, Zenón (2008) ‘Shakespeare’s Historical Drama as Trauerspiel: Richard II – and After’. ELH, 75 (3): 673–705. Maley, Willy (1997a) ‘Shakespeare, Holinshed, and Ireland: Resources and Con-Texts’. In Thornton-Burnett, Mark and Wray, Ramona (eds) Shakespeare and Ireland: History, Politics, Culture, Houndmills, UK, pp. 27–46. Maley, Willy (1997b) ‘“This sceptred isle”: Shakespeare and the British Problem’. In Joughin, John J. (ed.) Shakespeare and National Culture, Manchester, pp. 83–108. Mayer, Jean-Christophe (2003) ‘Shakespeare’s Religious Background Revisited: Richard II in a New Context’. In Taylor, Dennis and Beauregard, David N. (eds) Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity in Early Modern England, New York, pp. 103–20. Mayer, Jean-Christophe (2004) ‘The “Parliament Sceane” in Shakespeare’s King Richard II’. Bulletin de la Société d’études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, 59: 27–42. Mayer, Jean-Christophe (2006) Shakespeare’s Hybrid Faith: History, Religion, and the Stage, Houndmills, UK. McCauliff, C.M.A. (2007) ‘The Right to Resist the Government: Tyranny, Usurpation, and Regicide in Shakespeare’s Plays’. ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law, 14 (1): 9–44. McEachern, Claire (2016) ‘Hot Protestant Shakespeare’. In Brayman, Heidi et al (eds) The Book in History, The Book as History: New Intersections of the Material Text, New Haven, pp. 275–99. McEleney, Corey (2013) ‘Bonfire of the Vanities: Pleasure, Theory, Shakespeare’. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 24 (1): 137–68. Menon, Madhavi (2003) ‘Richard II and the Taint of Metonymy’. ELH, 70 (3): 653–75. Menzer, Paul (2012) ‘c.f. Marlowe’. In Lopez, Jeremy (ed.) Richard II: New Critical Essays, Abingdon, UK, pp. 117–34. Merriam, Thomas (1996) ‘Tamburlaine Stalks in Henry VI’. Computers and the Humanities, 30 (3): 267–80. Montrose, Louis (1996) The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre, Chicago. Morse, Ruth (1995) ‘Telling the Truth with Authority: From Richard II to Richard II’. Common Knowledge, 4 (1): 111–28. Morse, Ruth and Schalkwyk, David (2015) ‘“This Earth, This Land, This Island . . . ”. Archive für das Studium der neuren Sprachen and Literaturen, 252 (2): 294–313. Norbrook, David (1996a) ‘The Emperor’s New Body? Richard II, Ernest Kantorowicz, and the Politics of Shakespeare Criticism’. Textual Practice, 10: 329–57. Norbrook, David (1996b) ‘“A Liberal Tongue”: Language and Rebellion in Richard II’. In Mucciolo, John M. (ed.) Shakespeare’s Universe: Renaissance Ideas and Conventions. Essays in Honour of W.R. Elton, Aldershot, UK, pp. 37–52. O’Neill, Stephen (2007) Staging Ireland: Representations in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama, Dublin. Ostovich, Helen (2007) ‘“Here in this garden”: The Iconography of the Virgin Queen in Shakespeare’s Richard II’. In Buccola, Regina and Hopkins, Lisa (eds) Marian Moments in Early Modern British Drama, Aldershot, UK, pp. 21–34.

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1

Edward Capell, various notes on Richard II 1780

From Notes and Various Readings to Shakespeare (3 vols., printed, London, 1779–80, published, London, 1783), an extensive commentary in several sections that posthumously completes Capell’s ten-volume edition of Shakespeare of 1768. The first installment of the Notes was published separately in 1774, then republished here with the later parts including The School of Shakespeare (in Volume 3) – an anthology of passages from books of Shakespeare’s age illustrating the dramas; the three volumes also contain notes on the texts of the plays, errata in the text of his 1768 edition, textual variants from the Quarto and Folio editions, a note on the chronology of the plays, and an essay on Shakespearian metrics. For further details see Vickers, Critical Heritage, VI, 218-9. Edward Capell (1713–81) studied English drama over a period of many years owing to the leisure and security afforded by his official post as deputy-inspector of plays, a position to which he was appointed by the Duke of Grafton in 1737. He collaborated with David Garrick on an abridged acting version of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra (published in 1758). His Prolusions; or select Pieces of antient Poetry (1760) included the anonymous Edward the third, a play that the editor only tentatively ascribed to Shakespeare (see Capell’s Preface, pp. ix ff.). His Reflections On Originality in Authors (1766) constituted a detailed refutation of Richard Hurd’s Letter . . . on the Marks of Imitation (1757). His great achievement was the edition of Shakespeare, the product of some twenty years’ scholarship. An important innovation of Capell’s edition, in modern times almost universally followed, was his practice of indenting speeches in Shakespearian dialogue so as to clarify the structure of a verse line divided between two or more speakers. Capell is also notable for being among the earliest editors to repudiate Pope’s so-called degradations, his omissions of passages judged on inadequate grounds to be spurious.

[1] [Note on Richard II, 1.1, dissenting from Pope on his omissions from the text in his edition of 1725] [Pope’s] omissions . . . are numerous indeed in this play, and conducted by no principle worthy a critick’s owning or capable of defence. They are of riming lines chiefly, but not always; and intitl’d – insertions: and the intitler affirms of them, – ‘that they appear to [him] of a different hand; and that the context does every

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where exactly (and frequently much better) connect, without the inserted Rhymes.’ This might be answer’d, by producing out of his own copy, and that of his perpetual follower in things of this sort – the Oxford editor [i.e. Sir Thomas Hanmer, whose edition of 1745 was published at Oxford], lines they are compell’d to let stand, the very fellows of those discarded; by shewing too the falsity, in nearly all instances, of what is spoke with such confidence concerning connection; and that passages where their omissions take place are injur’d by want of fulness, which is also connection, rightly judging it. But answer to such uncritical practices, and ill-founded ‘remarks,’ being beside the writer’s purpose as editor, he shall content himself with pointing-out to observance (in way of specimen) the lines they begin with, which are the seven that end the next speech of Bolingbroke [‘Too good to be so . . . my right drawn sword may prove’, 1.1.40-6]. These they cut off, and make him conclude with ‘miscreant’ [1.1.39]; how lamely let men of judgment pronounce, when they have but a little consider’d the fullness he is made to use by the Poet in two members [i.e. speeches] preceding; and in respect to condemning them as not being of his writing, the only epithet ‘right-drawn’ (drawn in right) [1.1.46] is itself sufficient to condemn the omitters. (Il.i, 157) [2] [On the use of rhyme in 1.1.189-93] Rime often betrays the poet into expressing himself darkly or overboldly: thus in Bolingbroke’s speech, line the third of it [‘Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height’, 1.1.189], ‘impeach my height’ is – call in question my nobleness; and ‘beggar-fear’ – base fear, fear becoming the base. And more hazarded still are his expressions the fourth line after [‘The slavish motive of recanting fear’, 1.1.193], whose only meaning can be – what recanting fear puts into slavish motion; causes to move slavishly, speak the language of slaves. (Il.i, 158) [3] [On the scene at Coventry, 1.3, explaining the need for added stage directions] This very uncommon scene (indeed, singular) wanted better and more [stage] directions than moderns are pleas’d to give it, being little more than they receiv’d from old copies. The Poet is most punctilious in setting forth the whole ceremonial, and from him we gather’d it; but thought it right to save the reader that trouble, and therefore threw into directions what attention and care had help’d us to. Concerning his Marshal’s person, see a note in the School [of Shakespeare] among the extracts from Holinshed relating to this reign. . . .[11](Il.i, 158) [4] [On the final scene of Act I in which Aumerle describes to the king Bolingbroke’s departure from England] The poet’s Scene that comes next [1.4] is ill-manag’d: it must necessarily be at Coventry still, and in a house of the king’s; yet at its conclusion, we find Gaunt, a last quitter of the stage in scene the third [1.3], got to London [Ely House], and dying there. Nor can

 Edward Capell, Various Notes on Richard II 113 this be reform’d, as was once thought [by Samuel Johnson in 1765],[2] by making this scene the first of the next act; for the scene is parcel and part of that one action that was design’d for Act I, – the completion of Harry Bolingbroke’s banishment. (II.i. 160) [5] [On unjustified omissions by Pope and Hanmer in 2.1] The largeness of the omissions (clearances, in their opinion) that have been made in this play by two editors, the second and fourth [i.e. Pope and Hanmer respectively], is spoke of in note the first [see 1 above]. The scene we are now upon [2.1], has, of these omissions, to the amount of thirty five lines to its own share in the copies of those gentlemen . . . . The speech preceding the present [i.e. Gaunt’s speech at 2.1.416] ends at ‘pain’ [‘For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain’, 2.1.8] in those moderns whose omissions are so extensive; and as this reduction of theirs [i.e. the omission of 2.1.9-16] destroys absolutely, as may be seen, all connection with this speech [by York beginning ‘No, it is stopp’d with other flattering sounds’, 2.1.17-23] in its genuine reading, for this, and from another inducement, that reading is falsify’d . . . . [Capell goes on to illustrate in detail how the omissions corrupt Shakespeare’s sense.] (Il.i, 160) [6] [On York’s rebuke to Bolingbroke at 2.3.92] [‘But then more why, – ’] A quaint way, certainly, of telling Bolingbroke – that he had other why’s, other questions, to ask of him; but such quaintness is characteristical here, as may be seen by the line that opens this speech, and the interjections before it [‘Tut, tut! / Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle’, 2.3.86-7], both which, the second modern [i.e. Pope] and the fourth [i.e. Hanmer] omit without notice. (Il.i, 164) [7] [On the probable confusion of Richard’s mind at 3.2.122-3: ‘Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot? / What is become of Bushy? Where is Green?’] [The] Words [‘Where is Bagot?’ are] omitted by the fourth [i.e. Hanmer in 1745], and by the third and fifth moderns [i.e. Theobald in 1740 and Warburton in 1747] alter’d to – where is He got? But, in the disturb’d state of poor Richard’s mind, is it impossible he should forget in one minute where ‘Bagot’ was, and recollect it the next; and, upon such recollection, pronounce his curses on ‘three’ only? for that’s the ground of this change. [Theobald emended to ‘Earl of Wiltshire? where is he got?’ to make sense of the reference to ‘Three Judases’ at 3.2.132.] Methinks, a slip of this sort, so recover’d, is no bad painting of a mind in such state. (Il.i, 165) [8] [On 3.3.58-60: ‘Be he the fire, I’ll be the yielding water; / The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain / My waters – on the earth, and not on him.’] Three of [Bolingbroke’s] lines . . . beginning with 1. [58 (‘Be he the fire’ etc.)], are spoken low or aside: they are declarations, wrapp’d up mystically, of his own intended

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behaviour and of what he thought would be Richard’s at first meeting; the words that end those three lines, mark his hypocrisy. . . . (II.i, 166) [9] [On 3.3.62-7: ‘See, see, King Richard doth himself appear’ etc.; some editors assign these lines to York.] Why the lines that Bolingbroke ends with (following Richard’s entry [on the walls at 3.3.61]) should be taken from him and given to York, as in the fourth and fifth moderns [i.e. Hanmer and Warburton respectively], is not seen by the editor [i.e. Capell]. There is in them no ‘condemning’ himself or ‘disculping’ [i.e. exculpating] Richard, as that gentleman [i.e. Warburton] sets forth who rests his change on those reasons; that is, none so considerable either way as should make removal expedient. And for York’s speaking them, – nothing can be unfitter, their evil [i.e. difficult] junction consider’d with those sentiments which editions do give him on this occasion. (II.i, 166) [10] [On the location of 3.3 and 3.4] This scene [3.4] is titl’d in some moderns – a Garden, in the Queen’s Court [Warburton]; and the last Scene [3.3] – Bolingbroke’s Camp, near Flint [Theobald]. Both directions are wrong. The former is, as ‘tis titl’d here, at ‘Langley’; this appears from what is said in it of ‘posting to London’ [3.4.90], of ‘letters to a friend of the duke of York’s’ [3.4.6970], and from what is said by that duke at [2.2.118-9 (‘Gentlemen, go muster up your men, / And meet me presently at Berkeley’)]. And for the other, was any particular castle design’d, it should be ‘Barkoughly’; for there we see was the landing, and, upon Richard’s retiring there, Bolingbroke comes before it. What that Richard says of going to ‘Flint’ at the end of scene II [‘Go to Flint castle, there I’ll pine away – ’, 3.2.209] should not be understood of an actual going thither, but an intention to do so; which intention is grounded upon rumours mention’d in chronicles, that his death was there, and in the fashion he speaks of. True is it also, that these same chronicles place at Flint his surprizal which takes effect in scene III [i.e. 3.3]; but no intention of following them appears in the Poet, the passage looking that way being accounted for otherwise. (II.i, 168) [11] [On the quarrel at the beginning of 4.1 and the anonymous Lord’s speech at 4.1.526: ‘I task the earth . . . if thou darest’] There is scarce a scene in all Shakespeare that interests us more by its spirit than this first part of the scene before us. It is indeed a novelty (having nothing resembling it, out of this play) and is now perfect [i.e. complete] in its kind; made so by restoration of this speech principally [i.e. 1.4.52-6], which has been lost to us from since the time of the fourth quarto [1615].[3] The speech after it [Aumerle’s ‘Who sets me else?’ etc., 4.1.579], the second modern [i.e. Pope] and they who follow him commonly with so much servility are pleas’d to give us, tacking it to what Aumerle says before [at 4.1.49-51, ending with ‘Over the glittering helmet of my foe!’]; how properly, a reader may soon

 Edward Capell, Various Notes on Richard II 115 resolve himself, by observing its total want of connection, and the manifest impropriety of its first words when only two [quarrelers] had been answerers. ‘Tis scarce possible to suppose that this should not be observed by the first omitter [i.e. Pope], and then we shall want a cause for his acting so, except we look for it in the speech’s corruptions; yet are not these so considerable that they should stop even novices, much less one who must have had such large trade in them ere he came to this passage. (Il.i, 168-9) [12] [On the omission of the deposition scene from the early quartos. Northumberland introduces the appearance of Richard with the line, ‘May it please you, lords, to grant the commons’ suit?’ at 4.1.154.] The ensuing action of Richard’s formal ‘surrender’ in open parliament, – commencing here, and ending [with Richard’s exit] in [‘O, good! convey! Conveyers are you all, / That rise thus nimbly by a true king’s fall’, 4.1.317-8] – appear’d first in print in the quarto of 1608; but if judgment may be made from similitude, its composition was earlier, early as is the rest; and some particular reasons, political ones possibly, occasion’d its laying by. But let this pass for as much as ‘tis worth, being mere conjecture, founded upon the opinion before-deliver’d, – that the play is one web throughout, this action and all. Omitters strip this one part of no less a number of lines than thirty six . . . tearing from it . . . some that cannot be separated without a trespass on sense. It has no difficulties, and not many corruptions; and those it has, of the slightest . . . (Il.i, 169-70) [13] [Note on 5.1: editors make Act V begin with the scene in which the Queen encounters Richard going to the Tower.] The making Act the fifth begin here is absurd every way; and must have been the players’ contrivance, who first broach’d it for some stage purpose of clearing away the pageantry that had been us’d in the last scene. The poor King’s commitment closes properly the action of his deposing, and should not be disjoin’d from it. His death, and the circumstance by which it was forwarded (viz. the conspiracy), is as properly the subject of Act the fifth and the last, and admits no extraneous one. Add too, that in the division obtaining hitherto the fourth is but of one scene, and is disproportion’d in length; that that one closes, as it were, with the King’s exit for the place of his commitment; and that reason requires his meeting the Queen on his way thither should have no such intervention as their division creates for it. (Il.i, 170)

2

Edmond Malone and others, supplementary remarks on Richard II 1780

From Supplement to the Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays published in 1778 by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. In two Volumes. Containing additional Observations by several of the former Commentators: to which are subjoined the genuine Poems of the same Author, and seven Plays that have been ascribed to him; with Notes by the Editor and others (London, 1780). Edmond Malone (1741–1812), Irish man of letters and editor (educated at Trinity College, Dublin), became a close friend of Johnson, Boswell, Reynolds, Walpole, Burke, and other political and intellectual figures of stature. He helped Boswell with his Life of Johnson (1791), then edited several reissues of the book. Arriving in London from Ireland in 1777, he immediately embarked upon a series of Shakespearian enterprises, including An Attempt to Ascertain the Order in Which the Plays Attributed to Shakespeare Were Written (published with the Johnson-Steevens edition of 1778), the two-volume Supplement to this edition (1780) mentioned above, a Second Appendix to the Supplement (1783), and A Dissertation on the Three Parts of King Henry VI, Tending to Shew That Those Plays Were Not Written Originally by Shakespeare (1787). In 1783 The Gentleman’s Magazine had published Malone’s plans for a new edition of Shakespeare, which duly appeared (10 vols. in 11) in 1790. During his later years Malone was much occupied with his design of bringing out a greatly enlarged revision of his 1790 edition, but more pressing matters intervened, including his painstaking exposé of the William Henry Ireland Shakespeare forgeries in 1796, his edition of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (which included a life) in 1797, and his edition of the prose works of Dryden in 1800. Dying before his revised edition of Shakespeare could be completed, Malone left his extensive materials to James Boswell the younger, who brought out a twenty-one volume edition (the so-called third variorum) in 1821. See also Vickers, Critical Heritage, VI, 281–303, 348–51, 521–55.

[1] [From Malone’s ‘Supplemental Observations’, on methods of theatre production in Shakespeare’s age]

 Edmond Malone and Others, Supplementary Remarks on Richard II 117 . . . If a bed-chamber is to be exhibited, no change of scene is mentioned; but the property-man is simply ordered to thrust forth a bed. . . . So, in King Richard II, act iv, sc. i. ‘Bolingbroke, &c. enter as to the parliament’ [Folio]. Again, in Sir John Oldcastle, 1600: ‘Enter Cambridge, Scroop, and Gray, as in a chamber.’ . . . All these circumstances induce me to believe that our ancient theatres, in general, were only furnished with curtains, and a single scene composed of tapestry, which appears to have been sometimes ornamented with pictures: and some passages in our old dramas incline one to think that when tragedies were performed, the stage was hung with black. (I, 18-21) [2] [George Steevens on Richard II compared to A Yorkshire Tragedy, which Steevens regards ‘as a genuine but a hasty production of ’ Shakespeare; for biographical information on Steevens, see the headnote to No. 6 below.] Murder, which appears ridiculous in Titus Andronicus, has its proper effect in the Yorkshire Tragedy; and the command this little piece may claim over the passions, will be found to equal any our author has vested in the tragick divisions of Troilus and Cressida, — I had almost said in King Richard the Second, which criticks may applaud, though the successive audiences of more than a century have respectfully slumbered over it as often as it has appeared on the stage. Mr. Garrick had once resolved on its revival; but his good sense at last overpowered his ambition to raise it to the dignity of the acting list. Yet our late Roscius’s chief expectations from it, as he himself confessed, would have been founded on scenery displaying the magnificence of our ancient barriers [i.e. lists or tournaments]. — (II, 675-7)

3

Thomas Davies, on the deposition scene in Richard II 1784

From Dramatic Miscellanies: consisting of Critical Observations on several Plays of Shakespeare: with a Review of his principal Characters, and those of various eminent Writers, as represented by Mr. Garrick, and other celebrated Comedians. With Anecdotes of Dramatic Poets, Actors, &c. (3 vols., London, 1784). Educated at the University of Edinburgh, Thomas Davies (1712?–85) might have been a cleric but chose to become an actor instead, appearing in such dramas as Lillo’s Fatal Curiosity, Otway’s Venice Preserved, and Congreve’s Way of the World; his failure to establish himself securely on the stage, however (the satirist Charles Churchill helped spoil his reputation in 1761 by attacking him in The Rosciad), caused him also to ply the trade of bookseller in Covent Garden. In this capacity he republished the works of several old writers such as Sir John Davies and Philip Massinger. In 1763 he introduced Boswell to Dr Johnson and is frequently mentioned in Boswell’s Life of the great writer. He went bankrupt in 1778, and was greatly helped by Johnson, who induced Sheridan to arrange a benefit for him at Drury Lane (the occasion on which he appeared as Fainall in Congreve’s comedy) and who also encouraged him to write a biography of David Garrick (1780), which was both popular and profitable to the author. The Dramatic Miscellanies (in three weighty volumes) is an extensive collection of observations on Shakespeare containing theatrical anecdotes and other interesting materials. See also Vickers, Critical Heritage, VI, 370–84.

[On Richard II, 4.1.162 ff.] We cannot suppose a more awful and affecting transaction than a prince brought before his subjects, compelled to deprive himself of his royalty, and to resign his crown to the popular claimant, his near relation. This is a subject worthy the genius of Shakespeare; and yet, it must be confessed, he has fallen infinitely short of his usual powers to excite that tumult of passion which the action merited. He was ever too fond of quibble and conceit; but here he has indulged himself beyond his usual predilection for them; and I cannot help thinking, from this circumstance alone, that Richard II was written and acted much earlier than the date in the stationers’ books of 1597. (I, 169-70)

4

Edmond Malone, edition of Shakespeare 1790

From The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare, in Ten Volumes; Collated Verbatim with the Most Authentick Copies, and Revised: with the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators; to Which are Added, An Essay on the Chronological Order of His Plays; An Essay Relative to Shakespeare and Jonson; A Dissertation on the Three Parts of King Henry VI; An Historical Account of the English Stage; and Notes . . . (11 vols., London, 1790). On Malone see the headnote to No. 2. Malone retained and enlarged upon most of his earlier Shakespearian writings for this major edition, the prefatory material of which extended to two volumes (designated Volume 1, Part 1, and Volume 1, Part 2). He also added much that was entirely new.

[1] [Headnote to Richard II; Malone dates the play 1597, the same year as the Stationers’ Register entry. Later he revised the date to 1593; see Malone’s new Chronology in James Boswell (ed.), Plays and Poems of Shakespeare (London, 1821)] King Richard II was entered on the Stationers’ books, August 29, 1597, and printed in that year. There had been a former play on this subject, which appears to have been called King Henry IV in which Richard was deposed, and killed on the stage. This piece, as Dr. [Richard] Farmer and Mr. [Thomas] Tyrwhitt have observed, was performed on a publick theatre, at the request of Sir Gilly Merick, and some other followers of Lord Essex, the afternoon before his insurrection: ‘so earnest was he’ (Merick), says the printed account of his arraignment, ‘to satisfy the eyes with a sight of that tragedy which he thought soone after his lord should bring from the stage to the state.’ ‘The players told him the play was old, and they should have loss by playing it, because few would come to it; but no play else would serve: and Sir Gilly Merick gave forty shillings to Philips[1] the player to play this, besides whatsoever he could get.’2 It may seem strange that this old play should have been represented four years after Shakespeare’s drama on the same subject had been printed: the reason undoubtedly was, that in the old play the deposing King Richard II made a part of the exhibition: but in the

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first edition of our author’s play, one hundred and fifty-four lines, describing a kind of trial of the king, and his actual desposition in parliament, were omitted: nor was it probably represented on the stage. Merick, Cuffe,[3] and the rest of Essex’s train, naturally preferred the play in which his desposition was represented, their plot not aiming at the life of the queen. It is, I know, commonly thought, that the parliament-scene (as it is called), which was first printed in the quarto of 1608, was an addition made by Shakespeare to his play after its first representation: but it seems to me more probable that it was written with the rest, and suppressed in the printed copy of 1597, from the fear of offending Elizabeth; against whom the Pope had published a bull in the preceding year, exhorting her subjects to take up arms against her. In 1599 [Sir John] Hayward published his History of the first year of Henry IV which in fact is nothing more than an history of the deposing Richard II. The displeasure which that book excited at court, sufficiently accounts for the omitted lines not being inserted in the copy of this play which was published in 1602. Hayward was heavily censured in the Star-chamber, and committed to prison. At a subsequent period (1608), when King James was quietly and firmly settled on the throne, and the fear of internal commotion, or foreign invasion, no longer subsisted, neither the author, the managers of the theatre, nor the bookseller, could entertain any apprehension of giving offence to the sovereign: the rejected scene was restored without scruple, and from some play-house copy probably found its way to the press. (I, 315-6) [2] [On 1.3.0 s.d.: ‘Enter the Lord Marshal’] Shakespeare has here committed a slight mistake. The office of Lord Marshal was executed on this occasion by Thomas Holland, Duke of Surrey. Our author has inadvertently introduced that nobleman as a distinct person from the Marshal, in the present drama. (V, 13) [3] [On 1.3.129-33, omitted from the folios: ‘And for we think the eagle-winged pride . . . breath of gentle sleep.’] Dr. Warburton thinks with some probability that these lines were rejected by Shakespeare himself. His idle cavil, that ‘peace awake is still peace, as well as when asleep’, is refuted by Mr. Steevens . . . . (V, 18) [4] [On 1.3.193: ‘Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy’; in response to Steevens’s note that ‘All the old copies read: so fare’.] Surely fare was a misprint for farre, the old spelling of the word now placed in the text – Perhaps the author intended that Hereford in speaking this line should shew some courtesy to Mowbray; – and the meaning may be, So much civility as an enemy has a right to, I am willing to offer to thee. (V, 20) [5] [On 2.1.68 s.d.: ‘Enter King Richard, and Queen. . . .’] Shakespeare, as Mr. Walpole suggests to me, has deviated from historical truth in the introduction of Richard’s queen as a woman in the present piece; for Anne, his first

 Edmond Malone, Edition of Shakespeare 121 wife, was dead before the play commences, and Isabella, his second wife, was a child at the time of his death. (V, 29) [6] [On 2.1.280-1 ff.: ‘[The son of Richard earl of Arundel,] / That late broke from the duke of Exeter. . . .’] For the insertion of the line included within crotchets, I am answerable; it not being found in the old copies. Mr. Steevens observed, that ‘all the persons enumerated in Holinshed’s account of those embarked with Bolingbroke are here mentioned with great exactness, except "Thomas Arundell, sonne and heire to the late Earle of Arundell, beheaded at the Tower-hill." And yet this nobleman is the person to whom alone that circumstance relates of having broke from the Duke of Exeter.’ From hence he very justly inferred, that a line must have been lost, ‘in which the name of this Thomas Arundel had originally a place.’ The passages in Holinshed relative to this matter run thus: ‘Aboute the same time the Earl of Arundell’s sonne, named Thomas, which was kept in the Duke of Exeter’s house, escaped out of the realme, by means of one William Scot,’ &c. ‘Duke Henry, – chiefly through the earnest persuasion of Thomas Arundell, late Archbishoppe of Canterburie, (who, as before you have heard, had been removed from his sea, and banished the realme by King Richardes means,) got him down to Britaine: – and when all his provision was made ready, he tooke the sea, together with the said Archbishop of Canterburie, and his nephew Thomas Arundell, sonne and heyre to the late Earle of Arundell, beheaded on Tower-hill. There were also with him Reginalde Lord Cobham, Sir Thomas Erpingham,’ &c. There cannot, therefore, I think be the smallest doubt, that a line was omitted in the copy of 1597, by the negligence of the transcriber or compositor, in which not only Thomas Arundel, but his father, was mentioned; for his in a subsequent line (His brother) must refer to the old Earl of Arundel. Rather than leave a lacuna, I have inserted such words as render the passage intelligible. In Act V, sc. ii, of the play before us, a line of a rhyming couplet was passed over by the printer of the first folio: III may’st thou thrive, if thou grant any grace [5.3.99]. It has been recovered from the quarto. In Coriolanus Act II, sc. ult. [2.3.243], a line was in like manner omitted, and it has very properly been supplied. The Christian name of Sir Thomas Ramston is changed to John, and the two following persons are improperly described as knights in all the copies. These perhaps were likewise mistakes of the press, but are scarcely worth correcting. (V, 36-7) [7] [On 2.3.92: ‘But then more why; – Why have they dar’d to march . . .?’] But, to add more questions. This is the reading of the first quarto, 1597, which in the second, and all the subsequent copies, was corrupted thus: But more than why. The expression of the text, though a singular one, was, I have no doubt, the author’s. It is of colour with those immediately preceding:

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King Richard II Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle [2.3.87]. (V, 47)

[8] [On 2.4] This scene Dr. Johnson suspects to have been accidentally transposed. In the author’s draught he supposes it to have been the second scene in the ensuing act. (V, 49) [9] [On 3.2.8-9: ‘As a long-parted mother with her child / Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles in meeting. . . .’] [Quotes Homer, Iliad, VI, 482-4] . . . Perhaps smiles is here used as a substantive. As a mother plays fondly with her child from whom she has been a long time parted, crying, and at the same time smiling, at meeting him. It has been proposed to read – smiles in weeping [by Edward Capell, 1768]; and I once thought the emendation very plausible. But I am now persuaded the text is right. If we read weeping, the long-parted mother and her child do not meet, and there is no particular cause assigned for either her smiles or tears. (V, 53) [10] [On 3.2.38: ‘Behind the globe, and lights the lower world. . . .’] The old copies read – that lights. The emendation was made by Dr. Johnson.[4] Sense might be obtained by a slight transposition, without changing the words of the original text: That when the searching eye of heaven, that lights The lower world, is hid behind the globe; –

By the lower world, as the passage is amended by Dr. Johnson, we must understand, a world lower than this of ours; I suppose, our Antipodes. But the lower world may signify our world. (V, 54) [11] [On 3.2.122-3: ‘Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot? / What is become of Bushy? where is Green?’ Malone comments on a much-discussed crux – the puzzling mention of four of Richard’s favourites here when a little later in the scene the king refers to his ‘Three Judasses’; Wiltshire, Bushy, and Green have been executed while Bagot, having escaped Bolingbroke, survives in the play. Malone responds to Theobald’s remark that ‘Bagot ought to be left out of the question. . . .’] Perhaps Shakespeare intended to mark more strongly the perturbation of the king by making him inquire at first for Bagot, whose loyalty, on further recollection, might shew him the impropriety of his question. (V, 57-8) [12] [On 3.3.94: ‘The purple testament of bleeding war. . . .’] I once thought that Shakespeare might have had the sacred book (which is frequently covered with purple leather) in his thoughts; but the following note [by Steevens in

 Edmond Malone, Edition of Shakespeare 123 which that editor points out that testament bears a legal meaning in the present context; see No. 6.8 below] renders such a supposition extremely doubtful. [13] [On 3.3.97-8: ‘Shall ill become the flower of England’s face; / Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace. . . .’] Perhaps the words face and peace have changed places. We might read – (but I propose the change with no degree of confidence,) But ere the crown he looks for live in peace, Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons Shall ill become the flower of England’s peace; Change the complexion of her maid-pale face To scarlet indignation – .

Ere the crown he hopes to obtain be settled peaceably on his head, then thousand crowns, besmeared with blood, shall disfigure the flower of the peaceable nobility of England; and cause her maid-pale countenance to glow with indignation, &c. The double opposition between crown and peace is much in our author’s manner. [Quotes illustrative passages from Richard III (5.5.39-40) and 1 Henry IV (4.3.43).] Peace has already been personified in a former scene: To wake our peace, which in our country’s cradle Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep. 

[Richard II, 1.3.132-3]

But these lines, it must be owned, add as much support to the old reading, as to the emendation proposed. (V, 64-5) [14] [On 3.4.101: ‘I would, the plants thou graft’st, may never grow.’ (Folio)] An anonymous writer suggests, that the queen perhaps meant to wish him [i.e. the Gardener] childless. The gardener’s answer (‘I would my skill &c.’) shews that this was not the author’s meaning. (V, 73) [15] [On 4.1.125 ff.: ‘And shall the figure of God’s majesty . . .?’] The chief argument urged by the bishop [of Carlisle] in Holinshed, is, that it was unjust to proceed against the king ‘without calling him openly to his aunswer and defence.’ He says, that ‘none of them were worthie or meete to give judgement to so noble a prince;’ but does not expressly assert that he could not be lawfully deposed. Our author, however, undoubtedly had Holinshed before him. (V, 78) [16] [On 4.1.154-318, the abdication episode first printed in Q4, 1608] . . . When it is said that this scene was added [in Q4], the reader must understand that it was added by the printer, or that a more perfect copy fell into the hands of the later editor

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than was published by a former. There is no proof that the whole scene was not written by Shakespeare at the same time with the rest of the play, though for political reasons it might not have been exhibited or printed during the life of Queen Elizabeth . . . (V, 79) [17] [On 4.1.281-3: ‘Was this face the face / That . . . Did keep ten thousand men?’] Shakespeare is here not quite accurate. Our old chronicles only say ‘that to his household came every day, to meate, ten thousand men.’ (V, 83) [18] [On 5.1.11-12: ‘Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand; / Thou map of honour. . . .’] Model, it has already been observed, is used by our author, for a thing made after a pattern. He is, I believe, singular in this use of the word. Thou ruined majesty, says the queen, that resemblest the desolated waste where Troy once stood. So before: Who was the model of thy father’s life. [1.2.28] . . . In our author’s Rape of Lucrece, sleep is called ‘the map of death’ [402]. (V, 85) [19] [On 5.2.15-16: ‘and that all the walls, / With painted imag’ry, had said at once, – ’] Our author probably was thinking of the painted clothes that were hung in the streets, in the pageants exhibited in his own time; in which the figures sometimes had labels issuing from their mouths, containing sentences of gratulation. (V, 89)  [20] [5.2.57: ‘Yea, look’st thou pale? let me see the writing’, a line that Dr Johnson judged ‘probably corrupt’] Perhaps Shakespeare wrote – ‘Boy, let me see the writing.’ York uses these words a little lower [5.2.69].  [21] [On 5.3.5: ‘Enquire at London, ‘mongst the taverns there. . . .’; on the introduction of the character of Prince Hal] Shakespeare seldom attended to chronology. The prince was at this time but twelve years old, for he was born in 1388, and the conspiracy on which the present scene is formed, was discovered in the beginning of the year 1400. – He scarcely frequented taverns or stews at so early an age. (V, 93) [22] [On 5.5.9: ‘And these same thoughts people this little world. . . .’] I.e. his own frame; – ‘the state of man;’ which in our author’s Julius Caesar is said to be ‘like to a little kingdom’ [2.1.68]. So also in his Lover’s Complaint:

 Edmond Malone, Edition of Shakespeare 125 Storming my world with Sorrow’s wind and rain [7]. Again, in King Lear. Strives in this little world of man to out-run The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain [3.1.10-11]. (V, 99)

[23] [On 5.5.62: ‘For, though it have holpe madmen to their wits. . . .’] The allusion is, perhaps, to the persons bit by the tarantula, who are said to be cured by musick. (V, 102) [24] [On 5.5.66: ‘Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.’] I.e. as strange and uncommon as a brooch, which is now no longer worn. So, in All’s Well that ends Well: ‘Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion, richly suited, but unsuitable; just like the brooch and the toothpick, which wear not now’ [1.1.158].(V, 102) [25] [On Shakespeare’s possible revision of Richard II, suggested by Dr Johnson] The notion that Shakespeare revised this play, though it has long prevailed, appears to me extremely doubtful; or, to speak more plainly, I do not believe it . . . . (V, 106)

5

Joseph Ritson, Shakespeare’s part-authorship of Richard II and other notes 1793

From The Plays of William Shakespeare. In Fifteen Volumes. With the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators. To which are added, Notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The Fourth Edition. Revised and Augmented (With a Glossarial Index) by the Editor of Dodsley’s Collection of Old Plays (15 vols., London, 1793). Joseph Ritson (1752–1803), a man of humble origins, was an antiquarian who devoted his life to the study of early English poetry (the ballad in particular), of literary romance (he was interested in the legends of Robin Hood), and of Shakespeare, although he had been trained as a lawyer at Gray’s Inn, passing the bar in 1789, and also published on legal subjects. Impressively erudite, Ritson became notorious as a waspish and destructive critic of other men’s scholarship, in his Observations (1782) exposing errors in Thomas Warton’s History of English Poetry, and in his Remarks, Critical and Illustrative (1783) attacking the JohnsonSteevens 1778 edition of Shakespeare. In The Quip Modest (1788) he went on to criticize Isaac Reed’s revision of this edition, and in Cursory Criticisms (1792) levelled his sights at Malone’s 1790 edition (No. 4). In 1794 Ritson examined the suppositious Shakespeare manuscripts ‘discovered’ by William Henry Ireland and immediately pronounced them forgeries; later in his Confessions (1805) Ireland himself spoke of his especial ‘fear’ of Ritson’s ‘keen penetration’ (see Bertram H. Bronson. Scholar-at-Arms [Berkeley, 1938], I, 182–3). Despite his unpleasantly sarcastic tone in controversy and his eccentricities (he was ridiculed for proposing radical reforms in spelling and for his polemical vegetarianism), he was recognized as a man of genuine literary ability, and many of his corrections were assimilated into Shakespearian textual scholarship – often with minimal acknowledgment. The fifteen-volume edition of 1793, although credited to Reed, is really the work of George Steevens, who made Ritson his virtual collaborator and invited him to contribute many notes. As a prolific writer on Scottish poetry and early lyrics, Ritson came to the notice of Sir Walter Scott, who planned a book on ‘Border Minstrelsy’ in collaboration with him. Ritson’s Bibliographica Poetica, a catalogue of English poets who wrote from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, and his Ancient Engleish Metrical Romanceёs both came out in 1802. A stroke of apoplexy early in 1802 brought on total mental and physical collapse, and he died the following year. The standard biography is Bronson’s Joseph Ritson, Scholar-at-Arms, cited above. See also Vickers, Critical Heritage, VI, 334–48.

 Joseph Ritson 127 [1] [From a headnote to The Comedy of Errors] Sir William Blackstone, I observe, suspects ‘this and all other plays where much rhime is used, and especially long hobbling verses, to have been among Shakespeare’s more early productions.’ But I much doubt whether any of these ‘long hobbling verses’ have the honour of proceeding from his pen; and, in fact, the superior elegance and harmony of his language is no less distinguishable in his earliest than his latest production. The truth is if any inference can be drawn from the most striking dissimilarity of stile, a tissue as different as silk and worsted, that this comedy though boasting the embellishments of our author’s genius, in additional words, lines, speeches, and scenes, was not originally his, but proceeded from some inferior playwright, who was capable of reading the Menaechmi without the help of a translation, or, at least, did not make use of [William] Warner’s [1595]. And this I take to have been the case, not only with the three parts of K. Henry VI as I think a late editor (O si sic omnia!)[1] has satisfactorily proved, but with The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love Labour’s Lost, and K. Richard II in all which pieces Shakespeare’s new work is as apparent as the brightest touches of Titian would be on the poorest performance of the veriest canvass-spoiler that ever handled a brush. The originals of these plays (except the second and third parts of K. Henry VI) were never printed, and may be thought to have been put into his hands by the manager for the purpose of alteration and improvement, which we find to have been an ordinary practice of the theatre in his time. (VII, 208-9) [2] [On 1.3.193: ‘Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy’] The first folio reads fare; the second farre. Bolingbroke only uses the phrase by way of caution, lest Mowbray should think he was about to address him as a friend. Norfolk, says he, so far as a man may speak to his enemy, &c. (VIII, 216) [3] [On 2.1.70: ‘For young hot colts, being rag’d do rage the more.’] Read – ‘being rein’d, do rage the more.’ (VIII, 232) [4] [On 2.2.102: ‘The king had cut off my head with my brother’s.’] None of York’s brothers had his head cut off, either by the King or any one else. The Duke of Gloster, to whose death he probably alludes, was secretly murdered at Calais, being smothered between two beds. (VIII, 253) [5] [On 3.2.160-2: ‘For within the hollow crown . . . Keeps death his court: and there the antick sits. . . .’; Ritson elaborates on Dr Johnson’s observation that ‘Here is an allusion to the antick or fool of old farces, whose chief part is to deride and disturb the graver and more splendid personages.’] If there be any such allusion intended, it is to the old Vice, who, indeed, appears to have been such a character as Dr. Johnson describes. The Fool was rather introduced to be laughed at. (VIII, 280)

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[6] [On 4.1.125 ff.: ‘And shall the figure of God’s majesty . . .?’] It does not appear from any better authority than Holinshed that Bishop Merkes [i.e. Thomas Merke, Bishop of Carlisle] made this famous speech, or any speech at all upon this occasion, or even that he was present at the time. His sentiments, however, whether right or wrong, would have been regarded neither as novel nor unconstitutional. And it is observable that usurpers are as ready to avail themselves of the doctrine of divine right, as lawful sovereigns; to dwell upon the sacredness of their persons and the sanctity of their character. Even that ‘cutpurse of the empire,’ Claudius, in Hamlet, affects to believe that — such divinity doth hedge a king, &c. [4.5.124] (VIII, 309)

[7] [On 5.2.99: ‘To kill the king at Oxford’] That the dukes of Exeter and Surry, and the Earl of Salisbury entered into a conspiracy for this purpose is unquestionable; but Hall’s narrative, copied by Holinshed and Sir John Hayward, is by no means to be depended upon. Aumerle, in particular, is not charged by any contemporary writer, unless it be the writer of a romance, as having the least concern in it. See a ‘Requiem to the Conspirators,’ in A Collection of Ancient Songs, lately published [by Ritson himself in 1790], where may be found an authentic account of the plot from writers of authority. (VIII, 330) [8] [On 5.5.112 s.d.: ‘Dies.’] The representation here given of the King’s death is perfectly agreeable to Hall and Holinshed. But the fact was otherwise. He refused food for several days, and died of abstinence and a broken heart. See Walsingham, Otterbourne, the Monk of Evesham, the continuator of the History of Croyland, and the anonymous Godstow Chronicle. (VIII, 348)

6

George Steevens, notes on Richard II 1793

From The Plays of William Shakespeare (15 vols., London, 1793) (No. 5). George Steevens (1736–1800), educated at Eton and at King’s College, Cam bridge (though he never took his degree), made his reputation as a collector of, and authority on, Hogarth’s engravings, and as a learned commentator on Shakespeare. To the latter enterprise he devoted a span of some forty years. Rapidly gaining prominence in the literary and publishing world of London in the later eighteenth century (largely through his acquaintance with Dr Johnson), he published a four-volume reprint of twenty Shakespearian quartos (1766), going on to collaborate with Johnson on an ambitious revision of the latter’s edition of Shakespeare (published in 10 vols. in 1773). Later revisions of this edition were further indebted to Steevens’s work, first in 1778, then again in 1785 (the latter edited by his friend Isaac Reed). Having quarrelled with Malone, whose comparatively cautious 1790 edition of Shakespeare (No. 4) he despised, Steevens set out to displace it with a new edition of his own (No. 5), which embodies the best of his Shakespearian commentary. He was an intrepid, often overdaring, emender of the text. After Steevens’s death Reed brought out a reprint of the 1793 edition (1803) containing as yet unpublished notes that Steevens had added in manuscript to his own printed copy. Steevens was an indefatigable user of libraries and archives and deeply read in Elizabethan literature; he was therefore able to illustrate Shakespearian usage by reference to innumerable contemporary works. See also Vickers, Critical Heritage, VI, 189–200, 576–605.

[1] [On 2.1.133-4: ‘And thy unkindness be like crooked age, / To crop at once a toolong wither’d flower.’] Shakespeare, I believe, took this idea from the figure of Time, who was represented as carrying a sickle as well as a scythe. A sickle was anciently called a crook, and sometimes, as in the following instances, crooked may mean armed with a crook. So, in Kendall’s Epigrams, 1577: The regall king and crooked clowne All one alike death driveth downe.

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Again, in the 100th Sonnet of Shakespeare: Give my love, fame, faster than time wastes life, So thou prevent’st his scythe and crooked knife.

Again, in the 119th [an error for 116th]: Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come.

It may be mentioned, however, that crooked is an epithet bestowed on age in the tragedy of Locrine, 1595: Now yield to death o’erlaid by crooked age. [1.1.15]

Locrine has been attributed to Shakespeare; and in this passage quoted from it, no allusion to a scythe can be supposed. Our poet’s expressions are sometimes confused and abortive. (VIII, 235-6) [2] [On 2.1.280-1: ‘[The son of Richard Earl of Arundel,] / That late broke from the duke of Exeter. . . .’; on Malone’s insertion of line 280, see No. 4.6 above.] I suspect that some of these lines are transposed, as well as that the poet has made a blunder in his enumeration of persons. No copy that I have seen, will authorize me to make an alteration, though according to Holinshed, whom Shakespeare followed in great measure, more than one is necessary. All the persons enumerated in Holinshed’s account of those who embark’d with Bolingbroke, are here mentioned with great exactness, except ‘Thomas Arundell, sonne and heire to the late earle of Arundell, beheaded at Tower-hill.’ See Holinshed. And yet this nobleman, who appears to have been thus omitted by the poet, is the person to whom alone that circumstance relates of having broke from the duke of Exeter, and to whom alone, of all mentioned in the list, the archbishop was related, he being uncle to the young lord, though Shakespeare by mistake calls him his brother. See Holinshed [1587 edn.], p. 496. From these circumstances here taken notice of, which are applicable only to this lord in particular, and from the improbability that Shakespeare would omit so principal a personage in his historian’s list, I think it can scarce be doubted but that a line is lost in which the name of this Thomas Arundel had originally a place. Mr. Ritson, with some probability, supposes Shakespeare could not have neglected so fair an opportunity of availing himself of a rough ready-made verse which offers itself in Holinshed: [‘The son and heir to the late earl of Arundel’] (VIII, 243)

[3] [On 2.2.105: ‘Come, sister, – cousin, I would say: pray, pardon me. – ’] This is one of Shakespeare’s touches of nature. York is talking to the queen his cousin, but the recent death of his sister [the Duchess of Gloucester] is uppermost in his mind. (VIII, 254)

 George Steevens, Notes on Richard II 131 [4] [On 2.3.69: ‘My lord of Hereford, my message is to you.’]  I suspect that our author designed this for a speech rendered abrupt by the impatience of Bolingbroke’s reply; and therefore wrote: My lord of Hereford, my message is –

The words to you, only serve to destroy the metre. (VIII, 259) [5] [On 3.2.24: ‘This earth shall have a feeling … .’] Perhaps Milton had not forgot this passage, when he wrote, in his Comus – – dumb things shall be mov’d to sympathize, And the brute earth shall lend her nerves, and shake. [796-7]

(VIII, 271) [6] [On 3.2.42: ‘He [i.e. ‘the searching eye of heaven’] fires the proud tops of the eastern pines. . . .’] It is not easy to point out an image more striking and beautiful than this, in any poet, whether ancient or modern. (VIII, 272) [7] [On 3.2.153: ‘And that small model of the barren earth . . . ’; commenting on Dr Johnson’s observation that model here is used for mould, i.e. that ‘earth, . . . closing upon the body, takes its form.’] Perhaps, all that model, in the present instance, means, is the sepulchral hillock of earth which ascertains the length and breadth of the body beneath it. In this sense it may be termed its model. (VIII, 279) [8] [On 3.3.94: ‘The purple testament of bleeding war. . . .’] I believe our author uses the word testament in its legal sense. Bolingbroke is come to open the testament of war, that he may peruse what is decreed there in his favour. Purple is an epithet referring to the future effusion of blood. [See Malone’s note on this passage, No. 4.12 above.] (VIII, 287) [9] [On 3.3.97: ‘the flower of England’s face’] [This,] I believe, means England’s flowery face, the flowery surface of England’s soil. The same kind of expression is used in Sidney’s Arcadia, p. 2: ‘– opening the cherry of her lips,’ i.e. her cherry lips. Again, p. 240. edit. 1633: ‘– the sweet and beautiful flower of her face.’

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Again, Drayton, in Mortimer’s Epistle to Queen Isabell: And in the field advance our plumy crest, And march upon fair England’s flow’ry breast. (97-8) (VIII, 288)

[10] [On 5.2.46-7: ‘Who are the violets now, / That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?’] So, in Milton’s Song on May Morning: – who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose. (3-4) (VIII, 327)

[11] [On 5.3.79-80: ‘Our scene is alter’d, – from a serious thing, / And now chang’d to The Beggar and the King.’] The King and Beggar was perhaps once an interlude; it was certainly a song. The reader will find it in the first volume of Dr. Percy’s collection [1765]. It is there entitled King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid; and is printed from Rich. Johnson’s Crown Garland of Goulden Roses, 1612, 12mo; where it is entitled simply, A song of a Beggar and a King. This interlude or ballad is mentioned in [John Stephens’s] Cynthia’s Revenge, 1613: Provoke thy sharp Melpomene to sing The story of a Beggar and the King. (VIII, 335)

[12] [On 5.5.31: ‘Thus play I, in one person, many people. . . .’] Alluding, perhaps, to the necessities of our early theatres. The title-pages of some of our Moralities show, that three or four characters were frequently represented by one person. (VIII, 341)

7

George Chalmers, on the date and political significance of Richard II 1799

From A Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the Shakespeare-Papers: Being a Reply to Mr. Malone’s Answer Which was Early Announced, But Never Published . . . (London, 1799). George Chalmers (1742–1825) was a Scottish antiquarian and historian, who, although he had studied law in Edinburgh and practiced briefly in Baltimore, Maryland, settled in London in 1775 and devoted himself to prolific writing and publication on a variety of topics, chiefly historical and literary. His most famous work is Caledonia – three volumes of a projected six-volume history of Scotland including the antiquities of the country, published between 1807 and 1824. In addition Chalmers dabbled in Shakespearian scholarship. As the title to the present volume attests, he was taken in by the William Henry Ireland forgeries and became involved in the controversy (with Malone, Steevens, and others) on the question of their authenticity. The volume by Chalmers to which the treatise quoted here is a kind of addendum, an Apology for the Believers in the Shakespeare Papers, had appeared in 1796; and he went on to add still a third volume, an Appendix to the ‘Supplemental Apology,’ in 1800. The Supplemental Apology is dedicated (with some asperity) to Steevens, who had expressed a low opinion of Chalmers’s Shakespearian competence. The excerpt reprinted below is from a section of the book on ‘The Chronology of Shakespeare’s Dramas.’ For a full listing of Chalmers’s numerous works, see the article in DNB.

This Historie was entered in the Stationers’ Registers, on the 29th of August, 1597; and printed in the same year: It was recognized as Shakespeare’s, by Meres, in his Wit’s Treasury, during the year 1598. Like other dramas of this great poet, this Historic was suggested to so observant a spirit, by a former play, on the same subject; though it had not Shakespeare’s adaptation to the time, nor his proprieties of place, and circumstance. There is an intimation of time towards the conclusion of the first act, which points directly to the true epoch of its composition:

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Green. Now for the rebells, which stand out in Ireland: Expedient manage must be made, my liege, Ere further leisure yield them further means, For their advantage, and your highness’ loss. K. Rich. We will ourself in person to this war. [1.4.38-42]

In the Second Act, Bushy remarks: The Wind sits fair, for news to go to Ireland; But, none returns. For us to levy power, Proportionable to the Enemy, Is all impossible. [2.2.123-6]

The rebellion in Ireland, which was renewed, in 1594, was proclaimed, in 1595, both in Ireland, and in England; and underwent expedient1 manage, in 1596. It follows, then, from these facts, if it were the uniform practice of Shakespeare to catch at contemporary circumstances, for amusing his audiences, that those strong remarks, on the state of Ireland, in 1594, and in 1595, when Tir Owen took the Queen’s Fort, at Blackwater, making at the same time, many professions of his invariable loyalty,2 fix with sufficient certainty the writing of Richard II to 1596. It ought to be remembered, to the honour of Shakespeare, that he laid his satirical finger upon the weak, temporizing, shifting, policy of Elizabeth, which gave every possible encouragement to the rebels; and which afforded unprincipled traitors further leisure; and yielded them further means, for their advantage, and her highness’ loss. When to those striking allusions, is added the concatenation of our poet’s plan, in those historical plays, it must become apparent to every judicious eye, that Richard II was written in 1596; and not in 1597, as the editors have supposed, on weaker grounds. After some contrariety of opinion,3 and some hesitation of judgment, the commentators seem to have finally settled their conviction, ‘that there had been a former play on this subject, which appears to have been called King Henry IV, in which Richard was deposed, and killed on the stage.’4 But, none of the collectors of old plays have ever found such a drama; nor had [Richard] Farmer, nor [Thomas] Tyrwhit, whose authority for the fact is chiefly relied on, ever seen such a play. These Critics, whatever weight may be due to their judgements, merely quote the acting of an old play on this subject, by the procurement of [Sir Gilly] Merrick, and other partizans of the rebel, Earl of Essex, on the 7th of February, 1600-1: On the trial of Merrick, for high treason, it was given in evidence, among other treasonable facts, ‘That the afternoon before the rebellion, Merrick, with a great company of others, that afterwards were all in the action, had procured to be played before them, the Play of deposing Richard II; neither was it casual, but a play, bespoken by Merrick; and not only so, but when it was told him by one of the players, that the play was old, and they should have loss in playing it, because few would come to it, there was fourty shillings extraordinary given to play it; and so thereupon played it was.’5 In opposition to Farmer, and Tyrwhit, I hold, though I have a great respect for their memories, that it was illogical to argue, from a nonentity, against an entity; that as no such play as the Henry IV, which they

 George Chalmers, on the Date and Political Significance of Richard II 135 spoke of, had ever appeared, while Shakespeare’s Richard II was apparent to every eye, it was in consequential reasoning, in them, to prefer the first play to the last: And, I am, therefore, of opinion, that the play of deposing Richard II, which was seditiously, played, on the 7th of February 1600-1, was Shakespeare’s Richard II, that had been orginally acted, in 1596, and first printed, in 1597. The acting of this play of the deposing of Richard II sunk deep into the heart of Queen Elizabeth. This treasonable insult, she never forgave, nor forgot. She spoke, feelingly, of it to old William Lambard, when he presented to her his Pandecta Rotulorum; adding, though I know not upon what information, ‘that this tragedy was played forty times in open streets, and houses.’6 It is true, indeed, that [John] Haywarde, published, in 1599, very imprudently, ‘The first part of the life and raigne of King Henrie iiii; extending to the end of the first yeare of his raigne,’ which he still more imprudently dedicated, in very encomiastic terms, to the Earl of Essex; whether with the seditious purpose of Merrick, I will not suppose. Certain it is, that Elizabeth was highly irritated against the author. And she employed Sir Francis Bacon to search the book for treason. But, from a charge, which involved in it the penalty of death, he saved Haywarde, by a joke;[7] though not from a censure in the Star Chamber, as his seditious, or his sycophantic, purpose, well deserved. Haywarde pursued the same studies; published similar histories; and was knighted by King James. The Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, in deciding the case of the Post nati,[8] pronounced a severe censure on the writers of the life, and reign, of the unhappy Son of the illustrious Prince of Wales; ‘I will not remember, said that experienced Judge, Richard the Second’s time (of which some of our chroniclers do talk idly, and understand little) where power and might of some potent persons oppressed justice and faithful judges, for expounding the law soundly and truly.’9 Whether Hayward were included, in the Lord Chancellor’s animadversions, cannot now be discovered; but, probability leads us to suppose, that censure, will generally follow demerit, as a proper retribution. In the 5th act of Henry IV [an error for Richard II], there are intimations of what might be expected of the Prince and his loose companions, in the dramas, which came after it. Bolingbroke, Percy, and other Lords being at Windsor Castle, the father naturally asks: Bol. Can no man tell of my unthrifty son? [Quotes Richard II, 5.3.1-22]

In these sketches, we may perceive the workings of the poet’s mind, which had drawn an outline, that was to be filled up, and finished, in several subsequent dramatical histories. (sigs. [X2v]-[X6])

8

Charles Dibdin, Richard II inferior to Richard III 1800

From A Complete History of the English Stage . . . (5 vols., London, 1800). Volume III. Charles Dibdin (1745–1814), a well-known dramatist and song-writer, wrote more than seventy pieces for the popular stage and composed (by his own account) over nine hundred songs, of which his sea-songs are particularly attractive. He acted in, sang in, and wrote scripts and music for numerous theatres in London and the provinces, but his successes were eratic and only minimally profitable. In 1769 he set music to lyrics for Garrick’s Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford, but had uneasy relations with the famous actor ever afterwards. Retiring from the life of public entertainment, he lived briefly at Cranford on a government pension, the withdrawal of which forced him to return to stage work. Finally he settled in Camden Town (London), where he wrote fiction and other nondramatic works. His five-volume History of the English Stage, a patchwork of notes and anecdotes on plays and dramatists, was put together from scraps during his frequent travels. The DNB contains a detailed account of his volatile and irregular life.

[From Dibdin’s survey of Shakespeare’s plays] Richard the Second was performed in 1597. This play is suspected to have been only revised by Shakespeare. Certainly we cannot trace in it his usual force, either as to the characters or the language. The probability is that it was written in a hurry, which by the way is no excuse, and, as the circumstances are wholly taken from the historians and chroniclers of that day, many passages may have been literally transplanted from the history to the play. This having been done, the subject was found so unproductive that the author never thought it worth his while to finish it; and then the utmost we can say is that Shakespeare was to blame for letting a play come forward unworthy of his reputation. Alterations of this play have been frequently attempted but always without success. One of these was by Theobald,[1] who dedicated his piece to the earl of Orrery, from

 Charles Dibdin, Richard II Inferior to Richard III 137 whom he received a hundred pounds in a handsome snuffbox. Thus moths live upon books. If men can write why dont they produce books themselves[?] That Shakespeare took very little pains with Richard the Second is the more probable from his having produced Richard the Third in the same year; a bold and most extraordinary production. Perhaps there never was so prominent a character produced as this, nor one thrown into such a variety of positions, every one calculated to accomplish the end of truth and justice, by warning the spectators against the dreadful effects of inordinate pride, and lawless ambition.  Richard [III] masters all hearts, and controuls all minds; working to his purpose the passions and foibles of mankind at his pleasure. (Ill, 68-9)

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Francis Douce, Richard II and the memento mori tradition 1807

From Illustrations of Shakespeare, and of Ancient Manners: With Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakespeare; on the Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris Dance (2 vols., London, 1807). Francis Douce (1757–1834), collector and antiquarian scholar, studied the law, became an attorney of the king’s bench, and occupied rooms in Gray’s Inn during his earlier career. His true interests, however, lay in literary and cultural research. Moving to a house in Gower Street, he served briefly as the keeper of manuscripts at the British Museum but resigned as the result of a dispute with the trustees. In 1823 he inherited a substantial fortune from the estate of the sculptor Joseph Nollekens, which enabled him to settle in Kensington Square and greatly to enlarge his collection of books, carved ivory, and other valuables. His Illustrations of Shakespeare consist of a series of interesting and learned annotations to the plays (keyed to Steevens’s 1793 edition; Nos. 5–6) to which are added notes on Shakespeare’s anachronisms and other appendices. He was a friend of both Steevens and Dibdin, who made use of his researches (Dibdin referred to him in print as ‘Prospero’). He bequeathed his magnificent collection of books, manuscripts, prints, and coins to the Bodleian Library at Oxford and his letters, commonplace books, and unpublished essays to the British Museum. See the detailed account of Douce’s life in DNB.

[1] [On 3.2.151-2: ‘K. Rich. Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s, / And nothing can we call our own, but death.’] This resembles Wolsey’s speech; To the last penny ’tis the king’s; my robe And my integrity to heav’n, is all I dare now call my own. [Henry VIII, 3.2.452-4] (I, 409)

 Francis Douce, Richard II and the Memento Mori Tradition 139 [2] [On 3.2.160-3: ‘For within the hollow crown . . . Keeps death his court; and there the antick sits, / Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp.’] Some part of this fine description might have been suggested from the seventh print in the Imagines mortis, a celebrated series of wooden cuts which have been improperly attributed to Holbein. It is probable that Shakespeare might have seen some spurious edition of this work; for the great scarcity of the original in this country in former times is apparent, when [Wenceslaus] Hollar could not procure the use of it for his copy of the dance of death. This note, which more properly belongs to the present place, had been inadvertently inserted in the first part of Henry the Sixth [4.7.18]. See Act iv, Sc. 7, in Mr. Steevens’s edition [1793; IX, 634-5]. (I, 410)

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Charles Lamb, Marlowe’s Edward II compared to Richard II 1808

From Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, Who Lived About the Time of Shakspeare: With Notes (London, 1808). Charles Lamb (1775–1834), the Romantic poet, essayist, and critic, friend of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, and other literary notables, may be credited with almost single-handedly having revived public interest in the Elizabethan dramatists (apart from Shakespeare) after more than a century of neglect. In 1802 he composed Woodvil, a blank-verse tragedy strongly influenced by the plays of Massinger and Beaumont and Fletcher, after which he collaborated with his sister Mary on Tales from Shakespeare (1807), a highly successful children’s book popularizing the plots of the plays. His Specimens was a highly influential anthology of extracts from the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline dramatists, chosen with taste and accompanied by original and acute critical observations; it went through numerous editions in the nineteenth century and was much quoted by later critics of the drama.

[Note on an extract from the death scene of Marlowe’s Edward II, 5.5] This tragedy is in a very different style from ‘mighty Tamburlaine.’ The reluctant pangs of abdicating Royalty in Edward furnished hints which Shakespeare scarce improved in his Richard the Second; and the death-scene of Marlowe’s king moves pity and terror beyond any scene ancient or modern with which I am acquainted. (28)

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on Richard II and the history play 1813

From an anonymous report in the Bristol Gazette (18 November 1813) of a lecture (Lecture 5) delivered Thursday, 11 November 1813, at the White Lion, Broad Street. Bristol; ed. R.A. Foakes, [Coleridge] Lectures 1808-1819: On Literature (2 vols., London, 1987). Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), the famous poet of ‘The Ancient Mariner’ and author of the Biographia Literaria, is justly regarded as the giant of Romantic Shakespeare critics – as the figure who more powerfully than any of his contemporaries permanently overturned Neoclassical prejudices against Shakespeare’s exfoliated and multiple plots, violations of the unities, mixtures of comic and tragic, and indecorous use of puns and wit that lingered into the late eighteenth century. It was Coleridge who rehabilitated Shakespeare’s richly psychological characterization and imaginative originality of language, who showed that Shakespeare created works of art whose structural unity and powerful overall effect were the result of aesthetic principles and laws particular to the individual drama in question rather than the result of inherited rules mechanically or genetically applied. He also argued that the dramatist characteristically balances, reconciles, or synthesizes contrarieties so as to achieve the sense of oneness in variety. His worship of Shakespearian excellences sometimes approached bardolatry and certainly helped to promote it in later critics. In a letter of 6 December 1800 he could speak of the ‘divinity of Shakespeare’ – an attitude partially derived from a visit to Germany and his reading of the idealist philosophy of Kant, Lessing, Herder, and their associates. (In the eyes of some, his appropriations of A.W. von Schlegel (see No. 14 below) amounted almost to plagiarism.) It is difficult to exaggerate Coleridge’s importance to the development of changing literary tastes and specifically to the elevation of Shakespeare as the supreme genius of English poetry, drama, and culture. (Milton was to occupy an almost equally high place in Coleridge’s estimation.) The Shakespearian criticism of Coleridge, very little of it published during his lifetime, survives in a diffuse and fragmentary way. The poet’s nephew, Henry Nelson Coleridge, collected much of the material in Literary Remains (1836–39; see No. 20 below) but conflated, rewrote, and rearranged his uncle’s work to an extent that makes his presentation unreliable. Only in the twentieth century have scholars edited and reconstructed Coleridge’s writings on Shakespeare with anything approaching historical soundness. Much of the material consists of notes written to be used as the foundation of lectures, and annotations written in the margins or on the interleaves of various editions of Shakespeare. Some are scattered unsystematically throughout several notebooks, incorporated desultorily in personal letters, or

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recorded at second hand in sources such as the Diary of Henry Crabb Robinson or in Table Talk (reports by his nephew of conversations at dinner). The public lectures, which involved much extemporary improvisation (Coleridge always relied on notes rather than a full text) and were delivered as a means of raising money, were more or less successful according to the speaker’s psychic and physical health on each occasion, and depended on the degree to which his subject fired him emotionally. They are known to us chiefly through shorthand reports of listeners such as John Payne Collier and J. Tomalin, from contemporary newspaper accounts, and from other commentators; but these reports vary greatly in completeness and accuracy. The most meticulous and authoritative edition of the lectures and of some of the notes on which they were based was prepared by Foakes, which is Part 5 of The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (gen. eds. Kathleen Coburn and Bart Winer). For this lecture Coleridge used The Dramatic Works of Shakespeare, ed. Joseph Rann (6 vols., Oxford, 1786–94), Coleridge’s marked set of which is now in the Folger Library; volume III of this set contains Richard II. Coleridge borrowed significantly from Schlegel’s Ueber dramatische Kunst und Literature (3 vols., 1809–11), particularly from Lectures 3 and 12 (see No. 14 below). Two records of the content of Coleridge’s lecture survive: (1) some notes originally prepared by the author in a notebook now lost but transcribed into another notebook by Ernest Hartley Coleridge, and (2) a substantial but anonymous report of the lecture for the Bristol Gazette. The notes consist of sixteen topics upon which Coleridge expanded on the platform; the newspaper report, which covers the same outline in greater detail, confirms that the lecturer based his remarks on these notes. Passages from the notes mixed in with other material on Richard II were first printed by Henry Nelson Coleridge in Literary Remains (1836–39; No. 20); they appeared first as a sequence in Raysor’s Shakespearian Criticism (1930; 1960 edn., I, 137–41) and have been edited authoritatively by Foakes in Lectures 1808-1819: On Literature, I, 559–62. The text of the newspaper account reproduced here is that of Foakes’s edition (I, 562–8) with the apparatus considerably simplified and abbreviated.

[Report of Lecture 5, on Shakespeare’s history plays, especially Richard II] Fully to comprehend the nature of the Historic Drama, the difference should be understood between the Epic, and the Tragic muse. The latter recognizes and is grounded upon the free-will of man, the former is under the controul of Destiny, or, among Christians an overruling Providence. In Epic, the prominent character is ever under this influence, and when, accidents are introduced, they are the result of causes, over which our will has no power.[1] An Epic Play begins and ends arbitrarily; its only law is, that it possess beginning, middle, and end. Homer ends with the death of Hector; the final fate of Troy is left untouched – Virgil ends with the marriage of Aeneas; the historical events are left imperfect. In the Tragic, the free will of man is the first cause, and accidents are never introduced; if they are, it is considered a great fault. To cause the death of an hero by accident, such as slipping off a plank into the sea, would be beneath the Tragic Muse, as it would arise from no mental action. Shakespeare, in blending the Epic with the Tragic, has given the impression of the Drama to the history of his country. By this means he has bequeathed as a legacy the

 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on Richard II and the History Play 143 pure spirit of history, not that his facts are implicitly to be relied on, or is he to be read, as the Duke of Marlborough read him, as an historian;[2] but as distance is destroyed by a telescope, and by the force of imagination we see in the constellations, brought close to the eye, a multitude of worlds, so by the law of impressiveness, when we read his Plays, we seem to live in the era he pourtrays. One great object of his historic plays, and particularly of that to be examined (Richard II) was, to make his countrymen more patriotic; to make Englishmen proud of being Englishmen. It was a play not much acted; this was not regretted by the Lecturer, for he never saw any of Shakespeare’s plays performed, but with a degree of pain, disgust, and indignation. He had seen Mrs. Siddons as Lady [Macbeth], and Kemble as [Macbeth][3] – these might be the Macbeths of the Kembles, but they were not the Macbeths of Shakespeare; he was therefore not grieved at the enormous size and monopoly of the theatres,[4] which naturally produced many bad and but few good actors; and which drove Shakespeare from the stage, to find his proper place, in the heart and in the closet; where he sits with Milton, enthroned on a double-headed Parnassus; and with whom everything that was admirable, everything praiseworthy, was to be found.  Shakespeare shewed great judgment in his first scenes, they contained the germ of the ruling passion which was to be developed hereafter; thus Richard’s hardiness of mind, arising from kingly power, his weakness and debauchery from continual and unbounded flattery, and the haughty temper of the Barons; one and the other alternately forming the moral of the Play, are glanced at in the first scenes. An historic play requires more excitement than a tragic, thus Shakespeare never loses an opportunity of awakening a patriotic feeling; for this purpose Old Gaunt accuses Richard of having ‘farmed out the island.’ What could be a greater rebuke to a King than to be told that This realm, this England Is now leased out . . . Like to a tenement, or pelting farm . . . . [Richard II, 2.1.50-60]

This speech of Gaunt is most beautiful; the propriety of putting so long a speech into the mouth of an old dying man might easily be shown, it thence partook of the nature of prophecy; Methinks I am a prophet new inspired, And thus expiring, do foretell of him. [2.1.31-2]

The Plays of Shakespeare, as before observed of Romeo and Juliet, were characteristic throughout – whereas that was all youth and spring – this was womanish-weakness, the characters were of extreme old age, or partook of the nature of age and imbecility. The length of the speeches was adapted to a delivery between acting and recitation, which produced in the auditors a docility or frame of mind favorable to the Poet, and useful to themselves: how different from modern plays, where [in] the glare of the scenes, with every wished-for object industriously realized, the mind becomes bewildered in surrounding attractions; whereas Shakespeare, in place of ranting, music, and outward

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action, addresses us in words that enchain the mind, and carry on the attention from scene to scene. Critics who argue against the use of a thing from its abuse, have taken offence to the introduction in a tragedy of that play on words which is called punning;[5] but how stands the fact with nature? is there not a tendency in the human mind, when suffering under some great affliction, to associate everything around it with the obstrusive feeling, to connect and absorb all into the predominant sensation; thus Old Gaunt, discontented with his relation, in the peevishness of age, when Richard asks ‘how is it with aged Gaunt,’ breaks forth O! how that name befits my composition! Old Gaunt, indeed; and Gaunt in being old. …………………… Gaunt am I for the grave, Gaunt as a grave, &c.

Shakespeare, as if he anticipated the hollow sneers of critics, makes Richard reply – ‘Can sick men play so nicely with their names?’ To which the answer of Gaunt presents a confutation of this idle criticism, ‘No, misery makes sport to mock itself ’ [2.1.73-85]. The only nomenclature of criticism should be the classification of the faculties of the mind, how they are placed, how they are subordinate, whether they do or do not appeal to the worthy feelings of our nature. False criticism is created by ignorance, light removes it; as the croaking of frogs in a ditch is silenced by a candle. The beautiful keeping of the character of the Play[6] is conspicuous in the Duke of York. He, like Gaunt, is old; and, full of a religious loyalty struggling with indignation at the King’s vices and follies, is an evidence of a man giving up all energy under a feeling of despair. The Play throughout is an history of the human mind, when reduced to ease its anguish with words instead of action, and the necessary feeling of weakness which such a state produces. The scene between the Queen, Bushy, and Bagot [2.2], is also worthy of notice, from the characters all talking high, but performing nothing; and from Shakespeare’s tenderness to those presentiments, which, wise as we will be, will still adhere to our nature. Shakespeare has contrived to bring the character of Richard, with all his prodigality and hard usage of his friends, still within the compass of our pity, for we find him much beloved by those who knew him best, the Queen is passionately attached to him, and his good Bishop (Carlisle) adheres to the last: he is not one of those whose punishment gives delight; his failings appear to arise from outward objects, and from the poison of flatterers around him; we cannot, therefore, help pitying, and wishing he had been placed in a rank where he would have been less exposed, and where he might have been happy and useful. The next character which presented itself, was that of Bolingbroke; it was itself a contradiction to the line of Pope – ‘Shakespeare grew immortal in spite of himself.’[7] One thing was to be observed, that in all his plays he takes the opportunity of sowing germ[s], the full developement of which appears at a future time, thus in Henry IV he prepares us for the character of Henry V; and the whole of Glocester’s character in Henry VI is so different from any other that we are prepared for

 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on Richard II and the History Play 145 Richard III – In Bolingbroke is defined the struggle of inward determination with outward shew of humility. His first introduction, where he says to the nobles who came to meet him – Welcome, my lords, I wot your love pursues A banished traitor: all my treasury Is yet but unfelt thanks, [2.3.59-61]

could only be compared to Marius, as described by Plutarch, exclaiming, on the presentation of the consular robes, do these ‘befit a banished traitor’, concealing in pretended disgrace the implacable ambition that haunted him.[8] In this scene old York again appears, and with high feelings of loyalty and duty, reproves Bolingbroke, in boldness of words, but with feebleness of action – Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee. ………………… Tut! tut! Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle: I am no traitor’s uncle. ………………………… Why, foolish boy, the king is left behind, And in my loyal bosom lies his power.

Yet after all this vehemence, he concludes Well, well, I see the issue of these arms; I cannot mend it. . . ……………………… But if I could, by Him that gave me life, I would attach you all, . . . . . . So fare you well, Unless you please to enter in the castle, And there repose you for this night [2.3.83-161]

the whole character transpiring in verbal expression. The overflowing of Richard’s feelings, and which tends to keep in our esteem, is the scene where he lands, Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,  Tho’ rebels wound thee with their horses’ hoofs; [3.2.6-7]

so beautifully descriptive of the sensations of a man and a king attached to his country as his inheritance and his birthright. His resolution and determination of action are depicted in glowing words, thus:

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So when this thief, this traitor Bolingbroke Shall see us rising in our throne, &c. &c. ……………………… For every man that Bolingbroke hath press’d, God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay A glorious angel. [3.2.47-61]

Who, after this, would not have supposed great energy of action[?] no! all was spent, and upon the first ill-tidings, nothing but despondency takes place, with alternatives of unmanly despair and unfounded hopes; great activity of mind without any strength of moral feeling to rouse to action, presenting an awful lesson in the education of princes. Here it might be observed, that Shakespeare, following the best tragedies, where moral reflections are introduced in the choruses, &c. puts general reflections in the mouths of unimportant personages; his great men never moralize, except under the influence of violent passion: for it is the nature of passion to generalize – thus two fellows in the street, when they quarrel, have recourse to their proverbs — ‘It is always the case with such fellows as those,’ or some such phrase – making a species their object of aversion: Shakespeare uniformly elicits grand and noble truths from passion, as sparks are forced from heated iron. Richard’s parade of resignation is consistent with the other parts of the Play – . . . of comfort let no man speak; Let’s talk of graves, of worms, of epitaphs, &c. [3.2.144-5]

easing his heart, and consuming all that is manly in words: never anywhere seeking comfort in despair, but mistaking the moment of exhaustion for quiet; this is finely contrasted in Bolingbroke’s struggle of haughty feeling with temporary dissimulation, in which the latter says Harry Bolingbroke, On both his knees doth kiss King Richard’s hand, &c.

But, with the prudence of his character, after this hypocritical speech, adds ‘March on, – and mark King Richard how he looks’ [3.3.35-61]. Shakespeare’s wonderful judgment appears in his historical plays, in the introduction of some incident or other, tho’ no way connected, yet serving to give an air of historic fact. Thus the scene of the Queen and the Gardener realises the thing, makes the occurrence no longer a segment, but gives an individuality, a liveliness and presence to the scene. After an observation or two upon Shakespeare’s taking advantage of making an impression friendly to the character of his favorite hero Henry V, in the discourse of Bolingbroke respecting his son’s absence, Mr. Coleridge said he should reserve his definition of the character of Falstaff until he came to that of Richard III.[i.e., in Lecture 6, delivered 16 November 1813], for in both was an overprizing of the intellectual above the moral character; in the most desperate and the most dissolute the same moral elements were to be found. . . . (I, 562-7)

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William Hazlitt, a critique of Edmund Kean as Richard II 1815

From ‘Mr. Kean’s Richard II’, The Examiner (19 March 1815); reprinted in Hazlitt’s A View of the English Stage; or a Series of Dramatic Criticisms (London, 1818). William Hazlitt (1778–1830), essayist and critic, is best known to Shakespearian criticism as the author of Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (1817); see No. 16 below. He was also a constant playgoer, his interest in the stage having been formed as early as 1803, about which time he became acquainted with Charles Lamb, a life-long friend. In 1813 he began writing theatrical criticism for the Morning Chronicle and, in 1814, for the Champion and for Leigh Hunt’s Examiner; unlike Coleridge, he revered the Kembles extravagantly, particularly Mrs. Siddons, but the actor whose reputation Hazlitt helped to establish beyond cavil was Edmund Kean (1787?–1833), who became famous in portrayals of Shylock, Richard III, Iago, Othello, Macbeth, and other Shakespearian characters. Many of his articles written for the Examiner between 1814 and 1817, together with other pieces, Hazlitt collected in A View of the English Stage (1818), including the account of Kean’s Richard II – the text I reprint here. For convenience, I give pagination also from the standard edition of Hazlitt: P.P. Howe (ed.), The Complete Works of William Hazlitt (21 vols., London, 1930), V, 221–4. Hazlitt’s notice of Kean’s Richard II at Drury Lane (even though the writer found much to admire) constitutes an interesting example of the poetical idealism that set Shakespeare above and apart from mere popular entertainment and of the intellectual prejudice, typical of the Romantic period, against the performance of a dramatist whose supreme poetic refinements could be fully savoured only in the study. Like Coleridge (see No. 11 above), Hazlitt was reacting in part to the often unsatisfactory condition of performance in the large theatres of his day.

Mr. Kean’s Richard Ii We are not in the number of those who are anxious in recommending the getting-up of Shakespeare’s plays in general, as a duty which our stage-managers owe equally to the author, and the reader of those wonderful compositions. The representing the very

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finest of them on the stage, even by the best actors, is, we apprehend, an abuse of the genius of the poet, and even in those of a second-rate class, the quantity of sentiment and imagery greatly outweighs the immediate impression of the situation and story. Not only are the more refined poetical beauties and minuter strokes of character lost to the audience, but the most striking and impressive passages, those which having once read we can never forget, fail comparatively of their effect, except in one or two rare instances indeed. It is only the pantomime part of tragedy, the exhibition of immediate and physical distress, that which gives the greatest opportunity for ‘inexpressible dumb-show and noise’ [Hamlet, 3.2.12], which is sure to tell, and tell completely on the stage. All the rest, all that appeals to our profounder feelings, to reflection and imagination, all that affects us most deeply in our closets, and in fact constitutes the glory of Shakespeare, is little else than an interruption and a drag on the business of the stage. Segnius per aures demissa, &c.[1] Those parts of the play on which the reader dwells the longest, and with the highest relish in the perusal, are hurried through in the performance, while the most trifling and exceptionable are obtruded on his notice, and occupy as much time as the most important. We do not mean to say that there is less knowledge or display of mere stage-effect in Shakespeare than in other writers, but that there is a much greater knowledge and display of other things, which divide the attention with it, and to which it is not possible to give an equal force in the representation. Hence it is, that the reader of the plays of Shakespeare is almost always disappointed in seeing them acted; and, for our own parts, we should never go to see them acted, if we could help it. Shakespeare has embodied his characters so very distinctly, that he stands in no need of the actor’s assistance to make them more distinct; and the representation of the character on the stage almost uniformly interferes with our conception of the character itself. The only exceptions we can recollect to this observation, are Mrs. Siddons[2] and Mr. Kean – the former of whom in one or two characters, and the latter, not certainly in any one character, but in very many passages, have raised our imagination of the part they acted. It may be asked then, why all great actors chuse characters from Shakespeare to come out in; and again, why these become their favourite parts? First, it is not that they are able to exhibit their author, but that he enables them to shew themselves off. The only way in which Shakespeare appears to greater advantage on the stage than common writers is, that he stimulates the faculties of the actor more. If he is a sensible man, he perceives how much he has to do, the inequalities he has to contend with, and he exerts himself accordingly; he puts himself at full speed, and lays all his resources under contribution; he attempts more, and makes a greater number of brilliant failures; he plays off all the tricks of his art to mimic the poet; he does all he can, and bad is often the best. We have before said that there are some few exceptions. If the genius of Shakespeare does not shine out undiminished in the actor, we perceive certain effects and refractions of it in him. If the oracle does not speak quite intelligibly, yet we perceive that the priest at the altar is inspired with the god, or possessed with a demon. To speak our minds at once, we believe that in acting Shakespeare there is a greater number of good things marred than in acting any other author. In fact, in going to see the plays of Shakespeare, it would be ridiculous to suppose, that any one ever went to see Hamlet or Othello represented by [Edmund] Kean or [John Philip]

 William Hazlitt, a Critique of Edmund Kean as Richard II 149 Kemble; we go to see Kean or Kemble in Hamlet or Othello. On the contrary, Miss O’Neill and Mrs. Beverley are, we take it, one and the same person.[3] As to the second point, viz. that Shakespeare’s characters are decidedly favourites on the stage in the same proportion as they are in the closet, we deny it altogether. They either do not tell so much, or very little more than many others. Mrs. Siddons was quite as great in Mrs. Beverley and Isabella as in Lady Macbeth or Queen Katherine;[4] yet no one, we apprehend, will say that the poetry is equal. It appears, therefore, not that the most intellectual characters excite most interest on the stage, but that they are objects of greater curiosity; they are nicer tests of the skill of the actor, and afford greater scope for controversy, how far the sentiment is ‘overdone or come tardy off ’ [Hamlet, 3.2.25]. There is more in this circumstance than people in general are aware of. We have no hesitation in saying, for instance, that Miss O’Neill has more popularity in the house than Mr. Kean. It is quite as certain, that he is more thought of out of it. The reason is, that she is not ‘food for the critics,’ whereas Mr. Kean notoriously is; there is no end of the topics he affords for discussion – for praise and blame. All that we have said of acting in general applies to his Richard II. It has been supposed that this is his finest part: that is, however, a total misrepresentation. There are only one or two electrical shocks given in it; and in many of his characters he gives a much greater number. – The excellence of his acting is in proportion to the number of hits, for he has not equal truth or purity of style. Richard II was hardly given correctly as to the general outline. Mr. Kean made it a character of passion, that is, of feeling combined with energy; whereas it is a character of pathos, that is to say, of feeling combined with weakness.[5] This, we conceive, is the general fault of Mr. Kean’s acting, that it is always energetic or nothing. He is always on full stretch – never relaxed. He expresses all the violence, the extravagance, and fierceness of the passions, but not their misgivings, their helplessness, and sinkings into despair. He has too much of that strong nerve and fibre that is always equally elastic. We might instance to the present purpose, his dashing the glass down with all his might, in the scene with Hereford [4.1.288], instead of letting it fall out of his hands, as from an infant’s; also, his manner of expostulating with Bolingbroke, ‘Why on thy knee, thus, &c.’[6] which was altogether fierce and heroic, instead of being sad, thoughtful, and melancholy. If Mr. Kean would look into some passages in this play, into that in particular, ‘Oh that I were a mockery king of snow, to melt away before the sun of Bolingbroke,’[7] he would find a clue to this character, and to human nature in general, which he seems to have missed – how far feeling is connected with the sense of weakness as well as of strength, or the power of imbecility, and the force of passiveness. We never saw Mr. Kean look better than when we saw him in Richard II and his voice appeared to us to be stronger. We saw him near, which is always in his favour; and we think one reason why the Editor of this Paper[8] was disappointed in first seeing this celebrated actor, was his being at a considerable distance from the stage. We feel persuaded that on a nearer and more frequent view of him, he will agree that he is a perfectly original, and sometimes a perfectly natural actor; that if his conception is not always just or profound, his execution is masterly; that where he is not the very character he assumes, he makes a most brilliant rehearsal of it: that he never wants energy, ingenuity, and animation, though he is often deficient in dignity, grace, and

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tenderness; that if he frequently disappoints us in those parts where we expect him to do most, he as frequently surprises us by striking out unexpected beauties of his own; and that the objectionable parts of his acting arise chiefly from the physical impediments he has to overcome.[9] Of the other characters of the play, it is needless to say much. Mr. Pope was respectable in John of Gaunt. Mr. Holland was lamentable in the Duke of York, and Mr. Elliston indifferent in Bolingbroke.[10] This alteration of Richard II is the best that has been attempted; for it consists entirely of omissions, except one or two scenes which are idly tacked on to the conclusion.[11] (96-102; Howe edn., V, 221-4)

13

Richard Wroughton, advertisement of an adaptation of Richard II 1815

From Shakespeare’s King Richard the Second; An Historical Play. Adapted to the Stage, With Alterations and Additions . . . and Published as It Is Performed at The Theatre-Royal, DruryLane (London, 1815). Reared to be a surgeon in Bath, Richard Wroughton (1748–1822) quickly found his true calling on the stage. His first appearance in London was in 1768 at Covent Garden, the house with which he enjoyed a long association, playing minor parts at first but rising through hard work to the roles of Romeo, Henry V, Hotspur, King Lear, Othello, and lachimo. In 1787 he began appearing at Drury Lane, the rival theatre, in such parts as Hamlet, Henry IV, Richard III, and Antonio (in The Merchant of Venice). His adaptation of Richard II (1815), in which Kean played the title role but in which Wroughton himself did not appear, altered Shakespeare’s play much more drastically than Hazlitt suggests (see No. 12, note [11] above). His ‘Advertisement’ prefaced to the published text only partly suggests the major surgery performed on the original. Attempting to ‘rescue’ Richard II from its long neglect in the theatre, Wroughton cut more than a third of the original lines, greatly shortening the play, and added some two hundred others, mostly drawn from an astonishing variety of Shakespearian plays including Henry VI, Titus Andronicus, King Lear, Richard III, Troilus and Cressida, and Antony and Cleopatra. He also inserted speeches of his own, as for instance Bolingbroke’s didactic words at the end: ‘Thus instructed, / By this example, let princes henceforth learn, / Though kingdoms by just titles prove our own, / The subjects’ hearts do best secure a crown’ (p. 71). In addition he introduced a pastiche Elizabethan song, restructured the action to focus more exclusively on the contest between Bolingbroke and the king, expanded the queen’s role, and coarsened the play by making Richard more heroic and decisive than he is in Shakespeare (note Hazlitt’s comment above that Kean was more ‘fierce and heroic’ than ‘thoughtful and melancholy’). In Wroughton’s final scene the queen, having remained in England rather than departed for France, laments over the corpse of her husband in words appropriated from Lear’s speech to the hanged Cordelia. Wroughton’s version proved commercially successful. It was played thirteen times in its initial season and continued to hold the boards until 1828; Kean also played the Wroughton text in America in 1820 and 1826.

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[Wroughton’s ‘Advertisement’] The Play of Richard the Second, has been hitherto neglected by the Managers of the London Theatres, being considered too heavy for representation: –as it stood, it certainly was so, and might also be felt as bordering too much on the Mono-drama. That so exquisite a production of our immortal Bard, should not grace, among his other works, the Boards of our National Theatres, was almost Theatrical Treason. The present attempt has been made by a few alterations and additions (and those taken from the writings of Shakespeare), to rescue it from neglect. Whoever is curious, may find the introduced passages in the plays of Henry the Sixth, Titus Andronicus, and King Lear; other lines are here and there necessarily interpolated. The event has justified the deed; and, like Colley Cibber’s alteration of Richard the Third, now acted at both Theatres, the Tragedy of Richard the Second will also most probably long keep possession of the English Stage. It has likewise given an opportunity of fully evincing the complete powers and distinguished judgment of a young Actor, Mr. Kean, whose merit is deservedly rewarded by the loudest plaudits of a discriminating Publick. March, 1815. (3)

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A.W. von Schlegel, Richard II and the unity of Shakespeare’s history plays 1815

From A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature . . . Translated from the Original German by John Black . . . (2 vols., London, 1815); revised (in one volume) by the Rev. A.J.W. Morrison (London, 1846). August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767–1845) was among the most celebrated and distinguished voices of German Romanticism, being almost equally famous as a poet, translator, and literary critic. As noted above, he was a major influence on Coleridge (see No. 11). His reputation as one of the high priests of the Romantic movement was even more strongly confirmed by his Comparaison entre la Phèdre de Racine et celle d’Euripide (Paris, 1807), an assault on classical rules indignantly resented in France. Schlegel’s translation of Shakespeare is still regarded as a German literary masterpiece. This appeared first in incomplete form in a nine-volume work (Berlin, 1797–1810) and was later finished by Dorothea Tieck and Graf W.H. Baudissin (9 vols., Berlin, 1825–33) under the guidance of Dorothea’s father, Ludwig Tieck. Schlegel later became fascinated by Spanish drama, particularly that of Calderon. His most famous criticism of Shakespeare is contained in his lectures on dramatic literature, delivered in Vienna in 1808. Originally published in German as Ueber dramatische Kunst und Literatur (2 vols., Heidelberg, 1809–11), they were translated into English by John Black (1815) and had a profound impact on British literary culture. The text reproduced here is that of Morrison (1846), which incorporates minor revisions of Black’s version based on the final German edition of Schlegel’s lectures. Page references to both editions are provided.

[From Lecture XXVI: ‘Criticisms on Shakespeare’s Historical Dramas’] The dramas derived from the English history, ten in number, form one of the most valuable of Shakespeare’s works, and partly the fruit of his maturest age. I say advisedly one of his works, for the poet evidently intended them to form one great whole. It is, as it were, an historical heroic poem in the dramatic form, of which the separate plays constitute the rhapsodies.[1] The principal features of the events are exhibited with such

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fidelity; their causes, and even their secret springs, are placed in such a clear light, that we may attain from them a knowledge of history in all its truth, while the living picture makes an impression on the imagination which can never be effaced. But this series of dramas is intended as the vehicle of a much higher and much more general instruction; it furnishes examples of the political course of the world, applicable to all times. This mirror of kings should be the manual of young princes; from it they may learn the intrinsic dignity of their hereditary vocation, but they will also learn from it the difficulties of their situation, the dangers of usurpation, the inevitable fall of tyranny, which buries itself under its attempts to obtain a firmer foundation; lastly, the ruinous consequences of the weaknesses, errors, and crimes of kings, for whole nations, and many subsequent generations. Eight of these plays, from Richard the Second to Richard the Third, are linked together in an uninterrupted succession, and embrace a most eventful period of nearly a century of English history. The events portrayed in them not only follow one another, but they are linked together in the closest and most exact connexion; and the cycle of revolts, parties, civil and foreign wars, which began with the deposition of Richard II, first ends with the accession of Henry VII to the throne. The careless rule of the first of these monarchs, and his injudicious treatment of his own relations, drew upon him the rebellion of Bolingbroke; his dethronement, however, was, in point of form, altogether unjust, and in no case could Bolingbroke be considered the rightful heir to the crown. This shrewd founder of the House of Lancaster never as Henry IV enjoyed in peace the fruits of his usurpation. . . . [After detailing the sequence of kings to the death of Richard III and illustrating the causes and effects of the civil war between the Lancastrians and Yorkists, Schlegel arrives at the beginning of the Tudor dynasty.] With the accession of Henry VII to the throne, a new epoch of English history begins: the curse seemed at length to be expiated, and the long series of usurpations, revolts, and civil wars, occasioned by the levity with which the Second Richard sported away his crown, was now brought to a termination. Such is the evident connexion of these eight plays with each other, but they were not, however, composed in chronological order. According to all appearance, the four last were first written. . . . Shakespeare then went back to Richard the Second, and with the most careful art connected the second series with the first. The trilogies of the ancients have already given us an example of the possibility of forming a perfect dramatic whole, which shall yet contain allusions to something which goes before, and follows it. In like manner the most of these plays end with a very definite division in the history: Richard the Second, with the murder of that King, the Second Part of Henry the Fourth, with the accession of his son to the throne; Henry the Fifth, with the conclusion of peace with France . . . [etc.]. In Richard the Second, Shakespeare exhibits a noble kingly nature, at first obscured by levity and the errors of an unbridled youth, and afterwards purified by misfortune, and rendered by it more highly and splendidly illustrious. When he has lost the love and reverence of his subjects, and is on the point of losing also his throne, he then feels with a bitter enthusiasm the high vocation of the kingly dignity and its transcendental rights, independent of personal merit or changeable institutions. When the earthly crown is fallen from his head, he first appears a king whose innate nobility no humiliation can annihilate. This is felt by a poor groom: he is shocked that his master’s

 A.W. von Schlegel, Richard II and the Unity of Shakespeare’s History Plays 155 favourite horse should have carried the proud Bolingbroke to his coronation; he visits the captive king in prison, and shames the desertion of the great. The political incident of the deposition is sketched with extraordinary knowledge of the world; – the ebb of fortune, on the one hand, and on the other, the swelling tide, which carries every thing along with it. While Bolingbroke acts as a king, and his adherents behave towards him as if he really were so, he still continues to give out that he has come with an armed band merely to demand his birthright and the removal of abuses. The usupation has been long completed, before the word is pronounced and the thing publicly avowed. The old John of Gaunt is a model of chivalrous honour: he stands there like a pillar of the olden time which he has outlived. His son, Henry IV, was altogether unlike him: his character is admirably sustained throughout the three pieces in which he appears. We see in it that mixture of hardness, moderation, and prudence, which, in fact, enabled him to secure the possession of the throne which he had violently usurped; but without openness, without true cordiality, and incapable of noble ebullitions, he was so little able to render his government beloved, that the deposed Richard was even wished back again. (Black, II, 217-25; Morrison, 419-24)

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Nathan Drake, a sympathetic view of Richard II 1817

From Shakespeare and His Times: Including the Biography of the Poet; Criticisms on His Genius and Writings; A New Chronology of His Plays: A Disquistion on the Object of His Sonnets; and a History of the Manners, Customs, and Amusements, Superstitions, Poetry, and Elegant Literature of His Age (2 vols., London, 1817). Trained as a physician (he took his M.D. at Edinburgh in 1786), Nathan Drake (1766–1836) continued to practice medicine throughout his life, but gravitated increasingly to literature, in which he became a highly respected figure, publishing more widely here than in his original discipline. He was an active essayist on a variety of topics and wrote a brief life of Dr Johnson; his magnum opus, however, was his broadly comprehensive study of Shakespeare’s life and times (1817), which was warmly praised by contemporaries and successors. French and German translations of the work appeared in Paris (1838, 1843) and Berlin (1836). In 1828 he published a supplementary volume entitled Memorials of Shakespeare, in which he collected useful commentary on the dramatist ‘by various writers’ from a range of sources, foreign and domestic. For further details, see DNB.

[Discussing the plays of Shakespeare in chronological order, Drake arrives at Richard II.] . . . Our great poet having been induced to improve and re-compose the Dramatic History of Henry the Sixth, and to continue the character of Gloucester to the close of his usurpation, in the drama of Richard the Third, very naturally, from the success which had crowned these efforts, reverted to the prior part of our national story for fresh subjects, and, led by a common principle of association, selected for the commencement of a new series of historical plays, which should form an unbroken chain with those that he had previously written, the reign of Richard the Second. On this account, therefore, and from the intimation of time, noticed by Mr. Chalmers [see No. 7 above], towards the conclusion of the first1 act, we are led to coincide with this gentleman in assigning the composition of Richard the Second to the year 1596. Of the character of this unfortunate young prince, Shakespeare has given us a delineation in conformity with the general tone of history, but heightened by many

 Nathan Drake, a Sympathetic View of Richard II 157 exquisite and pathetic touches. Richard was beautiful in his person, and elegant in his manners2; affectionate, generous, and faithful in his attachments, and though intentionally neglected in his education, not defective in understanding. Accustomed, by his designing uncles, to the company of the idle and the dissipated, and to the unrestrained indulgence of his passions, we need not wonder that levity, ostentation, and prodigality, should mark his subsequent career, and should ultimately lead him to destruction. Though the errors of his misguided youth are forcibly depicted in the drama, yet the poet has reserved his strength for the period of adversity. Richard, descending from his throne, discovers the unexpected virtues of humility, fortitude, and resignation, and becomes not only an object of love and pity, but of admiration; and there is nothing in the whole compass of our author’s plays better calculated to produce, with full effect, these mingled emotions of compassion and esteem, than the passages which paint the sentiments and deportment of the fallen monarch. Patience, submission, and misery, were never more feelingly expressed than in the following lines: K. Rich. What must the king do now? Must he submit? . . . [Quotes 3.3.143-57]3

and with what an innate nobility of heart does he repress the homage of his attendants! Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood. . . . [Quotes 3.2.171-7]4

Nor does his conduct, in the hour of suffering and extreme humiliation, derogate from the philosophy of his sentiments. In that admirable opening of the second scene of the fifth act, where the Duke of York relates to his Duchess the entrance of Bolingbroke and Richard into London, the demeanour of the latter is thus pourtrayed; – ____________ Men’s eyes Did scowl on Richard; no man cried, God save him; . . . [Quotes 5.2.27-36]5

In representing Richard as falling by the hand of Sir Piers of Exton, Shakespeare has followed the Chronicle of Holinshed; but there can be no doubt but this unhappy monarch either starved himself under the influence of despair, or was starved by the cruelty of his enemies. If in the account which [John] Speed has given us of this tragedy, the most complete that we possess, the relation of Polydore Virgil, be correct, nothing can be conceived more diabolical than the conduct of Henry and his agents. ‘His diet being served in,’ says that historian, ‘and set before him in the wonted Princely manner, hee was not suffered either to taste, or touch thereof ‘Surely,’ adds Speed, in a manner which reflects credit on his sensibility, ‘[there] is not a man who at the report of so exquisite a barbarisme, as Richard’s enfamishment, feeles not chilling horror and

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detestation; what if but for a justly condemned galley-slave so dying? but how for an annointed King whose character (like that of holy orders) is indeleble?’6 Of the secondary characters of this play, ‘Old John of Gaunt, time-honour’d Lancaster’ [1.1.1], and his son Henry Bolingbroke, are brought forward with strict attention to the evidence of history; the chivalric spirit, and zealous integrity of the first, and the cold, artificial features of the second, being struck off with great sharpness of outline, and strength of discrimination. (II, 375-8)

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William Hazlitt, characterization in Richard II 1817

From Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (London, 1817). The most important Shakespearian criticism of William Hazlitt (1778–1830) is contained in this collection of essays, one on almost every play, emphasizing Shakespeare’s powers of characterization. Like Coleridge, he was influenced by Schlegel (No. 14 above), but perhaps more importantly by Dr Johnson against whose generalizing, common-sense, didactic, and high Augustan approach to the dramatist he was in open rebellion. Hazlitt admired the particularity of Shakespeare, the poetic gusto, intensity, and finely shaded gradations of character that he considered the hallmark of Shakespearian drama. And he loved the fanciful and emotional subtleties of the language that in his view lent the characters their special uniqueness of sensibility and thought. Hazlitt’s left-wing politics, influenced to some extent by his initial sympathy with the principles of the French Revolution, comes through occasionally in his treatment of the chronicle plays. As a locus of libertarian ideas not only about the principles of literary art but about the social realities of the world that art reflects, Hazlitt’s Characters became a monument of Romantic criticism and was highly influential throughout the century. See also headnote to No. 12.

[1] [From ‘Richard II’] Richard II is a play little known compared with Richard III which last is a play that every unfledged candidate for theatrical fame chuses to strut and fret his hour upon the stage in; yet we confess that we prefer the nature and feeling of the one to the noise and bustle of the other; at least, as we are so often forced to see it acted. In Richard II the weakness of the king leaves us leisure to take a greater interest in the misfortunes of the man. After the first act, in which the arbitrariness of his behaviour only proves his want of resolution, we see him staggering under the unlooked-for blows of fortune, bewailing his loss of kingly power, not preventing it, sinking under the aspiring genius of Bolingbroke, his authority trampled on, his hopes failing him, and his pride crushed and broken down under insults and injuries, which his own misconduct had provoked, but which he has not courage or manliness to resent. The change of tone and behaviour

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in the two competitors for the throne according to their change of fortune, from the capricious sentence of banishment passed by Richard upon Bolingbroke, the suppliant offers and modest pretensions of the latter on his return, to the high and haughty tone with which he accepts Richard’s resignation of the crown after the loss of all his power, the use which he makes of the deposed king to grace his triumphal progress through the streets of London, and the final intimation of his wish for his death, which immediately finds a servile executioner, is marked throughout with complete effect and without the slightest appearance of effort. The steps by which Bolingbroke mounts the throne are those by which Richard sinks into the grave. We feel neither respect nor love for the deposed monarch; for he is as wanting in energy as in principle: but we pity him, for he pities himself. His heart is by no means hardened against himself, but bleeds afresh at every new stroke of mischance, and his sensibility, absorbed in his own person, and unused to misfortune, is not only tenderly alive to its own sufferings, but without the fortitude to bear them. He is, however, human in his distresses; for to feel pain, and sorrow, weakness, disappointment, remorse and anguish, is the lot of humanity, and we sympathize with him accordingly. The sufferings of the man make us forget that he ever was a king. The right assumed by sovereign power to trifle at its will with the happiness of others as a matter of course, or to remit its exercise as a matter of favour, is strikingly shewn in the sentence of banishment so unjustly pronounced on Bolingbroke and Mowbray, and in what Bolingbroke says when four years of his banishment are taken off, with as little reason. How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters and four wanton springs End in a word: such is the breath of kings. [1.3.213-5]

A more affecting image of the loneliness of a state of exile can hardly be given than by what Bolingbroke afterwards observes of his having ‘sighed his English breath in foreign clouds’ [3.1.20]; or than that conveyed in Mowbray’s complaint at being banished for life. The language I have learned these forty years. . . . [Quotes 1.3.159-71]

How very beautiful is all this, and at the same time how very English too! Richard II may be considered as the first of that series of English historical plays, in which ‘is hung armour of the invincible knights of old,’[1] in which their hearts seem to strike against their coats of mail, where their blood tingles for the fight, and words are but the harbingers of blows. Of this state of accomplished barbarism the appeal of Bolingbroke and Mowbray is an admirable specimen. Another of these ‘keen encounters of their wits’ [Richard III, 1.2.115] which serve to whet the talkers’ words, is where Aumerle answers in the presence of Bolingbroke to the charge which Bagot brings against him of being an accessory in Gloster’s death. . . . [Quotes the hostile exchanges between Fitzwater, Aumerle, Percy, and Surrey at 4.1.33-79.]

 William Hazlitt, Characterization in Richard II 161 The truth is, that there is neither truth nor honour in all these noble persons: they answer words with words, as they do blows with blows, in mere self defence: nor have they principle whatever but that of courage in maintaining any wrong they dare commit, or any falsehood which they find it useful to assert. How different were these noble knights and ‘barons bold’ from their more refined descendants in the present day, who instead of deciding questions of right by brute force, refer every thing to convenience, fashion, and good breeding! In point of any abstract love of truth or justice, they are just the same now that they were then. The characters of old John of Gaunt and of his brother York, uncles to the King, the one stern and foreboding, the other honest, good-natured, doing all for the best, and therefore doing nothing, are well kept up. The speech of the former, in praise of England, is one of the most eloquent that ever was penned. We should perhaps hardly be disposed to feed the pampered egotism of our countrymen by quoting this description, were it not that the conclusion of it (which looks prophetic) may qualify any improper degree of exultation. This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle. . . . [Quotes 2.1.40-66]

The character of Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV is drawn with a masterly hand: – patient for occasion, and then steadily availing himself of it, seeing his advantage afar off, but only seizing on it when he has it within his reach, humble, crafty, bold, and aspiring, encroaching by regular but slow degrees, building power on opinion, and cementing opinion by power. His disposition is first unfolded by Richard himself, who however is too self-willed and secure to make a proper use of his knowledge. Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green, Observed his courtship of the common people. . . . [Quotes 1.4.23-36]

Afterwards, he gives his own character to Percy, in these words: I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sure. . . . [Quotes 2.3.45-9 in which Bolingbroke promises Percy ‘true love’s recompense’]

We know how he afterwards kept his promise. His bold assertion of his own rights, his pretended submission to the king, and the ascendancy which he tacitly assumes over him without openly claiming it, as soon as he has him in his power, are characteristic traits of this ambitious and politic usurper. But the part of Richard himself gives the chief interest to the play. His folly, his vices, his misfortunes, his reluctance to part with the crown, his fear to keep it, his weak and womanish regrets, his starting tears, his fits of hectic passion, his smothered majesty, pass in succession before us, and make a picture as natural as it is affecting. Among the most striking touches of pathos are his wish ‘O that I were a mockery king of snow to melt away before the sun of Bolingbroke,’[2] and the incident of the poor groom who comes to visit him in prison, and tells him how ‘it

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yearned his heart that Bolingbroke upon his coronation day rode on Roan Barbary.’[3] We shall have occasion to return hereafter to the character of Richard II in speaking of Henry VI [see below]. There is only one passage more, the description of his entrance into London with Bolingbroke, which we should like to quote here, if it had not been so used and worn out, so thumbed and got by rote, so praised and painted; but its beauty surmounts all these considerations. [Quotes 5.2.1-36.] (178-87) [2] [From ‘Henry VI’] We have already observed that Shakespeare was scarcely more remarkable for the force and marked contrasts of his characters than for the truth and subtlety with which he has distinguished those which approached the nearest to each other. . . . [Hazlitt gives a range of examples.] All these several personages were as different in Shakespeare as they would have been in themselves: his imagination borrowed from the life, and every circumstance, object, motive, passion, operated there as it would in reality, and produced a world of men and women as distinct, as true and as various as those that exist in nature. The peculiar property of Shakespeare’s imagination was this truth, accompanied with the unconsciousness of nature: indeed, imagination to be perfect must be unconscious, at least in production; for nature is so. – We shall attempt one example more in the characters of Richard II and Henry VI. The characters and situations of both these persons were so nearly alike, that they would have been completely confounded by a common-place poet. Yet they are kept quite distinct in Shakespeare. Both were kings, and both unfortunate. Both lost their crowns owing to their mismanagement and imbecility [i.e. weakness]; the one from a thoughtless, wilful abuse of power, the other from an indifference to it. The manner in which they bear their misfortunes corresponds exactly to the causes which led to them. The one is always lamenting the loss of his power which he has not the spirit to regain; the other seems only to regret that he had ever been king, and is glad to be rid of the power, with the trouble; the effeminacy of the one is that of a voluptuary, proud, revengeful, impatient of contradiction, and inconsolable in his misfortunes; the effeminacy of the other is that of an indolent, good-natured mind, naturally averse to the turmoils of ambition and the cares of greatness, and who wishes to pass his time in monkish indolence and contemplation. – Richard bewails the loss of the kingly power only as it was the means of gratifying his pride and luxury; Henry regards it only as a means of doing right, and is less desirous of the advantages to be derived from possessing it than afraid of exercising it wrong. . . . Richard II in the first speeches of the play betrays his real character. In the first alarm of his pride, on hearing of Bolingbroke’s rebellion, before his presumption has met with any check, he exclaims — Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords. . . . [Quotes 3.2.23-6, 54-62]

Yet, notwithstanding this royal confession of faith, on the very first news of actual disaster, all his conceit of himself as the peculiar favourite of Providence vanishes into air.

 William Hazlitt, Characterization in Richard II 163 But now the blood of twenty thousand men. . . . [Quotes 3.2.76-7, 80-1]

Immediately after, however, recollecting that ‘cheap defence’[4] of the divinity of kings which is to be found in opinion, he is for arming his name against his enemies. Awake, thou coward Majesty, thou sleeps’st. . . . [Quotes 3.2.84-7]

King Henry does not make any such vapouring resistance to the loss of his crown, but lets it slip from off his head as a weight which he is neither able nor willing to bear. . . . When Richard first hears of the death of his favourites, Bushy, Bagot, and the rest, he indignantly rejects all idea of any further efforts, and only indulges in the extravagant impatience of his grief and his despair, in that fine speech which has been so often quoted: – Aumerle. Where is the duke my father, with his power? K. Richard. No matter where: of comfort no man speak. . . . [Quotes 3.2.143-77]

There is as little sincerity afterwards in his affected resignation to his fate, as there is fortitude in this exaggerated picture of his misfortunes before they have happened. When Northumberland comes back with the message from Bolingbroke, he exclaims, anticipating the result, What must the king do now? Must he submit? . . . [Quotes 3.3.143-54]

How differently is all this expressed in King Henry’s soliloquy during the battle with Edward’s party: – This battle fares like to the morning’s war. . . . [Quotes 3 Henry VI, 2.5.1-54]

This is a true and beautiful description of a naturally quiet and contented disposition, and not, like the former, the splenetic effusion of disappointed ambition. In the last scene of Richard II his despair lends him courage: he beats the keeper, slays two of his assassins, and dies with imprecations in his mouth against Sir Pierce Exton, who ‘had staggered his royal person’ [5.5.109]. Henry, when he is seized by the deer-stealers, only reads them a moral lecture on the duty of allegiance and the sanctity of an oath; and when stabbed by Gloucester in the Tower, reproaches him with his crimes, but pardons him his own death. (217-25)

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John Hamilton Reynolds, the poetry of Richard II and the other histories 1817

From an anonymous review of Richard Duke of York (at the Drury Lane Theatre) in The Champion (28 December 1817); reprinted in Selected Prose of John Hamilton Reynolds, ed. Leonidas M. Jones (Cambridge, Mass., 1966). John Hamilton Reynolds (1796–1852), a poet of romantic and satirical bent, is best remembered today as the friend and constant companion of John Keats, with whom he frequently corresponded. He also knew Leigh Hunt and Thomas Hood. Diverted somewhat from literature by his professional duties in a solicitor’s office, he composed only intermittently in his later years. Like Hazlitt, however, he wrote theatre reviews for the Champion (see the headnote to No. 12 above) and admired the Shakespearian acting of Edmund Kean. The excerpt reprinted here is from a theatre review of Kean’s performance in the title role of Richard Duke of York, an abridgement of the three parts of Henry VI by J. H. Merivale. For many years this article was attributed in error to Keats, the incorrect authorship being accepted by Caroline F. E. Spurgeon, Hyder E. Rollins, and others; but Leonidas M. Jones (‘Keats’s Theatrical Reviews in the Champion,’ Keats-Shelley Journal, 3 [Winter 1954], 55–65) proved on internal grounds that Reynolds was the author. Reynolds and Keats shared many of the same ideas and wrote in similar style, and Keats in fact had written a piece on Kean in the previous issue of the same periodical. It is probably safe to assume, therefore, as the editor of the New Variorum Richard II suggests, that Keats shared his friend’s views as here expressed; see Matthew W. Black (ed.), The Life and Death of King Richard the Second (Philadelphia, 1955), p. 534. The notion that the dramatization of historical facts tended to fetter the poetic imagination of Elizabethan dramatists is not uncommon in Romantic criticism. Since the Champion is a difficult journal to come by, I give the pagination of Leonidas Jones’s more accessible reprint.

. . . We have no doubt but that Shakespeare intended to have written a complete dramatic history of England, – for from Richard the Second to Richard the Third the links are unbroken. The three parts of Henry the 6th fall in between the two Richards. They are written with infinite vigour, but their regularity tied the hand of Shakespeare.

 John Hamilton Reynolds, the Poetry of Richard II and the Other Histories 165 Particular facts kept him in the high road, and would not suffer him to turn down leafy and winding lanes, or to break wildly and at once into the breathing fields. The poetry is for the most part ironed and manacled with a chain of facts, and cannot get free: – it cannot escape from the prison house of history, nor often move without our being disturbed with the clanking of its fetters. The poetry of Shakespeare is generally free as is the wind; – a perfect thing of the elements: – winged and sweetly coloured. Poetry must be free! It is of the air, not of the earth, – and the higher it soars, the nearer it gets to its home. The Poetry of Romeo and Juliet, of Hamlet, of Macbeth, is the poetry of Shakespeare’s soul, – full of love and divine romance; – It knows no stop in its delight but ‘goeth where it listeth’ [John 3:8]; – remaining however in all men’s hearts a perpetual and golden dream. The poetry of Lear, Othello, Cymbeline, &c. is the poetry of human passions and affections, – made almost etherial by the power of the Poet. Again, the poetry of Richard [II], John, and the Henries, is the blending of the imaginative with the historical: – it is poetry! – but oftentimes poetry wandering on the London road.[1] . . . (207)

18

Augustine Skottowe, Richard II and the truth of history 1824

From The Life of Shakespeare; Enquiries into the Originality of His Dramatic Plots and Characters; and Essays on the Ancient Theatres and Theatrical Usages (2 vols., London, 1824). Apart from his few published works, virtually nothing is known of Augustine Skottowe – not even his dates. He was a close friend of Charles Mills, the historian of Mohammedanism, the crusades, and chivalry, of whom (after his early death) he published (anonymously) an almost worshipful memoir (1828). He is remembered today only for his Life of Shakespeare, a hundred-and-twenty page account of the dramatist that is heavily indebted to Malone (see Nos. 2 and 4 above) but that nevertheless accepts some of the legends and folklore about Shakespeare that Malone had rejected. To this are appended chapters, chronologically arranged, on the individual works, sometimes with an emphasis (as in the case of Richard II) on sources. Samuel Schoenbaum in Shakespeare’s Lives (Oxford, 1970) refers to Skottowe’s Life as ‘an exercise in haute vulgarisation and a ‘middle-brow view of Shakespeare’s career’ (p. 301). Although not a close student of primary or original materials, Skottowe sought to provide an up-to-date guide to Shakespeare and his works, absorbing and synthesizing the secondary sources then available to him. His critical statements may therefore be considered in some sense representative of informed opinion at the time. A shortened version of Skottowe’s Life of Shakespeare, revised by Adolph Wagner, became part of the forty-three volume edition of Shakespeare, edited by A.W. Schlegel et al (Vienna, 1825–27).

From ‘Richard II’. Skottowe dates the play 1593, following Malone’s revised date as published in his posthumous edition of Shakespeare, issued by James Boswell in 1821; [see headnote to No. 2 above.] The action of the present play commences in 1398, when Richard had attained his thirty-second year, and closes with his death in 1400. Holinshed furnished the facts which the poet dramatised; and, with the exception of a few minor points, which require notice, Shakespeare adhered with considerable exactness to his authority. He is inaccurate, for instance, in his statement of the circumstances under which the

 Augustine Skottowe, Richard II and the Truth of History 167 first interview between Richard and Bolingbroke took place: he entirely passes over the meeting of Richard and Northumberland at Conway Castle, where the king was entrapped into the power of the wily earl. From that moment Richard was a king only in name. He did not meet Bolingbroke at Flint with the freedom which Shakespeare represents, for he was forcibly carried thither: that castle was surrounded with the soldiers of his enemy; and though the duke of Lancaster thrice bowed his knee in reverence to his ‘sovereign lord and king,’ Richard was then actually a prisoner, and conveyed to London, without being ‘permitted once to change his apparel, but rode still through all the towns simply clothed in one suit of raiment.’1 The poet is further incorrect in representing Bolingbroke ignorant of Richard’s sojourn in Flint, he ‘being still advertised, from hour to hour, by posts, how the earl of Northumberland sped.’2 The disclosures of Bagot, and his accusation of Aumerle, took place in the parliament summoned, under new writs, in the name of Henry the Fourth, and not in the parliament that confirmed and proclaimed the deposition of Richard, on the last day of September, 1399. The introduction of the bishop of Carlisle’s celebrated speech, in the same scene, is a similar anticipation of an occurrence in the parliament of Henry. Shakespeare has pushed the bishop’s argument against the incompetency of the tribunal which deposed Richard, into a broad assertion of the divine right of kings: Carlisle’s more solid objection against the condemnation of his sovereign, without giving him an opportunity to answer the charges made against him, has been skilfully converted into a pretext for Richard’s appearance in Westminster Hall, there to resign the crown in person, instead of making his resignation by the signature of a legal instrument. The short period of Richard’s reign embraced in the action of the drama, is too barren of events of a dramatic nature to furnish materials for a pleasing play, and Shakespeare made one effort to remedy the defect. Richard married his second wife, Isabell, daughter of the king of France, then in the ninth year of her age, in 1396. On the deposition of her husband, therefore, she was only twelve, and consequently by no means the prototype of Shakespeare’s queen, whose acts, words, and thoughts, bespeak the woman of maturity.[3] If the author’s intention in this change was the communication of interest and pathos to his scenes, he has violated the truth of history in vain. The part of the queen is altogether feebly written; and the interview of separation between her and her wretched husband remarkable for its poverty and tameness. Richard is the only person in the play whose qualities Shakespeare has formed into a dramatic character. The king was not deficient in natural talent, but his education had been neglected, and his easy temper early resigned him into the hands of designing sycophants, who, intent on their own ambitious projects, flattered his vanity and pampered his passions, regardless of their country’s welfare or their sovereign’s honour. Neglecting public duties, he was a votary of pleasure; his court was a scene of perpetual revelry, and the splendour of his retinue, and the magnificence of his mode of living, surpassed all the previous splendour of the crown of England. The people, on whom the support of these expensive pleasures fell, murmured, and the king was impatient of opposition: mutual dissatisfaction and, subsequently, hatred ensued, and his reign was passed amidst the dangerous contentions of parties endeavouring one to establish, and the other to circumscribe, the inordinate power which he claimed as his prerogative.

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King Richard II

To avoid all mention of the bad features of his hero’s character was impossible; but the dramatist touched them with a lenient hand. He found Richard a voluptuary, a tyrant, and a desponding coward: but by commencing his play within two years of Richard’s deposition, he sunk twenty of violence, rapacity, and tyranny. Shakespeare judiciously selected the banishment of Hereford, and the seizure of Gaunt’s wealth, as instances of Richard’s despotism and rapacity, for both those events are intimately connected with the subsequent action of the play. This inadequate tribute having been paid to truth, the reverse of the picture is heightened by the most strenuous exertion of the poet’s skill. Bold and various imagery, pious, philosophical, and sublime reflection, and all the graces of impassioned eloquence, are lavished on Richard. If he had manfully braved the buffets of calamity, and become a prey to sorrows, subdued only by the might of their accumulation, the struggle would have been awful. But as he pusillanimously yielded to despair, our sympathy is but slight, and Richard is upbraided and forgotten. Holinshed relates, that under his misfortunes, Richard was ‘almost consumed with sorrow, and in a manner half dead.’[4] Such is the historian’s slight mention of the king’s character in the hour of adversity; and this brief notice has been expanded by the magic genius of Shakespeare into a perfect picture of intellectual cowardice. He who was at one moment self-confident, nothing doubting, comparing his power to that of the sun itself, was in the next plunged in the deepest despair, willing to resign his crown when he heard that some of his liege men had fallen off. Notwithstanding all the pains bestowed on the delineation of the king, and the success with which those pains were followed, a heavy drama is still the result. With but one character that can be deemed a dramatic portrait, with a plot advanced as much by narrative as by action, and with a dialogue distributed into speeches of a length far exceeding the importance of their contents, Richard the Second, though an exquisite poem is an indifferent play: it is deficient in variety and contrast of character, a quick succession of incidents, and an animated and interesting dialogue. (I, 139-44)

19

George Daniel, prefatory remarks on Richard II 1831

From King Richard II. A Tragedy, In Five Acts, by William Shakespeare. Printed from the Acting Copy, with Remarks, Biographical and Critical, by D– G [George Daniel]. Embellished with a Fine Engraving, by Mr. Banner, from a Drawing Taken in the Theatre by Mr. Cruikshank [c. 1831; in Volume 29 of Cumberland’s British Theatre (London, 1823–31)]. George Daniel (1789–1864), humourist, minor poet, satirist, and miscellaneous writer, was a friend of actors who composed several theatrical farces and comic pieces. He was also a notable book collector, gathering together a valuable library of Elizabethan books and black-letter ballads as well as rare theatrical mementoes including Garrick’s famous ‘cassolette,’ a carved casket supposedly fashioned from a tree in Shakespeare’s garden at Stratford. His major literary achievement was the series of acting editions of plays, numbering nearly three hundred, entitled Cumberland’s British Theatre (39 vols.) to which he then added a further series – Cumberland’s Minor Theatre (14 vols.). The two series were later issued together in 64 volumes. For each play Daniel contributed a preface under the all-purpose heading of ‘Remarks’ in which he made intelligent and knowledgeable comments on a range of topics, evincing a talent for literary insight as well as for acute theatrical observation. The acting version of Richard II printed after Daniel’s preface is the adaptation by Richard Wroughton (No. 13 above). The George Cruikshank engraving, based on one of the central scenes from the production, shows Bolingbroke kneeling before King Richard at Flint Castle: ‘Up, cousin, up: your heart is up, I know . . .’ (3.3.194).

[From ‘Remarks: King Richard II’] . . . Though this play is called the Life and Death of Richard II, it comprises little more than the two last years of his reign; beginning with Bolingbroke’s appealing the Duke of Norfolk in an accusation of high treason, in the year 1398, and closing with the regicide of the king at Pomfret Castle, towards the end of 1400, or the beginning of the following year. The last scene introduces Exton with attendants bearing the coffined remains of Richard; at the sight of which Bolingbroke experiences a sudden fit of compunction, and resolves to expiate his guilt by that ancient salvo [i.e. conscience-

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King Richard II

saving expedient] for all abominations, a pilgrimage to the Holy Land: – . . . . [Quotes 5.6.49-53.] It has been supposed that this tragedy underwent the rare ceremony of a revision from the author’s hand; but the authorities quoted in support of this assumption leave it exceedingly doubtful. Malone does not believe a word of it [see No. 4.1, 16, 25 above]. Dr. Johnson remarks that Richard II cannot be said to affect much the passions or enlarge the understanding.[1] This is one of those hasty opinions promulgated by that profound aristarch, and not retracted when further examination and reflection had probably thrown a new light on the beauties of the poet. Few critics that, like [Joseph] Warton, have written an elaborate volume to prove a great poet no poet at all, are willing, after a lapse of years, to produce another, wherein their first opinions are either qualified or recalled. Warton, in his after thoughts, assigned to Pope a station to which the ‘no poet’ would have hardly dared to aspire – a seat below Milton, and just above Dryden, in the Temple of Fame.[2] The beauties of this play are not to be found in the action or events. In the former there is little to interest us; in the latter there are many incongruities. The integrity of history is often violated by deviations and omissions; errors in chronology might be pointed out; and the censure of Steevens, that Shakespeare could forget in the end of a scene what he had said in the beginning, justified by examples. In the play, Richard would seem to have commanded his uncle Glo’ster’s death, and even to have shed the blood of the great Edward; for of these crimes he is accused by the old Duke of Lancaster. If his silence to this accusation may be interpreted into a confession of his guilt, he deserves not the compassion that the beautiful and affecting images of the poet, in the subsequent scenes, never fail to excite. History does not warrant our belief that Richard was a murderer and a parricide. It is certain that Glo’ster, even by his own confession, was at the head of several conspiracies that were aimed, not only at the king’s crown, but his life also; while his assassination by Richard’s order rests only on reports. There are also some deviations that throw a different light on the character of Bolingbroke. Considering his well known ambition and treachery, his mock repentence in the last scene is almost ludicrous. It has been ascertained that an old play on the same subject, written in English, existed long antecedent to the drama of Shakespeare; and Dr. [Richard] Farmer remarks, it may be worth inquiry whether some of the rhyming parts of the present play, which Mr. Pope thought by a different hand, might not be borrowed from the old one. The opinion of Dr. Johnson is against the plagiarism;[3] though it must be acknowledged that the rhyming parts are greatly inferior to the rest of the play. There is much to interest us in the character of Richard. In his prosperity and power he is haughty and unjust; in his dethronement and adversity, submissive and resigned. He may, perhaps, in the words of Johnson, exhibit in his fall only passive fortitude, the virtue of a confessor;[4] but his resignation is so full of charity and forgiveness, his reflections on his vanished greatness, and the instability of worldly happiness, so philosophical and profound, that, if Shakespeare’s inattention to historical fact has cast a shade on the early part of his character, he has more than redeemed it by the piety and wisdom that shed a radiance on its close. How just is Dryden’s eloquent encomium on York’s description of Richard’s entry into London.[5] Can imagination paint anything more moving than the following

 George Daniel, Prefatory Remarks on Richard II 171 picture of the king’s meek submission and sorrow at the indignities heaped upon his head? – As in a theatre the eyes of men. . . . [Quotes 5.2.23-36]

Many passages of equal beauty might be pointed out. John of Gaunt’s noble description of England: – This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, &c. &c. [2.1.40 ff.]

and that fine image: – For within the hollow crown, That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps Death his court: and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp. [3.2.160-3]

Shakespeare loses no opportunity of expressing his perfect contempt of mob popularity. Richard’s description of Bolingbroke’s craft in wooing the multitude with affected courtesy and humility is admirably characteristic of the subtle and ambitious usurper: – Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green . . . . [Quotes 1.4.23-34]

We may add, ‘This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof ’ [Hamlet, 3.1.113].  In this play we have the first mention of the mad-cap Prince of Wales. He is aptly introduced with such – As stand in narrow lanes, And beat our watch, and rob our passengers. [5.3.8-9]

Bolingbroke, however, seems to have had a Pisgah-sight[66] of the future greatness of his son: – I see some sparkes of a better hope, Which elder days may happily bring forth. [5.3.21-2] (6-8)

20

Henry Nelson Coleridge, another version of Coleridge on Richard II 1836

From The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Collected and Edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge . . . (4 vols., London, 1836–39). Volume II. Henry Nelson Coleridge (1798–1843), author and nephew (as well as literary executor) of the Romantic poet, was educated at Eton and at King’s College, Cambridge. Having been called to the bar in 1826, he married his cousin Sara, daughter of the poet, in 1829. The death of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1834 caused him to devote most of his brief remaining years to the editing and publication of the poet’s unpublished writings and utterances. In the Literary Remains, he assembled with considerable rewriting and interpolation of his own the fugitive notes, marginalia, and jottings for lectures that his uncle had left behind – in the case of the Shakespearian materials, imposing a sequence and shape of his own devising. He also edited his uncle’s Aids to Reflection and Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit and preserved Coleridge’s Table Talk, which he had carefully taken down from his uncle’s own speech over a period of years, issuing in print only ‘such parts as seem fit for present publication’. Although the material on Richard II in Literary Remains repeats some of what has already appeared in somewhat more authentic form in No. 11 above, I reproduce here Henry Nelson Coleridge’s rearrangement and sometimes rephrasing of his uncle’s ideas because it is this version that most subsequent critics knew and referred to, and which therefore played a significant historical role in the evolving critical tradition of the play. For the historical importance of Coleridge’s Shakespearian criticism, see the headnote to No. 11 above.

[From ‘Shakespeare’s English Historical Plays’]

Richard II I have stated that the transitional link between the epic poem and the drama is the historic drama; that in the epic poem a pre-announced fate gradually adjusts and employs the will and the events as its instruments, whilst the drama, on the other

 Henry Nelson Coleridge, Another Version of Coleridge on Richard II 173 hand, places fate and will in opposition to each other, and is then most perfect, when the victory of fate is obtained in consequence of imperfections in the opposing will, so as to leave a final impression that the fate itself is but a higher and a more intelligent will.[1] From the length of the speeches, and the circumstance that, with one exception, the events are all historical, and presented in their results, not produced by acts seen by, or taking place before, the audience, this tragedy is ill suited to our present large theatres. But in itself, and for the closet, I feel no hesitation in placing it as the first and most admirable of all Shakespeare’s purely historical plays. For the two parts of Henry IV form, a species of themselves, which may be named the mixed drama. The distinction does not depend on the mere quantity of historical events in the play compared with the fictions; for there is as much history in Macbeth as in Richard [II], but in the relation of the history to the plot. In the purely historical plays, the history forms the plot; in the mixed, it directs it; in the rest, as Macbeth, Hamlet, Cymbeline, Lear, it subserves it. But, however unsuited to the stage this drama may be, God forbid that even there it should fall dead on the hearts of jacobinized Englishmen! Then, indeed, we might say – praeteriit gloria mundi![2] For the spirit of patriotic reminiscence is the all-permeating soul of this noble work. It is, perhaps, the most purely historical of Shakespeare’s dramas. There are not in it, as in the others, characters introduced merely for the purpose of giving a great individuality and realness, as in the comic parts of Henry IV, by presenting, as it were, our very selves. Shakespeare avails himself of every opportunity to effect the great object of the historic drama, that, namely, of familiarizing the people to the great names of their country, and thereby of exciting a steady patriotism, a love of just liberty, and a respect for all those fundamental institutions of social life, which bind men together: – This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, . . . . [Quotes 2.1.40-52]

Add the famous passage in King John: – This England never did, nor ever shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror. . . . [Quotes King John, 5.7.112-8]

And it certainly seems that Shakespeare’s historic dramas produced a very deep effect on the minds of the English people, and in earlier times they were familiar even to the least informed of all ranks, according to the relation of Bishop Corbett.[3] Marlborough, we know, was not ashamed to confess that his principal acquaintance with English history was derived from them;[4] and I believe that a large part of the information as to our old names and achievements even now abroad is due, directly or indirectly, to Shakespeare. Admirable is the judgment with which Shakespeare always in the first scenes prepares, yet how naturally, and with what concealment of art, for the catastrophe. Observe how he here presents the germ of all the after events in Richard’s insincerity,

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partiality, arbitrariness, and favoritism, and in the proud, tempestuous, temperament of his barons. In the very beginning, also, is displayed that feature in Richard’s character, which is never forgotten throughout the play – his attention to decorum, and high feeling of the kingly dignity. These anticipations show with what judgment Shakespeare wrote, and illustrate his care to connect the past and future, and unify them with the present by forecast and reminiscence. It is interesting to a critical ear to compare the six opening lines of the play – Old John of Gaunt, time-honor’d Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band, &c.

[1.1.1-2]

each closing at the tenth syllable, with the rhythmless metre of the verse in Henry VI and Titus Andronicus, in order that the difference, indeed, the heterogeneity, of the two may be felt etiam in simillimis prima superficie.[5] Here the weight of the single words supplies all the relief afforded by intercurrent verse, while the whole represents the mood. And compare the apparently defective metre of Bolingbroke’s first line, ‘Many years of happy days befall –’ [1.1.20] with Prospero’s ‘Twelve years since, Miranda! twelve years since –’ [The Tempest, 1.2.53]. The actor should supply the time by emphasis, and pause on the first syllable of each of these verses.[6] Act i, sc. 1. Bolingbroke’s speech – First, (heaven be the record to my speech!) In the devotion of a subject’s love, &c.

[1.1.30-1]

I remember in the Sophoclean drama no more striking example of the to prepon kai semnon[7] than this speech; and the rhymes in the last six lines well express the preconcertedness of Bolingbroke’s scheme so beautifully contrasted with the vehemence and sincere irritation of Mowbray. Ib[id]. Bolingbroke’s speech: – Which blood, like sacrificing Abel’s, cries, Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth, To me, for justice and rough chastisement.

[1.1.104-6]

Note the deinon[8] of this ‘to me,’ which is evidently felt by Richard: – ‘How high a pitch his resolution soars!’ [1.1.109] and the affected depreciation afterwards; – ‘As he is but my father’s brother’s son’ [1.1.117]. Ib[id]. Mowbray’s speech: – In haste whereof, most heartily I pray Your highness to assign our trial day.

[1.1.150-1]

 Henry Nelson Coleridge, Another Version of Coleridge on Richard II 175 The occasional interspersion of rhymes, and the more frequent winding up of a speech therewith – what purpose was this designed to answer? In the earnest drama, I mean. Deliberateness? An attempt, as in Mowbray, to collect himself and be cool at the close? – I can see that in the following speeches the rhyme answers the end of the Greek chorus, and distinguishes the general truths from the passions of the dialogue; but this does not exactly justify the practice, which is unfrequent in proportion to the excellence of Shakespeare’s plays. One thing, however, is to be observed, – that the speakers are historical, known, and so far formal, characters, and their reality is already a fact. This should be borne in mind. The whole of this scene of the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke seems introduced for the purpose of showing by anticipation the characters of Richard and Bolingbroke. In the latter there is observable a decorous and courtly checking of his anger in subservience to a predetermined plan, especially in his calm speech after receiving sentence of banishment compared with Mowbray’s unaffected lamentation. In the one, all is ambitious hope of something yet to come; in the other it is desolation and a looking backward of the heart. Ib[id]., sc. 2. Gaunt. Heaven’s is the quarrel; for heaven’s substitute, His deputy anointed in his right [an error for ‘sight’], Hath caus’d his death: the which, if wrongfully, Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift An angry arm against his minister.

[1.2.37-41]

Without the hollow extravagance of Beaumont and Fletcher’s ultra-royalism, how carefully does Shakespeare acknowledge and reverence the eternal distinction between the mere individual, and the symbolic or representative, on which all genial law, no less than patriotism, depends. The whole of this second scene commences, and is anticipative of, the tone and character of the play at large. Ib[id]. sc. 3. In none of Shakespeare’s fictitious dramas, or in those founded on a history as unknown to his auditors generally as fiction, is this violent rupture of the succession of time found: – a proof, I think, that the pure historic drama, like Richard II and King John, had its own laws. Ib[id]. Mowbray’s speech: – A dearer merit [ . . . ] Have I deserved at your highness’ hand.

[1.3.156-8]

O, the instinctive propriety of Shakespeare in the choice of words! Ib[id]. Richard’s speech: Nor never by advised purpose meet, To plot, contrive, or complot any ill, ’Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.

[1.3.188-90]

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Already the selfish weakness of Richard’s character opens. Nothing will such minds so readily embrace, as indirect ways softened down to their quasi-consciences by policy, expedience, &c. Ib[id]. Mowbray’s speech: – ‘ . . . All the world’s my way’ [1.3.207]; [compare] ‘The world was all before him’ (Milt[on, ‘Paradise Lost’, XII, 646]). Ib[id]. Baling. How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters, and four wanton springs, End in a word: such is the breath of kings.

[1.3.213-5]

Admirable anticipation! Ib[id]., sc. 4. This is a striking conclusion of a first act, – letting the reader into the secret; – having before impressed us with the dignified and kingly manners of Richard, yet by well managed anticipations leading us on to the full gratification of pleasure in our own penetration. In this scene a new light is thrown on Richard’s character. Until now he has appeared in all the beauty of royalty; but here, as soon as he is left to himself, the inherent weakness of his character is immediately shown. It is a weakness, however, of a peculiar kind, not arising from want of personal courage, or any specific defect of faculty, but rather an intellectual feminineness, which feels a necessity of ever leaning on the breast of others, and of reclining on those who are all the while known to be inferiors. To this must be attributed as its consequences all Richard’s vices, his tendency to concealment and his cunning, the whole operation of which is directed to the getting rid of present difficulties. Richard is not meant to be a debauchee; but we see in him that sophistry which is common to man, by which we can deceive our own hearts, and at one and the same time apologize for, and yet commit, the error. Shakespeare has represented this character in a very peculiar manner. He has not made him amiable with counterbalancing faults; but has openly and broadly drawn those faults without reserve, relying on Richard’s disproportionate sufferings and gradually emergent good qualities for our sympathy; and this was possible, because his faults are not positive vices, but spring entirely from defect of character. Act. ii, sc. 1. K. Rich. Can sick men play so nicely with their names?

[2.1.84]

Yes! on a death-bed there is a feeling which may make all things appear but as puns and equivocations. And a passion there is that carries off its own excess by plays on words as naturally, and, therefore, as appropriately to drama, as by gesticulations, looks, or tones. This belongs to human nature as such, independently of associations and habits from any particular rank of life or mode of employment; and in this consist Shakespeare’s vulgarisms, as in Macbeth’s – ‘The devil damn thee black, thou creamfac’d loon!’ &c. [Macbeth, 5.3.11]. This is (to equivocate on Dante’s words) in truth the nobile volgare eloquenza.[9] Indeed it is profoundly true that there is a natural, an almost irresistible, tendency in the mind, when immersed in one strong feeling, to connect

 Henry Nelson Coleridge, Another Version of Coleridge on Richard II 177 that feeling with every sight and object around it; especially if there be opposition, and the words addressed to it are in any way repugnant to the feeling itself, as here in the instance of Richard’s unkind language: ‘Misery makes sport to mock itself ’ [2.1.85]. No doubt, something of Shakespeare’s punning must be attributed to his age, in which direct and formal combats of wit were a favourite pastime of the courtly and accomplished. It was an age more favourable, upon the whole, to vigour of intellect than the present, in which a dread of being thought pedantic dispirits and flattens the energies of original minds. But independently of this, I have no hesitation in saying that a pun, if it be congruous with the feeling of the scene, is not only allowable in the dramatic dialogue, but oftentimes one of the most effectual intensives of passion. Ib[id]. K. Rich. Right; you say true: as Hereford’s love, so his; As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

[2.1.145-6]

The depth of this compared with the first scene; – ‘How high a pitch,’ &c. [1.1.109]. There is scarcely anything in Shakespeare in its degree, more admirably drawn than York’s character; his religious loyalty struggling with a deep grief and indignation at the king’s follies; his adherence to his word and faith, once given in spite of all, even the most natural, feelings. You see in him the weakness of old age, and the overwhelmingness of circumstances, for a time surmounting his sense of duty, – the junction of both exhibited in his boldness in words and feebleness in immediate act; and then again his effort to retrieve himself in abstract loyalty, even at the heavy price of the loss of his son. This species of accidental and adventitious weakness is brought into parallel with Richard’s continually increasing energy of thought, and as constantly diminishing power of acting; – and thus it is Richard that breathes a harmony and a relation into all the characters of the play. Ib[id]., sc. 2. Queen. To please the king I did; to please myself I cannot do it; yet I know no cause Why I should welcome such a guest as grief, Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest As my sweet Richard: yet again, methinks, Some unborn sorrow, ripe in sorrow’s womb, Is coming toward me; and my inward soul With nothing trembles: at something it grieves, More than with parting from my lord the king.

[2.2.5-13]

It is clear that Shakespeare never meant to represent Richard as a vulgar debauchee, but a man with a wantonness of spirit in external show, a feminine friendism, an intensity of woman-like love of those immediately about him, and a mistaking of the delight of being loved by him for a love of him. And mark in this scene Shakespeare’s gentleness in touching the tender superstitions, the terrae incognitae[10] of presentiments, in the

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human mind; and how sharp a line of distinction he commonly draws between these obscure forecastings of general experience in each individual, and the vulgar errors of mere tradition. Indeed, it may be taken once for all as the truth, that Shakespeare, in the absolute universality of his genius, always reverences whatever arises out of our moral nature; he never profanes his muse with a contemptuous reasoning away of the genuine and general, however unaccountable, feelings of mankind.  The amiable part of Richard’s character is brought full upon us by his queen’s few words – ‘ . . . so sweet a guest / As my sweet Richard’; – and Shakespeare has carefully shown in him an intense love of his country, well knowing how that feeling would, in a pure historic drama, redeem him in the hearts of the audience. Yet even in this love there is something feminine and personal: – Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand, – 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 favour with my royal hands.

[3.2.6-11]

With this is combined a constant overflow of emotions from a total incapability of controlling them, and thence a waste of that energy, which should have been reserved for actions, in the passion and effort of mere resolves and menaces. The consequence is moral exhaustion, and rapid alternations of unmanly despair and ungrounded hope, –every feeling being abandoned for its direct opposite upon the pressure of external accident. And yet when Richard’s inward weakness appears to seek refuge in his despair, and his exhaustion counterfeits repose, the old habit of kingliness, the effect of flatterers from his infancy, is ever and anon producing in him a sort of wordy courage which only serves to betray more clearly his internal impotence. The second and third scenes of the third act combine and illustrate all this: – Aumerle. He means, my lord, that we are roo remiss. . . . [Quotes 3.2.33-47, 143-7, 186-91, 200, 203-08]

Act iii, sc. 3. Bolingbroke’s speech: – Noble lord, Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle, &c.

[3.3.31-2]

Observe the fine struggle of a haughty sense of power and ambition in Bolingbroke with the necessity for dissimulation. Ib[id]., sc. 4. See here the skill and judgment of our poet in giving reality and individual life, by the introduction of accidents in his historic plays, and thereby making them dramas, and not histories. How beautiful an islet of repose – a melancholy repose,

 Henry Nelson Coleridge, Another Version of Coleridge on Richard II 179 indeed – is this scene with the Gardener and his Servant. And how truly affecting and realizing is the incident of the very horse Barbary, in the scene with the Groom in the last act! – ‘Groom. I was a poor groom of thy stable, King . . . ’ [Quotes 5.5.72-81]. Bolingbroke’s character, in general, is an instance how Shakespeare makes one play introductory to another; for it is evidently a preparation for Henry IV, as Gloster in the third part of Henry VI is for Richard III. I would once more remark upon the exalted idea of the only true loyalty developed in this noble and impressive play. We have neither the rants of Beaumont and Fletcher, nor the sneers of Massinger; – the vast importance of the personal character of the sovereign is distinctly enounced, whilst, at the same time, the genuine sanctity which surrounds him is attributed to, and grounded on, the position in which he stands as the convergence and exponent of the life and power of the state. The great end of the body politic appears to be to humanize, and assist in the progressiveness of, the animal man; – but the problem is so complicated with contingencies as to render it nearly impossible to lay down rules for the formation of a state. And should we be able to form a system of government, which should so balance its different powers as to form a check upon each, and so continually remedy and correct itself, it would, nevertheless, defeat its own aim; – for man is destined to be guided by higher principles, by universal views, which can never be fulfilled in this state of existence – by a spirit of progressiveness which can never be accomplished, for then it would cease to be. Plato’s Republic is like Bunyan’s Town of Man-Soul, – a description of an individual, all of whose faculties are in their proper subordination and inter-dependence; and this it is assumed may be the prototype of the state as one great individual. But there is this sophism in it, that it is forgotten that the human faculties, indeed, are parts and not separate things; but that you could never get chiefs who were wholly reason, ministers who were wholly understanding, soldiers all wrath, labourers all concupiscence, and so on through the rest. Each of these partakes of, and interferes with, all the others. (II, 164-79)

21

Henry Hallam, on the scene of Aumerle’s pardon in Richard II 1837–39

From Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries . . . (4 vols., London, 1837-39), Volume III; 4th edition (4 vols. in 2, New York, 1880), Volume III. Henry Hallam (1777–1859), historian, was born in Windsor, the son of a notable Anglican clergyman. Having demonstrated unusual intellectual precocity as a child, he attended Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, was called to the bar, but after some years of practice was appointed commissioner of stamps, a position that together with his substantial inheritance allowed him considerable leisure for scholarship. Hallam’s eminence as a scholar was immediately established with his View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages (1818). This he followed with his two other principal works of scholarship, The Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of George II (1827) and the four-volume work on the literature of Europe, quoted below. Vast in scope and attempting to address nearly all genres in different countries over a period of three centuries, it could hardly escape the charge of superficiality in certain respects; the treatment of Shakespeare is therefore understandably perfunctory. But the brief statement on Richard II, 5.3, is characteristic of Hallam’s forthright common sense, his honesty of response, and his resistance to the bardolatry made fashionable by critics such as Drake (No. 15) and Coleridge (Nos. 11, 20). His objection to wordplay is reminiscent of the stricture of Dr Johnson in his famous Preface that a quibble was to Shakespeare ‘the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it’ (Arthur Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 74). Hallam’s literary history went through several editions, each of which introduced minor revisions. The excerpt below is taken from a reprint of the fourth edition (1880).

[From Part III, Chapter VI (‘History of Dramatic Literature from 1600 to 1650’), Section III (‘On the English Drama’)] . . . The idolatry of Shakespeare has been carried so far of late years, that Drake [see No. 15 above] and perhaps greater authorities have been unwilling to acknowledge

 Henry Hallam, on the Scene of Aumerle’s Pardon in Richard II 181 any faults in his plays. This, however, is an extravagance rather derogatory to the critic than honorable to the poet. Besides the blemishes of construction in some of his plots, which are pardonable, but still blemishes, there are too many in his style. His conceits and quibbles often spoil the effect of his scenes, and take off from the passion he would excite. In the last act of Richard II, the Duke of York is introduced demanding the punishment of his son Aumerle for a conspiracy against the king, while the Duchess implores mercy. The scene is ill conceived and worse executed throughout; but one line is both atrocious and contemptible. The Duchess, having dwelt on the word pardon, and urged the king to let her hear it from his lips, York takes her up with this stupid quibble: – Speak it in French, King; say, Pardonnez-moi.

[5.3.119]

It would not be difficult to find several other instances, though none, perhaps, quite so bad, of verbal equivocations, misplaced and inconsistent with the person’s, the author’s, the reader’s sentiment. . . . (Ill, 303-04)

22

Thomas Campbell, general comments on Richard II 1838

From The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare. With Remarks on His Life and Writings (London, 1838); 2nd edition (1843), reprinted (London, 1863). Thomas Campbell (1777–1844), poet, scholar, and critic, distintinguished him self as a student of classics at Glasgow University, where he also wrote original verse. Campbell settled for most of his later life in London where he became a recognised figure in literary society, enjoying the friendship and encourage ment of such luminaries as Sir Walter Scott. Washington Irving and Lord Byron admired and visited him. His interest in the theatre (he knew and revered the Kembles) resulted in his two-volume Life of Mrs. Siddons (1834), which contains interesting comments on her Shakespearian roles. This in turn was followed by his tepidly received edition of Shakespeare (1838), to which he prefixed a brief life of the dramatist containing critical remarks on the individual plays; although more personal than scholarly, these show a certain independence and freshness. The excerpt below is taken from the 1863 reprint of the second edition of The Dramatic Works (1843), described on its title page as ‘a new edition.’

[From ‘Remarks on the Life and Writings of William Shakespeare: Chapter V’] . . . Richard II as well as Richard III, according to Malone’s dates [see No. 4.1 above], appeared in 1593. The former tragedy is estimable for its pathos and skilful delineation of character. Its eloquence is not unblemished by a disposition to play upon words, the besetting sin of Shakespeare; but it is wholly free from the intermixture of comic scenes. The march of incidents is perspicuous and progessively affecting. Our interest at the outset is bespoken against Richard, and we wish well to the banished Bolingbroke. Nor is the Poet unfaithful to the latter personage, but rather mitigates the truth of history in describing the Lancastrian hero’s treatment of the fallen king. But Lancastrian in his prejudices, as Shakespeare was – he lets us see, though without saying so directly, that Henry IV, though heir to his father’s property, was not the inheritor of all his virtues. The aged Gaunt is a model of heroic loyalty and justice. His eloquence on his death-bed

 Thomas Campbell, General Comments on Richard II 183 is prophetic; and we reverence Gaunt’s predictions of what would ensue to Richard for his injustice, not the less superstitiously that they are tinged with human sagacity. Nor is the Bishop of Carlisle’s part in this drama to be overlooked, as the intrepid champion of Richard. When he appeals in parliament for his hapless sovereign, and protests against his being sentenced in his absence, whilst thieves are not condemned without a hearing, he says most eloquently – I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks, Stirr’d up by heaven, thus boldly for his king. [Quotes 4.1.132-9]

With such characters in the piece as the heroic Gaunt and this intrepid churchman, it is absurd to talk of this tragedy depending for its interest solely on the character of the hapless Richard. The king is undoubtedly at first obnoxious to us. But the poet coils up his strength, as the piece closes, to the double task of commanding our warm tears for Richard, and preserving our cold respect for Lancaster. As Henry Bolingbroke advances to be a king, he ceases to interest us as a man; whilst, as Richard is unkinged, he becomes a more rational man, and more interesting to our sympathies. We forget his past errors when dust is thrown upon his discrowned head, and when none among the brutal mob cries, God bless him! The Poet has departed from the letter of history in several particulars; among others, in representing his queen, who could have been then only twelve years old, as his equal companion; for after the death of his first wife, the ‘good Queen Anne’ of Bohemia, he was betrothed to the daughter of France in her ninth year. If Shakespeare had given himself the trouble to adhere to the truth of history, it is not unimaginable that he might have drawn effect from the very circumstance of their unequal ages. Richard was a beautiful man, and his queen, young as she was at twelve, might have been attached to him, though betrothed before she had a free choice. I doubt if she ever came to England.[1] Shakespeare keeps Henry IV’s memory in good odour by assigning the murder of Richard II to Sir Pierce of Exton, whom he makes the usurping monarch reprimand for his officious cruelty; but there is too much reason to believe that Henry IV, who infamously purchased the support of the clergy by allowing them to burn heretics alive, was the real murderer of the dethroned monarch, and that he caused him to be starved to death. (xxxiii-xxxiv)

23

Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, Richard II and history 1838

From ‘Richard II’ in ‘Shakespeare’s Historical Plays, Considered Historically’, The New Monthly Magazine, 53, No. 211 (July 1838), 364–79. Reprinted with revisions in Commentaries on the Historical Plays of Shakespeare (2 vols., London, 1840), I, 34–74. Thomas Peregrine Courtenay (1782–1841), a younger brother of the Earl of Devon, served for much of his life as an MP for Totnes and as a civil servant in various governmental posts. He originally composed his essays on the Shakespearian histories for The New Monthly Magazine (between June 1838 and March 1839), then republished them with minor corrections and alterations in book form in 1840. Courtenay’s account of the history plays represents the first serious attempt to examine them against the background of ascertainable fact. In his preface, Courtenay takes up such matters as the nature of Shakespeare’s sources, his patriotic motives, his characteristic anachronism, and the necessity of a playwright’s taking liberties with historical fact for dramatic effect. His main concern is to enquire ‘what were Shakespeare’s authorities for his history, and how far has he departed from them? And whether the plays may be given to our youth, as “properly historical’” (p. 252 of the periodical version; I, xii, of the book). He further points out that previous editors such as Steevens and Malone, although they provide ‘a few historical notes’, have failed to investigate Shakespeare’s historicity in any systematic or thorough manner. The extract reprinted here is from the revised 1840 volume; Courtenay’s footnotes, which are often ambiguous and incompletely documented, have been expanded and clarified where possible.

Richard II . . . The opinion of the Schlegels, that, in the series of plays beginning with Richard the Second and ending with Richard the Third, the poet intended to teach history on the stage, is hardly consistent with the order in which the plays were written, differing as it does from the order of the reigns described.1

 Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, Richard II and History 185 The play of Richard the Second, like the former [i.e. King John], professes to represent ‘the life and death of the king’ whose name it bears; but, in this instance, the action does not begin until the twentieth of the twenty-two years which the reign occupied. . . . [Courtenay raises the question of whether Shakespeare’s play or an earlier drama on Richard II was the drama connected with the Essex rebellion of 1601, going on to argue against the identification with Shakespeare’s drama.] Assuredly the killing of the king is exhibited in Shakespeare’s Richard the Second; but it has been observed that this could hardly be the play to which so much objection was made by the crown lawyers of Elizabeth, seeing that ‘there are expressions in it which strongly inculcate the doctrine of indefeasible right.’2 This objection will be better appreciated as we go through the play. It commences with the accusation of Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,3 by Henry (surnamed Bolingbroke)4 Earl of Derby and Duke of Hereford, eldest son of John of Gaunt. After a great deal of ‘Woman’s war / And bitter clamour of two eager tongues’ [1.1.48-9], the accusation is set forth thus: – Boling. Look, what I speak my life shall prove it true; That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles. . . . [Quotes 1.1.87-103]

In this accusation (though not in its terms), and in the meeting at Coventry for the purpose of the combat, the stay of proceedings by the King, and the banishment of the two dukes, Shakespeare adheres closely to Holinshed;5 but neither the poet nor the chronicler conveys a notion of the nature of the transaction between these two nobles, or the interest which the King had in it, as it is recorded, not only in ancient histories, but in the Records of Parliament. Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester,6 one of the King’s paternal uncles, had taken an active part in the accusation and punishment of those ministers and favourites of Richard, who had rendered themselves obnoxious, not only to the peers but to the commons, which latter had now begun to express their opinion and exert their power. Gloucester and the Earl of Arundel7 had been mainly instrumental in the appointment of a parliamentary commission, which, in the year 1386, virtually – nay, avowedly – superseded the king, now twenty years of age, in the government.8 The duke had been one of the lords who preferred an ‘appeal of treason’ against De la Pole, Earl of Suffolk,9 the Chancellor, and others. In these proceedings, and in an affray which occurred at Radcot-bridge, when the Duke of Ireland,10 one of the King’s favourites, was driven into the Thames, the Earl of Derby (Bolingbroke) and the Earl of Nottingham (Mowbray) took an active part. In 1389 Richard recovered his authority, but some years elapsed before he wreaked his vengeance upon Gloucester. In 1398 several noblemen preferred, in their turn, an ‘appeal of treason’ against Gloucester, Arundel, and others, on account of their former proceedings against Richard’s authority. But before Gloucester, who had been arrested and sent to Calais, could be brought to answer to the charge in Parliament, he died at that place, under circumstances which are still in obscurity. Holinshed says that upon the report of a judge, who had been sent to examine him,

186

King Richard II

that he had confessed treason, [and] the King sent the Earl Marshal, Mowbray, to make away with him secretly.11 Shakespeare, by the mouths of Lancaster and York, plainly, but in ultra-loyal language, imputes the murder to King Richard. Gaunt. Heaven’s is the quarrel; for Heaven’s substitute, His deputy anointed in his sight, Hath caused his death. . . . [Quotes 1.2.37-41]

And York. Not Gloster’s death [. . . ] Hath ever made me sour my patient cheek, Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign’s face. [2.1.165-70]

It is probable that Richard was always suspected of the murder, as Bolingbroke made it an article of charge against him at his deposition; but the inquiry afterwards instituted in Parliament, under the House of Lancaster, is not to be depended upon. The Parliament met in 1398 at Shrewsbury, and Hereford obtained for himself a full pardon for all past offences, and then preferred a charge of treason against Norfolk. It is not clear whether he made the charge in enmity against Norfolk, or whether he was required to make it in consequence of reports which had reached the King. His own previous pardon gives him the appearance of turning ‘King’s evidence.’12 The charge was founded upon an averment that Mowbray and Bolingbroke (now created Dukes of Norfolk and Hereford) having accidentally met, the former openly communicated to the latter his suspicion that the king, notwithstanding that he had publicly absolved them, would revenge himself upon them for ‘the matter of Radcot-bridge,’13 and, with the help of Surrey, Wiltshire, and others, would effect the destruction of both of them. This intimation was accompanied by expressions of entire distrust of the king’s good faith. The charge was referred to a parliamentary committee, which awarded a trial by combat: this, however, was prevented (as in the play) by the banishment of the accuser for six years, and of the accused for life. ‘Of the political mysteries,’ says Hallam,14 ‘which this reign affords, none is more inexplicable than the quarrel of these peers.’ So far from being accused of the murder of Gloucester, the offence of Mowbray consisted in confessing his fear of the perfidious vengeance of the king for his co-operation with that duke. The readers of Shakespeare have generally remarked upon the inequality of the sentences; but the difference made was not without reason. Norfolk, it appears, had acknowledged his guilt, or, at least, what was in those days taken as guilt, in certain particulars, and might, therefore, be justly punished. It is more difficult to say why Bolingbroke was punished at all,15 more especially after he had been pardoned in full Parliament. The reason assigned, ‘to avoid troubles and quarrels between the two dukes and their friends,’ does not appear to justify the banishment of both. From the injunction, that when in exile they should not meet, it may, perhaps, be inferred that the whole sentence was really the execution of that vengeance which Mowbray had

 Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, Richard II and History 187 apprehended in his ill-fated conversation with Bolingbroke. And in this view we may understand the charge, apparently unnecessary when given to two mortal enemies: You never shall (so help you truth and heaven!) Embrace each other’s love in banishment. [1.3.183-4]

The real apprehension was, lest these ancient conspirators should _______ by advised purpose meet, To plot, contrive, or complot any ill ’Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land. [1.3.188-90]

There is Holinshed’s16 authority for describing these sentences as the act of the council of which Gaunt himself was a member. K. Rich. Thy son is banish’d upon good advice, Whereto thy tongue a party verdict gave. . . . [Quotes 1.3.233-46]

‘The whole,’ says Coleridge,17 ‘of this scene of the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke seems introduced for the purpose of showing by anticipation the characters of Richard and Bolingbroke’ [No. 20 above]. I venture to say, that it was introduced because the dramatist found it in the Chronicle, and that it does not illustrate the characters of king or peer. The difference between Mowbray’s and Bolingbroke’s reception of the sentence is natural, considering the difference of the punishment. Shakespeare has Holinshed’s authority for the popularity of Bolingbroke, and the concourse of people by which he was accompanied to the coast: A wonder it was to see what number of people ran after him in every town and street where he came, before he took the sea, lamenting and bewailing his departure, as who would say that when he departed, the only shield, defence, and comfort of the commonwealth was ended and gone.18

He never loses an opportunity of displaying his contempt of the exhibition of popular favour, or the reception of it by its object. Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green, Observed his courtship to the common people. . . . [Quotes 1.4.23-36]

I know not of any authority for the scene between John of Gaunt, on his death-bed [2.1], and his nephew; a scene into which, as is observed by the writer whom I have lately quoted,19 the poet has introduced passages inculcating the love of our country: This royal throne of kings, this scept’red isle. . . . [Quotes 2.1.40-50]

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King Richard II

But the scene assuredly falsifies a remark of the same critic, which is, in truth, quite gratuitous, that ‘Richard’s attention to decorum, and high feeling of the kingly dignity, are never forgotten throughout the play!’ [No. 20 above]. It is recorded (and this passage may justify the expressions we have quoted from the Gaunt and York of the play) that the Dukes of Lancaster and York – When they heard that their brother (Gloucester) was so suddenly made away, wist not what to say to the matter, and began both to be sorrowful for his death, and doubtful of their own states: for sith they saw how the king (abused by the counsel of evil men) abstained not from such an heinous act, they thought he would afterwards attempt greater misorders from time to time.20 They assembled their servants and retainers, and repaired to London; but these dukes (after their displeasure was somewhat assuaged) determined to cover the stings of their griefs for a time; and, if the King would amend his manners, to forget also the injuries past. At length, by the intercession and means of those noblemen that went to and fro between them, they were accorded, and the king promised from henceforth to do nothing but by the assent of the dukes; but he kept small promise in this behalf, as after will appear.

Shakespeare, therefore, is not justified in making Richard the open reviler of his uncle,21 and in denying him even the pretence of an intention to amend. In the line put into the mouth of Gaunt – ‘Landlord of England art thou now, not King’ [2.1.113] – the allusion is to ‘a common bruit, that the king had set to farm the realm of England unto Sir William Scroop, Earl of Wiltshire,22 and then treasurer of England, Sir John Bushy,23 Sir John Bagot,24 and Sir Henry Green, knights.’ Whatever may have occurred between the Duke of Lancaster and the king before the duke’s death, Richard certainly seized his property, as Shakespeare relates, and the Duke of York retired to Langley, ‘rejoicing that nothing amiss happened in the commonwealth, through his device or consent.’ ‘I’ll not be by the while: my liege, farewell’ [2.1.211]. It is true, nevertheless, that Richard appointed York to be Regent during his absence in Ireland. Ross,25 Willoughby,26 and Northumberland,27 are correctly placed among the malcontent peers. All these joined Bolingbroke when he landed; and Northumberland had been declared a traitor by Richard, and his estate confiscated, because he refused to join Richard in Ireland.28 Young Percy says that his uncle, Worcester, left the king, ‘Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor’ [2.3.30]. The conversation of these noblemen describes the state of England, and the misgovernment of Richard, in language quite consistent with the Chronicles; but such as, in the case of King John, Shakespeare appears studiously to avoid. In both cases he freely charges the kings with murder, or intended murder; but in the former he cautiously abstains from characterizing those offences against the nobles and people which led to the combination against the royal authority. He now freely puts into the mouth of malcontent peers – Ross. The commons hath he pill’d with grievous taxes, And lost their hearts; the nobles hath he finedFor ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.

 Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, Richard II and History 189 Willoughby. And daily new exactions are devised; As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what. [2.1.246]29

And Northumberland in plain terms excites his followers to resistance: – North. If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke, Imp out our drooping country’s broken wing, Redeem from broking pawn the blemish’d crown, Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre’s gilt, And make high majesty look like itself, Away with me in post to Ravenspurg. [2.1.291-6]

This difference between the two plays may be accounted for by the difference of the materials. Nothing is said in the old play of King John, and very little in Holinshed, of the King’s offences; whereas those of Richard are repeatedly set forth. Still, I cannot help observing, though I know not how to account for it, that the dramatist here dwells upon popular grievances, which, in the other play he treats with contempt, though history has certainly handed down John as, not less than Richard, the oppressor of his people. It is, however, true that Shakespeare has, even in this play, not only much of high-flown loyalty and assertion of the sacredness of the kingly character, but some expressions disrespectful to the commons; yet these latter are put into the mouths of the king’s favourites,30 and the ministers of his maladministration, whom the poet apparently represents as not undeservedly punished.31 Bushy. The wavering commons; for their love Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them, By so much fills their heart with deadly hate. [2.2.129-31]

It does not appear in the play, but it is true, that the gentleman who thus treats ‘the hateful commons,’ was their Speaker.32 The Chronicle33 is also followed in the march of Bolingbroke from Ravenspurg to Berkeley Castle, and in his interview with the Duke of York, who soon gave up the notion of opposing him. I suspect too, that York, who, according to our authority,34 must have been in Bristol35 when it fell into the hands of Bolingbroke, did, in fact, negociate with the invader, and preserve a neutrality, but not without a struggle, well described by Shakespeare, between his loyalty and his disgust at the king’s misgovernment. If I know How, or which way, to order these affairs, Thus thrust disorderly into my hands, Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen; – The one’s my sovereign, whom both my oath And duty bids defend; the other, again, Is my kinsman, whom the king hath wrong’d, Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right. [2.2.108-15]

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This is addressed to the queen; but Isabel was in truth now a child of eight or nine years old.36 We are told that York was more of [a] sportsman than a politician. When all the lords to council and parliament Went, he would to hunting and also to hawking.37

Shakespeare makes York a doubtful adherent of Henry, even at a late period.38 I do not know whether there is any warrant for this, except in his original hesitation. Johnson39 thinks that the next scene, between the Earl of Salisbury40 and ‘a Captain,’ is out of its place. The scene has little interest, and the question is unimportant, but the transposition which the Doctor suggests would be more conformable to Holinshed. The withering of the bay-trees is in Holinshed, as commentators have observed. I should scarcely mention this scene but for a line in it which I remember to have been quoted by Mr. Canning.[41] Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap, – The one in fear to lose what they enjoy, The other to enjoy by rage and war. [2.4.12-14]

Mr. Canning quoted, in the House of Commons,42 the first of these lines, but he gave it thus – ‘Good men look pale, while ruffians dance and leap’; and, comparing the state of the country at two different periods, he asked, – ‘was not the ruffian now abashed, and did not the good man feel confident in his security?’ Mr. Canning made his quotation, as he often did, without recollecting where the passage was to be found; and employed me, the next morning, to search it out for him; a frequent and most agreeable diversion from my usual employment, which I remember with great delight. When he found that it was property, and not virtue, which had been put in jeopardy, he rejoiced that no Radical and taken advantage of his misquotation: but Radicals, perhaps, are not readers of Shakespeare. In the condemnation of the king’s two favourites, Bushy and Green, the Chronicle43 is followed; for if Shakespeare exercises upon them a summary jurisdiction, Holinshed reports that they were arraigned before the constable and marshal; a proceeding, I apprehend, which (even if it implied the exercise of martial law) was equally inconsistentwith the ordinary forms of legal judgment.44 Shakespeare now introduces Richard at Barkloughly Castle in Wales, accompanied by the Bishop of Carlisle and the Duke of Aumerle:45 here he is joined by Salisbury, who brings the mournful intelligence that the army which, on landing from Ireland, he had collected in Wales, had dispersed themselves, and some had even joined Bolingbroke, upon a false report of Richard’s death. This is all according to Holinshed,46 and it is curious in this, as in other instances, to see how Shakespeare improves a hint, furnished by his prosaic predecessor. ‘The King knew,’ says Holinshed, ‘his title, true, just, and infallible; and his conscience clear, pure, and without spot of envy or malice.’ In a passage of much poetical merit our poet has

 Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, Richard II and History 191 these lines, which Dr. Johnson[47] points out as expressing the doctrine of indefeasible right: – Discomfortable cousin! know’st thou not, That when the searching eye of Heaven is hid. . . . [Quotes 3.2.36-57]

But when informed of the death of his favourites at Bristol, Richard lost all confidence, and gave the word in the play, as in the Chronicles,48 to discharge his followers. If we may rely upon the contemporary narrative, which is always favourable to Richard, the language of the King savoured much more of reliance upon the justice and mercy of God, than upon his own divine right as a king. Glorious and merciful God, who didst endure to be crucified for us, if by sin I have greatly transgressed against Thee, with folded hands I cry Thee mercy! . . . O God of glory! I humbly beseech Thee, that, as I have never consented, according to my ability, to bring evil upon any one who had not deserved it, be pleased to have mercy upon me, alas! a poor king; for I know right well that, unless Thou shouldst speedily deign to regard me, I am lost.49

Bolingbroke is now placed before Flint Castle, accompanied by ‘York, Nor thumberland, and others.’ I cannot trace the Duke of York to Flint, but Northumberland was certainly with Bolingbroke. Aumerle is assigned by Shakespeare (probably on Holinshed’s authority) to the side of Richard,50 by whom he had been greatly favoured; but I am afraid that, whatever may have been the conduct of his father, the Duke of York, Aumerle had now joined Bolingbroke, with whom, according to our narrative, he had been, from the beginning, in treacherous communication.51 The Earl of Rutland (Aumerle) at that time said nothing to the King, but kept at as great a distance as he could from him, just as though he had been ashamed to see himself in his presence.52

As Holinshed also places Aumerle with Bolingbroke, I am at a loss to guess why Shakspeare makes him faithful to Richard. The King’s rebuke of Northumberland for not kneeling to him is also unaccountable, seeing that it is mentioned in the Chronicle that he and his colleagues ‘did their due reverence to the King on their knees.53 This occurred at Flint. Of the mission of the Dukes of Exeter54 and Surrey55 from Richard to Henry, and of the treacherous means by which Northumberland brought Richard to Flint, matched, as historians tell us, by intentions equally treacherous on the part of the king,56 the poet takes no notice. Nor does Holinshed mention the king’s intended breach of faith in respect of the amnesty. This is one of the instances in which a more minute knowledge of history might have furnished Shakespeare with some good scenes, and further discriminations of character. By placing the negociation

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with Northumberland at Flint, Shakespeare loses the opportunity of describing the disappointment of the king, when he found himself, on his progress to join Henry at Flint, a prisoner to Northumberland, who had concealed the force by which he was accompanied. The failure of Northumberland to pay the accustomed respect to the king is not an unimportant matter, because his undertaking that Bolingbroke would be contented with his own inheritance, as the son and heir of John of Gaunt, leaving the crown on the head of Richard, is a constituent part of the treachery. In the dialogue it is preserved; but not so the stipulations which Bolingbroke made through Northumberland, as to the punishment of the murderers of the Duke of Gloucester, and the redress of other grievances. Holinshed is followed in describing Bolingbroke as still claiming, even now that the king was in his power, only that which of right belonged to him. Shakespeare chose this version of the story, rather than the more authentic narrative of Stow; from which, as well as from his authority, we learn that the duke, though he did not at once claim the crown, gave the king to understand that he should take a share in the government. ‘Fair cousin of Lancaster,’ said Richard, ‘you be right welcome.’ Then Duke Henry replied, bowing very low to the ground – ‘My Lord, I am come sooner than you sent for me, the reason whereof I will tell you: – the common report of your people is such, that you have, for the space of twenty or two-and-twenty years, goverened them very badly and very injuriously, and in so much that they are not well contented therewith. But if it please our Lord, I will help you to govern them better than they have been governed in time past.’ King Richard answered him – ‘Fair cousin, since it pleaseth you, it pleaseth us well.’57 From the appearance of his enemies before Flint Castle, the king apparently gave himself up for lost; and Shakespeare is, therefore, justified in putting into his mouth the language of despair: – –––must he lose The name of king? o’ God’s name let it go! I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads, My gorgeous palace for an hermitage, My gay apparel for an alms-man’s gown. [3.3.145-9]

And much more in the same strain. The last mentioned sacrifice was severe, as this king was celebrated for the richness of his dress.58 It was, perhaps, only upon passionate exclamations of this sort that his enemies founded their assertion, to which we shall come presently, of his having at this time promised to resign his crown. A scene is now devoted to the Queen.59 The conversation which she overhears between the gardener and his assistants is an invention of the poet, not unworthy of observation. The king’s misgovernment and ruin are here attributed to the overgrown power of his favourites . . . [Quotes 3.4.29-39 and 3.4.48-66]. The fourth act commences with the accusation of Aumerle in full parliament, by Bagot, for the murder of the Duke of Gloucester. Except in placing this occurrence

 Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, Richard II and History 193 before the deposition of Richard, the poet has here followed the Chronicle and the Records.60 He has followed them also with sufficient exactness in his account of the submission of Richard after his arrival in London, though I know not why he makes Henry’s assumption of the throne precede the resignation of the unfortunate king. Holinshed gives the thirty-three articles,61 in which Richard was charged with various acts of oppression and misgovernment, as well as with the injury done to the Duke of Lancaster. Divers of the king’s servants, which by licence had access to his person, comforted him (being with sorrow almost consumed, and in manner half dead) in the best wise they could, to regard his health and save his life. And, first, they advised him willingly to suffer himself to be deposed, and to resign his right of his own accord, so that the Duke of Lancaster might, without murder or battle, obtain the sceptre and diadem; after which, they well perceived, he gaped, by means whereof they thought he might be in perfect assurance of his life long to continue.62

The Chronicler is uncertain whether this was friendly advice, or the result of Henry’s subornation; but, after some time, being reminded of his supposed promise, Richard ‘answered benignly, and said that such promise he made, and so to do the same was at that hour in full purpose to perform and fulfil.’ Shakespeare makes York and Northumberland the principal actors here. The former urges him 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 Bolingbroke. [4.1.177-80]

As to York, he is probably wrong; but Northumberland was one of the commissioners to whom the resignation was made. Richard appears to have been quite humbled and reduced to despair, so as to justify the picture of imbecility [i.e. weakness] which Shakespeare has drawn; and, though we do not find him pressed, as in the play, to confess all the crimes enumerated in the charge, he was made to acknowledge, in the instrument of resignation, that he had been ‘insufficient and unable, and also unprofitable, and for his open deserts was not unworthy to be put down.’63 Whatever may have been the recklessness of Richard’s character while in prosperity, Shakespeare is borne out by his authorities in representing him as humble and submissive from the time in which he came within the power of his rival. His humility, however, according to the report which one of his followers gives of his exclamations, did not amount to religious resignation. He thus addresses his absent queen: – My sweetest heart, my sister! I bid you adieu. I have never deserved of my sister to be so basely ruined! If it be Thy pleasure I should die, oh, Lord, vouchsafe to

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guide my soul to heaven, for I can neither escape nor fly. Alas! my father-in-law of France! I shall never see you more. I leave your daughter among these false, and wicked, and faithless people. I am almost in despair. She was my joyous delight; may you take vengeance for me! the matter concerns you. I have neither vessels, nor men, nor money now to send you; but I leave it to you; it is now too late. O why did we trust Northumberland, who hath delivered us to these wolves? We are all dead men, for they have no pity. May Heaven confound both their souls and their bodies!64

His alternation of resoluteness and despair, when communing with his friends, is natural, and quite consistent with his lonely deportment in the presence of his imperious kinsman. The whole of the deposition scene [4.1.154-318] was omitted in the play as printed in the reign of Elizabeth. Is this circumstance connected with the case of Sir Gilly Meyrick? Shakespeare nowhere notices Richard’s devotion to France. Historians tell us that Gloucester’s opposition to the peace between his nephew and Charles the Sixth, cemented by the premature marriage with the Princess Isabella, was among the causes of Richard’s enmity to his uncle.65 Yet the French king had honourably entertained Bolingbroke in exile, and would have married him to the Duke of Berri’s daughter, if Richard had not interfered, according to the allusion in ‘Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke, / About his marriage’ [2.1.167-8]. Richard’s lamentations over his queen are transferred by the poet to an interview between them,66 which is quite imaginary, as Richard never saw her after he went to Ireland.67 They are interrupted by Northumberland announcing that the king is to go to Pomfret,68 and not to the Tower. And Shakespeare now takes occasion to put into the mouth of Richard an address to Northumberland, which may well be set off against the ‘childish prattle’ with the queen [i.e. 5.1.46-50] which Johnson notices.[69] Northumberland, thou ladder, wherewithal The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne, — . . . . [Quotes 5.1.55-68]

But the passage to which Johnson objects is not appropriately designated as ‘childish prattle;’ if it were so, it would not be much out of place, considering the age of the queen. It is one of those absurd conceits in which our poet indulges too often, without reference to the individual into whose mouth he puts them. Malone truly observes that the first wife of the Duke of York,70 mother of Aumerle, had died some years before the deposition of Richard. To her, therefore, York could not address his description of the progress of Richard and Bolingbroke; which, however, is in substance very like that which the state of his feelings would prompt him to give. It is hardly possible to praise this passage too highly. The whole was probably suggested by a passage in the contemporary manuscript, extracted by Stow,71 which describes the

 Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, Richard II and History 195 worthless beasts upon which Richard and his faithful friend, Salisbury, were placed in the progress from Flint to Chester. The duke, with a high, sharp voice, bade bring forth the king’s horses, and then two little worthless nags, not worth forty francs, were brought forth; the king was set on one, and the Earl of Salisbury on the other; and then the duke brought the king from Flint to Chester, where he was delivered to the Duke of Gloucester’s son, and to the Earl of Arundale’s son, — that loved him but a little (for he had put their fathers to death), — who led him straight to the castle.72 York. . . . The Duke, great Bolingbroke, — Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed. . . . [Quotes 5.2.7-36]

In a later scene [5.5], the poet has a further improvement of his idea of the horse. Groom. O, how it yearn’d my heart when I beheld In London streets, that coronation day, When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary! . . . [Quotes 5.5.76-94]

In the speech of Merkes, Bishop of Carlisle, Shakespeare has followed Holinshed. Historians have doubted whether this speech was delivered at all, what was its purport, and whether it was uttered before or after the recognition and coronation of Henry the Fourth; those who suppose it made after that event, conceiving that, under such circumstances, the arrest of the Bishop was perfectly justifiable.73 Malone has correctly observed74 that the speech, as given in the play, does not set forth indefeasible right so strongly as has been supposed; but that here, as in Holinshed, the chief stress is laid upon the condemnation of Richard in his absence. Thieves are not judged, but they are by to hear, Although apparent guilt be seen in them. And shall the figure of God’s majesty, His captain, steward, deputy elect, Anointed, crowned, planted many years, Be judged by subject and inferior breath, And he himself not present? [4.1.123-9]

The parliamentary history [i.e. by Cobbett] gives a speech at much greater length than Holinshed, in which the Bishop is made to argue against the several claims which Henry had put forward. One of which75 was as the lineal descendant of Henry the Third. This referred to the story of an elder brother of Edward the First, put by for deformity, from whom Henry the Fourth was descended by his mother. The speech contains in itself ample evidence of invention in a later age.

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As this Duchess of York was not the mother of Aumerle, her part of the scene which arises out of the conspiracy against the new king is imaginary. The rest of the story, including the father’s discovery of the treasonable paper, and the journeys of father and son to Windsor, is taken from Holinshed.76 The contemporaneous writers differ; he, to whom I have frequently referred, states this as another instance of the treachery of Aumerle, who, pretending to listen to the overtures made to him, carried them straightway to his father, and then to King Henry. The other story is more like that which Shakespeare adopts: — One day, being at dinner with his father, the Duke of York, he received a private paper, which he appeared to hide with care. He was noticed, and seemed disturbed: the Duke of York wished to see the paper, and snatched it from his son by force. It was an account of the conspiracy, and a list of the conspirators. The Duke of York flew into a violent passion with his son. ‘Traitor!’ said he to him, ‘thou knowest I am pledge for thee to the parliament, both in my person and my fortune; I see plainly thou would’st have my life, but, by St. John, I had rather that thou shouldst be hanged than me.’77

We now come to the death of Richard [5.5], whom Shakespeare, following Holinshed, supposes to have been murdered by Sir Pierce of Exton, in consequence of a dark hint from Henry. This story is now generally disbelieved, and the prevalent opinion is that Richard died a natural death in prison, in the year 1399, or early in 1400. Sir Harris Nicolas is of this opinion.78 Some think that he starved himself to death, others that he was starved by his keepers. On the other hand, it has been maintained by Mr. Tytler79 that he escaped, and lived for several years in Scotland. The controversy is much too voluminous for us, and I would refer those who wish to have a notion of it to a paper read by the late Lord Dover to the Royal Society of Literature, on the 4th of May, 1832. Lord Dover sums up carefully and fairly, and finally pronounces judgment in favour of Mr. Amyot, who disbelieves the Scottish story. According to that story, Richard survived his deposition nineteen years, and was living in Scotland during the whole of the troublesome reign of Henry the Fourth, while his death was of so much importance to the King, and his life to the powerful lords that were against him. The improbability appears to me to be herein too great to be overcome by any but the most perfect evidence. The lamentations of Henry over the body of his predecessor are entirely Shakespeare’s. The execution of ‘Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent,’ and of ‘Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely’ [5.6.8-14], who were concerned in the conspiracy betrayed by Aumerle, is conformable to history.80 ‘This play,’ says Johnson, ‘is one of those that Shakspeare has apparently revised;81 but, as success in works of invention is not always proportioned to labour, it is not

 Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, Richard II and History 197 finished at last with the happy force of some other of his tragedies, nor can be said much to affect the passions or enlarge the understanding.’[82]

Few plays operate upon the understanding; but Richard II contains passages, some of which I have indulged myself in copying, which might have drawn from the critic much warmer commendation. Readers not contented with Johnson will do well to read Coleridge, who says: — In itself, and for the closet, I feel no hesitation in placing it as the first and most admirable of all Shakspeare’s purely historical plays.83

Yet I know not whether, in listening to the severe and to the enthusiastic critic, they will have more to add to the one, or to deduct from the other. The characters of Richard, of Bolingbroke, and of York, are sufficiently true to nature and to history, so far as Shakespeare was acquainted with it. Richard, reckless in prosperity, weak in adversity; Bolingbroke, bold and ambitious, and courting popularity; York, timid and wavering, or, viewed more favourably, halting between his loyalty and his patriotism.84 The darker traits in Richard’s character are not strongly depicted, or brought to bear more freely on the story, not only because the Chronicles scarcely notice them, but because homicides were, in the fourteeenth century, not regarded as we regard them now. The murder of Gloucester has been treated, at no distant period, as a justifiable exceeding of regal powers.85 The historical character of Northumberland is doubtful; there is no inconsistency in that which Shakespeare has drawn of him. (I, 34-74)

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Charles Knight, the pictorial edition of Richard II 1838

From The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakespeare (8 vols., London, 1838-43). Volume III: King John; King Richard II; King Henry IV, Pan I; King Henry IV, Part II; King Henry V (1838). Revised edition (8 vols., London, n.d.). Volume I. Charles Knight (1791–1873), author, editor, publisher, and son of a Windsor bookseller, was interested in the spreading of general knowledge and liberal education to the underprivileged, writing prolifically in articles, pamphlets, and books on a wide variety of topics including politics, history, nature, topography, literature, and biography (for details see DNB). His early passion for Shakespeare resulted ultimately in an elaborately illustrated edition of the dramatist (the so-called Pictorial Shakespeare), originally printed in fifty-five installments (1838–43) and then collected in eight volumes. Several subsequent editions in various formats appeared in both Britain and America. Although intended for a popular audience, Knight’s edition is a work of serious scholarship, gathering together in its extensive apparatus commentary on the textual, historical, and theatrical aspects of each play. Every drama begins with an ‘Introductory Notice,’ ‘Historical Illustrations’ being appended to the text of each act, and concludes with a ‘Supplementary Notice’ that is essentially interpretive. In his commentary Knight ranges over a number of concerns – discussion of the text, sources (including the new claim that Daniel’s Civil Wars was a source for Richard II and the discussion of earlier plays on the same reign that might have influenced Shakespeare), literary criticism, costuming, medieval architecture, dating, the historicity of the events and characters dramatized, aspects of performance, and the like. His critical bent is unmistakably Romantic as is clear from his objections, both specific and general, to the remarks of Dr Johnson and in his belief that ‘The poet is the truest historian’ (p. 157). Knight is also one of the earliest of a long line of critics to regard Richard as a misplaced poet – a king ‘who should have been a troubadour’ (p. 158). After the considerable labour of this ambitious project, Knight followed up with a biography of Shakespeare (1843). He also reprinted selections from the edition in his Studies in Shakespeare (1849). The extracts reprinted below are taken from a slightly later ‘Revised Edition’, in which Richard II appears in volume I.

 Charles Knight, the Pictorial Edition of Richard II 199 [1] [From the ‘Introductory Notice’ to Richard II: ‘State of the Text and Chronology’. After discussing differences between the quarto and folio versions and reviewing the arguments of Malone (No. 4) and Chalmers (No. 7) on the date of the play, Knight adduces various passages from Daniel’s Civil Wars (1595) which lead him to conclude that Shakespeare depended upon Daniel’s poem for certain details.] . . . Are these resemblances accidental? We think not. Neither do we think that the parallel passages are derived from common sources. Did Daniel copy Shakespeare? We think not. He was of a modest and retiring nature, and would purposely have avoided provoking a comparison, especially in the scene describing the entrance of Richard and Bolingbroke into London, in which he has put out his own strength, in his own quiet manner. Shakespeare, on the contrary, as it appears to us, took up Daniel’s Civil Wanes, as he took up Hall’s, or Holinshed’s, or Froissart’s Chronicles, and transfused into his play, perhaps unconsciously, a few of the circumstances and images that belonged to Daniel in his character of poet. Daniel’s Civil Warres was, in truth, founded upon a false principle. It attempts an impossible mixture of the Poem and the Chronicle — wanting the fire of the one and the accuracy of the other, — and this from the one cause, that Daniel’s mind wanted the true poetical elevation. Believing, therefore, that Shakespeare’s Richard II contains passages that might have been suggested by Daniel’s Civil Wanes, we consider that the play was written at a very short period before its publication, in 1597. The exact date is really of very little importance; and we should not have dwelt upon it, had it not been pleasant to trace resemblances between contemporary poets, who were themselves personal friends. . . . (I, 83) [2] [From ‘Historical Illustrations’ appended to Act I: on dramatic unity in Richard II as contrasted with that of King John] Shakespeare’s ‘History’ of Richard II presents, in one particular, a most remarkable contrast to that of King John. In the King John, for the purpose of securing a dramatic unity of action, the chronological succession of events, as they occurred in the real history of the times, is constantly disregarded. In the Richard II that chronological succession is as strictly adhered to. The judgment of the poet is remarkably exhibited in these opposite modes of working. He had to mould a drama out of the disjointed materials of the real history of John, in which events, remote in the order of time, and apparently separated as to cause and consequence, should all conduce to the development of one great action — the persecution of Arthur by his uncle, and the retribution to which the fate of Arthur led. In the life of Richard II, there were two great dramatic events, far separated in the order of time, and having no connexion in their origin or consequences. The rebellion of Wat Tyler, in 1381, might, in itself, have formed the subject of a drama not unworthy of the hand of Shakespeare. It might have stood as the ‘First Part’ of the Life of Richard II. Indeed, it is probable, as we have shown in the Introductory Notice, that a play in which this event formed a remarkable feature did exist.[1] But the greater event of Richard’s life was the banishment and the revolt of Bolingbroke, which led to his own deposition and his death. This is the one event which Shakespeare has made the subject of the great drama before us. With a few very minute deviations from history

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— deviations which are as nothing compared with the errors of the contemporary historian, Froissart — the scenes which this play presents, and the characters which it develops, are historically true to the letter. But what a wonderful vitality does the truth acquire in our poet’s hands. The hard and formal abstractions of the old chroniclers — the figures that move about in robes and armour, without presenting to us any distinct notions of their common human qualities, — here shew themselves to us as men like ourselves, — partaking of like passions, and like weaknesses; and, whilst they exhibit to us the natural triumph of intellectual vigour and decision over frailty and irresolution, they claim our pity for the unfortunate, and our respect for the ‘faithful amongst the faithless.’[2 But in the Chronicles, Shakespeare found the rude outline ready to his hand, which he was to fill up with his surpassing colouring. There was nothing in the course of the real events to alter for the purposes of dramatic propriety. The history was full of the most stirring and picturesque circumstances; and the incidents came so thick and fast upon one another, that it was unnecessary for the poet to leap over any long intervals of time. Bolingbroke first appealed Norfolk of treason, in January, 1398. Richard was deposed in September, 1399. . . . (I, 101) [3] [From the ‘Historical Illustration’ appended to Act V of Richard II: on the characterization of the queen] We have avoided any previous illustration of the history and character of Richard’s queen, reserving a short notice for this Act, in which she occupies so interesting a position. Richard was twice married. His first wife, who was called the good Queen Anne, died in 1394. His second wife, the queen of this play, was Isabel, eldest daughter of Charles VI, of France. When Richard espoused her, on the 31st of October, 1396, she was but eight years old. The alliance with France gave the greatest dissatisfaction in England, and was one amongst the many causes of Richard’s almost general unpopularity. . . . When we observe, that Froissart describes the girl of eight years old, as deporting herself right pleasantly as a queen, and read of the lamentations of Richard for their separation, as described by one [i.e., Froissart] who witnessed them, we may consider that there was an historical as well as a dramatic propriety in the character which Shakespeare has drawn of her. In the garden scene at Langley [3.4] we have scarcely more elevation of character than might belong to a prococious girl. In one part, however, of the last scene with Richard, we have the majesty of the highminded woman: What, is my Richard both in shape and mind Transform’d and weaken’d? Hath Bolingbroke Depos’d thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?

[5.1.26-8]

The poet, however, had an undoubted right to mould his materials to his own purpose. Daniel, in his descriptive Poem of the Civil Wars, which approaches to the accuracy of a chronicle, makes ‘the young affected queen’[3] a much more prominent personage than Shakespeare does. . . .

 Charles Knight, the Pictorial Edition of Richard II 201 Poor Isabel was sent back to France; and there she became, a second time, the victim of a state alliance, being married to the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, who was only nine years old. Her younger sister became the wife of our Henry V. The writer of the Metrical History [i.e. Jean Créton] appears to have conceived a violent suspicion of Aumerle and of all his proceedings. He represents him as the treacherous cause of Richard’s detention in Ireland; and, in the conspiracy of the Abbot of Westminster and the other lords, he is described as basely becoming privy to their designs, that he might betray them to Henry IV. Shakespeare’s version of the story is the more dramatic one, which is given by Holinshed. . . . (I, 147) [4] [From the ‘Supplementary Notice’ to Richard II] We scarcely know how to approach this drama, even for the purpose of a simple analysis. We are almost afraid to trust our own admiration, when we turn to the cold criticism by which opinion in this country has been wont to be governed. We have been told, that it cannot ‘be said much to affect the passions or enlarge the understanding.’4 It may be so. And yet, we think, it might somewhat ‘affect the passions, — ‘ for ‘gorgeous tragedy’ hath here put on her ‘scepter’d pall,’[5] and if she bring not Terror in her train, Pity, at least, claims the sad story for her own. And yet it may somewhat ‘enlarge the understanding,’ — for though it abound not in those sententious moralities which may fitly adorn ‘a theme at school,’[6] it lays bare more than one human bosom with a most searching anatomy; and, in the moral and intellectual strength and weakness of humanity, which it discloses with as much precision as the scalpel reveals to the student of our physical nature the symptoms of health or disease, may we read the proximate and final causes of this world’s success or loss, safety or danger, honour or disgrace, elevation or ruin. And then, moreover, the profound truths which, half-hidden to the careless reader, are to be drawn out from this drama, are contained in such a splendid frame-work of the picturesque and the poetical, that the setting of the jewel almost distracts our attention from the jewel itself. We are here plunged into the midst of the fierce passions and the gorgeous pageantries of the antique time. We not only enter the halls and galleries, where is hung ‘Armoury of the invincible knights of old, —’[7] but we see the beaver closed, and the spear in rest: — under those cuirasses are hearts knocking against the steel with almost more than moral rage: — the banners wave, the trumpets sound — heralds and marshals are ready to salute the victor — but the absolute king casts down his warder, and the anticipated triumph of one proud champion must end in the unmerited disgrace of both. The transition is easy from the tourney to the battlefield. A nation must bleed that a subject may be avenged. A crown is to be played for, though ‘Tumultuous wars / Shall kin with kin, and kind with kind confound’ [4.1.140-1]. The luxurious lord, ‘That every day under his household roof/ Did keep ten thousand men [4.1.282-3], perishes in a dungeon; — the crafty usurper sits upon his throne, but it is undermined by the hatreds even of those who place him on it. Here is, indeed, ‘a kingdom for a stage’ [Henry V, Pro. 3]. And has the greatest of poets dealt with such a subject, without affecting the passions, or enlarging the understanding? No. No. Away with this. We will trust our own admiration.

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King Richard II

It is a sincere pleasure to us to introduce our remarks upon the Richard II by some acute and just observations upon Shakespeare’s historical plays in general from a French source. The following passage is from the forty-ninth volume of the Dictionnaire de la Conversation et de la Lecture (Paris, 1838). The article bears the signature of Philarète Chasles: — ‘This poet, so often sneered at as a frantic and barbarous writer, is, above all, remarkable for a judgment so high, so firm, so uncompromising, that one is almost tempted to impeach his coldness, and to find in this impassible observer something that may be almost called cruel towards the human race. In the historical pieces of Shakespeare, the picturesque, rapid, and vehement genius which has produced them, seems to bow before the superior law of a judgment almost ironical in its clearsightedness. Sensibility to impressions, the ardent force of imagination, the eloquence of passion — these brilliant gifts of nature, which would seem destined to draw a poet beyond all limits, are subordinated in this extraordinary intelligence to a calm and almost deriding sagacity, which pardons nothing and forgets nothing. Thus, the dramas of which we speak are painful as real history. Aeschylus exhibits to us Fate hovering over the world; Calderon opens to us heaven and hell as the last words of the enigma of life; Voltaire renders his drama an instrument for asserting his own peculiar doctrines; — but Shakespeare sees his Fate in the hearts of men, and when he makes us see them so capricious, so bewildered, so irresolute, he teaches us to contemplate, without surprise, the untoward events and sudden changes of fortune. In the purely poetical dramas to which this great poet has given so much verisimilitude, we console ourselves in believing that the evils which he paints are imaginary, and that their truth is but general. But the dramatic chronicles which Shakespeare has sketched are altogether real. There we behold irrevocable evils — we see the scenes that the world has seen, and the horrors that it has suffered. The more the details that accompany these events are irresistible in their truth, the more they grieve us. The more the author is impartial, the more he wounds and overpowers us. This employment of his marvellous talent is in reality a profound satire upon what we are, upon what we shall be, upon what we were.’ It is this wonderful subjection of the poetical power to the higher law of truth — to the poetical truth, which is the highest truth, comprehending and expounding the historical truth — which must furnish the clue to the proper understanding of the drama of Richard II. It appears to us, that when the poet first undertook ‘to ope / The purple testament of bleeding war’ [3.3.93-4], to unfold the roll of the causes and consequences of that usurpation of the house of Lancaster which plunged three or four generations of Englishmen in bloodshed and misery — he approached the subject with an inflexibility of purpose as totally removed as it was possible to be from the levity of a partisan. There were to be weighed in one scale the follies, the weaknesses, the crimes of Richard — the injuries of Bolingbroke — the insults which the capricious despotism of the king had heaped upon his nobles — the exactions under which the people groaned — the real merits and the popular attributes of him who came to redress and to repair. In the other scale were to be placed the afflictions of fallen greatness — the revenge and treachery by which the fall was produced — the heart-burnings and suspicions which accompany every great revolution — the struggles for power which ensue when the established and legitimate authority is thrust from its seat. All

 Charles Knight, the Pictorial Edition of Richard II 203 these phases, personal and political, of a deposition and an usurpation, Shakespeare has exhibited with that marvellous impartiality which the French writer whom we have quoted has well described. The political impartiality is so remarkable that, during the time of Elizabeth, the deposition scene was neither acted nor printed, lest it should give occasion to the enemies of legitimate succession to find examples for the deposing of a monarch. Going forward into the spirit of another age, during the administration of Walpole, the play, in 1738, had an unusual success, principally because it contained many passages which seemed to point to the then supposed corruption of the court; and, on this occasion, a letter published in the Craftsman, in which many lines of the play were thus applied to the political topics of the times, was the subject of state prosecution.8 The statesmen of Elizabeth and of George II were thus equally in fear of the popular tendencies of this history. On the other hand, when Richard, speaking dramatically in his own person, says, — ‘The breath of worldly men cannot depose / The deputy elected by the Lord — ‘ [3.2.56-7], Dr. Johnson rejoicingly says, — ‘Here is the doctrine of indefeasible right expressed in the strongest terms; but our poet did not learn it in the reign of James, to which it is now the practice of all writers whose opinions are regulated by fashion or interest, to impute the original of every tenet which they have been taught to think false or foolish.’[9] Again, when the Bishop of Carlisle, in the deposition scene, exclaims, And shall the figure of God’s majesty, His captain, steward, deputy elect, Anointed, crowned, planted many years, Be judg’d by subject and inferior breath, And he himself not present? [4.1.125-9]

Johnson remarks, ‘Here is another proof that our author did not learn in King James’ court his elevated notions of the right of kings. I know not any flatterer of the Stuarts who has expressed this doctrine in much stronger terms.’[10] Steevens adds that Shakespeare found the speech in Holinshed, and that ‘the politics of the historian were the politics of the poet.’[11] The contrary aspects which this play has thus presented to those who were political partisans is a most remarkable testimony to Shakespeare’s political impartiality. He appears to us as if he, ‘apart, sat on a hill retired,’[12] elevated far above the temporary opinions of his own age, or of succeeding ages. His business is with universal humanity, and not with a fragment of it. He is, indeed, the poet of a nation in his glowing and genial patriotism, but never the poet of a party. Perhaps, the most eloquent speech in this play is that of Gaunt, beginning — ‘This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle’ [2.1.40]. It is full of such praise of our country as, taken apart from the conclusion, might too much pamper the pride of a proud nation.[13] But the profound impartiality of the master-mind comes in at the close of this splendid description, to shew us that all these glories must be founded upon just government. It is in the same lofty spirit of impartiality which governs the general sentiments of this drama, that Shakespeare has conceived the mixed character of Richard. Sir Joshua Reynolds in his admirable Discourses — (a series of compositions which present the example of high criticism upon the art of painting, when the true principles of criticism

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upon poetry were neglected or misunderstood) — has properly reprobated ‘the difficulty as well as danger, in an endeavour to concentrate in a single subject whose various powers, which, rising from different points, naturally move in different directions.’ He says, with reference to this subject, ‘Art has its boundaries, though imagination has none.’[14] Here is the great line of distinction between poetry and painting. Painting must concentrate all its power upon the representation of one action, one expression, in the same person. The range of poetry is as boundless as the diversities of character in the same individual. Sir Joshua Reynolds has, however, properly laughed at those principles of criticism which would even limit the narrow range of pictorial expression to conventional, and therefore hackneyed, forms. He quotes a passage from [Roger] Du Piles, as an example of the attempt of a false school of criticism to substitute the ‘pompous and laboured insolence of grandeur’ for that dignity which, ‘seeming to be natural and inherent, draws spontaneous reverence.’ ‘If you draw persons of high character and dignity’ (says Du Piles), ‘they ought to be drawn in such an attitude, that the portraits must seem to speak to us of themselves, and, as it were, to say to us, “Stop, take notice of me, I am that invincible king, surrounded by Majesty:” “I am that valiant commander who struck terror everywhere:” “I am that great minister, who knew all the springs of politics:” “I am that magistrate of consummate wisdom and probity.’’’[15] Now, this is absurd enough as regards the painter; but, absurd as it is, in its limited application, it is precisely the same sort of reasoning that the French critics in the time of Voltaire, and the English who caught the infection of their school, applied to the higher range of the art of Shakespeare. The criticism of Dr. Johnson, for example, upon the character of Richard II is, for the most part, a series of such mistakes. He misinterprets Shakespeare’s delineation of Richard, upon a preconceived theory of his own. Thus he says, in a note to the second scene in the third Act, where Richard for a moment appears resigned ‘To bear the tidings of calamity’ [3.2.105], ‘It seems to be the design of the poet to raise Richard to esteem in his fall, and, consequently, to interest the reader in his favour. He gives him only passive fortitude, the virtue of a confessor, rather than of a king. In his prosperity we saw him imperious and oppressive; but in his distress he is wise, patient, and pious.’[16] Now this is precisely the reverse of Shakespeare’s representation of Richard. Instead of passive fortitude, we have passionate weakness; and it is that very weakness upon which our pity is founded. Having mistaken Shakespeare’s purpose in the delineation of Richard in his fall, this able but sometimes prejudiced writer, flounders on in a series of carping objections to the language which Richard uses. After Richard has said, Or I’ll be buried in the king’s highway, Some way of common trade, where subjects’ feet May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head, [3.3.155-7]

he flies off into a series of pretty imaginings, and ends thus, ‘Well, well, I see / I talk but idly, and you mock at me’ [3.3.170-1]. Now in nothing is the exquisite tact of the poet more shewn than in these riots of the imagination in the unhappy king, whose mind was altogether prostrate before the cool and calculating intellect of Bolingbroke. But Johnson, quite in the Du Piles’ style, here says, ‘Shakespeare is very apt to deviate

 Charles Knight, the Pictorial Edition of Richard II 205 from the pathetic to the ridiculous. Had the speech of Richard ended at this line (“May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head”), it had exhibited the natural language of submissive misery, conforming its intention to the present fortune, and calmly ending its purposes in death.’[17] Now, it is most certain that Shakespeare had no intention to exhibt ‘the natural language of submissive misery.’ Such a purpose would have been utterly foreign to the great ideal truth of his conception of Richard’s character. Again, in the interview with the queen, when Richard says, — Tell thou the lamentable fall of me, And send the hearers weeping to their beds. For why, the senseless brands will sympathize, &c. [5.1.44-6]

Johnson observes, ‘the poet should have ended this speech with the foregoing line, and have spared his childish prattle about the fire.’[18] Mr. Monck Mason very innocently remarks upon this comment of Johnson, ‘This is certainly childish prattle, but it is of the same stamp with the other speeches of Richard after the landing of Bolingbroke, which are a strange medley of sense and puerility.’[19 Of course they are so. There are probably no passages of criticism upon Shakespeare that more forcibly point out to us, than these of Johnson and his followers do, the absurdity of trying a poet by laws which he had of purpose cast off and spurned. Had Johnson been applying his test of excellence to the conventional kings and heroes of the French stage, and of the English stage of his own day, he might have been nearer the truth. But Shakespeare undertook to shew us, not only a fallen king, but a fallen man. Richard stands before us in the nakedness of humanity, stript of the artificial power which made his strength. The props are cut away upon which he leaned. He is ‘in shape and mind, / Transform’d and weaken’d —’ [5.1.27], humbled to the lot of the commonest slave, to ‘feel want, taste grief, / Need friends’ [3.2.175-6]. This is the Richard of our poet. Is it not the Richard of history? We must trespass upon the patience of the reader while we run through the play, that we may properly note the dependence of its events upon its characters. Froissart has given us the key to two of the most remarkable and seemingly opposite traits of Richard’s mind, — cunning and credulity. Speaking of his devising the death of his uncle of Gloster, Froissart says, ‘King Richard of England noted well these said words, the which was shewed him in secretness; and like an imaginative prince as he was, within a season after that his uncles of Lancaster and of York were departed out of the court, then the king took more hardiness on him.’ Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart, always uses ‘imaginative’ in the sense of deviceful, crafty, — following his original. As to the king’s credulity, the same accurate observer, who knew the characters of his own days well, thus speaks: — ‘King Richard of England had a condition that if he loved a man, he would make him so great, and so near him, that it was marvel to consider, and no man durst speak to the contrary; and also he would lightly believe sooner than any other king of remembrance before him.’20 Upon these historical truths is Shakespeare’s Richard, in the first scenes of this drama, — the absolute Richard, — founded. But with what skill has Shakespeare indicated the evil parts of Richard’s character — just as much as, and no more than is sufficient to qualify our pity for his fall. We learn from Gaunt that Richard was the real cause of Gloster’s death; — the

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matter is once mentioned, and there an end. We ourselves see his arbitrary bearing in the banishment of Bolingbroke and Norfolk; — his moral cowardice in requiring an oath for his own safety from the two enemies that he was at that moment oppressing; his meanness in taunting Gaunt with his ‘party-verdict’ [1.3.234] as to his son’s banishment; his levity in mitigating the sentence after it had been solemnly delivered. After this scene we have an exhibition of his cold-hearted rapacity in wishing for the death of Gaunt: — Now put it, Heaven, in his physician’s mind To help him to his grave immediately! The lining of his coffers shall make coats To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars. [1.4.59-62]

This prepares us for the just reproaches of his dying uncle, in the next Act; — when the dissembling king is moved from his craft to an exhibition of childish passion toward the stern but now powerless Gaunt, before whom he had trembled till he saw him on a death-bed. The ‘make pale our cheek’ [2.2.118] was not a random expression. The king again speaks in this way, when he hears of the defection of the Welsh under Salisbury: — ‘Have I not reason to look pale and dead?’ [3.2.79]. Richard, who was of a ruddy complexion, exhibited in his cheeks the internal workings of fear or rage. This was a part of his weakness of character. The writer of the ‘Metrical History’ [i.e. Créton] twice notices the peculiarity. When the king received a defying message from the Irish chieftain, the French knight, who was present, says: ‘This speech was not agreeable to the king; it appeared to me that his face grew pale with anger.’ When he heard of the landing of Bolingbroke, the writer again says: ‘It seemed to me, that the king’s face at this turned pale with anger.’[21] Richard’s indignation at the reproaches of Gaunt is, at once, brutal and childish: ‘And let them die that age and sullens have’ [2.1.139]. Then comes the final act of despotism, which was to be his ruin: — We do seize to us The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess’d. [2.1.160-2]

He is amazed that York is indignant at this outrage. He is deaf to the prophetic denunciation, ‘You pluck a thousand dangers on your head’ [2.1.205]. Still, Shakespeare keeps us from the point to which he might have led us, of unmitigated contempt towards Richard; — to make us hate him was no part of his purpose. We know that the charges of the discontented nobles against him are just; — we almost wish success to their enterprise; — but we are most skilfully held back from discovering so much of Richard’s character as would have disqualified us from sympathising in his fall. It is highly probable, too, that Shakespeare abstained from painting the actual king as an object to be despised, while he stood as ‘the symbolic or representative, on which all genial law, no less than patriotism, depends.’22 The poet does not hesitate, when the time is past for reverencing the king, or compassionating the man, to speak of Richard,

 Charles Knight, the Pictorial Edition of Richard II 207 by the mouth of Henry IV, with that contempt which his weakness and his frivolities would naturally excite: — The skipping king, he ambled up and down With shallow jesters, and rash bavin wits, Soon kindled and soon burn’d: carded his state; Mingled his royalty with capering fools; Had his great name profaned with their scorns; And gave his countenance, against his name, To laugh at gibing boys, & c. — (Henry IV, Part I, [3.2.60-6])

There is nothing of this bitter satire put in the mouths of any of the speakers in Richard II; and the poetical reason for this appears obvious. Yet it is perfectly true, historically, that Richard ‘carded his state,’ by indiscriminately mixing with all sorts of favourites, who used the most degrading freedoms towards him. Bolingbroke (then Henry IV) thus describes himself to his son: — And then I stole all courtesy from heaven, And dress’d myself in such humility, That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts, Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths, Even in the presence of the crowned king. [1 Henry IV, 3.2.50-4]

The Bolingbroke who, in Henry IV, is thus retrospectively painted, is the Bolingbroke in action in Richard II. The king ‘Observ’d his courtship to the common people’ [1.4.24]. When he returns from banishment, in arms against his unjust lord, he wins Northumberland by his powers of pleasing: — ‘And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar, [2.3.6]. Mark, too, his professions to the ‘gentle Percy’ [2.3.45]: — I count myself in nothing else so happy, As in a soul remembering my good friends. [2.3.46-7]

When York accuses him of ‘Gross rebellion and detested treason’ [2.3.109], how temperate, and yet how convincing is his defence. York remains with him — he ‘cannot mend it’ [2.3.153]. But Bolingbroke, with all his humility to his uncle, and all his courtesy to his friends, abates not a jot of his determination to be supreme. He announces this in no under-tones — he has no confidences about his ultimate intentions; — but we feel that he has determined to sit on the throne, even while he says, ‘I am a subject, / And challenge law’ [2.3.133-4]. He is, in fact, the king when he consigns Bushy and Green to the scaffold. He speaks not as one of a council — he neither indicates nor alludes to his authority. He addresses the victims as the one interpreter of the law; and he especially dwells upon his own personal wrongs: ‘See them deliver’d over / To execution and

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the hand of death’ [3.1.29-30]. Most skilfully does this violent and uncompromising exertion of authority prepare us for what is to come. We are arrived at those wonderful scenes which, to our minds, may be classed amongst the very highest creations of art — even of the art of Shakespeare. ‘Barkloughly Castle’ is ‘at hand.’ — Richard stands upon his ‘kingdom once again’ [3.2.1-5]. Around him are armed bands ready to strip him of his crown and life. Does he step upon his ‘earth’ [3.2.10] with the self-confiding port of one who will hold it against all foes? The conventional dignity of the king cannot conceal the intellectual weakness of the man; and we see that he must lose his ‘gentle earth’ [3.2.12] for ever. His sensibility — his plastic imagination — his effeminacy, even when strongly moved to love or to hatred — his reliance upon his office more than his own head and heart — doom him to an overthrow. How surpassingly characteristic are the lines in which he addresses his ‘earth’ as if it were a thing of life — a favourite that he could honour and cherish — a friend that would adopt and cling to his cause — a partisan that could throw a shield over him, and defend him from his enemies: — So weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth, And do thee favour with my royal hands. — Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth, & c. [3.2.10-12]

He feels that this is a ‘senseless conjuration’ [3.2.23]; but when Aumerle ventures to say, ‘we are too remiss’ [3.2.33], he reproaches his ‘discomfortable cousin’ [3.2.36], by pointing out to him the heavenly aid that a king might expect. His is not the holy confidence of a high-minded chieftain, nor the pious submission of a humble believer. He, indeed, says, — For every man that Bolingbroke hath press’d To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, God, for his Richard, hath in heavenly pay A glorious angel. [3.2.58-61]

But when Salisbury announces that the ‘Welshmen’ [3.2.73] are dispersed, Richard, in a moment, forgets the ‘angels’ [3.2.61] who will guard the right. His cheek pales at the evil tidings. After a pause, and upon the exhortation of his friends, his ‘sluggard majesty’ [3.2.84] awakes; — the man still sleeps. How artificial and externally sustained is his confidence: — Arm, arm, ny name! a puny subject strikes At thy great glory. Look not to the ground Ye favourites of a king. [3.2.86-8]

Scroop arrives; — and Richard avows that he is prepared for the worst. His fortitude is but a passing support. He dissimulates with himself; for, in an instant, he flies off

 Charles Knight, the Pictorial Edition of Richard II 209 into a burst of terrific passion at the supposed treachery of his minions. Aumerle, when their unhappy end is explained, like a man of sense casts about for other resources: — ‘Where is the duke, my father, with his power?’ [3.2.143]. But Richard abandons himself to his despair, in that most solemn speech, which is at once so touching with reference to the speaker, and so profoundly true in its general application. ‘No matter where; of comfort no man speak’ [3.2.144]. His grief has now evaporated in words: — This ague-fit of fear is over-blown; An easy task it is to win our own. Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power? [3.2.190-2]

Scroop’s reply is decisive: – ‘Your uncle York hath join’d with Bolingbroke’ [3.2.200]. Richard is positively relieved by knowing the climax of his misfortunes. The alternations of hope and fear were too much for his indecision. He is forced upon a course, and he is almost happy in his weakness: — Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth Of that sweet way I was in to despair! What say you now? What comfort have we now? By heaven, I’ll hate him everlastingly That bids me be of comfort any more. [3.2.204-8]

Shakespeare has painted indecision of character in Hamlet — but what a difference is there between the indecision of Hamlet and of Richard! The depth of Hamlet’s philosophy engulfs his powers of action; — the reflective strength of his intellect destroys the energy of his will: — Richard is irresolute and inert, abandoning himself to every new impression, because his faculties, though beautiful in parts, have no principle of cohesion; judgment, the key-stone of the arch, is wanting. Bolingbroke is arrived before Flint Castle. Mr. Courtenay says, ‘By placing the negotiation with Northumberland at Flint, Shakespeare loses the opportunity of describing the disappointment of the king, when he found himself, on his progress to join Henry at Flint, a prisoner to Northumberland, who had concealed the force by which he was accompanied.’23 A Mr. [James] Goodhall, of Manchester, in 1772, gave us a new Richard II, ‘altered from Shakespeare, and the style imitated.’ We are constrained to say, that such criticism as we have extracted, and such imitations of style as that of Mr. Goodhall, are entirely on a par. Shakespeare wanted not the additional scene of Northumberland’s treachery to eke out the story of Richard’s fall. He was too sagacious to make an audience think that Richard might have surmounted his difficulties but for an accident.[24] It was his business to shew what was essentially true (though one episode of the truth might be wanting), that Bolingbroke was coming upon him with steps as certain as that of a rising tide towards the shivering tenant of a naked sea-rock. What was still more important, it was his aim to exhibit the overthrow of Richard, and the upraising of Bolingbroke, as the natural result of the collision of two such minds meeting in mortal conflict. The mighty physical force which Bolingbroke

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subdued to his purpose was called forth by his astute and foreseeing intellect: every movement of this wary chief — perhaps even from the hour when he resolved to appeal Norfolk — was a consequence from a calculated cause. On the other hand, Richard threw away every instrument of defence; — the ‘one day too late’ [3.2.71], with which Salisbury reproaches him — which delay was the fruit of his personal weakness and vacillation — shews that it was impossible to save him. Had he escaped from Conway, after being reduced to the extremities of poverty and suffering, in company with a few wretched followers, he must have rushed, from his utter want of the ability to carry through a consistent plan, into the toils of Bolingbroke. Shakespeare, as we must repeat, painted events whilst he painted characters. Look at Bolingbroke’s bearing when York reproaches Northumberland for not saying, ‘King Richard’ [3.3.8]; — look at his decision when he learns the king is at Flint; — look at his subtlety in the message to the king: — ‘Harry Bolingbroke / On both his knees doth kiss king Richard’s hand’ [3.3.35-6]. Compare the affected humility of his professions with the real, though subdued, haughtiness of his threats — ‘If not, I’ll use the advantage of my power’ [3.3.42]. He marches ‘without the noise of threat’ning drum’ [3.3.51]; but he marches as a conqueror upon an undefended citadel. On the one hand, we have power without menaces; on the other, menaces without power. How loftily Richard asserts to Northumberland the terrors which are in store — the ‘armies of pestilence’ which are to defend his ‘precious crown’ [3.3.87-90]. But how submissively he replies to the message of Bolingbroke: — Thus the king returns — His noble cousin is right welcome hither —[. . . ] Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends. [3.3.121-6]

Marvellously is the picture of the struggles of irresolution still coloured: — Shall we call back Northumberland, and send Defiance to the traitor, and so die? [3.3.129-30]

Beautiful is the transition to his habitual weakness — to his extreme sensibility to evils, and the shadows of evils — to the consolation which finds relief in the exaggeration of its own sufferings, and in the bewilderments of imagination which carry even the sense of suffering into the regions of fancy. We have already seen that this has been thought ‘deviating from the pathetic to the ridiculous.’[25] Be it so. We are content to accept this and similar passages in the character of Richard, as exponents of that feeling which made him lie at the feet of Bolingbroke, fascinated as the bird at the eye of the serpent: — ‘For do we must, what force will have us do’ [3.3.207]. This is the destiny of tragedy; but it is a destiny with foregoing causes — its seeds are sown in the varying constitution of the human mind: — and thus it may be said, even without a contradiction, that a Bolingbroke governs destiny, a Richard yields to it. We pass over the charming repose-scene of the Garden — in which the poet, who in this drama has avoided all dialogues of manners, brings in ‘old Adam’s likeness’ [3.4.73], to shew us how the vicissitudes of state are felt and understood by the

 Charles Knight, the Pictorial Edition of Richard II 211 practical philosophy of the humblest of the people. We pass over, too, the details of the quarrel scene, in Westminster-hall, merely remarking, that those who say, as Johnson has said, — ‘this play is extracted from the Chronicle of Holinshed, in which many passages may be found which Shakespeare has, with very little alteration, transplanted into his scenes,’[26] — that they would have done well to have printed the passages of the Chronicle and of the parallel scenes side by side. HOLINSHED The Lord Fitzwater herewith rose up, and said to the king, that where the Duke of Aumerle excuseth himself of the Duke of Gloucester’s death, I say (quoth he) that he was the very cause of his death; and so he appealed him of treason, offering, by throwing down his hood as a gage, to prove it with his body. [1587 edn., Ill, 512]

SHAKESPEARE If that thy valour stand on sympathies, There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine: By that fair sun which shews me where thou stand’st, I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak’st it, That thou wert cause of noble Gloster’s death. If thou deny’st it, twenty times thou liest; And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart, Where it was forged, with my rapier’s point. [4.1.33-40]

We have long borne with these misrepresentations of what Shakespeare took from the Chronicles, — and what Shakespeare took from Plutarch. The sculptor who gives us the highest conception of an individual, idealized into something higher than the actual man; — ([Louis François] Roubiliac, for example, when he figured that sublime image of Newton, in which the upward eye, and the finger upon the prism, tell us of the great discoverer of the laws of gravity and of light) — the sculptor has to collect something from authentic records of the features, and of the character of the subject he has to represent. The Chronicles might, in the same way, give Shakespeare the general idea of his historical Englishmen, as Plutarch of his Romans. But it was for the poet to mould and fashion these outlines into the vital and imperishable shapes in which we find them. This is creation — not alteration. Richard is again on the stage. Is there a jot in the deposition scene that is not perfectly true to his previous character? As to Bolingbroke’s consistency there cannot be a doubt, even with the most hasty reader. The king’s dallying with the resignation of the crown — the prolonged talk, to parry, as it were, the inevitable act, — the ‘ay, no; no, ay’ [4.1.201]; — the natural indignation at Northumberland’s unnecessary harshness; the exquisite tenderness of self-shrinking abasement, running off into poetry ‘too deep for tears: ‘[27] — O, that I were a mockery king of snow, Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke, To melt myself away in water drops; [4.1.260-62] —

and, lastly, the calling for the mirror, and the real explanation of all his apparent affectation of disquietude; —

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These external manners of lament, Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortur’d soul: [4.1.296-8]

who but Shakespeare could have given us these wonderful tints of one human mind — so varying and yet so harmonious — so forcible and yet so delicate — without being betrayed into something different from his own unity of conception? In the parting scene with the queen, we have still the same unerring consistency. We are told, that ‘the interview of separation between her and her wretched husband is remarkable for its poverty and tameness.’28 The poet who wrote the parting scene between Juliet and her Montague, had, we presume, the command of his instruments; and though, taken separately from what is around them, there may be differences in the degree of beauty in these parting scenes, they are each dramatically beautiful, in the highest sense of the term. Shakespeare never went from his proper path to produce a beauty that was out of place. And yet who can read these lines, and dare to talk of ‘poverty and tameness:’ — 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 quit their griefs, Tell thou the lamentable fall of me, And send the hearers weeping to their beds. [5.1.40-5]

We are told, as we have already noticed, that this speech ends with ‘childish prattle.’29 Remember, Richard II is speaking. — Lastly, we come to the prison scene. The soliloquy is Richard all over. There is not a sentence in it that does not tell of a mind deeply reflective in its misfortunes, but wanting the guide to all sound reflection, — the power of going out of himself, under the conduct of a loftier reason than could endure to dwell upon the merely personal. His self-consciousness (to use the word in a German sense)[30] intensifies, but lowers, every thought. And then the beautiful little episode of ‘Roan Barbary’ [5.5.78], and Richard’s all-absorbing application to himself of the story of the ‘poor groom of the stable’ [5.5.72]. Froissart tells a tale, how Richard was ‘forsaken by his favourite greyhound, which fawns on the earl.’[31]The quaint historian, as well as the great dramatist who transfused the incident, knew the avenues to the human heart. Steevens thinks the story of Roan Barbary might have been of Shakespeare’s own invention, but informs us, that ‘Froissart relates a yet more silly tale!’[32] Even to the death, Richard is historically as well as poetically true. His sudden valour is shewn as the consequence of passionate excitement. The prose manuscript in the library of the King of France, to which we have alluded in the Historical Illustrations, exhibits a somewhat similar scene when Lancaster, York, Aumerle, and others, went to him in the Tower, to confer upon his resignation: ‘The king, in great wrath, walked about the room; and at length broke out into passionate exclamations and appeals to heaven; called them false traitors, and offered to fight any four of them.’[33] The Chronicles which Shakespeare might consult were somewhat

 Charles Knight, the Pictorial Edition of Richard II 213 meagre, and might gain much by the addition of the records of this eventful reign which modern researches have discovered. If we compare every account, we must say, that the Richard II of Shakespeare is rigidly the true Richard. The poet is the truest historian in all that belongs to the higher attributes of history. But with this surpassing dramatic truth in the Richard II, perhaps, after all, the most wonderful thing in the whole play — that which makes it so exclusively and entirely Shakespearian — is the evolvement of the truth under the poetical form. The character of Richard, especially, is entirely subordinated to the poetical conception of it; — to something higher than the historical propriety, yet, including all that historical propriety, and calling it forth under the most striking aspects. All the vacillations and weaknesses of the king, in the hands of an artist like Shakespeare, are re-produced with the most natural and vivid colours; so as to display their own characteristic effects, in combination with the principle of poetical beauty, which carries them into a higher region than the perfect command over the elements of strong individualization could alone produce. For example, when Richard says, — ‘O, that I were a mockery king of snow, / Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke!’ [4.1.260-1], we see in a moment how this speech belongs to the shrinking and over-powered mind of the timid voluptuary, who could form no notion of power, apart from its external supports. But then, separated from the character, how exquisitely beautiful is it in itself! Byron, in his finest drama of Sardanapalus, has given us an entirely different conception of a voluptuary overpowered by misfortune; and though he has said, speaking of his ideal of his own dramatic poem — ‘You will find all this very unlike Shakespeare, and so much the better in one sense, for I look upon him to be the worst of models, though the most extraordinary of writers’[34] — it is to us very doubtful if Sardanapalus would have been written, had not the Richard II of Shakespeare offered the temptation to pull the bow of Ulysses in the direction of another mark. The characters exhibit very remarkable contrasts. Sardanapalus becomes a hero when the king is in danger; Richard, when the sceptre is struck out of his hands, forgets that his ancestors won the sceptre by the sword. The one is the sensualist of misdirected native energy, who casts off his sensuality when the passion for enjoyment is swallowed up in the higher excitement of rash and sudden daring; — the other is the sensualist of artificial power, whose luxury consists in pomp without enjoyment, and who loses the sense of gratification, when the factitious supports of his pride are cut away from him. Richard, who should have been a troubadour, has become a weak and irresolute voluptuary through the corruptions of a throne; — Sardanapalus, who might have been a conqueror, retains a natural heroism, that a throne cannot wholly corrupt. But here we stop. Sardanapalus is a beautiful poem, but the characters, and especially the chief character, come before us as something shadowy, and not of earth. Richard II possesses all the higher attributes of poetry, — but the characters, and especially the leading character, are of flesh and blood like ourselves. And why is it, when we have looked beneath the surface, at this matchless poetical delineation of Richard, and find the absolute king capricious, rapacious, cunning, — and the fallen king irresolute, effeminate, intellectually prostrate, — why is it, when we see that our Shakespeare herein never intended to present to us the image of ‘a good man struggling with adversity,’[35] — and conceived a being the farthest removed from

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the ideal that another mighty poet proposed to himself as an example of heroism, when he described his own fortitude — I argue not Against heaven’s hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer Right onward[36] —

why is it that Richard II still commands our tears — even our sympathies? It is this: — His very infirmities make him creep into our affections — for they are so nearly allied to the beautiful parts of his character, that, if the little leaven had been absent, he might have been a ruler to kneel before, and a man to love. We see, then, how thin is the partition between the highest and the lowliest parts of our nature — and we love Richard even for his faults, — for they are those of our common humanity. Inferior poets might have given us Bolingbroke the lordly tyrant, and Richard the fallen hero. We might have had the struggle for the kingdom painted with all the glowing colours with which, according to the authorities which once governed opinion, a poet was bound to represent the crimes of an usurper and the virtues of a legitimate king; or, if the poet had despised the usual current of authority, he might have made the usurper one who had cast aside all selfish and unpatriotic principles, and the legitimate king an unmitigated oppressor, whose fall would have been hailed as the triumph of injured humanity. Impartial Shakespeare! How many of the deepest lessons of toleration and justice have we not learned from thy wisdom, in combination with thy power! If the power of thy poetry could have been separated from the truth of thy philosophy, how much would the world have still wanted to help it forward in the course of gentleness and peace! (I, 149-58)

25

John Payne Collier, on the existence of two plays on Richard II’s reign 1842

From The Works of William Shakespeare. The Text formed from an entirely new collation of the old editions . . . (8 vols., London, 1842–44). Volume V. John Payne Collier (1789–1883), Shakespearian scholar, editor, and critic, began as a newspaper reporter for the London Times and for many years was a writer on various subjects for the Morning Chronicle; although trained as a lawyer at the Middle Temple and admitted to the bar in 1829, he abandoned ambitions for a legal career. His abiding interest from boyhood onward was Elizabethan literature, and he published widely on a variety of early authors. His three-volume History of English Dramatic Poetry and Annals of the Stage (1831) gained him the friendship and patronage of the Duke of Devonshire, of whose uniquely valuable collection of Elizabethan drama Collier became the librarian. Establishing himself as an authority on Shakespeare through a series of publications in 1835, 1836, and 1839 (now known to be based partly on spurious documents), Collier became director of the Shakespeare Society in 1840 and issued under its aegis three important but untrustworthy books founded on his recent researches at Dulwich College – The Memoirs of Edward Alleyn (1841), The Alleyn Papers (1843), and The Diary of Philip Henslowe (1845). His annotated edition of Shakespeare, from which the present extract is drawn, appeared in 1842–44, to be followed by a two-volume reprint of the dramatist’s major sources (Shakespeare’s Library, 1844). In 1852 he announced his possession of a unique copy of the Shakespeare second folio (1632) – the so-called Perkins folio – in which a supposed seventeenth-century ‘corrector’ had made extensive textual alterations; he then published these annotations the same year under the title Notes and Emendations to the Plays of Shakespeare, following up with a new edition of the dramatist (1853) which embodied the ‘corrected’ readings. Although Collier’s ‘discovery’ awakened great interest, many of the readings were met with scepticism by leading Shakespearian scholars of the period, including Dyce, Knight, Staunton, and Halliwell; but the first full-fledged attack on Collier’s work was that of S. W. Singer in The Text of Shakespeare Vindicated (1853) followed by that of E. A. Brae in Literary Cookery (1855). When it became possible to examine the Perkins folio carefully in 1859, the annotations were found to be forgeries, which in turn prompted a total reassessment of Collier’s earlier Elizabethan scholarship. Collier, however, never acknowledged dishonesty, and the full extent of his fraudulency remains in doubt. Despite the suspicion of unreliability that necessarily taints all his work, Collier was nevertheless a learned and indefatigable researcher who substantively advanced our knowledge of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan

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theatre. The DNB gives a full account of Collier, as does S. Schoenbaum in Shakespeare’s Lives (Oxford, 1970; corrected edn. Oxford, 1991); Dewey Danzel’s modern biography, Fortune and Men’s Eyes (Oxford, 1982), attempts to exonerate him, and although stimulating, must be used with caution.

[From ‘Introduction’ to Richard II] . . . It will be observed that the title of the edition of 1608 states that it contains ‘new additions of the Parliament Scene, and the deposing of King Richard.’ The Duke of Devonshire is in possession of an unique copy, dated 1608, the title of which merely follows the wording of the preceding impression of 1598, omitting any notice of ‘new additions,’ though containing the whole of them.1 The name of our great dramatist first appears in connection with this historical play in 1598, as if Simmes the printer, and Wise the stationer, when they printed and published their edition of 1597, did not know, or were not authorised to state, that Shakespeare was the writer of it. Precisely the same was the case with King Richard III, printed and published by the same parties in the same year, and of which also a second edition appeared in 1598, with the name of the author. We will first speak regarding the date of the original production of Richard II, and then of the period when it is likely that the ‘new additions’ were inserted. It was entered on the Stationers’ Register in 1597, in the following manner: — ‘29 Aug. 1597. [Andrew Wise.] The Tragedye of Richard the Seconde.’

This memorandum was made anterior, but perhaps only shortly anterior, to the actual publication of Richard II, and it forms the earliest notice of its existence. Malone supposes that it was written in 1593 [see No. 4.1 above], but he does not produce a single fact or argument to establish his position; nor perhaps could any be adduced beyond the circumstance, that having assigned The Comedy of Errors to 1592, and Love’s Labour’s Lost to 1594, he had left an interval between those years in which he could place not only Richard II but Richard III. In fact, we can arrive at no nearer approximation; although Chalmers, in his Supplemental Apology [No. 7], contended that a note of time was to be found in the allusions in the first and second Acts to the disturbances in Ireland. It is quite certain that the rebellion in that country was renewed in 1594, and proclaimed in 1595: but it is far from clear that any reference to it was intended by Shakespeare. Where the matter is so extremely doubtful, we shall not attempt to fix on any particular year. If any argument, one way or the other, could be founded upon the publication of Daniel’s Civil Wars, in 1595, it would show that the poet had made alterations in subsequent editions of his poem, in order, perhaps, to fall in more with the popular notions regarding the history of the time, as produced by the success of the play of our great dramatist. Meres mentions ‘Richard the 2’ in 1598.

 John Payne Collier, on the Existence of Two Plays on Richard II’s Reign 217 Respecting the ‘new additions’ of ‘the deposing of King Richard’ we have some evidence, the existence of which was not known in the time of Malone, who conjectured that this scene had originally formed part of Shakespeare’s play, and was ‘suppressed in the printed copy of 1597, from the fear of offending Elizabeth,’ and not published, with the rest, until 1608 [see No. 4.1 above].2 Such may have been the case, but we now know that there were two separate plays upon the events of the reign of Richard II, and the deposition seems to have formed a portion of both. On the 30th April, 1611, Dr. Simon Forman[3] saw ‘Richard 2,’ as he expressly calls it, at the Globe Theatre, for which Shakespeare was a writer, at which he had been an actor, and in the receipts of which he was interested. In his original Diary (MS. Ashm[olian] 208), preserved in the Bodleian Library, Forman inserts the following account of, and observations upon, the plot of the ‘Richard II,’ he having been present at the representation: — Remember therein how Jack Straw, by his overmuch boldness, not being politic, nor suspecting any thing, was suddenly, at Smithfield Bars, stabbed by Walworth, the Mayor of London; and so he and his whole army was overthrown. Therefore, in such case, or the like, never admit any party without a bar between, for a man cannot be too wise, nor keep himself too safe. Also, remember how the Duke of Glouster, the Earl of Arundel, Oxford, and others, crossing the King in his humour about the Duke of Erland (Ireland) and Bushy, were glad to fly, and raise a host of men: and being in his castle, how the Duke of Erland came by night to betray him, with 300 men; but, having privy warning thereof, kept his gates fast, and would not suffer the enemy to enter, which went back again with a fly in his ear, and after was slain by the Earl of Arundel in the battle. Remember, also, when the Duke (i.e. of Gloucester) and Arundel came to London with their army, King Richard came forth to them, and met them, and gave them fair words, and promised them pardon, and that all should be well, if they would discharge their army; upon whose promises and fair speeches they did it: and after, the King bid them all to a banquet, and so betrayed them, and cut off their heads, & c., because they had not his pardon under his hand and seal before, but his word. Remember therein, also, how the Duke of Lancaster privily contrived all villainy to set them all together by the ears, and to make the nobility to envy the King, and mislike him and his government; by which means he made his own son king, which was Henry Bolingbroke. Remember, also, how the Duke of Lancaster asked a wise man whether himself should ever be king; and he told him no, but his son should be a king: and when he had told him, he hanged him up for his labour, because he should not bruit abroad, or speak thereof to others. This was a policy in the Commonwealth’s opinion, but I say it was a villain’s part, and a Judas’ kiss, to hang the man for telling him the truth. Beware by this example of noblemen and their fair words, and say little to them, lest they do the like to thee for thy good will.

The quotation was first published in New Particulars regarding Shakespeare and his Works, 8vo, 1836 [by Collier himself], where it was suggested that this ‘Richard II’ might be the play which Sir Gilly Merrick and others are known to have procured to be acted the afternoon before the insurrection headed by the Earls of Essex and

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Southampton, in 1601 ([Francis] Bacon’s Works by [David] Mallet [1740], iv, 320); but in a letter, published in a note to the same tract, Mr. [Thomas] Amyot argued, that ‘the deposing of King Richard’ probably formed no part of the play Forman saw, and that it might actually be another, and a lost play by Shakespeare, intended as a ‘first part’ to his extant drama on the later portion of the reign of that monarch. It is true that Forman says nothing of the formal deposition of Richard II; but he tells us that in the course of the drama the Duke of Lancaster ‘made his own son King,’ and he could not do so without something like a deposition exhibited or narrated. It is also to be observed, that if Forman’s account be at all correct, Shakespeare could never have exhibited the characters of the King and of Gaunt so inconsistently in two parts of the same play. The Richard and the Gaunt of Forman, with their treachery and cruelty, are totally unlike the Richard and Gaunt of Shakespeare. For these reasons we may, perhaps, arrive at the conclusion, that it was a distinct drama, and not by Shakespeare. We may presume, also, that it was the very piece which Sir Gilly Merrick procured to be represented, and for the performance of which, according to a passage in the arraignment of [Henry] Cuffe and Merrick, the latter paid forty shillings additional, because it was an old play, and not likely to attract an audience. The very description of the plot given by Forman reads as if it were an old play, with the usual quantity of blood and treachery. How it came to be popular enough, in 1611, to be performed at the Globe must be matter of mere speculation: perhaps the revival of it by the party of the Earls of Essex and Southampton had recalled public attention to it, and improvements might have been made which would render it a favourite in 1611, though it had been neglected in 1601. Out of these improvements, and out of this renewed popularity, may, possibly have grown the ‘new additions,’ which were first printed with the impression of Shakespeare’s Richard II in 1608,4 and which solely relate to the deposing of the King. On the other hand, if these ‘new additions,’ as they are termed in 1608, were only a suppressed part of the original play, there seems no sufficient ground for concluding that it was not Shakespeare’s drama which was acted at the instance of Sir Gilly Merrick in 1601. If it were written in 1593, as Malone imagined, or even in 1596, according to the speculation of Chalmers, it might be called an old play in 1601, considering the rapidity with which dramas were often written and brought out at the period of which we are speaking. If neither Shakespeare’s play, nor that described by Forman, were the pieces selected by Sir Gilly Merrick, there must have been three distinct plays, in the possession of the company acting at the Globe, upon the events of the reign of Richard II. For the incidents of this ‘most admirable of all Shakespeare’s purely historical plays,’ as Coleridge calls it, (Literary Remains, ii, 164 [No. 20 above]), our great poet appears to have gone no farther than Holinshed, who was himself indebted to Hall and Fabian. However, Shakespeare has no where felt himself bound to adhere to chronology when it better answered his purpose to desert it. Thus, the Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry V, is spoken of in Act V, sc. 3, as frequenting taverns and stews, when he was in fact only twelve years old. Marston, in a short address before his Wonder of Women, 1606, aiming a blow at Ben Jonson, puts the duty of a dramatic author in this respect upon its true footing, when he says, ‘I have not laboured to tie myself to relate anything

 John Payne Collier, on the Existence of Two Plays on Richard II’s Reign 219 as a historian, but to enlarge everything as a poet’; and what we have just referred to in this play is exactly one of those anachronisms which, in the words of Schlegel, Shakespeare committed ‘purposely and most deliberately.’5 His design, of course, was in this instance to link together Richard II and the first part of Henry IV. Of the four quarto editions of Richard II the most valuable for its readings and general accuracy, beyond all dispute, is the impression of 1597. The other three quartos were, more or less, printed from it, and the folio of 1623 seems to have taken the latest, that of 1615, as the foundation of its text; but, from a few words found only in the folio, it may seem that the player-editors referred also to some extrinsic authority. It is quite certain, however, that the folio copied obvious and indisputable blunders from the quarto of 1615. There are no fewer than eight places where the folio omits passages inserted in the quartos, in one instance to the destruction of the continuity of the sense, and in most to the detriment of the play. Hence not only the expediency, but the absolute necessity of referring to the quarto copies, from which we have restored all the missing lines, and have distinguished them by placing them between brackets. (V, 105-9)

26

Hermann Ulrici, kingship and the morality of Richard II 1846

From Shakespeare’s Dramatic Art: And His Relation to Calderon and Goethe. Translated from the German of Dr. Hermann Ulrici [by J. W. Morrison]; second English edition (London, 1846), pp. 365–8, 414–15. Shakespeare’s Dramatic Art. History and Character of Shakespeare’s Plays . . . Translated from the Third Edition of the German, with Additions and Corrections by the Author. By L. Dora Schmitz (2 vols., London, 1876). Hermann Ulrici (1806–84), German philosophic and literary scholar, trained as a lawyer but gave up this profession at his father’s death in 1829 for the study of literature, philosophy, and science. A dedicated opponent of Hegel’s totalizing rationalism, Ulrici spent much of his energy defending the idealist position in philosophy, arguing against the materialistic tendency of contemporary German thinking, and concerning himself with such matters as proofs of the existence of God and the soul. His book on Shakespeare, originally published in German, appeared fairly early in his career under the title Über Shakespeares Dramatische Kunst und sein Verhältnis zu Calderon und Goethe (Halle, 1839) and, although sternly moralistic in places, is thoroughly romantic in spirit. Its translation by Morrison in 1846 quickly brought Ulrici within the orbit of English critical discussion, and its importance was later reinforced and enhanced by a new English version in 1876, this latter based upon a revised and considerably expanded third edition of Ulrici’s work in which, for instance, the author speaks of the ‘higher and universal truth’ of Shakespeare’s handling of historical matter in the manner of Gervinus (see No. 34 below), and somewhat disparages Courtenay’s overemphasis on the dramatist’s deviations from historical fact (see No. 23 above). The extract reprinted below is from the enlarged version (translated by Schmitz) which Ulrici clearly intended to supersede earlier publications of his book.

[From Book VI, Chapter VI: ‘Richard II’] The character of Richard II is in many respects the counterpart of King John, for while he tries in vain to maintain his usurped sovereignty by bad means, Richard forfeits his good right to the royal power by making bad use of it. History, inasmuch as it is life, will tolerate

 Hermann Ulrici, Kingship and the Morality of Richard II 221 no abstract or dead ideas. The fixed formula of an external legal right established by man, it regards as nothing but a formula; it values a right which is truly just only in so far as it is founded upon morality. This right Richard has forfeited, because he has himself trampled upon it. Even the highest earthly power is not independent of the external laws of history; and even the right of majesty by the grace of God loses its title as soon as it breaks away from its foundation, the grace of God, whose justice acknowledges no legal claims, no hereditary or family right in contradiction to the sole right of truth and reason. Richard boasts in vain of his legal title, in vain of the divine right of majesty, he calls in vain to its angels who set him on the throne; his right and his name do not produce the slightest effect, because they are devoid of the creative power of inward justice. His people forsake him because he first forsook them. The wrong of rebellion prevails: Richard’s nature, which in itself is noble, and has merely become degenerate, succumbs to the shrewdness and prudence of a Bolingbroke. Small as is the truly moral spirit exhibited by the man afterwards King Henry IV, he seems a hero of virtue compared with the unworthy, most unkingly Richard; at all events he possesses the necessary and essential attributes of princes, wisdom, self-control and strength of will and energy.

Under so unkingly a sovereign the country could not but be plunged in misery and dissension. At the very beginning of the play, therefore, we find the nobility engaged in angry feuds, the people in Ireland in open rebellion, and the royal family itself distracted. The Duchess of Gloster complains of her husband’s fate; Richard’s arbitrary decision of the dispute between Norfolk and Bolingbroke, and the banishment of the latter, throws the old Duke of Gaunt in sorrow upon his deathbed. It is in vain that he attempts to warn the King; truth cannot force its way into ears that are stuffed and deafened with flattery. Caprice is followed by caprice, infamy by infamy. Richard mortgages his kingdom, and rapaciously draws in all the properties belonging to the duchy of Lancaster in order to quell the Irish rebellion. This is the turning-point of his fate. While vaunting of his hereditary right, of his royal prerogative by the grace of God, he himself tramples upon all these very hereditary and family rights, sells his divine inheritance, and thus falls into a ruinous state of contradiction with himself; he, the first rebel, himself sows the seeds of the revolution which robs him of his throne and of his life. And by defying the right of the historical past (which is the true substance of the so-called right of inheritance), he himself takes his stand on a bottomless future. It is only the older men among his subjects — those living in the remembrance of a better past and fancy they still see the noble, heroic father in the son — who remain faithful to him; among these are the good and honest, but weak and indolent, Duke of York with his very different son, and the strict impartial Bishop of Carlisle, who weighs right and wrong in the same scales, and, for this very reason, is an inactive man. All the vigorous youth and manhood, however, waver and hesitate, and ultimately go over to the rebel party; they, in accordance with their nature, look to the present and to the future which, being undermined by Richard’s actions, is tottering and threatening to collapse. God’s guidance and dispensation of things, which Richard had implicitly trusted, decides against him; had he returned but one day earlier from Ireland, he would have found an army ready equipped for battle, but, by an accidental delay, and deceived by a report of the king’s death, it had dispersed, or gone over to Henry Bolingbroke.

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Thus deprived of all means of support, and finally breaking down helplessly within 176 himself, Richard delivers himself up into the hands of his enemies. His life, like the rotten trunk of a tree, is broken by the storm which he himself had raised; his creatures, Bushy, Bagot, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire, who had been the servants of a bad master, and had abetted him in his caprice and injustice, fall, like the branches, before the trunk. The queen, even in the time of prosperity, was oppressed by a ‘nameless woe’ [2.2.40], and looked towards the future with a foreboding dread, i.e. with a conviction that Richard’s unholy actions could lead only to misery; yet she has neither the energy nor the will to prevent that which was in her power. She is the partner of her husband’s unkingly extravagance, and, at the death-bed of Old Gaunt, listens tacitly to his fruitless warnings, to Richard’s insulting speeches, and to his command to seize the revenues and property of the duchy of Lancaster, therefore, she justly shares her consort’s fate. Misfortune, however, raises both above their fate, and shows us the sparks of light which slumbered in Richard’s originally noble nature. For he is not merely a weakly, shallow, and dissolute voluptuary, he is intelligent, rich in imagination, of strong but too excitable feelings, and of acute judgment (as is proved by his remarks upon young Bolingbroke, who had been banished); but his lively imagination blinds his judgment, the exuberance of his feelings overpowers his will. Richard is not without power and courage, but his unbridled courage turns into haughtiness and arrogance; he imagines that it would be doing himself and his royal majesty an injustice to sacrifice his own desires to law, to duty or to the welfare of the state. He becomes a reckless spendthrift, less from natural inclination than because he fancies that unlimited munificence, splendour, pomp and parade are requisite for the maintenance of the royal dignity (this is proved by the manner of his extravagance); he is devotedly fond of his wife, his friends and favourites, but his wife is like a weak and pliant reed, incapable of affording him support, and his friends are common, selfish flatterers, who only encourage him in his weaknesses and take advantage of his favour in the meanest and most selfish manner. Accordingly, it is neither wickedness of heart nor lowness of disposition, but rather youthful lightheadedness and thoughtlessness, an over-abundance of imagination and of sentiment, a haughty nature over-estimating itself and its power and dignity, but, above all, a want of self-control, and hence of strength of will and of power to resist temptation, that occasion Richard’s fall. The great, overwhelming downfall brings him to self-consciousness; the lightheaded, arrogant youth who lived wholly for outward circumstances, becomes a meditative ponderer absorbed in his sorrowful thoughts and feelings. But the resignation with which he bears his fate, his contrite repentance of his transgressions, his in general dignified conduct, and the courage which he maintains even in his last moments, atone for his faults, and compel us to feel sincere pity for him. The conclusion of the drama makes a deeply poetical and truly tragic impression. Obviously, therefore, one thought pervades the whole composition in all its various parts. It is the high, historical significance of royalty that forms the central point of the representation; royalty, as conceived by the spirit of the Middle Ages down to modern times, that is, as a divine vocation, the highest, but also the most difficult position that man can be called upon to fill. In reality every human being has his calling from God; but inasmuch as the office and welfare of all the individual members of the state are more or less dependent upon the royal power of the king, so his dignity stands in

 Hermann Ulrici, Kingship and the Morality of Richard II 223 a more direct relation to God’s overruling grace; it exists pre-eminently by the grace of God. But for that very reason, and because, as Shakespeare shows, the condition of the whole nation is dependent upon the administration of the royal office, the king ought to be the more fully conscious of the divine grace; the greater his crime, therefore, when, forgetting his dignity, he acts in an unkingly manner, without either justice or grace. If he acts contrary to his calling, its divine nature will not protect him. For his right consists merely in his having been called upon to fill the office, and he acquires the right only in following his calling. The poet, in describing man’s relation to his historical calling and his calling from God, i.e. to its ethical foundation, and in revealing the nature of royalty in its relation to God, i.e. in its ethical relation, gives us a representation of mediaeval and modern history from its most essential point of view. He shows that royalty, just because it exists by the grace of God, is not merely founded upon hereditary right, but rather upon the same basis as the state itself, that is, upon the nation being made an organic whole by law and morality. Consequently, that it ruins itself when it disregards the nation’s rights, its wants and its welfare; in short, that the existence of royalty is incompatible without the esteem and love of the people, and that it contradicts itself when it opposes the spirit and the will of the nation. This is the fundamental idea of the drama, in which the poetical and ethical elements are again most closely blended. The affecting tragic pathos which pervades the whole, and the tragic form which the historical drama thereby receives, Shakespeare has worked out of his historical subject without applying the slightest force. The nature of the subject was certainly much more favourable for such an undertaking than in King John, only a few unimportant alterations were necessary, and these refer likewise only to secondary circumstances. But these very alterations are again a proof of the poet’s correct judgment and of his fine feeling as regards the demands and requirements of his art. With wise self-restraint the poet let us see only as much of the licentious life and unkingly conduct of Richard as was unavoidably necessary for the explanation of his fall; for it was not Richard’s conduct, nor his mode of life, but his dethronement that was of truly historical importance. The drama, therefore, begins by laying the foundation, that is, by showing the events which were the immediate and principal cause of his fall. The chief of these is the bitter, irreconcilable quarrel between Bolingbroke and Norfolk, and accordingly, in Shakespeare this is made the opening of the drama, which is truly historical in its course, as well as in its motives and causes, and does not (as Gervinus [No. 34 below] and Kressig[1] think) deviate from historical tradition. It cannot be maintained (as Gervinus does) that Bolingbroke knew that Norfolk was innocent of Gloster’s murder, and accordingly, that he intentionally raised a false accusation against his adversary. Holinshed, at least, reports: ‘According to an old French pamphlet,[2] it should appear the king commanded first that this duke Gloster should be conveyed unto the Tower, where he meant to commen [i.e., communicate] with him, not in any other place. But nevertheless, the king shortlie after appointed that he should be sent to Calais, as in the same pamphlet is also contained. Others write that immediately upon his apprehension, the earle marshall conveyed him unto the Thames, and there being set aboard . . . was brought to Calis, where he was dispatched out of life, either strangled or smothered with pillows. For the king thinking it not good that the duke of Gloster should stand

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to his answer openly, because the people bare him so much good will, sent one of his justices called William Kitskill, an Irishman, over unto Calis, there to enquire of the duke of Gloster whether he had committed any such treasons alleged against him. . . . Justice Kitskill, hearing what he confessed upon his examination, wrote the same as he was commanded to do, and therewith speedily returned to the king, and, as it hath been reported, he informed the king (whether truly or not, I have not to say) that the duke frankly confessed everything wherewith he was charged. Whereupon the king sent unto Thomas Mowbraie, earle marshall of Nottingham (afterwards duke of Norfolk), to make the duke secretly awaie. The earl prolonged the time for the executing of the king’s commandment, though the king would have had it done with all expedition, whereby the king conceived no small displeasure, and sware it should cost the earle his life if he quickly obeyed not his commandment. The earle thus as it seemed in manner inforced, called out the duke at midnight, as if he should have taken ship to passe over to England, and there in the lodging called the Princes Inn, he caused his servants to cast feather-beds upon him, and so smother him to death, or otherwise to strangle him with towels (as some write).’[3] In like manner all that Kressig maintains to be an addition of Shakespeare’s own invention, and a striking deviation from history — namely, that Bolingbroke accuses his adversary of appropriating eight thousand nobles, which he had received to pay the king’s soldiers at Calais, of being the occasion of all the treason contrived in the realm for eighteen years, and, by his false suggestions and malicious counsels, of having caused the duke of Gloster to be murdered — all this is given in Holinshed’s Chronicle, as the substance of Bolingbroke’s public accusation against Norfolk. The only thing that can appear strange is that Shakespeare gives such a minute account of the quarrel between the two men, and that he represents it in all its details. He was, however, evidently induced to do this partly on account of the historical importance of the matter, and partly on account of the excellent opportunity it offered for contrasting the two opponents, Richard and Bolingbroke, and of throwing a bright light upon the difference between the two characters. It is also not true (as Gervinus maintains) that Shakespeare represents the old and venerable Duke of Gaunt of a greater age than he is in history; according to Holinshed, at all events — as in Shakespeare — Gaunt dies shortly before the campaign in Ireland in 1399. On the other hand, history certainly does not report anything of the conversation between the dying Duke of Gaunt and his deluded nephew. But who would miss this scene, who would declare it to be unhistorical merely because nothing is reported of it? Shakespeare wove it into his drama because it explains, in the clearest and most effective manner, Richard’s life and character, what he was and what he had become. The same reason induced the poet to increase the age of Richard’s wife — who at the time of his execution was scarcely ten years old — so that she can stand by his side as his consort. Again, a similar reason makes him introduce the Duchess of York as her son’s advocate, that is, partly in order to place greater stress upon the importance of the scene, and partly in order to make Henry’s conduct (after he has ascended the throne), his imperturbable composure, gentleness, and amiability a very contrast to Richard’s and the old Duke of York’s mode of action. These are the only alterations that Shakespeare has ventured to make in the historical tradition — with the exception

 Hermann Ulrici, Kingship and the Morality of Richard II 225 of a few chronological deviations or rather condensations. For his being supposed to have chosen ‘the least authenticated’ of the various reports regarding the manner in which Richard was put to death — probably on account of its greater poetico-dramatic value — is not true, in so far as Holinshed intimates that he himself considers the account which Shakespeare follows the more worthy of credit, because it is reported by an author who appears to have been well informed.4 The highly finished style of the drama in which historical truth is so wonderfully blended with poetical beauty of language, delineation of character and composition, accounts for its great popularity, not only with the public of recent times, but even with that of Shakespeare’s own day; this is proved by the unusually large number of old quartos which exist of the piece. The first of these appeared in 1597, the second as early as the following year 1598, the third in 1608, the fourth in 1615; and as late as 1634 (soon after the publication of the second folio) there appeared a special reprint of the piece with the remark, ‘as it hath been lately acted by the kinges servantes at the Globe.’ Accordingly it may be assumed that it was brought upon the stage at latest in 1596, probably not much earlier; at all events it was written later than Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, compared with which it is, in every respect, so far superior that it cannot possibly be placed in the same period with them. But I also consider it a later work than King John. It is true that we meet with many more passages in rhyme here than in King John, however only for this reason, that not only Shakespeare’s drama, but the very history of the reign of Richard II, is richer in lyrical elements than that of John; for the same reason the three parts of Henry VI also — although they assuredly are among the works of Shakespeare’s youth — contain fewer passages of this kind. On the other hand we find comparatively but few alternate rhymes in Richard II, and these are characteristic of his earlier dramas. And yet, in my opinion, the versification is a decided criterion, for compared with its almost uniform regularity in King John, it is freer, more varied, more fluent and harmoniously blended with the subject of the conversations and their turns. The language also — which in King John has still a somewhat dry colour — is fuller, more high sounding, brilliant, and richer in thoughts. I think, therefore, that the piece was not written earlier than 1595. It has been concluded from the introduction of the celebrated parliament-scene (iv.1), which, as it seems, was a subsequent addition (at least, it is not met with in the two earlier quartos, and is expressly mentioned on the title-page of the third of 1608 as a ‘new addition’), that Shakespeare may at a later date have remodelled the whole play. But a comparison of the different quartos proves that — as [William George] Clark and [William Aldis] Wright5 observe — every subsequent edition is but a reprint of its predecessor, and that the text of the fourth quarto is founded upon that of the first folio. What may have induced Shakespeare to introduce this scene, cannot, of course, be determined, scarcely even conjectured, perhaps simply because he found it necessary for the sake of historical truth and the artistic finish of the play, perhaps because he wished to distinguish his Richard II from the politically different (as it seems anti-royalistic) tendency of another lost drama on the same subject. Of this lost drama we have some account in Dr. Forman’s notes of the year 1611 [see Collier, No. 25 above], and is probably the same Richard II, which, in 1601, the Earl of Essex and his insurrectionists had performed, in order to rouse the people against the Queen. (II, 223-31)

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Gulian C. Verplanck, critical remarks on Richard II 1847

From Shakespeare’s Plays: With His Life. Illustrated with Many Hundred Woodcuts . . . after Designs by Kenny Meadows, Harvey, and Others. Edited . . . With Critical Introductions, Notes, etc., Original and Selected (3 vols., New York, 1847). Volume I. Guilian Crommelin Verplanck (1786–1870), prominent New York lawyer, politician, and writer on political, religious, historical, and literary subjects, was educated at Columbia College and pursued a career in the law. He was elected to both the Assembly and the Senate of New York State, also winning a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1824 where he served as a member and eventually chair (1831–33) of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Verplanck had broad cultural and educational interests which he expressed as an essayist and satirist. His edition of Shakespeare, its text heavily indebted to that of John Payne Collier (1842–44) and furnished with important woodcuts by H.W. Hewet, came out initially in separate parts (1844–47) and in 1847 as a three-volume set known as ‘The Illustrated Shakespeare.’ Verplanck introduces each play with an essay summing up critical opinion and offering observations of his own; he also supplies extensive historical annotations.

[From ‘Introductory Remarks’ to Richard II. After noting the dissonance of critical statements on the play, illustrated by the antithetical reactions of Dr Johnson and Coleridge, Verplanck launches upon his own critique.] . . . [Richard II] has comparatively but few of those delicate touches of description or of allusion to natural beauty, or of those slight and graceful suggestions of feeling or of imagery, to which nature had made the mind of the great English critic of the last century [i.e. Dr Johnson] somewhat obtuse, and his mental, like his physical vision, dim and indistinct. But it is rich in all that the moral critic himself most delighted in. It is alive with the exhibition of men acting in great and stirring scenes, and under varied and interesting aspects of life. It paints, with nice discrimination, the arts of political popularity and the fickleness of popular favour — the means by which power is often

 Gulian C. Verplanck, Critical Remarks on Richard II 227 unrighteously wrung from those by whom it may yet be rightfully lost — ‘the insolence of office’ [Hamlet, 3.1.72], and the crawling abjectness, in adversity, of him who derives dignity from office alone. It contains, in short, without the forms of ethical instruction, a great moral lesson of the emptiness and uncertainty of human greatness — how little of dignity it confers, when not used for the beneficent ends for which it is bestowed — and how severe is the just though late retribution of shame and woe, for its abuse. All this is embodied in real incidents and personages, presented with perfect truth and life, in the very spirit and language, and port and bearing, and armour and pomp of the most romantic and picturesque period of European history. The whole story, with its stately personages, passes before us, in one gorgeous pageant; just as when — — the duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seem’d to know, With slow but stately pace kept on his course; — [5.2.7-10]

followed by the dethroned Richard: — a continued succession of scenes as vivid and as magnificent as the pictures of the Poet’s great contemporary, Rubens. Nor can any thing be more true, either in historical accuracy or in that higher and more pervading truth of human nature, than the several characters who pass over this scene — the crafty, bold, ambitious, resolute Bolingbroke, and Richard, womanish alike in good and evil, in infirmity of purpose, in varying resolution, in elation in prosperity, and in the return of gentler and kinder feelings in the hours of sorrow and distress. It has all that solid and living truth in its representation of the old English chivalric aristocracy and their times, which has made Shakespeare’s English ‘Histories’ the text book of a large portion of English history to all of English blood, and rightly so, because they more than compensate for their slight inaccuracies of detail by the vividness and force with which they give the ‘very form and pressure’ [Hamlet, 3.2.24] of those times. It is therefore that as an historical drama, in the strictest sense of the phrase, Richard II is eminently entitled to Coleridge’s strong eulogy, of being ‘the first and most admirable of its author’s historical plays’ [No. 20 above]; and it may be added with equal confidence, that it is, in this same strict sense, one of the most perfect of all historical dramas ever written. But it is only in the light of a purely historical play that it is entitled to claim this superiority; for numerous as are its merits, poetical and dramatic, it must ‘pale its ineffectual fires’ [Hamlet, 1.5.90] when compared with dramas like Antony and Cleopatra, or Henry IV, founded upon history and representing historical personages, yet not restricted to a merely historical interest. In these plays the sober groundwork of historic truth is relieved by the gay contrast of comic invention, or illuminated by the flashes of that deeper tragic emotion which can be awakened only by our sympathies with man as man, in his personal and individual character. Richard II tells the story of that monarch’s times, with little other aid of dramatic art than that of rejecting the form of a mere dramatic chronicle, and of condensing the whole reign into its closing scenes, leaving its earlier incidents to be gathered from the dialogue and narrative. It thus tells the tale of the most memorable example that had yet occurred in modern times of a sovereign deposed for abuse of power, an event

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remarkable in itself, and still more interesting to Englishmen as being the origin of that long series of civil contests which, for half a century, stained England’s fields and scaffolds with English blood shed by Englishmen. The throwing the more odious or contemptible parts of Richard’s life into narrative and allusion seems to have been adopted for the purpose, which it certainly attains with much skill, of taking off that feeling of repugnance towards him which would naturally be excited if his crimes and follies were more distinctly presented, and which it would be impossible to change into that commiserating sympathy that we now feel at his downfall. Still the interest is purely historical and political, and we cannot mourn with the dethroned monarch for the loss of his crown as we can partake of Constance’s maternal sorrows, shudder under the fiery indignation or the frenzy of Lear, or sympathize with the frailties of a noble mind in Antony. It is probably on account of this comparative weakness of the tragic interest, that the Poet did not care to hazard the weakening its effect by the contrast of laughable or lighter scenes, to which he elsewhere so willingly resorts. The adherence to substantial historical truth is preserved throughout. Nothing is added or exaggerated, unless it be that the queen (who was in reality but an affianced child, ten years old), is made to speak the language of mature conjugal affection, and thus to present the gentler and amiable traits of Richard’s mixed and variable character. That character, with all its defects and inconsistencies, — its insolent tyranny, and its gentleness, — its utter want of all moral or intellectual balance, — is painted with the discrimination of the philosophical historian, and with a far deeper and more impartial truth than the author could find in any one of the old annalists, all of whom, I believe, have described Richard as he appeared to them through the medium of their personal party prejudices, Yorkish or Lancastrian. Even the peculiarities of Richard’s language and imagery in the last three acts, his tone of pious meditation, his moralizing on ‘the flattering glass’ [4.1.279], and on his favourite ‘Roan Barbary’s’ [5.5.78] ingratitude, — all of them traits by no means common-place, yet of which resemblances may often be traced in actual life, — were yet I suspect not drawn from the Poet’s general knowledge of man, but came directly from the historical or traditional character of the monarch. His style of thought and language certainly harmonizes with his letters and speeches preserved in the chronicles, as well as with his ‘passionate exclamations and appeals to Heaven’ which Froissart describes.[1] We are made as familiar with the true Bolingbroke as Sully[2] and his contemporaries have made most historical students with Henry IV of France — a personage who had many points of resemblance to his namesake of Lancaster. York, Northumberland, and the rest, are slighter, but not less faithful portraits. Thus we have here a perfect specimen of the purely historical drama, turning wholly upon public and political events and incidents; and it may be placed by the side of Julius Caesar (in this respect its exact counterpart), as showing the limits of excellence in this species of composition. Such compositions, as compared with dramatic inventions drawn from the sources of individual nature, and coming home to the domestic sensibilities, must probably, like these two tragedies, suffer under a comparative coldness of interest, while like them they may be most rich in moral instruction, in splendid poetry, and in admirable pictures of life, manners, characters, and great events.

 Gulian C. Verplanck, Critical Remarks on Richard II 229 Richard II is (as Ulrici has well termed it) ‘the first part of the grand five-act historical drama which closes with Richard III.’[3] Although in the next succeeding parts the author has not adhered to this strictly historical model, but deviated into the more tempting field of historical tragi-comedy, still it is manifest that Richard II was intended to be the introduction of the series of dramatic histories of the wars of York and Lancaster, and to afford to the less instructed reader or spectator a key to the origin of the whole prolonged civil contest. It may indeed be that, like most other prefaces, the introduction was not written until after the whole or the greater part of the dramas it thus introduces; but the striking references to after events, and the preparation for them and for the characters next to tread the stage, as Hotspur and Harry of Monmouth, show that this dramatic series was present to Shakespeare’s mind as one whole. Vague guesses and confident assertions have been made by Malone, Chalmers, and others, as to the precise year in which Richard II was written;[4] but there is really nothing to authorise even a confident conjecture on this not very important point. But we do know with certainty that it belongs to the middle period of his genius, — before the epoch of his highest intellectual and tragic power, and after he had acquired ease and confidence and the rapid command of language, by more timid and more elaborate earlier efforts. It was probably written before, but not very long before, the Merchant of Venice, and I should think a little after Romeo and Juliet. Between that tragedy, as it appears in its first edition, and Richard II there is a certain similarity of style and manner, chiefly consisting in the plays upon words, and the dwelling upon fanciful conceits even in the moments of excited feeling, and also in the abundant intermixture of rhyming couplets. The frequent use of rhyme may be ascribed to a compliance with the popular taste prevailing during the first years of Shakespeare’s dramatic authorship; but it may also have been deliberately preferred by Shakespeare for its declamatory effect in scenes of chivalric pomp, for the same reason that we find him, long after he had abandoned it for all other purposes, occasionally returning to its use ‘to point a moral,’[5] to embody some strongly excited feeling, or to close a scene with graceful or stately declamation. . . . The strong and unqualified assertion of the divine and indefeasible right of kings in the latter scenes of the play, has been assumed by Tory and by republican writers to be a declaration of the author’s own personal opinions. But it should be recollected that in these passages the Poet does but speak the historical language of Richard and the house of York; and he has not overlooked the other side of the argument; that he has fairly displayed the capricious disposition and profligate wastefulness of the king, by which he deserved and incurred deposition; and that such is the remarkable impartiality with which all this is done, that during the despotic reign of Elizabeth (as Knight remarks) ‘the deposition scene was neither acted nor printed, lest it should give occasion to the enemies of legitimate succession to find examples for the deposition of a monarch’ [No. 24 above]. (I, 5-7)

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Hartley Coleridge, a comment on Richard II 1851

From Essays and Marginalia. By Hartley Coleridge. Edited by His Brother (2 vols., London, 1851). Volume II. Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849), the eldest and unusually precocious son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (see No. 11 above), made something of a name for himself as a minor poet, biographer, and essayist, but finding the practical realities of life almost too much for his shy, unstable, and hypersensitive nature, frequently withdrew from the world into meditative isolation, despondent seclusion, and bibulous excess. Among his scholarly publications, he is best remembered for his ambitious edition of the dramas of Massinger and Ford (London, 1840), which includes helpful biographical data but omits the apparatus criticus that the editor intended to provide but never got around to finishing. The work containing the junior Coleridge’s fugitive notes on Shakespeare, taken from the author’s marginal jottings in books, was edited by his younger brother Derwent Coleridge. The notes together with those on other authors appear in volume II; the essays, selected reprints of pieces that originally appeared in periodicals, occupy volume I.

King Richard II Character of The Play Why is this play set down among Shakespeare’s minors? In point of construction it approaches more nearly to a regular tragedy than any other of the historic dramas. The catastrophe is a plain consequence of the series of actions opened in the first scene. There is little or nothing throughout the play that can be pronounced inconsequent. The deposition and death of Richard result, and are clearly shown to result, from his unjust interference in the quarrel of Norfolk and Bolingbroke; and every step in the drama advances towards the conclusion. Then the composition, if we except a little, a very little too much of rhyme and conceit in the first act, is in Shakespeare’s best manner, just as poetical as it should be, and no more; in philosophy it is only second to Hamlet, in political wisdom second to none. In truth, it is almost a prophecy; for Shakespeare’s Richard the Second was the real Charles the First. The defect of the play is that Richard stands alone: the other characters are nobodies, unless we except old York – that true, good, wrong-headed, ultra royalist. (II, 153-4)

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François P. G. Guizot, history, character, and divine right in Richard II 1852

From Shakespeare and His Times (London, 1852). François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787–1874), French statesman, orator, historian, and essayist, had a brilliant career in politics, diplomacy, and culture, becoming one of the great public figures of his time. As the scion of a liberal Huguenot family (his father was nevertheless guillotined during the Terror), he was educated in Geneva, took up legal work in Paris, and then turned to literary studies, eventually becoming a professor of modern history at the University of Paris. Having supported the bourgeois monarchy of Louis-Philippe, from 1832 to 1837 he served in the new government as a minister of public education. During the 1840s he served his nation diplomatically as minister of foreign affairs and helped to preserve the peace with England, of whose culture and history he had a special and sympathetic knowledge (having been ambassador to London). Rising to the premiership in 1847, Guizot presided over a stable government, but his resistance to the forces of change resulted in his being ousted in the February revolution of 1848 and led to the forced abdication of the king. Bitterly disappointed by his failure to preserve constitutional monarchy in France, Guizot devoted the remainder of his life to prolific writing. Shakespeare and His Times and especially his comments on Richard II reflect Guizot’s unhappy personal experience with the instability of government in France – experience which partly accounts for his admiration of Shakespeare’s unflinching political realism in the histories. The first part of the book was originally published as the introduction to a French edition of Shakespeare’s works in 1821; it then came out separately in Paris in 1852 together with new historical and critical notices of the principal dramas (including Richard II) and immediately appeared in English translations.

[From ‘King Richard II (1597)’] In proportion as Shakespeare advances towards the more modern times of the history of his country, the chronicles upon which he relies for information coincide more exactly with historical truth; and already, in The Life and Death of King Richard II, the

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details furnished him by Holinshed differ only in a slight degree from the historical data which have been handed down to us as authentic. . . . The tragedy of Richard II is then, generally speaking, sufficiently conformable to history; and the manner in which the poet has described the deposition of Richard, and the accession to the throne of Henry of Lancaster, appears singularly in accordance with what Hume says on the subject: ‘Henry IV became king, nobody could tell how or wherefore.’[1] But it would be necessary to be, like Hume, entirely unacquainted with the sight of revolutions, to be puzzled to say how and why the Duke of Lancaster, after having acted for some time in the name of the King, whom he kept prisoner, finally established himself without difficulty in his place. Shakespeare did not think it necessary to explain this; Richard left Flint Castle with the title of king, in the retinue of Bolingbroke; and we next see him signing his own deposition. The poet does not in any way indicate to us what has passed; but in order not to guess how the fall of Richard was accomplished, it would be necessary for us to have very ill understood the picture presented to us of his first degradation; and the conversation of the gardener with his servants completes the description by revealing to us its effects upon public opinion. It was a characteristic of Shakespeare’s art to make us present at every part of the event; and he always transports us to the scene in which he strikes his most decisive blows, whilst at a distance from our view, the action pursues its course, and contents itself with meeting us again when it has reached its consummation. Although this tragedy is entitled The Life and Death of King Richard II, it only comprises the last two years of that prince’s reign, and contains only a single event, namely, his downfall, — the catastrophe towards which every circumstance tends from the very outset of the play. . . . [At this point Guizot discusses the Essex rebellion, concluding that Shakespeare’s play was not the one commissioned by the conspirators in 1601 for revival on the Globe stage.] But in order to remove every kind of doubt, it is sufficient to read Shakespeare’s tragedy; the doctrine of divine right is incessantly presented in it, accompanied by that interest which is excited by the aspect of the misfortunes of fallen greatness. If the poet has not given to the usurper that odious physiognomy which produces hatred and the dramatic passions, it is sufficient to read history to understand the cause of this. This vagueness of the moral aspect under which men and things present themselves, and which does not allow the feelings to attach themselves vigorously to any one object, because they can rest upon nothing with satisfaction, is not a fact peculiar to Richard II and his destiny, in the history of these disastrous times. Parties ever at conflict with each other for the supreme power, vanquished by turns, and always deserving their defeat, without any one of them having ever deserved victory, do not present a very dramatic spectacle, nor one very well calculated to elevate our feelings and faculties to that degree of exaltation which is one of the noblest objects of art. Pity is, in such a case, often wanting to indignation, and esteem almost always to pity. We have no difficulty in finding out the crimes of the strongest, but we look with anxiety for the virtues of the weakest; and the same effect is produced when the circumstances are changed: follies, depredations, injustice, and violence, have led to Richard’s downfall, and have even rendered it necessary; and they detach us from him by the twofold reason that we behold him working out his own ruin, and that we find it impossible to save him. It

 François P. G. Guizot, History, Character, and Divine Right in Richard II 233 would, however, be easy to discover at least as many crimes in the party which triumphs over his degradation. Shakespeare might, with little trouble, have amassed against the rebels those treasures of indignation which would animate all hearts in favour of the legitimate sovereign; but one of the principal characteristics of Shakespeare’s genius is a truthfulness, I may say, a fidelity of observation, which reproduces nature as it is, and time as it actually occurs. History supplied him neither with heroes superior to their fortune, nor with innocent victims, not with instances of heroic devotion, or of imposing passion; he merely found the very strength of his characters employed in the service of those interests which degrade them — perfidy considered as a means of conduct, treason almost justified by the dominant principle of personal interest, and desertion almost rendered legitimate by the consideration of the risk that would be run by remaining faithful; and all this he has described. It is, in truth, the Duke of York, a personage of whose incapacity and nullity we are informed by history, whom Shakespeare has selected to represent this ever-ardent devotedness to the man who governs, this facility in transferring his obedience from rightful to actual power, and vice versâ, merely allowing himself, for his honour, to shed a few solitary tears on behalf of the monarch whom he has abandoned. To any one who has not witnessed the sport of fortune with empires, this personage would be only comic; but to any one who has beheld such changes, does he not possess alarming truthfulness? Surrounded by characters of this kind, whence could Shakespeare derive that pathetic element which he would have loved to infuse into the spectacle of fallen greatness? He who had given old Lear, in his misery, so many noble and faithful friends,[2] could not find one for Richard; the King has fallen stripped and naked into the hands of the poet, as he fell from his throne; and in himself alone, the poet has been obliged to seek all his resources; the character of Richard II is, therefore, one of the profoundest conceptions of Shakespeare. The commentators have had a great discussion as to whether it was from the Court of James or of Elizabeth that Shakespeare derived the maxims which he so frequently professes in favour of divine right and absolute power. Shakespeare derived them ordinarily from his personages themselves; and it was sufficient for him here to have to describe a king already seated on the throne. Richard never imagined that he ever was, or could be, anything but a king; his royalty was, in his eyes, a part of his nature, one of the constituent elements of his being, which he brought into the world with him at his birth, subject to no conditions but his life; as he had nothing to do to retain it, it was no more in his power to cease to be worthy of it than to cease to be invested with it; and hence arose his ignorance of his duties to his subjects, and to his own safety, and his indolent confidence in the midst of danger. Although this confidence abandons him for a moment at every new reverse, it returns immediately, doubling its force in proportion as he requires more of it to take the place of other props, which successively crumble away. When he has arrived at last at a point at which it is no longer possible for him to hope, the King becomes astonished, looks around, and inquires if he is really himself. Another kind of courage then springs up within him — the courage imparted by such a misfortune that the man who experiences it becomes excited by the surprise into which he is thrown by his own position; it becomes to him an object of such lively attention, that he dares to contemplate it in all its bearings, were it only for

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the purpose of understanding it; and by this contemplation he escapes from despair, and sometimes rises to truth, the discovery of which always calms a man to a certain degree. But this calmness is barren, and this courage inactive; it sustains the mind, but it is fatal to action; all the actions of Richard are therefore deplorably feeble: even his reflections upon his actual condition reveal a consciousness of his own nullity, which descends, at certain moments, almost to baseness; — and who could raise a man who, on ceasing to be a king, has lost, in his own opinion, the distinctive quality of his being, the dignity of his nature? He believed himself precious in the sight of God, sustained by His arm, and armed with His power; when fallen from the mysterious rank which he had once occupied, he knows no place for himself upon earth; when stripped of the power which he believed his right, he does not suppose that any strength can remain to him: he therefore makes no resistance; to do so would be to try something which he believes impossible: in order to arouse his energy, some sudden and pressing danger must, as it were, provoke without his knowledge faculties which he disavows; when his life is attacked, he defends himself, and dies with courage; but in order always to have possessed courage, he needed to know what a man is worth. We must not expect to find, in Richard II, any more than in the majority of Shakespeare’s historical dramas, a particular character of style. Its diction is not greatly elaborated; though frequently energetic, it is frequently also so vague as to leave the reason to decide as it pleases upon the meaning of the expressions, which can be determined by no rule of syntax. . . . (358-66)

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Henry N. Hudson, historical truth and characterization in Richard II 1852

From The Works of Shakespeare: The Text Carefully Restored According to the First Editions; with Introductions, Notes Original and Selected, and a Life of the Poet (11 vols., Boston, 185159). Volume V: King Richard II; King Henry IV; King Henry V (1852). Henry Norman Hudson (1814–86), Shakespearian scholar and Episcopal priest, was educated at Middlebury College, Vermont, and taught school in Kentucky and Alabama where he developed an interest in Shakespeare that was to persist throughout his life. His first published work on the dramatist, Lectures on Shakespeare (2 vols., New York, 1848), delivered earlier in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Boston, achieved immediate recognition; he then went on to produce his multi-volume edition of the playwright, which established his reputation as a popular authority. He was ordained deacon and priest (1849– 50), and during the Civil War became a chaplain in the Union army (1862-65). Settling in Cambridge, Mass., after his discharge from the military, he returned to literary study and published Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters (2 vols., 1872), a work that contains revised versions of material from the introductions to the 1851–59 edition. The numerous later editions of Shakespeare that bear Hudson’s name, including the well-known ‘Harvard Edition’ (20 vols., Boston, 1880–81), reprint accounts of individual plays from earlier work, usually revised but sometimes verbatim. Hudson’s literary criticism is thoroughly romantic in spirit and owes much to Coleridge, whose ideas and comments on Shakespeare he frequently quoted or paraphrased. The extract from Hudson’s characteristically orotund introduction to Richard II, reprinted below, is taken from a revised edition of The Works of Shakespeare (12 vols., New York, 1881-87), V, 5–19.

[From Hudson’s ‘Introduction’ to Richard II. After describing the early editions of the play, speculating on the date of composition (1595 or earlier), opining that Daniel’s Civil Wars borrows from Shakespeare, discussing other plays on the same reign, and reviewing the known facts regarding the play’s putative connection with the Essex rebellion, Hudson expatiates on the strictly historical nature of the drama.]

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. . . The leading events, the manners, and all the persons of this drama, except the queen, its whole substance, movement, and interest, are purely historical, with only such heightening of effect, such vividness of colouring, and such vital invigoration as poetry can add without anywise marring or displacing the truth of history; the Poet having entirely forborne that noble freedom of art in representative character, which elsewhere issued in such everlasting delectations as Faulconbridge and Falstaff. For the materials of Richard II Shakespeare need not have gone beyond the pages of Holinshed, and it is clear that he drew directly from this source. In the current of that writer’s narrative, the quarrel of Bolingbroke and Mowbray strikes in so abruptly and unexpectedly, is so inexplicable in its origin and so teeming with great results, as to form naturally and of itself the beginning of the manifold national tragedy which ends only with the catastrophe of Richard III. The cause of that quarrel is hardly less obscure in the history than in the drama: it stands out almost as something uncaused, so that there was no need of going behind it; while at the same time it proves the germ of such a vast and varied procession of historical events and heroic passages, as to give it the highest importance. . . . [Hudson now gives a fairly detailed summary of Holinshed’s account of the years covered by Shakespeare’s plot.] This dry skeleton will show that the Poet followed the chronicle very closely in the events of the drama. Holinshed had not the art, (as indeed what modern historian has?) nor did it fall within his purpose, to give a special lifelike portraiture of the persons: yet in respect of these Shakespeare is, to say the least, equally true to history as in the events; still informing the bald diagrams of humanity with vital spirit and efficacy, and thus enabling us not so much to hear or read about the men of a former age, as to see them passing before us. Hints to that purpose there are indeed in the narrative; but these for the most part are so slight, and withal so overlaid with other matter, that perhaps no eye but Shakespeare’s could have detected them and drawn forth their secret meaning. So that, looking through his eyes, we can now see things in the chronicler that we could by no means have discerned with our own. Thus, by a sort of poetical comparative anatomy, from a few fragments, such as would have escaped any perception less apprehensive and quick than his, he could reconstruct the whole order and complexion of characteristic traits and lineaments. And, which is very remarkable, the laws of fact appear to sit as easy upon him as those of imagination: with the prescribed scope of an unchangeable past he has all the freedom of reason: within the hard stiff lines of historical truth his creative faculties are as unstraitened and uncramped, they move with as much grace, facility, and spirit, as when owning no restraints but such as are self-imposed. Than which perhaps nothing could more forcibly approve the strength and rectitude of his genius. But then, in fact, his freedom here is much the same as in the world of pure fiction, because in either case it is the truth that makes him free. It is probably on some such ground as this that Coleridge, speaking of Richard II, says he ‘feels no hesitation in placing it as the first and most admirable of Shakespeare’s historical plays’ [No. 20 above]. For in all the qualities of a work of art, as an exhibition of intense dramatic power working on predetermined materials, it is inferior to several others, and is nowise comparable to the two parts of Henry IV. So that it excels the others only in that the Poet’s creative powers are here strictly confined to the work of

 Henry N. Hudson, Historical Truth and Characterization in Richard II 237 reproduction; whereas in the others, and especially in Henry IV, a part of their task lies in the producing of characters purely imaginary, though at the same time making them the vehicle of a larger moral history than would otherwise consist with the laws of dramatic reason and truth. And, indeed, it is in this sense that Coleridge himself assigns the first place to Richard II. And he rightly suggests that a drama is rendered historical, not merely by being made up of historical matter, but by the peculiar relation which that matter bears to the plot. For Macbeth, as was remarked in our Introduction to that play, has much of historical matter, yet is in no proper sense an historical drama, because the history neither forms nor directs, but only subserves the plot. Nor, on the other hand, does the having of much besides historical matter anywise hinder a drama from being properly historical: ideal events and characters do not at all change the nature of the work, provided they be made to serve the truth of history, instead of overruling it. Which brings us to the distinction between Richard II and Henry IV. Both are in the strictest sense historical plays, the difference between them being that in the former the history makes the plot, but in the latter rather guides and controls it: in the one, history furnishes the whole matter and order of the work; in the other, it furnishes a part, and at the same time moulds and governs whatsoever is added by the creative imagination. Of course Bolingbroke is the moving and controlling spirit of this play, the centre and spring-head of the entire action. Every thing waits upon his firm-set, but noiseless potency of will, and is made alive with his most silent, all-pervading, inly-working efficacy of thought and purpose. For, though Richard be much the more prominent character, this is nowise as the mover of things, but only as the receiver of movements caused by another; the effects lighting upon him, while the worker of them is comparatively unseen and unheard. For the main peculiarity of Bolingbroke is that he looks solely to results, and, like a true artist and a skilful as he is the better to secure these, he keeps his designs and processes most carefully hidden: a thorough-paced politician, his policy, however, is emphatically an art, and he is far too deep and subtle therein to make use of any artifice; his agency thus being so stealthy and invisible, his power flowing forth so secretly, that in whatsoever he does, the thing seems to have done itself to his hand, and himself to have had no part in bringing it to pass. How intense his enthusiasm, yet how perfect, and how imperturbable his coolness and composure! so that we might almost ask, – ‘Was ever breast contained so much, and made so little noise?’ And then how pregnant and forcible, always, yet how calm and gentle, and at times how terrible his speech! how easily and unconcernedly the words drop from him, and, therewithal, how pat and home they are to the persons for whom and the circumstances wherein they are spoken! as if his eye burned itself a passage right straight to the heart of whomsoever he looked upon, and at the same time gave out the light whereby to read whatsoever was written there. To all which add a flaming thirst of power, a most aspiring and mounting ambition, and the result explains much of his character and fortune as developed in the subsequent plays wherein he figures. For the Poet keeps him the same man throughout. So that in this play we have, done to the life, though somewhat in miniature, what is afterwards drawn out and unfolded at full length, – the quick, keen sagacity, the firm, steady, but easy self-control, moulding his whole action, and making every thing about him bend and converge to a set

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purpose; – a character hard and cold indeed to the feelings, but written all over with success; which has no impulsive gushes or starts, but all is study, forecast, design, and calm suiting of means to pre-appointed ends, every cord and muscle being subdued to the quality of his aim, and pliant to the working of his thought. And this perfect self-command is in great part the true secret of his strange power over others, making them almost as docile and pliant to his purpose as are the cords and muscles of his own body: so that, as the event proves, he grows great by their feeding, till he can compass food enough without their help, and, if they go to hinder him, can eat them up. The main points of his character are admirably put by Hazlitt, thus: ‘Patient for occasion, and then steadily availing himself of it; seeing his advantage afar off, but only seizing on it when he has it within his reach; humble, crafty, bold, and aspiring, encroaching by regular but slow degrees, building power on opinion, and cementing opinion by power’ [No. 16]. With such an antagonist to ply him, it is no wonder that Richard’s ricketty, unknit, jaunty nature soon goes to pieces. He is a man of large powers and good dispositions, but there is no concert, or composition, or reciprocity among them; for which cause he acts in each of them by turns, but never in all of them together: will, understanding, imagination, and conscience are all strong and vigorous in him, yet somehow they never grow to cohesion and unity, to be all in each and each in all; so that, though he often talks shrewdly and acts stoutly, yet he is never truly wise and strong in either. Hence, when he is stripped of power, and can no longer enact the tyrant, he forthwith turns philosopher, poet, and moralist, as if in revenge of his miscarriages as a prince, and to atone for his faults as a man. However, as soon as, in default of other resources, he betakes himself to these latter, whatever is excellent and amiable in his mind and character begins to come out, and henceforth he brings up wonderfully in our good opinion insomuch that before the close we are fain to forget what he has done and been, and cannot choose but pity the misfortunes that have ennobled and endeared him; though we still have a strong undercurrent of suspicion that he is but flirting with the Muses and the Graces, to beguile the sense and memory of his follies and crimes; as men often fall to a special cherishing of virtuous thoughts and sentiments in order to delude themselves into a persuasion of their being the reverse of what their acts have proved them to be. At all events, his course yields shrewd argument that a sentimentalist is but a profligate without means, as faction is said to be tyranny out of office. Nevertheless, his redundancy of thought and fancy, though sometimes running into puerility and platitude, sheds a sort of perfusive and unifying eloquence over the whole play. Coleridge seems to have dwelt with peculiar intentness on the character of Richard, and his statement thereof is proportionably apt and rich. ‘It is clear,’ says he, ‘that Shakespeare never meant to represent Richard as a vulgar debauchee, but a man with a wantonness of spirit in external show, a feminine friendism, an intensity of woman-like love of those immediately about him, and a mistaking of the delight of being loved by him for a love of him. . . .’ [Hudson continues this quotation from Literary Remains (II, 174-6) at some length but with several unmarked ellipses; see No. 20 above.] (V, 9-19)

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Henry Reed, history as tragedy in Richard II 1855

From Lectures on English History and Tragic Poetry, as Illustrated by Shakespeare (Philadelphia, 1855). Henry Hope Reed (1808–54), although trained as a lawyer, became in early life a professor of rhetoric and English literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Although he was a familiar and popular lecturer on Wordsworth and other poets, very little of his literary criticism was published during his lifetime, but several volumes were issued posthumously by his brother W.B. Reed. Reed’s characteristic manner is solemnly didactic, and more appreciatively descriptive than analytical, but his lectures were highly regarded for their eloquence and widely read in the United States as well as in England, where they were republished. Perhaps the most notable features of Reed’s interpretation of Richard II are its stress on the sympathy we are intended to feel for Mowbray as contrasted with his opponent in the Coventry lists, and its emphasis on the king’s moral and spiritual redemption.

[From Lecture V, originally delivered 25 January 1847: ‘The Reign of Richard the Second.’ After tracing the history between the reigns of King John and Richard II and discussing the connectedness of the two Shakespearian tetralogies, whose overarching subject the author characterizes as ‘the decline and fall of the Plantagenet dynasty’, Reed takes up Richard II.] . . . In proceeding to that period of English history which is illustrated by the tragedy of Richard the Second, let me advert to the fact that, in this play, Shakespeare has treated history in a manner widely different from that in King John. In forming a drama out of the historical events of the reign of King John, the poet had no choice but to use a large liberty with the actual succession of these events, separated as they were in point of time, and to create a dramatic unity, by which the beginning and close of the reign should be morally connected: it was necessary, too, to mould the history in such a way as to invent the dramatic action for the personages of the play. Now in Richard the Second the historical materials were very different: the history grows out of Richard’s character; indeed, his character is the history, so that the poet is the historian;

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because, in presenting character, which is essential in dramatic poetry, he is, at the same time, telling the history. In this case, therefore, the poet follows the footsteps of the chronicler, – the play and the chronicle are in the same path. In King John, one of the most important, and certainly the noblest person of the play, Philip Falconbridge, is an imaginary character, most happily created and wisely used for the purposes of history as well as of the drama. But in Richard the Second there is no imaginary character; all the personages are strictly and actually historical. The tragedy of King John comprehended the whole of the reign – the events of sixteen years; in Richard the Second, Shakespeare has confined the drama to the close of the reign, – only a little more than one year out of the twenty-two during which Richard occupied the throne. The whole of this previous portion of the reign is omitted, and we know it in the play only by its results, and the retrospect that is occasionally given. The opening of the tragedy of Richard the Second displays the various elements which are to be wrought to the great historical issues of the time; and it shows the condition of the realm after the lapse of about twenty years of Richard’s sway. We see at once the state distracted by a turbulent and proud nobility, and division and discord in the royal family. Somewhat more gradually, the poet brings into view the character of the monarch, beneath the lofty majesty of whose demeanour, which first strikes the mind, we soon discover the fickle, arbitrary temper and the unreal strength of that pride which is to work out its own ruin in a career of folly and dissimulation and tyranny. In the play, Richard comes on the scene such a man as the previous portion of his life has made him; and to that previous period we must therefore look back in order to understand his character and his history. We must look there to discover what it was, or what causes combined to fill him with such pride; to learn what outward influences had worked upon his natural disposition so as to make him at once so haughty and so helpless. Before we proceed to the study of the tragic chastisement of his vices and his frailties, we must needs look at the origin and growth of that tyrannic pride, which rendered him so fit a subject to illustrate the retributive and chastening influences, which are the high theme of tragedy. . . . [Here Reed rehearses the early history of Richard’s reign – his childhood and early manhood dominated by his ambitious and unloved uncles, his pride in his heroic ancestors (especially Edward III and the Black Prince), his nearly miraculous suppression of Wat Tyler’s rebellion, the threatening restiveness of the lower classes in Europe, his corruption by flatterers and the self-indulgent luxury of his court, and his ignominious arranging of the Duke of Gloucester’s murder.] It is at this point of his reign and of his character that Shakespeare brings Richard the Second before us. The quarrel between the son of the Duke of Lancaster, Henry Hereford, called Bolingbroke, and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk, with which the play opens, is to be decided, as the king determines, by the wager of battle, the single combat of the two noblemen – that ancient feudal form of trial, in which it was supposed Heaven would mark the righteous party by giving him the victory. The lists at Coventry are made ready for the combat; the combatants appear with their heralds and in all the pomp of chivalry, and in the presence of the king and many of the nobles. The merits of this controversy between Bolingbroke and Mowbray are involved in the obscurity which covers the intrigues and half-treasonable plots of this reign. It was one of those doubtful cases in which neither the accusation nor the defence admitted

 Henry Reed, History as Tragedy in Richard II 241 of notorious proof; and, therefore, according to the feudal jurisprudence, the trial of combat was awarded, and the Almighty was to be the judge, His will being, as it was believed, manifested by the result. To that judgment, Richard, though he awarded the trial, is not willing to commit it; and he interposes the decree of his mortal majesty at the last moment, when the trumpets have sounded, and the combatants are arrayed in complete armour, and, upon their armed steeds, are setting forward to encounter each other in deadly conflict. At that instant, the king throws down his warder – the truncheon of command – as a signal to prevent the combat. Whether this was caprice or a deeper stroke of policy and dissimulation, the reasons of the king seem hollow and insincere; and, as he professes his desire to spare the shedding of such blood as flowed in the veins of the high-born combatants, and to save the kingdom from the feuds of civil warfare that might ensue, we cannot help looking forward in the history, and thinking that the throwing down of the king’s warder in the lists at Coventry may be considered the prelude to that fierce struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster, which distracted England during the greater part of half a century, and in which the best blood of the nation was poured out like water. The act of the king, on this occasion, was the beginning of a series of events, which close only with the battle of Bosworth Field; and, if his professions were insincere, and his decree tyrannical, there was fearful retribution in the future, when, in consequence of what followed this event, the nation suffered thirty years of civil war, and four kings perished by violent deaths. The judgment which the king pronounced is arbitrary; for, instead of deciding between the parties, there is the easier tyranny of compromise by inflicting the penalty of guilt upon both of them. It is arbitrary, too, in the proportions of the penalty. Norfolk is banished for life, and Bolingbroke for the term of ten years, which is afterwards, in the same arbitrary temper, reduced to six years. It is not this inequality alone that creates a sympathy with Norfolk. We see Bolingbroke coming to the combat with a spirit that seems to exult chiefly in the consciousness of his strength, – ‘As confident,’ he boasts, ‘as is the falcon’s flight against a bird’ [1.3.61-2]. There is a deeper feeling in the spirit with which Mowbray meets the accusation, and confronts his adversary: However Heaven or fortune cast my lot, There lives or dies, true to King Richard’s throne, A loyal, just, and upright gentleman. [Quotes 1.3.85-96]

This does, indeed, sound like the voice of truth; it does seem the utterance of ‘a loyal, just, and upright gentleman.’ Our pity for him, as an injured man, is deepened, when he replies so meekly, yet so feelingly, in that beautiful and pathetic lament for his perpetual exile: ‘A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege . . . ‘ [Quotes 1.3.154-73]. When the Duke of Lancaster, old John of Gaunt, strives to reconcile his son to his shorter exile by telling him – The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set The precious jewel of thy home-return [1.3.265-7],

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Bolingbroke replies in that fine and familiar strain of poetry – Oh! who can hold a fire in his hand, By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? [Quotes 1.3.294-301]

This complaint comes to us with less of real pathos than the piteous lament of Norfolk. It is later in the drama –just at the time that Bolingbroke returns from his unfinished exile, and with the disloyal purpose of thrusting Richard from his throne and seizing the sceptre for himself – that we are told the story of what remained of the career of Norfolk: Many a time hath banished Norfolk fought For Jesu Christ; in glorious Christian field. . . . [Quotes 4.1.92-100]

No sooner is Bolingbroke banished than, as Shakespeare discloses the historical truth, we perceive that it was timid suspicion and jealousy in the breast of Richard, that prompted the sentence against his kinsman. The popular feeling, which the exile courted and won, as he went away, did not escape the notice of the king and his favourites: Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green, Observed his courtship to the common people: – . . . . [Quotes 1.4.23-36]

Happy would it have been for the frail and feeble Richard if, instead of letting the affections of his people be won away from him by the arts of a demagogue, he had secured them by honourable means and a dutiful sovereignty, to be at once the prop and the pride of his throne. Relieved from restraints and apprehensions of Bolingbroke’s presence, the king precipitates himself still faster on his downward career of folly and crime. The wasteful pomp and pleasures of his court bring new temptations to tyrannous rapacity, and the recklessness of his character is further displayed, when, with fitful energy, he resolves to conduct the war against his rebel subjects in Ireland: ‘We will ourself in person to this war . . . ‘ [Quotes 1.4.42-51]. A long-continued course of self-indulgence, together with the flattery of his minions, hardens the heart of King Richard more and more; and when he is told that his uncle, old John of Gaunt, ‘timehonoured Lancaster’ [1.1.1], is ‘grievous sick’ [1.4.54], the spendthrift king exclaims, with utter and indecent heartlessness – Now put it, Heaven, in his physician’s mind To help him to his grave immediately! [Quotes 1.4.59-64]

The death scene of John of Gaunt is a dramatic invention, but Shakespeare has made an admirable historical use of it, by putting into the mouth of Lancaster, not only a

 Henry Reed, History as Tragedy in Richard II 243 dying man’s prophecy of the ruin that is to follow Richard’s riotous misrule, but also one of those magnificent poetic eulogies on England, by which the poet has fostered the national feeling of his countrymen. The misgovernment in Richard’s reign grieves the spirit of the dying Lancaster; because, remembering the splendour and the strength of his father’s reign, he thinks of that small island England, as – ‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle . . .’ [Quotes 2.1.40-50]. The remonstrance and the warnings of his dying uncle are of no avail to stop the headlong course of the king; they serve but to exasperate his royal pride. Immediately on Lancaster’s death, Richard, reckless of law and right, seized upon his estates – the patrimony of the banished Bolingbroke, who, by his father’s death, was now Duke of Lancaster. When this last tyranny is perpetrated, the warning voice of the Duke of York, the gentlest of Richard’s uncles – the last surviving son of Edward the Third – is raised, and he strives to bring the king to a better mind by the memory of his father: I am the last of noble Edward’s sons, Of whom thy father, prince of Wales, was first. . . . [Quotes 2.1.171-83]

York warns the king, moreover, that, by the lawless seizure of Hereford’s patrimony, he plucks a thousand dangers on his head, and loses a thousand well-disposed hearts. But the poison of flattery and of criminal self-indulgence, and the demoralizing irresponsibility of power, have wrought their mischief so deep into the soul of Richard, that neither rebuke nor kindly admonition, nor the fear of impending evil, can help him. He is doomed — nothing can save his sceptre or his life. We have thus far followed, as Shakespeare and the chroniclers have traced it, the downward progress of Richard the Second, until we behold him reduced to that pitch of moral degradation, which, in this tragedy, is shown with such matchless impartiality. Morally, the king is to be sunk no lower; and let us now see how the poet-historian, with equal truth and with the large charity of a great poet’s heart, raises him up again, not, indeed, to his primal power, but to our sympathy and pity. The heart, which had been hardened by flattery and the luxuries of arbitrary force, is to be softened; the sleeping humanity in his character is to be awakened; his dead conscience to be brought to life; and all this, which neither fear nor reproof nor kindness could do, is to be effected by what has been finely called ‘the power and divinity of suffering.’1 This is the very theme of tragedy; the change in Richard’s character, or rather the development of those better elements in it which, in prosperity, were well-nigh utterly perishing, came from the chastisement of affliction; how it came, is shown by Shakespeare in this drama, in which he fulfils at once the high functions of poet, historian, and moralist. The king hastens back from Ireland, because the banished Bolingbroke, regardless of his sentence, has returned to England. He has landed at Ravenspurg, his professed purpose being simply to claim his patrimony, but every step he takes is a step towards the possession of the throne. The king has returned to meet a great and growing danger – the magnitude of it making it at once awful but shadowy to his mind. He faces the danger, not with a wise or heroic self-confidence, for that he

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never possessed, unless it was in his youth, when he met the insurgents in London. He is now not accompanied with worthless favourites, who would delude him with flattery or tempt to criminal defences; he is surrounded by men who deal truthfully with him, and do not shrink from telling him of the sad realities that are before and around him. As soon as he touches the soil of England, he gives utterance to a strain of sensibility which, if somewhat visionary, still shows a strange blending of genuine tenderness, of royal pride, and of conscious weakness: ‘I weep for joy, / To stand upon my kingdom once again’ [Quotes 3.2.4-11]. He conjures the earth – ‘Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth!’ [3.2.12]. He invokes it to sting rebellious feet with nettles, and send forth adders to throw death upon his enemies; then, observing, perhaps, the impatient looks of his companions, he adds – ‘Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords!’ [Quotes 3.2.23-6]. When his kinsman Aumerle gently hints that his cause needs prompt and manly action, the king, looking from the earth, which he had first invoked, up to heaven, rises to a loftier state of feeling in that splendid strain of poetry – Discomfortable cousin! knowest thou not That when the searching eye of heaven is hid. . . . [Quotes 3.2.36-62]

The doctrine of the divine and indefeasible right of kings surely never received a more magnificent exposition; and we need not wonder that Dr. Johnson, with his high-toned toryism, referred to it exultingly, especially to prove that that political theory was of earlier origin than the era of the Stuart kings, this play having been composed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth.[2] But it must be remembered that Shakespeare speaks dramatically; and, while he devotes this lofty strain of poetry to kingly power jure divino [i.e. by divine right], he shows the insufficiency of the doctrine in the actual working of the government; and, what is more important, he puts it in the mouth of a king, the sacred promise of whose coronation-oath had been violated by wilful misrule, and who forgot that, if the doctrine of the divine right of royalty gave him power over his people, it imposed an awful responsibility to God, that could not be neglected without peril. The evil tidings of growing disloyalty and rebellion came full and fast upon the unhappy Richard; and, after some fitful flashes of resolution and royal pride, he sinks into that strain of melancholy – For heaven’s sake, let us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings. . . . [Quotes 3.2.155-70]

King Richard is beginning to feel that he is a man; and, as chastisement brings this change across his spirit, our feelings yearn towards him. When he encounters Bolingbroke, he recovers, in some degree, the decorum of a kingly demeanour, but the sense of his degradation, the fall of his pride, breaks out again: ‘O God! O God! that e’er this tongue of mine . . . ‘ [Quotes 3.3.133-40]. He is brought to London, still

 Henry Reed, History as Tragedy in Richard II 245 a king, but, in truth, a captive; and a deeper compassion is inspired by that beautiful description of the entry into the city, which is spoken by the Duke of York. While Bolingbroke’s return was hailed with the joyful greetings of all voices of the people — ‘Men’s eyes / Did scowl on Richard; no man cried, God save him ... ‘ [Quotes 5.2.2736]. Richard resigns his throne, and is also deposed by the Parliament; or rather, it is through such formalities, that Bolingbroke dethrones him, and seizes the succession. The deposition scene in Westminster Hall, as Shakespeare has represented it, shows the last struggle of Richard’s fading majesty – his unsteady mind running off, perpetually in wayward motions of fancy and feeling – shrinking from the final and irrevocable expression of consent to relinquish the crown – spending what strength was left in words. Meditating on the annihilation of his royalty, and yet dreading the necessity of the slightest effort in word or deed, there comes from the very bottom of his heart that wild and piteous wish: ‘Oh! that I were a mockery king of snow . . . ‘ [Quotes 4.1.260-2]. The crown is no longer on the brow of Richard; the sceptre is no longer in his hand; and the dark shadow of his tragic death is, to my imagination, thrown distinctly forward in the few stern words in which Bolingbroke pronounces the ominous command – ‘Go, some of you, convey him to the Tower’ [4.1.316]. Richard is soon removed to the dungeon of Pomfret Castle. The prison-scene of a dethroned king seldom fails to be the death-scene. In what way he was deprived of life is doubtful; whether by the slow misery of famine, as the poet Gray has represented, – Close by the regal chair Fell Thirst and Famine scowl A baleful smile upon their baffled guest,[3]

or by the violence of assault, as in the tragedy. The gentle and lofty morality of Shakespeare was never more finely shown than in this, – that before Richard’s soul is summoned from earth, there is added to the utterance of his anguish the contrite confession of a misspent life. You may remember how, in the tragedy of King Lear, the crazed mind of the ‘child-changed father’ [4.7.16] was soothed and healed, not only by Cordelia’s voice, but by the remediate virtue of soft music. In the dungeon scene in Richard the Second, the poet has likewise appealed to the power of music for the different purpose of moving to a healthy wakefulness a distracted, I may say, a delirious, conscience. A sound of rude music reaches the imprisoned king; he listens in that mood in which the fancy in solitude and sorrow is so quickly apprehensive of all, even chance, impressions, and then exclaims – ‘How sour sweet music is, / When time is broke, and no proportion kept!’ [Quotes 5.5.42-9]. When his thoughts run on into the conscious misery of his downfall, still the music calls forth a kindly feeling and a blessing; for he thinks of it as the last tribute of some humble and still loyal subject, who is lingering with affection about his prison walls: ‘This music mads me, let it sound no more . . .’ [Quotes 5.5.60-6]. Richard meets the murderous assault of Exton and the armed servants with prompt and manly valour; and his last words are expressive of the remanent feeling of royalty, and of his chastened and restored humanity.

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That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire, That staggers thus my person. . . . [Quotes 5.5.108-12]

Thus it is that Shakespeare – a great historian – teaches how tragedy – ‘the power and divinity of suffering’ – can bring the weak, the wilful, and wicked to a better mind, and can win for them a just sympathy; so that one would fain close the story of this reign in the same compassionate spirit with which Froissart, who was an eye-witness of it, ends his chronicle of that period of English history by saying: – ‘King Richard was buried at Langley. God pardon his sins and have mercy on his soul!’4 (158-80)

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William Watkiss Lloyd, the political morality of Richard II 1856

From The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare. The Text Carefully Revised with Notes by Samuel Weller Singer ... The Life of the Poet and Critical Essays on the Plays by William Watkiss Lloyd . . . [2nd edition] (10 vols., London, 1856). Volume IV. William Watkiss Lloyd (1813–93) was bred to a career in commerce, eventually becoming a partner in the London tobacco firm of his cousins; classical and Shakespearian scholarship, however, was his true love, and, since he had never attended university, he spent every moment of his hard-won leisure educating himself in languages and literature. In 1864 he retired from business, devoting himself with indefatigable industry and self-discipline to classical and Shakespearian scholarship. Lloyd wrote a life and a series of introductions to the plays that came out initially in Samuel Weller Singer’s second edition of the dramatist’s works; Lloyd later collected these and published them separately as Essays on the Life and Plays of Shakespeare (London, 1858). The essays alone without the life were then several times republished. Despite the clotted and abstract prose in which it is sometimes couched, Lloyd’s Shakespearian scholarship is generally sound, and his critical observations are not without acuteness. In analyzing the political philosophy of Richard II (unlike Reed in the previous excerpt) Lloyd takes a strong position against Mowbray and against the ‘superstition’ of royal claims to divine right.

[From Lloyd’s ‘Critical Essay on King Richard II’. After a heavily packed account of such background matters as the relation of Richard II to Daniel’s Civil Wars (the writer thinks Daniel was the borrower), the problem of the relevance of the Essex rebellion to Shakespeare’s play, and Forman’s description of an earlier play on the same reign, Lloyd concludes that Shakespeare’s drama served as a kind of sequel or continuation of the lost play, which dramatized a prior phase of Richard’s life.] . . . Shakespeare makes Hereford charge Mowbray with ‘sluicing’ out Gloster’s soul ‘through streams of innocent blood’ [1.1.103], and York speak of him as beheaded — thus following his brother dramatist in the form of his death.[1]When therefore the

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play opens as a sequel and continuation, Richard is understood as guilty of his uncle’s murder, and the spectator is not left to learn it for the first time in the second scene. Hence Mowbray is the accomplice of Richard, and his instrument; and Bolingbroke attacks the reputation of the king through him, and bullies him through his proxy. Hence, even in these earlier scenes, where the demeanour of Richard is at least kingly and dignified in appearance, if not vigorous, there is indicated the taint of weakness, of facility in yielding to a bold front, as of insolence when the front is withdrawn or out of sight. The accusation would appear the more shameless, if the first play followed the Chronicles in setting forth how Bolingbroke had himself been in arms against the king, with Arundel who suffered for it after pardon revoked, and Warwick who was exiled, and with Gloster who was murdered. The very boldness of public defence of the memory of Gloster, apart from allusion to the circumstance of his death, expresses to the spectator familiar with the circumstances a spirit of most resolute effrontery, inasmuch as Gloster had at least been in arms against the king, whether justifiably or not. The next scene, between Gaunt and the Duchess of Gloster, states the issue distinctly of divine right and private wrong. It might seem that the action would gain in clearness if this scene preceded that which now opens the play, and thus informed the spectator of the relative position of the persons; the complicity of Mowbray and Richard, the conscious reluctance of the loyalty of Gaunt, the effrontery of Bolingbroke and the mere hollowness of his pretended attachment to Richard. But Shakespeare exhibits tone and character in speech and action, and leaves them — with what the spectator already knows — to tell for themselves. In the combat scene we can, however, with all this enlightenment, fully appreciate the dissimulation of Richard in folding Hereford in his arms, and that of Hereford in requesting to kiss his sovereign’s hand before engaging his sovereign’s accomplice. Hence is also intimated the timidity of Richard, as well as his ill counsel. He takes pains to reconcile wrangling lords, whose disagreement is rather to his interest; exposes the weakness of his will and power by having to permit his injunctions to be disregarded; deserts his instrument or accomplice by laying on him the heavier penalty of banishment for life, and this discourages all adherents; opposes to the high-pitched resolution of Hereford, whose ill-will he knows, but vacillating measures, — severe without reason ostensible, and then as unreasonably lenient, and suggesting treason by exacting the engagement to withhold from foreign plotting. In the fourth and fifth acts, Bolingbroke has changed places with Richard, and has to play a part in very similar circumstances. He, like Richard, stands as arbiter while turbulent-spirited barons give each other the lie, and challenge proof by combat. But Henry speaks little, and then decisively; he looks on with that pause and taciturnity that the chroniclers more than once remark of him, and is evidently not ill pleased at the dissension. No aside is introduced to indicate this, — no dialogue specially to explain it. Shakespeare set the fact before the eyes of the spectators, and presumed that to them it would be self-evident. This policy of a sovereign at the head of a confederacy of powerful allies, whether kings or nobles, is indicated as current kingcraft by Homer himself, both when Jove looks on quiet and with complacency at the gods debasing and vexing themselves by personal conflict [Iliad, VIII, 1-27; XX, 19-30], and when

 William Watkiss Lloyd, the Political Morality of Richard II 249 Ulysses and Achilles quarrelled, and Agamemnon looked on well pleased [Iliad, XIX, 145-237]. Already the spirit of Henry IV was bodied forth in this earlier play, and the action of Bolingbroke here corresponds with the policy that is constantly pursued but only coldly stated by him in his lecture on kingcraft to his son, — his inculcation of the necessity to keep the barons exercised in foreign war, to prevent them indulging their spirit of violence against himself and his weak title. In the last act, again Henry has to entertain the charge of his loyalest and best ally against his disloyal and dangerous son; and York urging the punishment of Aumerle on Bolingbroke is in the same relative position as Gaunt giving a party verdict in the council of Richard for the banishment of his own son Bolingbroke. Richard takes Gaunt at his word too eagerly, with little thought or consideration for his true feelings, and still does so in a manner to gain no influence by decision. Bolingbroke is so far stern as to assert his vigour, and though intending to relent from the first to the prayers of the duchess, enforces persevering supplication; while, by relenting at last, he rewards York’s loyalty, granting his true hopes and wishes, in denying his suit, and we do not doubt obtains thereafter an attached adherent in Aumerle. In the last scene of all, we see him among friends and enemies, bold, promising, clement, and dissimulating, as occasion asks. The realm of England assuredly has passed from a child’s caprice to the vigorous sway of a grown and exercised man. In this play as in King John the central interest, despite the special title of the individual king, is still strictly national; national as expressing the difficulties of the country in the special conjuncture of such a reign as that of Richard, and combating as best it may, but at best only to fall again into turmoil and desolation. Richard II is in all his circumstances a contrast to John. His title is undoubted in seniority of birth and through long generations and successions; and acceding to the throne a boy of eleven years old he occupied it for twenty years and more, strong in the prestige of descent and sanctioned right. Weakness, wantonness, and extravagance are unable to resist the temptation of his position and opportunities; and private rights, common justice, public wealth and public honour, are at last compromised to an intolerable extent. The murder of the Duke of Gloucester, the administration by upstarts to the disgust of a nobility too powerful to be neglected, the blank charters, the seizure of the inheritance of Hereford, the Irish war slackening for want of funds nevertheless, possessions won by the Black Prince basely yielded upon compromise, the realm itself let in farm, alienate alike commons and nobles; and crowning all, an individual enemy is wrought to the highest exasperation, and that one is most injured who has all the personal and political qualifications for wielding and ordering the gathered discontent, to take advantage of a favourable moment like the absence in Ireland, and the consenting chances of delaying winds. The national aspect of the quarrel is fairly brought forward by Hereford’s proud assertion of his nationality though banished, and by Gaunt’s eulogy of England, by much of the plaint of the discontented Lords, and by the reflection of the last scene on the murder of Richard bringing obloquy on this famous land. The conscientious hesitations of York and Gaunt bring the difficulty to its plainest issue. Gaunt is bewildered; he bows to the right divine; and when the deputy of heaven administers injustice, he sees no outlet but to leave the remedy to heaven. Here the strongest exposition of the right

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divine of the anointed king is recognized by the subject, as claimed by the king himself. This repeated emphasis is laid on the virtue of the consecrating balm by Richard, his adherents, and partizans. This is a trait suggested by the detail of Richard’s coronation; the traditional anointing which has been solemnized, in deference to weak minds, as gravely, if not quite so grotesquely, in our own times. Not till he is on his death’s bed, and at his death hour, and belonging more to another world than this, does the old duke give full way to his indignation, and then in language only of prophecy, or at most of reproof and rebuke, addressed to the king himself, by no means in sanction of resistance in any form. York, on whose narrower mind the weakness of age tells more, would restrain even this — the blindest loyalty is the essence of his very nature; he has borne every form of most exaggerated injustice, but the mere cumulative power of a last instance turns the scale, or sets it on the turn, and outstepping Gaunt, he entertains at last the idea of cancelled allegiance. He allows himself to admit the thought of trying royal rights and private by the same standard, and pleading the precedent of the king’s own act against himself. When the last step is fully taken, the servility of his nature subjects him as absolutely to Henry as to Richard before. The instinct of simple self-defence is sufficient for the other lords, and they rush at once into rebellion. The results of this alternative are fairly set forth. Remedy is sought altogether irregularly, and through broken oaths and laws. The country, to rid itself of a tyrant, flies to a deliverer who is utterly unscrupulous, who will make those who take part with him accessaries to deception, fraud, and ultimately murder. Thus have tyrannies ever been founded; whenever national self-control and self-administration are out of the question from mere ignorance, credulousness, sloth, or general passion and selfseeking, or from faction disabling the otherwise capable, the first great emergency or terror drives public support at full tide to some unprincipled man of vigour, who is able to stem the difficulty he may have had more or less hand in fomenting; and whose crimes, or the mere falseness of whose position relatively to a section of his subjects, prepares for a succession of the same evils that he was called in to put an end to. Thus the tyranny of Richard is brought to an end by a catastrophe that introduces a broken succession, and entails the long horrors of the wars of the Roses. This is solemnly and pointedly foretold in the protest of the Bishop of Carlisle. The knot of the story is handed over, therefore, by the play unloosed; or, more correctly, it is loosened by a catastrophe that necessarily induces new entanglements. The play accomplishes the fate and fall of Richard II that gives its name; but it is left to future histories to show how far the general course of England’s weal has been permanently advanced, or what new evils are to take their rise from the very efforts that abated the old. The strong vitality which the play exhibits as belonging to the feeling of legitimacy and divine right in England, is announcement of the difficulties that must arise from infringing it, however urgent and even unavoidable may be the necessity. Such blind royalism as that of Gaunt and of York does not vanish with a generation, or with two; and whether reasonable or not, its existence is an element that cannot be neglected when the policy of a public course is in question. The continuance under such rule as that of Richard is set forth by the poet as clearly out of the question for men with the spirit of Englishmen; the shamefulness and degradation to the island of such a reign

 William Watkiss Lloyd, the Political Morality of Richard II 251 is painted vividly; yet the available means for escaping from it are such as to entail most serious evils. Certainly there is no inculcation in the play of tame submission to tyranny; we honour, and we are incited to honour, Gaunt and York most when their spirits rise highest, nor can we discern a course which York, with his wretched capacity and in his position, could follow with more advantage to the nation. The agency of such rescue as comes by the unjust Bolingbroke brings however the curse of injustice with it, and thus much is at least thoroughly worked out in the play; — the tyranny that is fostered by the rulers’ overweening conception of divine right and hereditary succession, [to the] mischief of which subjects who admit and encourage the idea are plainly parties and accomplices, and the certainty that this tyranny will drag down its own destruction by whatever instruments, good or bad, though with no security that the mischief will end there. The political philosophy of monarchical institutions is illustrated by dramatic example to that point at which the theory of constitutional government has birth; — to the recognized duty of the governed and those who can instruct and influence them, to fix a solid and respected government on a base independent of such vain and delusive superstitions as divine right or indefeasible claim to false prerogative right in the governors, and to harmonize the conditions of tranquil demise of power with efficiency and probity in its exercise. It is a conclusion for weak King Richard, — ____ whate’er I am, Nor I, nor any man, that but man is With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased With being nothing. [5.5.38-41]

Individually, or associated in states, it is well to have better hope for humanity, and struggle in faith for some sounder ultimate outcome at least than this, and much is to be learnt from the play before us of the true course to be given to exertion. Thus Shakespeare, drawing from nature, exhibited as forcibly as possible the natural fact of the tyranny that results from the assumption and admission of divine and indefeasible right in an hereditary sovereign. With like copy before him he set forth as true a model of the national miseries that are to be expected when the deposition of such a tyrant is carried through by a confederacy of selfish ambition, meanness, cruelty, and murder. Contrasted with such enemies, imbecility [i.e. weakness] is compassionated, and errors are palliated, and the superstition of slavish submission grows respectable or honourable, and the contest can only be lulled to be again renewed, and give matter for a series of hurtling dramatic histories. But one clear discovery overgleams all other false and lurid splendours, and it is conveyed not doubtfully that the primal mischief lies in the conditions of society which engender both tyrant and slave, or worse still sycophant, and which cause the task of abating the nuisance when no longer tolerable to be left for guilt-acquainted hands to undertake. What these conditions are a child may understand from the dilemma that is set forth in the play, and a political philosopher can only enlarge on, for they are nought else than the defect and absence of the Virtues, of Justice and Courage, of Prudence and of Moderation, thoroughly diffused among the population and developed not merely in private but in public efficiency.

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In the meantime, with a prospect for a nation and for the world of ages of instability and conflict, there is something not uncheering for the present in the mere triumph of vigour and apprehensiveness; for the way of the world shows that the fierce and the active are sooner disciplined by the force of varied events and their capacity of profiting by experience, than the torpid and the lax are braced and excited to energy. The best commentator on the character of Richard would be a great actor; and the same remark applies to other characters in this play. It is scarcely possible, in reading the play to oneself, to appreciate the exact feeling which dictates words that in literal acceptation are at variance with the feeling of the speaker. Henry speaks words of truth and repentance when he purposes to wash off his guilt in the Holy Land, and yet his speech is dictated by politic hypocrisy; precisely as at the commencement of the ensuing play he smoothly opens the council with happy words on the end of civil conflict, while he all the while has letters in his pocket and the messenger waiting his summons, to announce the contumacy of the Percies. The reader, or the spectator, must form his own judgment how far a character is to be understood as wilfully deceiving others, or unconsciously deceiving himself; and the poet appears to desire to reduce the positive indications of insincerity to the lowest degree, and leave as much as possible to the sagacity of his audience, recognizing motive in the flow and rhythm of lines which in purport are at entire variance with these motives. Thus the hollow loyalty of the challenger, Bolingbroke, in the first act, is expressed, but not in words; by what he does not say it appears, rather than by what he does; or by what he says as betraying by tone and occasion, that it must be interpreted by reverse. I am inclined to think that this refinement is sometimes overwrought, even for the spectator, now the actors are gone who enjoyed the author’s own instructions, or could dispense with them; but of course we cannot impeach Shakespeare, who wrote for the stage, for not considering a reader. The interpretation of many scenes can only be correctly obtained by the same study that an actor must give of his entire part, and that only an accomplished actor is capable of giving. His rendering and intonation of one scene is governed by those which he knows must follow, but that the reader for the first time is of course ignorant of, and gaining no aid from previous scenes, is unprepared for when they arrive. So refined is the finesse that I believe that, in some instances, the clue to the spirit of the speaker is only obtainable from the impression of the flow and rhythm of his words in actual recitation. Simply on this account the purport of much of the first act of Richard II is obscure to the reader, and the difficulty is enhanced by the assumption of his familiarity with circumstances that perished for him with the earlier play; and if Richard II is ever to be successfully revived on the stage, I think that a chorus-prologue should recite these — but who shall write it? It is curious to extract from the chroniclers their views and statements of the character and feelings of Richard. The general tone of Richard after the invasion is derived from the account of an eye witness — the author of the metrical history [i.e. Créton] that was accessible in Stow. Thus, at the meeting with Salisbury — ‘At the meeting of the king and the earl, instead of joy, there was very great sorrow. Tears, lamentations, sighs, groans, and mourning quickly broke forth. Truly it was a piteous sight to behold their looks and countenances, and woeful meeting.’[2] The germ of

 William Watkiss Lloyd, the Political Morality of Richard II 253 another fine scene is thus expressed — ‘The king went up again upon the walls and saw that the army was two bowshots from the castle; then he, together with those that were with him, began new lamentations.’[3] The account that Froissart gives of these contemporary events is full of inaccuracies, all set forth with that easy and entertaining circumstantiality that sometimes marks truth, and sometimes the designed imitation of it, and sometimes nothing more than a lively imagination that goes partners with memory, share and share alike. He makes the earl place himself in the power of Richard with only eleven attendants. ‘Consider,’ he pleasantly proceeds, ‘the great risk the Earl of Derby ran, for they could as easily have slain him when in the castle, (which they should have done, right or wrong,) and his companions, as birds in a cage.’[4] The ensuing conversation, as he gives it, respecting the journey to London, is traceable in the play, and then an anecdote follows of a favourite greyhound quitting the king to fawn on his enemy, that is not unrelated to the groom’s description of the pride of pace of the transferred roan Barbary. The free speech of the Bishop of Carlisle is from Holinshed, and so also is his arrest; his pardon I do not find, but the spirit of it is given in the reception to favour by King Henry of Jenico Dartois, a Gascoigne knight, the last of Richard’s servants who obstinately persisted in wearing his cognizance, the white hart, still seen in his hall at Westminster, and suffered prison in consequence, and all men thought would have lost his life. This is the type of the one faithful groom, whose attachment vindicates at least the instincts of humanity, in the last scene of the weak and guilty, but still compassionable king. Hall, who wrote under Edward VI, and is one of the authorities of Holinshed, describes the king in the Tower as ‘being for sorrow withered, broken, and in manner half dead,’[5] — ‘desperate, pensive, and full of dolour, so that, in only hope of his life and safeguard, he agreed to all things that of him were demanded.’[6] Shakespeare sufficiently intimates this motive for Richard’s submissiveness, but he spares him the humiliation of admitting it, and, in the words of Hall, ‘of beseeching the duke to grant him the safeguard of his life, and to have compassion of him now, as he before that time had been to him bountiful and magificent.’[7] So, again, the pusillanimity of the deposed king is somewhat relieved in the added scene by his repulse of the base-minded Northumberland, and his rejection, however indirectly, of the last indignity of reading openly the confession of his grievous crimes; but this is distinctly in contradiction to the histories, where he submits to all, ‘and then, with a lamentable voice and a sorrowful countenance, delivered his sceptre and crown to the Duke of Lancaster, requiring every person severally by their names to grant and assent that he might live a private and a solitary life, with the sweetness whereof he would be so well pleased, that it should be a pain and a punishment to him to go abroad.’[8] Sooth to say, there are few of the historical personages whom Shakespeare has brought upon the stage whom he has not found it necessary to represent more favourably than history bears out. Another example from the present play may be adduced, referring to the sentiment of honour and loyalty which the idea of the drama required to be at once embodied and idealized.

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The sacred indignation of York at the treason of his son Aumerle is found in the chronicle in no more venerable form than this: — Thou traitor thief, thou hast been a traitor to King Richard; and wilt thou now be false to thy cousin King Henry? Thou knowest well enough that I am thy pledge borowe and mayne-perner, body for body and land for goods, in open parliament, and goest thou about to seek my death and destruction; by the holy rood, I had liefer see thee strangled on a gibbet.[9]

Hall again, and not his abbreviator, Holinshed, is very exactly followed in the death scene of Richard; even the very words are preserved — ‘The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee together’;[10] but the poet substitutes a beating of the keeper for a blow on the head with the carving-knife, and reduces the number of assassins slain from four, out of eight, to two. The chronicler, in his own reflections on the story, and in those he ascribes to the French king, correctly strikes that note that was to be made by Shakespeare the key of his composition — the astounding downfal of a consecrated monarch; but how much the advantage lies on the side of the poet, both in fairness and consistency, will appear by the extract: — What trust is in this world, what surety man hath of his life, and what constancy is in the mutable commonalty, all men may apparently perceive, by the ruin of this noble prince; which being an indubitable king, crowned and anointed by the spiritualty, honoured and exalted by the nobility, obeyed and worshipped of the common people, was suddenly deceived by them which he most trusted, betrayed by them whom he had preferred, and slain by them whom he had brought up and nourished; so that all men may perceive and see that fortune weigheth princes and poor men all in one balance.[11]

The sudden change of Richard’s demeanour, the conversion of his character, ensues on danger and disaster, as that of John on temptation and crime. The crisis expresses the revulsion of a life and death, a progress of body as well as mind in their most intimate and corresponsive dependence. Res sacra est miser,[12] and the offender who is so far subdued as to be utterly wretched, is felt to have vindicated the better tendency in his nature, and to have made some compensation, and to claim a commiserating tear; and Richard, in his abject, self-abandonment, acquires a touch of dignity from the appearance that he is not so much actuated by alarm or caution, as divesting himself in hurried shame and self-disdain, of all the trappings and recollections of a course that was a mistake, and an absurdity, and a falsehood throughout, and is irrevocable now by any aid from earth to heaven. The preparation for the continuation of the history through the reign of Henry IV appears in the prominence given to Northumberland, the introduction of Hotspur his son, and the prophecy of Richard, and in the allusions to the excesses yet promised, of the Prince of Wales, the future Henry V; lastly, in the allusion to the penitential crusade, a topic that recurs more than once in the succeeding play. These anticipations are paired with as marked a reminiscence in Henry IV, where Hotspur recals the very

 William Watkiss Lloyd, the Political Morality of Richard II 255 words that are put into the mouth of Bolingbroke — of ‘gentle Harry Percy,’ and ‘fair cousin,’ and ‘when my infant fortune comes to years’ [1 Henry IV, 1.3.253-4]. It is in the first act, and in the conclusion of the latest scene, that we trace the chief indications of early origin in Richard II in couplets, alternate rhymes, and an occasional limp, an occasional stiltedness and formality of the verse, that remind [us] of the first King John [i.e. The Troublesome Reign], and confirm the conjecture of a similar antecedent here. In these respects, as well as in a certain desultoriness in its conduct, and a flatness of effect, dependent on the large space occupied by weak, however well defined characters, the play is secondary to King John, and in general force, variety, and balance, cannot be considered on a par with it, still less, notwithstanding all its excellencies, can it be placed in the most distinguished rank of the Shakespearian collection. (IV, 522-31)

33

Richard Grant White, Richard II, Daniel’s Civil Wars, and the play’s date 1859

From The Works of William Shakespeare: The Plays Edited from the Folio of MDCXXIII, with Various Readings from All the Editions and All the Commentators, Notes, Introductory Remarks, A Historical Sketch of the Text, An Account of the Rise and Progress of the English Drama, A Memoir of the Poet, and An Essay Upon His Genius (12 vols., Boston, 1857-66). Volume VI (1859). Richard Grant White (1821–85) grew up in Brooklyn, was educated at the University of the City of New York, studied law, and was called to the bar in 1845. Since his first love, however, was the arts, he turned to letters as a career and contributed to many journals. His most notable contribution to Shakespearian scholarship was the ambitious edition of Shakespeare, rigorously based on the First Folio, from which the following extract is drawn. Had he been able to travel to England for original research and more personal contact with his British coevals in dramatic and textual studies (he visited Britain only once), he might have become one of the most acute and respected Shakespearians of the century; he was among the earliest, for instance, to detect the spuriousness of J. P. Collier’s forgeries. His Studies in Shakespeare (see No. 45 below), consisting of fugitive pieces that had appeared earlier in periodical form, was published posthumously in 1886. Although White was bibliographically incorrect in his account of the different versions of Daniel’s long poem (see note [2] below), he nevertheless broke new scholarly ground by recognizing that the relationship between The Civil Wars and Richard II was more complex than had hitherto been supposed; he was also one of the first to arrive at a date for the play (1594–95) that is now almost universally accepted.

[From ‘Introduction’ to Richard II] . . . Daniel published in 1595 The First Fowre Bookes of the ciuile wanes betweene the two houses of Lancaster and Yorke, the first three books of which chiefly relate to the events of Richard II’s reign. A certain resemblance was inevitable between a play and a poem which celebrated the same historical incidents; but they contain a few passages

 Richard Grant White, Richard II, Daniel’s Civil Wars, and the Play’s Date 257 of a likeness nearer than that which was the necessary result of the identity of their subjects. This has been noticed before, but hitherto without such an examination of the original edition of Daniel’s poem as to make the resemblance, which is obvious to every reader of both authors, of any value as contemporary testimony to the date when Shakespeare’s play was written.1 The first edition of Daniel’s Civil Wars was published, as we have already seen, in 1595; but in the same year a second edition came out; and this was not a mere reimpression of the former, as appears by a comparison of the two. The poem had been carefully revised for the second edition, though it was of the same date as the first: comparatively few stanzas were left untouched; many were rewritten; several were omitted; and some stanzas which appeared in this edition were then printed for the first time. Now it is only in those parts of the poem which had been rewritten for this second edition of 1595, or which were newly written for it, that there appears any resemblance to Shakespeare’s play which might not be justly ascribed to chance in the case of two men writing in the language of the same period upon the same subject, and going for their facts to the same authority.[2] The first instance in point refers to the mutual accusation of treason between Bolingbroke and Norfolk. . . . [At this point White undertakes to illustrate the dependence of Daniel’s revised version on Shakespeare, and to show that the original version shows no such dependence, by comparing the treatment of the Mowbray-Bolingbroke quarrel in both.] . . . Thus the parallel passages [between the poem and the play], as unlike as it was possible for them to be in their first condition, were brought into conformity of spirit and incident by alteration and addition on the part of Daniel. . . . [White now goes on to apply the same comparative method to the incident of Henry IV’s reaction to Exton’s murder of Richard, in which the new king disavows responsibility for the crime.] . . . There are other variations of the same nature, though of much less consequence. These, however, appear all sufficient to warrant the conclusion that when Daniel first published the Civil Wars in 1595 Shakespeare’s Richard the Second had not been produced; but that previous to the publication of the second edition of the former in the same year,[3] the historical play had made its appearance, and left a deep impression upon the mind of Daniel. We may therefore safely place the composition of Richard the Second in the latter part of the year 1594 or the beginning of 1595. This period accords entirely with the indications of the play itself, the style of which and the cast of thought belong to a time when Shakespeare had not yet attained the fulness of his powers either as a dramatist or a poet, and yet was rapidly approaching that rich middle period of his productive life, which gave us the two parts of Henry the Fourth, As You Like It, Much Ado about Nothing, Hamlet, and Troilus and Cressida. On its own evidence Richard the Second preceded King John, and perhaps The Merchant of Venice. After two quarto editions of this History had appeared in 1597 and 1598,[4] a third was published in 1608 with ‘new additions of the Parliament Sceane and the deposing of King Richard.’ Why the arraignment and deposition of Richard II were omitted in the performance and in the published text in 1598, when Elizabeth was still alive, and not in 1608, when James had reigned for five quiet years, the reader of the first part of these remarks need not be here informed.[5] The question has naturally arisen whether this Parliament Scene, which was first printed in 1608, was a part of the play

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as originally written, or an addition made some time after the death of Elizabeth. The point has hitherto been left to be the subject of fluctuating opinion, though it might have been decided by an examination of the quarto versions. The quartos of 1597 and 1598 present a part of Act IV, Sc. 1, as follows, beginning with the last four lines of the Bishop of Carlisle’s speech: – North. Abbot. Car.

It will the wofullest division prove, That ever fell upon this cursed earth: Prevent it, resist it, and let it not be so, Least child, child’s children crie against you woe.6 Well have you argued sir, and for your paines, Of capital treason we arrest you here: My lord of Westminster, be it your charge, To keep him safely till his day of trial. Exeunt. Manet West, Carleill, Aumerle. A woefull pageant have we here beheld. The woes to come; the children yet unborne, Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorne

[4.1.146-53,321-3]

Now here we have the Abbot saying that he has beheld a woeful pageant (the deposition) which, according to this text, he has not beheld, and the Bishop of Carlisle repeating in the first words of one speech the very idea which occurs in the last words of the speech that he has just spoken. But in the 4to. of 1608, and the folio, these two speeches of Carlisle’s are separated by one hundred and fifty-six lines which are spoken by the actors in the pageant to which the Abbot alludes. Consequently it is clear that the deposition formed a part of the play as it was originally cast; and the observant reader will see that the whole of this first Scene of the first [an error for ‘fourth’] Act, in which the deposition occurs, is homogeneous in style, and was evidently written at one time. It is possible, even, that it was performed when the play was first produced, (for Shakespeare was too prudent to write what he knew would be suppressed,) and that it was interdicted both to players and printers on account of the renewed anxiety caused by the bull issued by Pope Clement VIII in 1596, in which he exhorted Queen Elizabeth’s subjects to depose her. The deposition having been a part of the play as it was originally written, we have yet further evidence that the play was composed in 1595; for after the appearance of the Pope’s bull in 1596, there could not have been the slightest hope that the representation of the dethronement of an English sovereign in full Parliament would be permitted. The text of this play has not reached us in a very satisfactory condition. There are, it is true, not many passages in which the sense has been obscured by corruption; but those in which the carelessness of transcribers or printers has impaired the rhythm, or, at least, left the verse defective, are very numerous. . . . This play is quite unequal in style, and it seems to me not improbable that Shakespeare, according to a practice of his time, had some needless aid in writing it. It is possible that as Daniel was engaged on the same subject at the same time, he not

 Richard Grant White, Richard II, Daniel’s Civil Wars, and the Play’s Date 259 only talked over the subject with Shakespeare, but furnished him some of the rhymed passages; and from such an intercourse may have arisen the similarity between some passages in the play and in the first edition of the Civil Wars. The period of the action of this play is much briefer than that of either of the other Histories.[7] It occupies but two years – from 1398, when Richard was thirty-two years old, to 1400, when he was put to death. In the proper putting of Richard the Second upon the stage, accuracy of costume has an importance not generally [given] its due. For splendor in apparel, carried to the most lavish expense and the extreme of foppery, marked the personal habits of the monarch, and, consequently, of his courtiers and all people of ‘fashion and fortune’ in his reign. Richard himself had one coat or robe the cost of which was estimated at thirty thousand marks; which enormous value has been with probability attributed chiefly to the jewels with which, according to the fashion of the day, it was embroidered. Authorities for the costumes abound; but the most complete and satisfactory are found in the manuscript Metrical History of the Deposition of Richard II, written by a gentleman of the household to Charles VI, of France, who was in attendance upon Richard during the period which he describes, and which history (preserved in the Harleian MSS.) is copiously illustrated.[8] The more important of these illustrations were engraved for Mr. Knight’s Pictorial Shakespeare [No. 24]. (VI, 138-45)

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G.G. Gervinus, the characterization and artistry of Richard II 1863

From Shakespeare Commentaries . . . Translated Under the Author’s Superintendence by F. E. Bunnètt . . . (2 vols., London, 1863), Volume I; revised edition (London, 1877). George Gottfried Gervinus (1805–71), German historian and critic, is probably best known in his own country for his five-volume Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung (1835–42), the first comprehensive work of its kind combining erudition with a polished literary style. Shortly after being appointed a professor of history and literature at Göttingen (on the high promise of volume I of the History), he bravely protested against the constitutional violations of Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover, and was ejected from his post. A peripatetic phase in Heidelberg, Darmstadt, and Rome followed, but Gervinus settled ultimately in Heidelberg, where he became an honorary professor in 1844, devoting himself with patriotic zeal to the cause of religious and political unity in Germany. During the period 1849–52 he composed his four-volume commentary on Shakespeare, subsequently republished in two volumes; Bunnètt’s translation, authorized and encouraged by Gervinus himself (appearing first in 1863, then in a revised one-volume edition of 1877), rapidly established the reputation of Gervinus in the English-speaking world as a major authority on the playwright and as a thematic critic who, in the words of Bunnètt, ‘perceived one ruling idea pervading every play, linking every part, every character, every episode, to one single aim’ (1877 edition, p. vi). Gervinus also published Handel and Shakespeare (1868), a less successful volume that pursued various aesthetic and intellectual analogies between the composer and the dramatist. The section of Shakespeare Commentaries reprinted below comes from the revised edition of 1877; for convenience I give the pagination of the 1863 edition also.

[From ‘Richard II’ (a section of the chapter entitled ‘Historical Plays’)] The date of Richard II has been already pointed out; we conjectured that it was written soon after Richard II. Passionate high-strained passages, one even (Act V, sc. 3) which treats a tragic subject almost humorously, are written in rhyming couplets: alternate rhymes and alliteration also occur. In its profound design, and in its characters, as well

 G.G. Gervinus, the Characterization and Artistry of Richard II 261 as in the treament of it in conformity with the historical story, the play shows certain progress when compared with Richard III. Setting aside stage effect, Coleridge justly calls it the first and most admirable of Shakespeare’s purely historical plays, in which the history forms the story, and not, as in Henry IV, merely leads it [see No. 20 above]. The historical events which Richard II comprises extend from September 1398 to February 1400. Everything essential in the events is strictly taken from Holinshed’s Chronicle; the only liberty Shakespeare allowed himself is in those externals which he never regarded when he could make them serve poetic objects. . . . [Here Gervinus discusses the lost play on Richard II which Forman saw at the Gobe in 1611, and concludes that this must have been the drama revived in 1601 in support of the Essex conspirators.] . . . For Shakespeare’s drama, though certainly a revolutionary picture, is of so mild a character, and it demands such hearty sympathy for the dethroned king, and most especially in the very scene of the deposition, that it would appear unsuitable for such an object [i.e. as encouraging rebellion]; besides, in the editions before 1601 the whole scene of the deposition of Richard in the fourth act, although it must have been written by the poet at the outset, was not even printed, and certainly therefore was not acted in Elizabeth’s reign. Nothing, however, is more natural than that from the extraordinarily practical character of these historical plays, even those of Shakespeare should be applied to such a purpose. In the last century, Shakespeare’s Richard II was performed at the time that the mercantile class in England were pressing for a war with Spain, and Robert Walpole opposed this popular policy; all the passages which concerned the restraint of the king among his flatterers were referred to Walpole, and were received with loud vociferations: others, upon the bankruptcy of the broken-hearted king, were heard with death-like and reverential silence.[1] Richard II must be read in a series with Henry IV and V in order thoroughly to understand it. The finest touches for the explanation of characters and actions in the first play of the series are to be met with in passages of the third and fourth plays of the series, and we might almost say are intentionally concealed in them. The principal character of the fourth piece, Henry V, is already mentioned in the first, that is in Richard II, and his wild youth is pointed out at a period when he was only twelve years old. The character of the Duke of Aumerle, who plays no brilliant part in Richard II after his mother has saved him from the punishment of high treason, and has prayed to God to make ‘her old son new’ [5.3.146], is again silently brought forward by the poet in Henry V, a new man indeed, who has become great with the heroic age, and dies the death of a hero at Agincourt. Thus the most delicate threads entwine around the four plays, uniting them together; other allusions equally delicate place this Lancastrian tetralogy in an opposite relation to that of York. The similarity of the historical events in the rise and fall of the two houses did not escape the poet; had he handled the history of the House of York, later in point of time, after instead of before the history of that of Lancaster, he would have had the opportunity of marking these similarities and relations even more sharply in both cases. Richard II appears in this tetralogy, as Henry VI did in the York. A young prince, not without fine human talents, surrounded by uncles and arrogant protectors, by favourites and protégés, in both cases brings the kingdom to ruin; both lose their hereditary throne through usurpers, and die by violence in prison. Bolingbroke undermines Richard’s throne in a similar manner

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to that in which York attacks that of Henry VI; the one falls perjured before he has obtained the last object of his ambitious path; the other reaches his aim through fortune and merit, and maintains it by estimable administration and repentant compensation. But retribution threatens the one usurping house as well as the other; domestic discord reigns in the family of Henry IV as among the sons of York under Edward IV. From this moment, however, the destinies of the two houses are sundered by a rigorous contrast, which we have pointed out before; from the ill-starred family circumstances under the Lancastrians rose Henry V, who in the midst of his wild youthful excesses took the grand resolution to restore to the English throne the splendour of the Edwards, whilst from the York house rose Richard III, who, in the midst of a career of warlike fame, forms the project of clearing for himself a way to the throne by a series of base actions. A great ruler in the one makes us forget by his virtues for a brief glorious period the misdeeds of the Lancastrians, in the other a bloody tyrant brings by his wickedness the utmost dishonour upon the house of York, and hurries it to ruin. As in these outer circumstances there is unmistakably a certain parallel between the two histories, we have also already frequently mentioned the similar idea which guided Shakespeare in the two tetralogies. The strife between merit and right for an unsettled crown might surely in Henry VI be called the leading, and at any rate the prominent thought; in Richard III it is replaced by a more ethical idea, which in this play somewhat interferes with its purely historical character; in Richard II, on the contrary, this thought is drawn from the historical matter, and is embraced by the poet with that perfect independence which enables him to form the historical material into a free work of art of a higher and more complete character than the history in itself affords. Richard II was the son of the Black Prince, Edward III’s brave eldest son. According to historical tradition he was most beautiful; and Shakespeare also, in contrasting him with Richard III, who is urged by his deformity to avenge himself on nature, has not unintentionally invested him with a beautiful form, which, according to Bacon, renders ‘him generally light-minded whom it adorns, and whom it moves;[2] he calls him in the lips of Percy ‘a sweet lovely rose’ [1 Henry IV, 1.3.175]. He gives him the outward features of his father, and allows us occasionally to perceive a mental likeness also: the mild nature of the lamb and the violence of the lion, which the poet speaks of as combined in the Black Prince, are both exhibited in him. The first is scarcely to be mistaken; it becomes visible even at the last moment in the many tokens of attachment which he receives at a time when it is dangerous to manifest it, and it is apparent after his death in the longing for him which is aroused in the adversaries who had conspired against him. The other quality is more hidden in single scattered traits. He appears throughout like a ‘young not colt’ [2.1.70], easily provoked, like a violent flame consuming itself quickly; he compares himself to the brilliant Phaeton, who, incapable and daring, tries to manage his refractory steeds; in the moment of misfortune the defiance of an innate nobility is aroused in the midst of his sorrow, and in his death he appears as ‘full of valour as of royal blood’ [5.5.113]. But this fine disposition is wholly obliterated; in the early season of his life and reign he has lost his reputation; he is surrounded by a troop of creatures and favourites, parasites and men who preyed on the kingdom, who stop his ear with flatteries, and poison it with wanton imaginations; who make him tyrannical and imperious, incapable of hearing a word

 G.G. Gervinus, the Characterization and Artistry of Richard II 263 of blame and admonition even from the lips of his dying uncle; men who made him shallow with Italian fashions, who surrounded him with every low vanity, and enticed him into ostentation and extravagance. In Henry IV his life and actions are described in a passage of greater length than our own play affords. ‘The skipping king,’ it says, ambled up and down With shallow jesters, and rash bavin wits, Soon kindled and soon burn’d: carded his state; Mingled his royalty with capering fools; Had his great name profaned with their scorns: And gave his countenance, against his name, To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push Of every beardless vain comparative: Grew a companion to the common streets, Enfeoff ’d himself to popularity: That being daily swallowed by men’s eyes, They surfeited with honey; and began To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much.

[1 Henry IV, 3.2.60-73]

Shakespeare has given us little or nothing in Richard II of scenes of this kind; only remotely can we perceive the intimate tone of the intercourse in which Aumerle and Bushy stood with the king and queen. The poet has left this merry frivolous society in the background, which perhaps, considering the play of Richard II by itself, would be a defect; but he had matter of too similar a character to depict in Henry IV, and he was obliged to avoid repetition; he gave the jovial picture to the cheerful play, and left it out of the tragic one. In its stead, most wisely, that he might not make the tragedy of the national history laughable, he placed the serious and tragic side of this conduct. Incited by those around him, Richard had caused his faithful, well-meaning uncle Gloster, who, according to historical tradition, had assumed the protectorship of the young king, to be murdered, and this made his remaining uncles, Lancaster and York, apprehensive for their safety, although, as the Chronicle says, they concealed the sting of their discontent. Impoverished by his companions, Richard sees his coffers empty, he has recourse to forced loans, to extortion of taxes, and to fines; and at last he lets the English kingdom as a tenure to his parasites, no longer a king, only a landlord of England. A traitor to this unsubdued land, he has by his contracts resigned the conquests of his father. At length he lays hand on private property, and seizes the possessions of the late old Lancaster and of his banished son, thus depriving himself of the hearts of the people and the nobles. The ruin of the impoverished land, the subversion of right, the danger of property, a revolt in Ireland, the arming of the nobles in self-defence; all these indications allow us to observe in the first two acts the growing seed of revolution which the misled king had scattered. The prognostication of the fall of Richard II is read by the voice of the people in the common signs of all revolutionary periods (Act II, sc. 4): –

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Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap, – The one, in fear to lose what they enjoy, The other, to enjoy by rage and war. [2.4.12-14]

Beyond the scattered touches and the insinuations which denote the inability of the king, and his wavering between unseasonable power and weakness, the poet has chosen only one event for greater dramatic prominence, and with this the catastrophe of Richard’s fate is united, namely, the knightly quarrel between Bolingbroke and Norfolk with which the play begins. Coleridge [No. 20] said of this scene that it seems introduced in order beforehand to depict the characters of Richard and Bolingbroke, and Courtenay [No. 23] was even bold enough to think it was only introduced because Shakespeare found it in the chronicle. But this was not the method of Shakespeare’s writing. Subsequently in Henry IV (Part II, Act IV, sc. 1) he has abundantly expressed in the plainest language that he began with this scene because it was the beginning of all the sufferings which fell upon King Richard and afterwards upon his dethroners. Norfolk’s son [Lord Mowbray] there says: O, when the king did throw his warder down, His own life hung upon the staff he threw; Then threw he down himself: and all their lives, That by indictment, or by dint of sword, Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.

[2 Henry IV, 4.1.123-7]

At all events, the scene, however necessary in itself, certainly serves essentially to place in opposition to each other, in their first decisive collision, the two main characters, Richard and Bolingbroke, the declining king yet in his power and glory, and the rising one in his misfortune and banishment. In his accusation of Norfolk, Bolingbroke besets the king remotely with hostile designs. The guilt of Gloster’s death rests in the public opinion upon the king and his associates; subsequently Aumerle emerges as the immediate instrument; the guilt of having known it and concealed it falls upon Norfolk alone, a guilt of which he accuses himself; but the popular hatred turns upon him as upon the king. Bolingbroke, as we learn expressly in the second part of Henry IV (Act IV, sc. 1), uses this circumstance to nourish the hatred and to draw upon himself the favour of the people, whilst he exhibits the Lancastrians honourably solititous about a sacred family matter. He knows that Norfolk is not guilty of the death of Gloster; but, brave as he is politic, he freely ventures to propose the judgment of God, for he removes in him the single powerful support of the king, and at the same time the enemy of his own family. The survivors of the murdered Gloster spur on the Lancastrians to revenge, their own security being concerned; the old Gaunt indeed commits vengeance to God, but his son Bolingbroke holds it far more certain if it is in his own human hand. The venerable old man, whom Shakespeare invests with riper years than history does, has transmitted to his son the elements which are blended together in his deeply reserved character. The hoary hero has borne in his heart the welfare of his fatherland, and his

 G.G. Gervinus, the Characterization and Artistry of Richard II 265 patriotic feelings obtain so much in his dying hour over his fidelity as a subject, that in words of the greatest enthusiasm for his glorious country he cuttingly reproaches the sinful Richard with what he has done with this ‘demi-Paradise’ [2.2.42]. Sorrow for the country, and sorrow for his banished son, hurried him to the grave. Mingled with his patriotic feeling we see family feeling and self-love; both are also strong in the son. The son’s far-stretching domestic policy accompanies and determines his whole life; his patriotic feeling breaks forth in the touching lament on his banishment, which justly has been called not only very beautiful, but very English. To both these traits is joined that diplomatic cunning which lies in the very recesses of his nature, and is therefore concealed without difficulty. This, too, the son appears to have inherited from his father; for shrewdness of purpose cannot be more delicately coupled with magnanimity than in the old Gaunt, who, in the council of state, gives his vote for the banishment of his son, which subsequently breaks his heart, in the idea of moving the rest to a milder judgment by his own too severe sentence. Similar in the deep reserve of his character is the delineation which Shakespeare has given of the son, who in one touch alone, in Richard II, appears without a mask, and who in all others, throughout the three plays, remains a riddle even to the attentive reader, until at length the last hour of life elicits a confession to his son. The same mysterious obscurity marks even the commencement scene between Bolingbroke and Norfolk. We have just intimated the designs and motives which actuate the former, but we have gathered them from subsequent disclosures; in the moment of action it is not clear at what he is aiming, and Norfolk’s bearing increases the obscurity. The voice of innocence and honour speaks in him mostly in his voluntary confessions, and no less so in his strong appeal to his fidelity towards the king. It goes so far that he does not attempt to raise the veil from the misdeed of which he is accused, not even after the king’s sentence of a dateless banishment has fallen on him ‘all unlocked for’ [1.3.155], when he hoped for other reward than this disgrace. The king, too, condemns him, we likewise learn at the end of Henry IV (Part II, Act IV, sc. 1), against his will, because of the general feeling against him, but the enthusiasm of popular favour was already directed to Bolingbroke, who at his departure behaves to the multitude as a condescending prince. The weak Richard, who Norfolk predicts will rue this deed, ignobly banishes for a lifetime the man whom he loves, and who would have been his most faithful support, and for a few years the other whom he hates, whose ambitious thoughts he fears, and whose banishment he has in his heart faithlessly resolved as limitless. He disturbs the combat between the two, whose peace he fears still more: he strikes his enemy and provokes him without making him harmless, and displays the helplessness of a man of a troubled conscience, who knows not the right occasion for mildness or severity. The chronicle sums up the faults of his government in these words: he showed too great kindness to his friends, too great favour to his enemies. Both are just. But in this case he shows in his severity towards his friend that he is inconsistent moreover, and he allows himself to be influenced by the power of opinion in an unessential point, when he neglected to attend to it in an essential one. Fully in the sense of the sentence quoted from the chronicle Shakespeare draws the political moral from Richard’s rule in the garden scene (Act III, sc. 4) with its simple allegory. The wise gardener cares to give ‘supportance to the bending twigs, which

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like unruly children make their sire stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight’ [3.4.30-2]; he cuts off the heads of too fast-growing sprays, that look too lofty on the commonwealth; he roots up the noisome weeds. Richard, who had not observed the first of these rules in his jealousy of Gloster, who had neglected the second in his too great favour to Bolingbroke, and the third in his too great kindness to his parasites, Bagot and Bushy, now sees the fall of the leaves; another roots up the weeds ‘that his broad-spreading leaves did shelter, that seemed in eating him to hold him up’ [3.4.501]. Had he cherished and nurtured his kingdom as the gardeners did their garden, he would have treated the great as they did their trees, wounding the bark at times to prevent the too luxuriant growth; he would have lopped away the superfluous branches, and thus he might have tasted and enjoyed their fruits and retained his crown. Instead of this he did everything which could forfeit his crown. We have seen the king’s unadvised conduct in the quarrel between Bolingbroke and Norfolk. Hardly is this dispute settled than the old Gaunt dies: the Irish revolt demands a remedy; the extravagant prince has no money; he now seizes the Lancastrian property, which kindles even the good-natured York, indolent and rest-loving as he is. Richard goes in person to Ireland, and leaves behind him the irritated York, the weakest whom he could choose, as governor of England. Instantly the banished Bolingbroke seizes the occasion to return to the kingdom thus vacated, under the pretext of taking possession of his lawful inheritance. The apprehensive nobles, the Percys, join themselves to him; the miserable friends of the king give up their cause at once as lost; the helpless York goes over. When Richard returns from Ireland he possesses no more of the kingdom than his right to it. He persuades himself, though he is far from convinced of it, that with this right he has everything. He comes back from Ireland conscience-stricken, foreboding, paralysed, and inactive. With his wonted enthusiasm, when he again sets foot on English ground, he hopes that the ‘earth shall have a feeling, and the stones prove armed soldiers, ere her native king shall falter under foul rebellious arms’ [3.2.24-6]. He buries himself in poetical and religious consolation, and intrenches himself behind his divine right and authority: ‘not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm from an anointed king’ [3.2.545]; the breath of worldly men cannot depose the deputy elected by the Lord. He builds upon this, that God and Heaven who guard the right have for every man of Bolingbroke’s ‘in heavenly pay a glorious angel’ [3.2.60-1] for him. He compares his kingly dignity to the sun, in whose absence robbers range abroad, but before his fiery rise in the east they tremblingly escape. Soon, however, the poet, referring silently to this image, exhibits him in opposition to the robber Bolingbroke, and this latter compares him in a similar manner to the sun emerging from the east (Act III, sc. 3; in many editions the passage is placed in the lips of York);[3] but ‘the envious clouds’ dim the kingly aspect, and ‘stain his track’ [3.3.65-6], and are not so quickly dispersed as Richard imagined. Just while he is boasting so warmly of the assistance of Heaven, the tidings come that not alone no angels stand in readiness for him, but that even men are deserting him. Then suddenly his confidence in his good right forsakes him. He calls upon his name and his majesty, but on a new message of misfortune his courage breaks down even to abdication. Once more subsequently he asserts to Northumberland his divine right, and declares that no human hand can

 G.G. Gervinus, the Characterization and Artistry of Richard II 267 seize his sacred sceptre without robbery and violence. But the blessing of Heaven is now visibly on the side of power; he whom the people uphold stands more surely than the anointed of God. Shakespeare writes here an immortal lesson upon the royalty of God’s grace and the law of inviolability. His ground is here also that two-sided one of entire impartiality and candour to which we unweariedly point, as to the greatest characteristic of his extraordinary mental superiority. He places his opinion chiefly in the mouth of the Bishop of Carlisle, the grand type of genuine loyalty, who stands faithfully by the side of the lawful king, without concealing from him the stern voice of truth; who defies the unlawful usurper in the public assembly, but still elicits, even from the latter, true honour, favour, and esteem. Absorbed in his meditations upon show and reality, upon which we see Shakespeare brooding thoughout this period of his life, he cannot regard the halo of divine right as the characteristic of royalty. No inviolability can protect the anointed head if it render itself unworthy of the divine possession; no legitimacy and no balm can absolve the ruler from his duties to the land of his care! Every vocation would appear to our poet of God, and with the vocation every duty. The fulfilment of duty is even the king’s first condition of stability; by his neglect of it he forfeits possession and right; by this he loses himself, his inner dignity, his consecration, and his power. Thus Henry IV distinctly tells his son that, unbridled and self-forgetful as he then was, he was only ‘the shadow of succession’ [1 Henry IV, 3.2.99]; that the honourable Percy, though a rebel, deserved rather to be the heir. Dutiful illegality is compared with duty-forgetting legitimacy, and is placed above it by the man who had once elevated himself by it, and who would now secure his legality by the fulfilment of duty. By accurately comparing this play with his King John, we gain fresh light as to Shakespeare’s true intention. The usurper John maintains the crown by good and bad means, so long as he retains his power and confidence, and so long as he abstains from wicked deeds and useless cruelty, and is thoroughly English-minded; as soon as he descends from his royal duty and sells England he loses himself and his crown. He, the usurper, differs not from the lawful Richard, who in the same way let the land by lease, and, giving up his duty, gave up himself also. It belongs essentially to this kingly duty that the prince, if he will secure his own right, must defend and protect the right of others. The peculiar right of the king is not esteemed by Shakespeare more sacred than any other; these views took deeper root in England from the period of Shakespeare and the Dutch Republic, till Milton, in his Defensio pro Populo,4[4] enforced them with marked emphasis. As soon as Richard had touched the inheritance of Lancaster, he had placed in his hands, as it were, the right of retaliation. The indolent York thus speaks of him immediately: – Take from time his rights; Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day; Be not thyself, for how art thou a king, But by fair sequence and succession? [2.1.195-9]

He tells him that he ‘plucks a thousand dangers on his head,’ that he loses ‘a thousand well-disposed hearts,’ and that he ‘pricks his tender patience to those thoughts, which

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honour and allegiance cannot think’ [2.1.205-8]. To this kingly duty there belongs, moreover, not only the absence of all those vices resulting from a weak love of pleasure by which Richard is ruined, but in their place must appear the virtue of energy, which is the first honour even of the common man. Heaven alone help us, says Carlisle to Richard, when we embrace his means. And Salisbury enforces upon Richard the great lesson to be taken from the precipitation of revolutionary times: – One day too late, I fear, my noble lord, Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth; [. . . .] To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late, O’erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state.

[3.2.67-72]

At this warning he rouses himself, though the arousing is now too late. Before, every claim upon his manliness from Aumerle and Carlisle, and every reproach of his tardiness, had been in vain; he was absorbed in himself, and had revelled in his misfortune as before in his prosperity. Thus even his wife shames him when she finds him also deposed in intellect: she would like to see him like the ‘lion, dying’ that with rage ‘thrusteth forth his paw, and wounds the earth,’ but he, ‘pupil-like, takes his correction mildly’ [5.1.29-32], and teaches resignation to his wife, whose lips this lesson would have better suited. The weakness and guilt which cause revolutions unexpectedly to prosper are depicted by the poet in a masterly manner; and in this play he unrolls before us in succession the spectacle of the powers at work during such a period of revolution – a picture scarcely to be fathomed in its grandeur and depth. For no play requires to be read so often as this, and in such close connection with the succeeding ones, in order that it may be thoroughly understood. Unadorned, and without brilliancy of matter, it yet all the more richly rewards patient industry. To analyse the contents of the whole four plays in a narrative which should exhibit the underlying motive entirely in Shakespeare’s sense would be a comprehensive work, and one of extraordinary fulness. Whoever has read them from the beginning of this Richard [II] to the close of Henry V, with conscientious reflection upon every single point, feels truly as if he had passed through an entire world. The poet, who has not allowed us fully to know the young king in his prosperity, unfolds his character the more fascinatingly and minutely in his misfortune. As soon as with Bolingbroke’s landing the turning point in his fortune has arrived, at the very conjuncture at which we should have wished to see the powerful ruler, there stands conspicuously before us the kindly human nature, which was before obscured in prosperity and mirth, but which even now is accompanied by weakness and want of stability, the distinguishing feature of his character. He has always needed props, and strong props he has not endured; he had sought them in climbing plants, which had pulled himself to the ground; Gaunt and Norfolk he had alienated. For this reason at the first moment of misfortune he falls past recovery. As soon as the first intelligence of the defection of his people arrives he is pale and disheartened; at the second message, which threatens him with a new evil, he is submissive, and ready for abdication and

 G.G. Gervinus, the Characterization and Artistry of Richard II 269 death. When Aumerle reminds him of his father York he rouses himself once more, but as soon as he hears that even this last prop is broken, he curses his cousin for having led him forth ‘of that sweet way he was in to despair’ [3.3.205]; he renounces every comfort, every act; he orders his troops to be discharged; capable of no further effort he will be reminded of none, and himself removes every temptation to it. A highly poetic brilliancy is cast upon the scenes of the humiliation and ruin of the romantic youth, whose fancy rises in sorrow and misfortune to a height which allows us to infer the strength of the intoxication with which he had before plunged into pleasure. The power which at that time had carried him beyond himself, turns now with fearful force within, and the pleasure-loving man now finds enjoyment in suffering and sorrow, and a sweetness in despair. He calls himself at first the slave of a ‘kingly woe’ [3.2.210]; subsequently on the contrary, deprived of his throne, he will remain king of his griefs. The words and predictions of the basely injured Gaunt are now to be fulfilled upon the insulter of the dying man. That sentence finds its truth in Richard: – ‘Woe doth the heavier sit / Where it perceives it is but faintly borne’ [1.3.280-1]. True in him is the word, ‘Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, / Consuming means, soon preys upon itself ’ [2.1.38-9]. Richard marvelled in Gaunt’s dying scene (Act II, sc. 1) how the lips of the sick can play with words, but in the deathly sickness of his own misery he learns how to fall still deeper into this play of words and speculative thought. At the very first, in the beginning of his sufferings, he broods upon thoughts of graves and death; he wishes to let the fate of all fallen kings pass before his mind, and then (as if the words of the dying Gaunt were in his thoughts, when he said to him that a ‘thousand flatterers’ [2.1.100] sit within the small compass of his crown, wasting the land) he pictures to himself the image of the crown in sad contrast to his present position, as if within its hollow temples the antic Death kept his court, allowing the wearer of the crown ‘a breath, a little scene to monarchise’ [3.3.164-5]. When he afterwards appears before his enemies (Act III, sc. 3), a paroxysm of his kingly fancy exhibits him to the sneaking Northumberland with a show of power; indeed, this was now the moment for arresting with dignity and courage the yet undefined plot. But before Bolingbroke had declared his intentions – at a time when, even in the presence of the weak York, no one might omit the royal title before Richard’s name without apology – suddenly and without any cause his wings hang wearied, and he himself speaks of the subjection of the king; and, as he sees Aumerle weep, his lively fancy at once runs away with him to the borders of insanity: his words remind us in these scenes of the passionate melancholy of Lear which is the prelude to his madness. He asks whether they shall ‘play the wantons with their woes, / and make some pretty match with shedding tears? / as thus; – to drop them still upon one place, / till they have fretted a pair of graves’ [3.3.164-7]. Even here, it seems, we cannot help looking back shudderingly from all this wretchedness and misery to that vain intercourse and waste of time in which Richard formerly lived with his companions. The play on words and the conceits in these scenes have been censured as inappropriate, but nowhere are they inserted with so deep and true a purpose; those whose whole intercourse consisted formerly in raillery and quibbling, naturally speculate immoderately in such a position, and delight in exhausting an idea aroused by the force of circumstances. Richard remembers that he is talking but idly, and remarks that they mock at him; the worst is that Northumberland has heard his

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foolish words, and designates him to Bolingbroke as a frantic man. That which the rebels would not have ventured to demand, the childish man, whom the feeling of being forsaken has quite cast down, offers of himself to them; he himself first designates the danger which surrounds him, when in his half-insane words he calls Northumberland prince and Bolingbroke king; in the ears of all he gives himself and his inheritance into Bolingbroke’s hands, even before any one had asked it. In the scene also of the deposition, which accords excellently with the nature of the king and is the crowning point of the characterisation, we hear him giving vent to beautiful poetic images upon his misfortune, and we see him burying himself in his sorrow with a kind of pleasure. He pictures to himself, as in a drama, the scene over which another would have passed quickly. Only when he is subjected to the indignity of reading his own indictment does his proud nature once again break out, and he perceives too late how miserably he had become a traitor to himself. Later too, when we see Richard on the way to prison and in prison, even in his resignation he is ever employed in picturing his painful condition to himself as still more painful; revelling, as it were, in his sorrow, and emptying the cup to the very dregs. He peoples the little space of his prison with his wild fancy, he studies how he may compare it to the world. An air of music drives him to reflect how he has here ‘the daintiness of ear / to check time broke in a disordered string,’ whilst ‘for the concord of his state and time / he had no ear to hear his true time broke’ [5.5.45-8]. He wasted time, which now wastes him; and thus again in another melancholy simile he pictures himself as a clock, which time had made out of himself. It is wise of the poet that out of the different stories of Richard’s death he chose that which exhibits him to us at the end in honourable strength, after having allowed us also to perceive the attractive power of his amiability; it is therefore not without esteem that we take our leave of the commiserated man. Richard himself awarded the crown to Bolingbroke when he said to him: ‘They well deserve to have, that know the strongest and surest way to get’ [3.3.200-1]. But this can in no wise justify the usurper’s attack on the throne. An historical, a political, as well as a divine curse, rests upon the deed, which, if not revenged upon the perpetrator himself, reacts upon his house. If God does not protect the sinful king, He protects not therefore the sinful deeds of his adversaries. Richard and Carlisle utter rather the prediction of punishment: God shall muster ‘armies of pestilence’ [3.3.87] which shall strike the children of rebels, yet unborn; for this assault by the unholy hand of the subject against the king, the land was to be called ‘the field of Golgotha and dead men’s skulls,’ and ‘the woefullest division’ [4.1.144-6] was to visit it. This curse was fulfilled first in those who had carried out Bolingbroke’s schemes: ‘The love of wicked friends,’ Richard warns Northumberland, converts to fear; That fear, to hate; and hate turns one or both To worthy danger and deserved death. [5.1.66-8]

And so it was; Northumberland himself, like the characters in Richard III, draws down the fulfilment of the curse upon himself with the words: ‘Thy guilt be on my head’ [5.1.69].[5] The new king meets the vengeance of Heaven subsequently in the rebellion

 G.G. Gervinus, the Characterization and Artistry of Richard II 271 of the Percys, his supporters, and in the civil war, which does not allow him to succeed in the longed-for expiation of his crime, a crusade to the Holy Land. Still more closely does retribution meet him in his torment of heart, fearing from his own son the same fate which he had brought upon Richard, and fearing for him the same end that had befallen Richard, because as Prince of Wales he was leading the same unrestrained life. The good kingly use which Henry makes of his usurped crown does not reconcile Heaven so much as that it checks its vengeance; just as on the contrary in Richard the bad use had destroyed the good right. He sanctifies the dignity attained, he confirms it as a more sure possession, and he transmits it to his son, who adorns it with new glory. But let one unworthy or even weak ruler come into the line, like Henry VI, and quickly will that curse discharge itself upon him; and this more terribly than upon Richard, as the same reproaches must press more heavily upon the usurper than upon the lawful ruler. But in what does the poet exhibit that good use of the crown which we extol in Bolingbroke? The whole of Henry IV must give an answer to this question; but even in Richard II the reply is found. His whole path to the kingdom is a royal path, and scarcely has he reached it than he shows by the most striking contrast the difference between the king by nature and the king by mere inheritance. Before, when banished by Richard he had left the country, he left it like a king. After the death of his father, and the plunder of his house, he returns unhesitatingly from banishment, in defiance of his sentence, and lands poor and helpless on the forbidden shore. The discontented Percys, in league with him before his landing, hasten to him; the steward of Worcester does so, not out of love for him, but for his outlawed brother. On the journey which Bolingbroke has to make with his friends, he flatters them with fair words, and entertains them with sweet discourse, but not so as to sell himself to these helpers, upon whom at the time he wholly depends, as Richard did to his favourites, who even wholly depended upon him. The possessionless man, who at the time has only thanks and promises for the future to give, is in earnest in his gratitude, without intending subsequently when he is king to concede to the helpers to the throne a position above the throne. The arrogance with which Northumberland – ‘the ladder wherewithal the mounting Bolingbroke ascended the throne’ [5.1.55-6] – is on a future day to appear against him, is fully foretold in that display of it with which he prepared the way for him to the throne. He and his followers, in their active eagerness, alertness, and officiousness, form a contrast to Richard’s, for the most part, inactive faint-hearted flatterers: they are the willing myrmidons of the rebellion who urge Bolingbroke as quickly forward as the followers of Richard check his better nature. It is Northumberland, now smooth and flexible, and now rough and unfeeling, who first speaks of Richard with the omission of his title; he it is who repeats more solemnly and forcibly the oath of Bolingbroke that ‘his coming is but for his own’ [2.3.148-9]; he it is who, in the scene of deposition, maliciously torments King Richard with the reading of his accusation; and he it is who would arbitrarily arrest the noble Carlisle for high treason after the outbreak of his feelings of right and his civic fidelity. But how noble throughout does Bolingbroke appear, compared to this base instrument of his plans: he still humbly kneels to the poor Richard, and at least preserves the show of decorum, while Northumberland must be reminded of his bending knee by his

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excited king; he forbids the malicious tormentor, in the deposition scene, any further urging; he pardons the arrested Carlisle, whose invectives had been hurled in his very presence. He came before Richard prepared for a stormy scene, ready for a part of feigned humility; but when Richard himself gives him the crown, it is perhaps only another kingly trait in his nature; it is certainly the act of a statesman, contrasting him far more advantageously than detrimentally with the tardy, self-forgetful king, that he grasps the occasion so readily. No less skilfully had he, it must be admitted, prepared for it. Even before it becomes a personal question between him and Richard, he had begun, according to Percy’s account, in the feeling of his greatness, to step somewhat higher than his original vow. He began to reform edicts and decrees, to abolish abuses, to win men by good measures and actions; he eradicated those hated favourites, he assumed to himself a protectorate, and accustomed the people to see kingly acts emanating from him before he was a king. In this manner, when wish and capacity, the desire and the gift for ruling, were evidenced in him, the insurrection was already at work before it showed itself in its true aspect. Cold and considerate compared to his fanciful predecessor, a profound statesman compared to the romantic and poetic king, a quick horseman, spurring the heavy, over-burdened Richard, bearing the misfortune of banishment with manly composure, and easing his nature by immediate search for redress, while Richard gives way at the mere approach of misfortune, this man appears throughout as too unequal an adversary to Richard for the good right on the one side to stand its ground against the superior gifts on the other. If, intoxicated by his first success, he had not so far lost himself as to tread the path of John and Richard III, and to hint at the murder of the king (though only remotely and indirectly to his subsequent sorrow and repentance), we should consider Bolingbroke’s path to the throne not only guiltless but justified. His first appearance on the throne, in any case, casts Richard’s knightly endowments thoroughly into the shade. The poet has here made excellent use of the corresponding history. The commencement scene, which essentially exhibits to us Richard’s conduct as a sovereign, has its counterpart in the fourth act, where Shakespeare exemplifies Bolingbroke’s dissimilar conduct in a similar position. Aumerle is accused by four nobles of the murder of Gloster, as once Bolingbroke himself had accused Norfolk, whom he now wishes honourably to recall and to reinstate in his possessions. Only one takes the side of Aumerle, and this is the half brother of King Richard – a suspicious security.[6] Bolingbroke could have suffered Aumerle, the most avowed favourite of Richard, to fall by the sword of the four accusers [i.e., Bagot, Fitzwater, Percy, and an unnamed other Lord], and could have thus removed an enemy, but he does it not. Yet more: a newly projected plot of Aumerle’s is discovered to the king; the father himself is the accuser of the son; the father himself protests earnestly against his pardon; but the yet unconfirmed, illegitimate sovereign scorns to shed the blood of relatives – a deed which cost Richard nothing.[7] He pardons him; not out of weakness, for he punishes the other conspirators with death; he pardons him from humane and kindly motives, and schools him into a hero and a patriot. He does as that gardener would have had the lawful king do; with wise discretion he governs with mercy and justice, mildness and severity. And, at the same time, he behaves with that sure power and superiority which permits him to jest in this very scene, and to act with that

 G.G. Gervinus, the Characterization and Artistry of Richard II 273 easy humour towards the zealous mother of York [i.e. Aumerle], when he has just discovered a conspiracy against his life. The group of characters in Richard II is arranged very simply in harmony with the suggestions we have offered. In contrast to the incapable legitimate king and his helpless inactive followers stands the rising star of the thorough statesmanlike and royal usurper and his over-active adherents. In the midst of the struggle between right and merit stands Carlisle, as a man of genuine loyalty, knowing no motive but fidelity and duty, not concealing the truth from the lawful king, and ruining himself in opposing unsparingly the shield of right against the usurper who raises himself to power. Contrasted with him is the old York, whom Coleridge, in consequence of an incorrect apprehension of the character, has placed in a false opposition to Richard.8 The true picture of such an agitated age would be wanting if this character were absent. He is the type of political faintheartedness and neutrality, at a time when partisanship is a duty, and that of cowardly loyalty which turns to the strong and powerful. When Richard is still in his full power, he considers he has gone too far in extolling to the young king the virtues of his father. When Richard seizes the Lancastrian lands, his natural sense of right, and his anxiety respecting his own property, urge him to utter impressive warnings, but when the king makes him as a ‘just’ [2.1.221] man his governor in England, he allows himself to be appeased. Bolingbroke lands, and York sees through his project, and warns him not to take what he should not; his integrity even here shows him the path which his weakness suffers him not to follow. He would like to serve the king and to discharge his duty to his lord, but he thinks he has also a duty of kinship and conscience respecting Bolingbroke’s lawful claims to his inheritance. That he stood for the moment in the place of the king he heeds not. Helpless as to action, he loses his head in unutterable perplexity, but not his character. He resolves to remain neutral. He sees the finger of God in the desertion of the people, and lets it be; for Richard he has tears, few words, and no deeds. With loyalty such as this countries go to ruin, while they prosper at usurpations such as Bolingbroke’s. But that this weakness of the weak can amount to a degree in which it becomes the most unnatural obduracy, and in which the cruelty of the usurper is guiltless when compared with it, has been displayed by Shakespeare in a truly masterly manner when he suffers York to accuse his own son of high treason and to urge his death with pertinacity. He goes so far as to wish that the king may ‘ill thrive, if he grant any grace’ [5.3.99]. In this trait conscientiousness and fidelity are mingled indistinguishably with the fear of exposure and suspicion. Such is servile loyalty; under the rule of the weak it is weak, and affords but a frail support; under that of the strong it is strong, and is an efficient and trustworthy power. (1863 edn., I, 387-413; 1877 edn., 279-97)

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John A. Heraud, the play’s divided authorship and Shakespeare’s attitude to divine right 1865

From Shakespeare: His Inner Life as Intimated in His Works . . . (London, 1865). John Abraham Heraud (1799–1887) was a London-born poet, playwright, and critic whose varied achievements and connections to prominent literary figures such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Lockhart, and the Carlyles established him as a significant figure among the intelligentsia of mid-nineteenth-century England. He became one of the most eminent drama critics of the period, writing in this capacity for both The Athenaeum and the Illustrated London News. In addition he composed plays that were favourably received in his own day. His treatment of Richard II, although in large measure a plot summary, reflects the persistence of the notion that the less startlingly ‘poetical’ (and therefore inferior) parts of a Shakespearian drama were probably composed by a ‘competent’ but less inspired contemporary – an idea that goes back at least as far as the ‘degradations’ of Pope’s edition of 1725.

[From ‘Part II: Fantastic and Historical Period – 1591-1598’, ‘Chapter I’; Heraud sandwiches his discussion of Richard II in between treatments of the Henry VI plays and Richard III.] And now Shakespeare determined to elaborate the character of the demoniac Richard the Third for himself, as the hero of an entire tragedy. But in the same year (1595) he was also employed in the composition of another tragedy, that of Richard the Second. What a contrast between the two subjects! The same kind of thing, if we remember, has occurred before. No sooner had Shakespeare produced his character of Hamlet than he turned to the creation of that of Helena; the latter as active as the former was thoughtful. Probably he worked on the two tragedies together, delighting himself with the contrast even in the very progress of his work. In this, however, it is evident that he had assistance; for two hands at least are recognisable in the style of Richard the Second. Coleridge expresses a great admiration for this drama, particularly as a closet-play; and adds, ‘I feel no hesitation in placing it as the first and

 John A. Heraud, the Play’s Divided Authorship 275 most admirable of Shakespeare’s purely historical plays’ [No. 20 above]. In such plays, the history forms the plot, and in Richard the Second this is precisely the case. . . . [Heraud quotes more of the same passage from Coleridge on the absence of comic invention, and the patriotic and social functions of the subject matter.] Shakespeare, we must recollect, was now manager of a theatre, and therefore well disposed to avail himself of the advantage of a division of labour, which he could easily command. The nature of the purely historic drama presented him facilities. The history, as we have seen, forming the plot, it was possible to forecast the action in all its parts, and, after a careful perusal of Holinshed, to determine on its platform, and sketch its scaffolding in a written draught or plan of what should be done. The matter even of some scenes might be digested, and the contents of each act arranged. Such written draught or plan could then be placed in the hands of a competent playwright, and what may be called the hard work of the drama gone through. The result was then recommitted to Shakespeare’s discretion, and he dealt with the manuscript at his pleasure, altering, adding, omitting, rearranging, just as he would. Frequently he enlarged and developed, introducing wherever he might pure poetry, not excising it, as is too frequently the case with modern managers, who prefer that dialogue should be reduced to the briefest compass, and contain no more than is needful to explain the situation. We may perceive an instance of this enlargement and development in act iii, scenes 3 and 4, where the poetical speeches are all evidently from Shakespeare’s hand, and as evidently superinduced upon the original composition. In the latter part of act iv, we may perceive the same thing, as also in the beginning of the 5th scene in act v. Strictly as the plot of the play follows the direction of history, there was one point wherein drama exerted its peculiar claims, and would modify the facts of the chronicle. Richard’s queen, Isabel, daughter of the king of France, was neither in age nor character the prototype of the Shakespearian heroine. She was, in fact, only twelve years of age at the time of the monarch’s deposition, and not the grown-up sententious woman of the tragedy. The modification of the story in this particular was, no doubt, suggested by the poet to his employé; but I do not perceive that he felt sufficient interest in the character to bestow any of his own touches upon it. The principal, if not only, object of his care was the king himself. On him he has expended the prodigality of his genius. He has drawn him partly as a personality, and partly as a creature of circumstances. The monarch, voluptuous by nature and culture, and coming to an inheritance capable of supplying the magnificent tastes in which he had been educated, thinks it unreasonable that the people should murmur at the cost; moreover, he claims the gratification of royal appetite as a royal right. He demands, indeed, absolute submission, and asserts an absolute prerogative of power; inordinate in his desires, vain of his position, effeminate in his feelings. His faults, however, Shakespeare has touched gently, and has invested him with graces becoming a king, who sinks as much from the irresistible course of events as from his own errors. I think that the character of the king, as delineated in this beautiful drama, has been much misunderstood by critics, as also the intention or design of the poet. Both have been supposed to uphold the Right Divine of Kings. Shakespeare has supported the principle, which, up to the period of this king’s reign, had prevailed as the rule of the governing power, with true poetic impartiality. But he has also painted the

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commencement of an opposite rule, between which and the old doctrine a mortal struggle was to take place. The result of that struggle forms the catastrophe of the tragedy. The monarch loses not only his throne, but his theory; – a double loss, as favourable to peoples as fatal to monarchs – fatal to Richard II and to Charles I of England; fatal to Louis XVI of France.  These remarks connect Shakespeare with his age, and show how far he agreed with it, and how far he was in advance of it. He had not yet learned to despise royal prerogative; but he had learned to respect the popular will which imposed the needful limits on its misdirection. A living poet must write for the age in which he lives, as well as for the future; and is therefore induced to abstain from violating the manners and prejudices of his times, without betraying an unreasoning slavery to them. He may be aware that the current of opinion is setting in a certain direction, but he is not willing to go faster than the wind or the stream, though quite ready to glide on his way gently with the aid of both. Shakespeare belongs to his age; but he is also the poet of progress. We must bear this in mind while examining the ordonnance of this play, which, though not all written by him, was all written under his direction. If, therefore, we find some portions of the dialogue inferior, yet in the structure we perceive the judgment of the master-dramatist. The beginning foreshadows the end in the imbecility [i.e. weakness] of the king and the insubordination of the barons. The kingly dignity is uppermost in Richard’s mind, and he is evidently convinced that his policy is necessarily superior to theirs. Bolingbroke and Mowbray are judged before they are heard: High-stomached are they both, and full of ire, In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire. [1.1.18-19]

Such is his opinion of them, while of himself he presupposes a certain serenity of mind that shall enable him to pronounce an impartial decision. Therefore he grants them free speech. Having heard both, he counsels them to peace, and would enforce it with the full might of his prerogative, for ‘lions make leopards tame’ [1.1.174]. But the leopards will not be tamed; so, for the time, he is fain to consent to the ordeal of battle. The lists are formed, and Richard presides at the ceremony. But beyond the ceremony nothing is permitted. The king drops his warder, ere the combatants can strike a blow, and then orders them both into banishment for having declined his reconciliation. This equal punishment of the two litigants he calls impartial justice. Old Gaunt perceives the folly and weakness of such a sentence, but is too much of a courtier to suggest any other. He peevishly echoes the king’s mind, though in so doing he decrees his son’s exile; but he cannot conceal the sorrow that it causes to himself, though he would reason Bolingbroke out of the affliction into an acquiescence in the necessity, and make him acknowledge a special virtue in the fact. And now we begin to see Shakespeare’s own hand in the poetry of the dialogue: ‘Think not the king did banish thee, / But thou the king . . .’ [Quotes 1.3.279-93]. Whereto Bolingbroke replies in that magnificent burst of poetry: O! who can hold a fire in his hand, By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?. . . [Quotes 1.3.294-303]

 John A. Heraud, the Play’s Divided Authorship 277 The death of old Gaunt is Bolingbroke’s opportunity. In some magnificent lines Shakespeare makes Gaunt a prophet just before his decease, and gives expression to his own patriotism in verses which no Englishman can read too frequently: ‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle . . .’ [Quotes 2.1.40-68]. That this scandal should cease, it was needful that Richard should be removed. But the profligate king will not be warned by the words of the dying man; and so soon as the breath is out of old Gaunt’s body, confiscates his personal and real estate to his own use, for the support of his Irish wars. Bolingbroke, ‘bereft and gelded of his patrimony’ [2.1.237], in his absence, is roused to exertion. He is already on the northern shore of the kingdom, and when the King marches out of it for Ireland, he marches into it, not only to reclaim his duchy of Lancaster, but to assume the throne which Richard has left unoccupied. In the further progress of the action, we find the Bishop of Carlisle endeavouring to fortify the mind of the fallen King with the doctrine of Divine Right. And he succeeds; for the creed was flattering equally to the monarch’s conscience and his hopes. So he is not slow to compare himself to the Sun which had been absent for a night, during which thieves and robbers had ventured forth; but now that he has returned, they must needs retire to their guilty holes. For, Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed king. . . . [Quotes 3.2.54-7]

But his faith is destined to a rude shock. Yielding at first, he soon rallies; but a second blow reduces him to despair, and proves the hollowness of the superstition to which he had so fatally trusted. He then descends to utter reproaches on his adherents for their presumed treachery; but he is deprived of this consolation, for he is told they have perished in his defence: Those whom you curse Have felt the worst of death’s destroying wound, And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.

[3.2.138-40]

Compelled at last to reflect, he becomes eloquent in his misery, and moralises on his fate. At length, he submits, and retires to Flint Castle, where he is brought to parley by Bolingbroke, and induced to place himself under his protection. Adversity now sets the monarch in a new light, and he is dignified by his griefs. Gracefully he abdicates in favour of Henry IV, and expresses himself so pathetically that he moves our compassion and even reverence. But the decree has gone forth. Poor Richard is shattered with the system he had represented; and a new era is inaugurated. (118-26)

36

Henry N. Hudson, further observations on Richard II 1872

From Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters. With an Historical Sketch of the Origin and Growth of the Drama in England (2 vols., Boston, 1872). Volume II. This work contains additions to, and revised and expanded versions of, material that Hudson originally wrote for his 1852 edition of Shakespeare (No. 30 above). Here Hudson greatly elaborated his assessment of the two principal characters of the play (Richard and Bolingbroke), whom he now regarded as being ‘among the wisest and strongest of Shakespeare’s historical delineations’ (II, 51). But he also included an analysis of the opening scenes of the drama and an overview of its controlling ideas that mark a signal advance over his previous statement. For biographical information see the headnote to No. 30 above.

[1] [On the opening scenes of Richard II] . . . The play fitly opens with Bolingbroke’s accusation and challenge of Norfolk; the forecited points of history not forming any part of the action, nor being stated directly, but only implied, sometimes not very clearly, in various notes of dramatic retrospection. Richard tries his utmost to reconcile the parties; for he knows full well that himself is the real mark aimed at in the appellant’s charges and defiance; but he is forced alike by his position and his conscience to dissemble that knowledge, and to take Bolingbroke at his word. On the other side, Bolingbroke’s behaviour throughout is also a piece of profound and well-acted dissimulation: he understands the King’s predicament perfectly; knows that he dare not avow his thoughts, lest he stand selfconvicted in the matter charged. So he has both Richard and Norfolk penned up in a dilemma from which they can nowise escape but by letting out the whole truth, and thus giving him a clear victory. He knows they are completely in his toils; his deep sagacity pierces the heart of their situation: nor does his energy lag behind his insight; naturally bold and resolute, his boldness and resolution now spring at the game in conscious strength: he is ambitious of power, he resents his uncle’s death, he loves his

 Henry N. Hudson, Further Observations on Richard II 279 country; and his ambition, his resentment, his patriotism, all combine to string him up for decisive action: he has got a firm twist on the wrongdoers, and is fully determined either to twist them off their legs or to perish in the attempt. And observe what a note of terror he strikes into Richard when, referring to the spilling of Gloster’s blood, he declares, Which blood, like sacrificing Abel’s, cries, Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth, To me for justice and rough chastisement; And, by the glorious worth of my descent, This arm shall do it, or this life be spent. [1.1.104-8]

The little words ‘to me,’ falling in here with such quiet emphasis, are a stern warning to the guilty parties, that the speaker has assumed the office of avenger, and will not falter in the work. How well the sense of them is taken, appears in the King’s exclamation, ‘How high a pitch his resolution soars!’ [1.1.109]. It is to be understood withal, that Norfolk has now come to be the King’s main supporter in his career of misrule. Bolingbroke forecasts that, Norfolk once hewn out of the way, Richard will then have to cast in his lot with those who have neither wasted the land with rapacity nor washed their hands in unrighteous blood. Then too he reckons upon having himself a voice potential in the royal counsels; and he already has it in mind that the race of cormorant upstarts and parasites and suckers who have so long preyed upon the State shall make a speedy end. Such, I think, is clearly the dramatic purpose and significance of the opening scene, which has been diversely interpreted by several critics, who, it seems to me, have not fully entered into its bearing, prospective and retrospective, on the action of the play. Coleridge, for instance, thinks the Poet’s aim in so beginning the piece was to bring out the characters of Richard and Bolingbroke [No. 20]; while Courtenay holds him to have made the opening thus, not from any dramatic purpose, but merely because he found the matter so ordered in the chronicle [No. 23]. Gervinus, again, thinks that Shakespeare ‘began with this scene, because it was just the beginning of all the sufferings which fell upon the King, and afterwards upon his dethroners’ [No. 34]. The views of both Coleridge and Gervinus are doubtless right, as far as they go: but I think the chief object of the scene is to unfold, in its various bearings, direct and remote, the dramatic relation of the two leading persons. Accordingly, out of this relation as there set forth the whole action of the play is made to proceed. The King’s course in arresting the quarrel just as it is coming to the upshot, and in sending both parties into exile, is very cunning, though perhaps in a rather small way. He thus gets rid of the whole question for the present, and saves himself from falling into the hands of either side: Bolingbroke’s scheme is baffled, and his purpose indefinitely postponed: withal the act wears a look of fairness and impartiality, so that public discontent cannot well find where to stick upon it. As matters stand, even Norfolk’s help is likely to prove a hindrance to the King; he has a firm hold upon him through the secret that lies between them: on the other hand, Richard has found in Bolingbroke an antagonist whom he dares not cope with, and can nowise conciliate

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but by arming him with a still greater obstructive power. So, by thus playing them off against each other, he seems to have shaken himself clear at once from a troublesome friend and a dangerous foe: at all events, as he views the thing, he can well afford to purchase a riddance from so formidable an assailant by the loss of his ablest defender. For Richard’s main difficulty, in the play as in history, is, that he feels unable to stand without props, and yet is too weak or too wayward to lean upon any but such as are weaker than himself: none are for him but who pander to his wilfulness; creatures at once greedy and prodigal, and who have no strength to help him but what they suck out of him. Richard is evidently not a little elated at the stratagem of banishment: he flatters himself with having devised a master-stroke of policy which is to make him stronger than ever. Both the clog of Norfolk’s friendship and the dread of Bolingbroke’s enmity are now, as he thinks, effectually removed. After such a triumph, he presumes that none will dare to call the oppressions and abuses of his government to account. Thus he arrogates to himself entire impunity in whatever he may please to do, and so is emboldened to fresh excesses of misrule. He has just been put in a very tight place, as many believed; but he has proved too much for those who put him there; has adroitly turned the tables upon them, and disconcerted their well-laid plans: at least so he thinks, and the thought fills him with delight. Though he has cut down the term of Bolingbroke’s exile to six years, it is with a secret purpose that the exile shall never return; and he trusts that the same king-craft which has extricated him from so sharp a dilemma will carry him safe through any plots, however dark and treacherous, which he may frame for putting the man out of the way. But, in his exhilaration of seeming success, he cannot keep his thoughts to himself; he must still feed his self-applause by blurting them out to his favorites, instead of leaving them to be gathered after the work is done. For so, among his other weaknesses, he has an incurable leakiness of mind, so that he must still be prating of designs which he hardly ought to breathe aloud even to himself. He has indeed a good deal of practical cunning, and is endowed with no mean powers of intellect; but somehow he can never so weave his intellectual forces together as to make them hold water: hence he is ever stumbling over schemes which he has himself spilt in advance. . . . (42-6) [2] [On the thought and philosophy of Richard II] . . . The play in hand has been justly extolled by several of the most judicious critics as embodying a very profound and comprehensive scheme of political philosophy. Shakespeare was certainly no less a master in this high province of thought than in the exercise of the creative and representative imagination. The just limits and conditions of sovereign authority and of individual right, and how all the parts of the body politic should stand in mutual intelligence and interdependence, were as ‘things familiar and acquainted’ [2 Henry IV, 5.1.139] to his all-gifted and serenely-tempered mind. He was indeed a mighty workman, if the world ever saw one. And his mightiness in the grounds and principles of man’s social being is especially conspicuous in this drama. What rightly ‘constitutes a State’; ‘the degrees by which true sway doth mount’; ‘the stalk true power doth grow on’; and that ‘reverence is a loyal virtue, never sown in

 Henry N. Hudson, Further Observations on Richard II 281 haste, nor springing with a transient shower’[1] – these lessons are here unfolded with a depth and largeness of wisdom, and with a harmony and fruitfulness of impression, that cannot be too highly praised. Almost every scene contains matter that craves and repays the closest study. The play forecasts, vividly yet sedately, the long series of civil crimes and slaughters of which Richard’s reign was in fact the seed-plot. These forecastings, however, so far as they come to verbal expression, are fitly put into the mouths of the King and the Bishop of Carlisle, men whose personal interests and settled prepossessions make them strongly averse to the events in progress; while the persons engaged in driving those events forward are touched by no warnings or misgivings in that kind, because with them all such forebodings of distant evil are naturally lost in their resentment of the wrongs that have been done, and in the hopes that dance before them in the path they are treading. But, besides this, the same forecast is also placed silently in the general drift and action of the piece; which infers the whole workmanship to have been framed with that far-stretching train and progeny of evils consciously in view. But the most noteworthy point in this matter is the Poet’s calmness and equipoise of judgment. In the strife of factions and the conflict of principles, he utters, or rather lets the several persons utter, in the extremest forms, their mutually-oppugnant views, yet without either committing himself to any of them or betraying any disapproval of them. He understands not only when and how far the persons are wrong in what they say or do, but also why they cannot understand it: so he holds the balance even between justice to the men and justice to the truth; for he knows very well how apt men are to be at fault in their opinions while upright in their aims. The claims of legitimacy and of revolution, of divine right, personal merit, and public choice, the doctrines of the monarchical, the aristocratic, the popular origin of the State, — all these are by turns urged in their most rational or most plausible aspects, but merely in the order and on the footing of dramatic propriety, the Poet himself discovering no preferences or repugnances concerning them. So in this play the dialogue throws out timber from which many diverse theories of government may be framed: and various political and philosophical sects may here meet together, and wrangle out their opposite tenets with themes and quotations drawn from the Poet’s pages; just as his persons themselves wrangled out, with words or arms or both, the questions upon which they were actually divided. Nor does he in any sort play or affect to play the part of umpire between the wranglers: which of them has the truth, or the better cause, — this, like a firm commissioner, so to speak, of Providence, he leaves to appear silently in the ultimate sum-total of results. And so imperturbable is his fairness, so unswerving his impartiality, as almost to seem the offspring of a heartless and cynical indifference. . . . [At this point Hudson quotes the same passage from Philarète Chasles that appears in Knight’s ‘Supplementary Notice’ to Richard II; see No. 24 above.] The moral and political lessons designed in this piece run out into completeness in the later plays of the series, and so are to be mainly gathered from them. Here we have the scarce-perceptible germs of consequences which blossom and go to seed there; these consequences being scattered all along down the sequent years till nearly a century after, when the last of the Plantagenets met his death in Bosworthfield. Those lessons are found, not only transpiring inaudibly through the events and

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actions of the pieces that follow, but also in occasional notes of verbal discourse; as in the Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, iii.1.[70-71], where Bolingbroke, worried almost to death with the persevering enmity of the Percys, so pointedly remembers the prediction of Richard: Northumberland, them ladder wherewithal The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne. . . . [Quotes 5.1.55-67]

And the same thing comes out again, perhaps still more impressively, in the fact that Bolingbroke’s conscience, when king, arms the irregularities of his son with the stings of a providential retribution: though aware of Prince Henry’s noble qualities, and of the encouragement they offer, yet the remembrance of what himself has done fills him with apprehensions of the worst; so that he looks upon the Prince as ‘only mark’d for the hot vengeance and the rod of Heaven to punish his mistreadings’ [1 Henry IV, 3.2.9-11]. (48-51)

37

Richard Simpson, Richard II and Elizabethan politics 1874

From ‘The Politics of Shakespeare’s Historical Plays’, New Shakespeare Society’s Transactions, Series 1, no. 2 (1874), 396–441. Richard Simpson (1820–76), a graduate of Oriel College, Oxford, became vicar of Mitcham, Surrey, in 1844 but resigned the following year in consequence of his conversion to Roman Catholicism. He travelled extensively on the continent, becoming adept in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Flemish, after which he returned to England and spent considerable time exploring the historical riches of the archives of State Papers (in the Public Records Office), where he discovered much of the source material that he would utlilize in his study of Shakespeare and Elizabethan political discontent. His fascination with the sixteenth century produced a biography of the Jesuit martyr Edmund Campion (1867), an Introduction to the Philosophy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1868), and The School of Shakespeare (2 vols. posthumously published in 1878), a collection of Elizabethan dramas of doubtful authorship (with historical apparatus) which included a reprint of The Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley, together with a life of the adventurer based on unpublished sources. Simpson was one of the first scholars to argue in depth that Shakespeare’s histories were intended as veiled commentaries in dramatic form on the controversial political, social, and religious issues of the final decade of Elizabeth I’s reign.

[Simpson’s article takes up all the chronicle plays in historical sequence. After a discussion of King John, Simpson turns to Richard II.]

II. Richard II Richard II, an earlier play than King John, follows the chronicles more closely, perhaps because there was no earlier drama to mislead the poet.[1] Perhaps he canvassed

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only the title of John, without referring to his misgovernment, because he had already shown the consequences of misgovernment in Richard II. Here Shakespeare describes to us, as Mr. Courtenay says, ‘the state of England and the misgovernment of Richard, in language quite consistent with the chronicles, but such as, in the case of King John, Shakespeare seems studiously to avoid. In both cases he freely charges the kings with murder or intended murder; but in the former he cautiously abstains from characterizing those offences against the nobles and people which led to the combination against him. He now freely puts into the mouths of the malcontent peers and even of the gardeners charges of insufficiency and tyranny which he did not bring against John’ [No. 23 above]. To ascertain whether any political allusion may lurk under this treatment, we should consult the ‘opposition’ literature of Elizabeth’s reign. In that literature we shall find her usually represented as a weak but well-meaning woman, led away by unworthy favourites, such as Leicester and Cecil. And she is warned to beware of the fate of John, Edward II, Richard II, and Henry VI. ‘Whereas,’ says [Thomas] Morgan (Leicester’s Commonwealth, p. 169), ‘since the Conquest we number principally three just and lawful kings to have come to confusion by alienation of their subjects; that is, Edward II, Richard II, and Henry VI; this only point of too much favour towards wicked persons was the chiefest cause of destruction in all three.’[2] And then he shows how Leicester is Gaveston, the Marquis of Dublin, and the Duke of Suffolk, in one. So [Richard] Verstegan in 1592 tells how the Queen, gifted as she was by nature and education, lost all credit by Cecil. ‘Having once reposed trust in this suggestor, she shadoweth his sinister practices under her authority, and left the obloquy of his unjust actions to redound to her and her state.’[3] [John] Philopater in the same year begins his book against the edicts with philippics against her chief counsellors, to whom he attributes the faults of her reign.[4] The question is, not whether all these charges were true or probable, but whether they were widely circulated and believed. The years 1592 and 1593 were a time of discontent and fear. Philip [II] had seized a port in Britanny, and his fleet was no longer of the cumbrous build of the Armada, but ‘according to the provident order of our English and most ready shipping.’ ‘Tender practices’ with the malcontents in Scotland had opened a passage to England by the North.[5] Elizabeth’s exchequer was empty. The Lord Treasurer [i.e., Burghley] said he had spent all in paying the English troops in the Netherlands, and subsidizing Henri IV [of France] and James VI [of Scotland]. The budget asked of the Commons was looked on with dismay. But they were hounded on by a specious permission to impose new penalties on recusants, and ‘in this forwardness,’ writes a member, ‘we are to grant a treble subsidy and six fifteenths to be paid in four years’ (Hist. MSS. Commiss. IV, 335).[6] The temper in which Shakespeare would regard all this may be imagined when we remember that it was in 1592 that his father was for the second or third time returned as a recusant, who however, like the recusants across the Avon, excused himself on the ground that he dared not venture to church for fear of process of debt (Cheney’s Certificate, Oct. 24, 1577, Record Off., Domestic Papers).[7] The Bishop of Gloucester divides recusants into Puritans who object to the surplice, and Papists who plead fear of process for debt. Thus the eldest son of John and Mary Shakespeare saw the poor remains of his inheritance on the way

 Richard Simpson, Richard II and Elizabethan Politics 285 to be chewed by the ponderous jaws of the new penal laws, while his own gains were wrung by the unwonted impost. At a time when the country was full of secret and open murmurs against a fiscal oppression and mismanagement which specially pressed upon the poet himself, he produced Richard II, and put into it passages like these: – The king is not himself, but basely led By flatterers; and what they will inform Merely in hate ‘gainst any of us all That will the king severely prosecute ’Gainst us, our lives, our children and our heirs. [2.1.241-5] The commons hath he pill’d with grievous taxes And lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fin’d For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts. And daily new exactions are devised As blanks, benevolences, and I know not what; But what, o’ God’s name, doth become of this? [2.1.246-51]

Benevolences were never heard of in Richard’s day, and Shakespeare would not have used the word unless he meant to refer to times for which he and his audience cared more. His words almost echo Verstegan’s – ‘It is a wonder to consider what great and grievous exactions have from time to time been generally imposed upon the people, as all the loans, the lotteries, gathering for the steeple of Pauls, new imposts and customs of wines, cloths and other merchandise, forfeitures and confiscations of goods of Catholics, forced benevolences for the succouring of the rebellious brethren, huge masses of money raised by privy seals, and last of all, the great number of subsidies, which have been more in the time of the Queen than those which have been levied with divers of her predecessors, and amount to many millions of pounds. And if that do not lie hoarded up in the Queen’s coffers, the Lord Treaurer (I trust) can give her Majesty and the realm a good account in books and papers. But in the meanwhile the commons are brought into common beggary, and by the continued and intended exactions they are likely daily to be more oppressed than other.’[8] Here we have ‘the daily new exactions,’ the ‘benevolences,’ and the suspicion implied in the line ‘What, o’ God’s name, doth become of this?’ Shakespeare seems to make Burghley speak by the mouth of Bushy when he says that the love of the wavering commons Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them, By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate. [2.2.230-1]

‘Plebis Anglicanae ingenium,’ said Burghley, ‘ad seditiones praeceps, si pensitationibus extra ordinem opprimantur.’[9] The Domestic Papers of this time in the Record Office tell us of the poverty of city and country through the continual war, with its imposts, subsidies, and loans, and the bankruptcy of merchants through stay of traffick (1591. Dom. Eliz., Vol. 240, No. 143); of the hatred and contempt for the Council, the

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weakness and disunion of the nobles, the weariness of the people, and their readiness for any change. The Spaniards were said to be threatening without with a mighty force, and trusting to treason within ([Sir Henry] Unton’s speech in H[ouse] of C[ommons], Domestic Papers, March 24, 1593).[10] No, it was replied – ‘the preparations of Spain were but a rumour given to draw out the subsidy.’ The license given to the Commons to harry the recusants was a contrivance of the same kind, and their extreme measures were much mitigated in the House of Lords. The Puritans were furious, both at the intolerance to themselves and the mitigation of severity to the Catholics. ‘The Queen will not move a finger to help the gospel,’ wrote [John] Penry; ‘her gospel stoops to her; the Council, Magistrates, Ministers and people are rebels and conspirators against God. The service of God is forbidden. The Queen would not have embraced the gospel, if she could have had the crown without it. It would have flourished more, if Queen Mary had reigned to this day’ (Record Office, May 31, 1593).[11] It has been noticed that Richard II differs from the other plays, in that the depreciation of the people and the exaggeration of royal prerogative are put into the mouths of the favourites and evil counsellors. This is quite in the spirit of the opposition literature of the day, which affirmed that the Queen by their means had lost the hearts of nobles and commons, and had allowed her treasures to disappear through corrupt channels, and not through the legitimate waste of war. For it was notorious that the conquerors of the Armada had died like flies for want of fresh beer and provisions, and had been checked in their victorious career because the Council would not supply gunpowder. Cecil, it was said, ‘had consumed more in piracy, and peddling aid to foreign rebels, than would have sufficed for a substantial conquest.’[12] While on the other hand he had, ‘on base compromise, yielded Calais, the last vestige of the ground of the fleurs de lys on the English shield, and spent more money in a losing peace than the old governments had spent on gainful wars.’[13] Founded or unfounded, such were the charges then current; and the play, or parts of it, fits these charges exactly. Of course such offensive allusions could not be much more than obiter dicta in a drama. In the opposition dramas under the second French Empire we have seen all the meaning concentrated in some line, some epigram, which had escaped the censor, and which the applause of the theatre turned into a political manifesto. By some means ‘Richard II’ had early become a political nickname of Elizabeth. ‘I was never one of Richard the Second’s men,’ wrote [Henry Carey, First Baron] Hunsdon before 1588:[14] Essex, Robert Cecil, and Raleigh made merry over the ‘consait of Richard II’ in 1597;[15] in 1601 Elizabeth said to [William] Lambarde, ‘I am Richard II. Know you not that?’ and he said that he knew Essex had so called her.[16] The historical play is the natural resource of the political dramatist. The audience may understand his meaning, and he may forswear it before the magistrate. The historian must be historical. Richard’s disposition [i.e., deposition] is only made intelligible by showing the causes which made rebellion successful. These were discontents caused by misgovernment. To represent these, the play must introduce discontented persons talking of their grievances. How can such a representation prove any partisanship in the dramatist? One might as well impute it to Holinshed as to Shakespeare. And so it was imputed to Holinshed. On the 3rd of November, 1590, Elizabeth ordered [Thomas] Windebank, Burghley’s Secretary, to command the

 Richard Simpson, Richard II and Elizabethan Politics 287 Chronicle to be called in. Windebank represented the difficulties of doing so; but the Queen still insisted, and vehemently inveighed against it as being ‘fondly set out.’[17] Her immediate objection was a comparative trifle; but she was evidently disgusted with the spirit of it. How could she, who had so strongly resented John Knox, put up with Holinshed’s reflections on Queen Elinor and Constance – ‘So hard it is to bring women to agree in one mind, their natures being commonly so contrary, their words so variable, and their deeds so indiscrete; and therefore it was well said of one, alluding to their disposition and properties, nulla diu femina pondus habet.’[18] What was said in general terms about one Queen was very likely meant for another. So if Shakespeare wrote his Richard II, when in English Society, especially among the young gentlemen and nobles who most frequented the theatre, there was a feeling that the Queen was in the hands of a selfish favourite who depopulated England with impressments, ruined trade by monopolies, fleeced households by extraordinary taxation, while he himself was growing exorbitantly rich, and strengthening a parvenu family by great alliances, even aiming by such an alliance at the succession to the Crown through Arabella [i.e. Lady Arabella Stuart],[19] it can hardly be doubted that the poet had a political intention in it. Such an intention was imputed to it when the partisans of Essex used the play of Richard II to further their political discontent in 1599 [and] 1600. . . . (406-11)

IX. The History of The Crown . . . And none of the kings [in Shakespeare’s histories] insists so strongly as Richard II on his divine right, and on the prerogatives of the Crown. He trusts more to the divinity that hedges a king, than to armies or policy, and protests that no hand but God’s can deprive him of his rights. His very friends mock his ‘senseless conjuration’ [3.2.13]. Yet he is the only king in these plays who makes a formal abdication, and unseats himself from the throne, all the time protesting that the Pilates which make him do so commit an unpardonable sin and prophesying to Northumberland the penalty which must overtake him. But only a few think with him. The Bishop of Carlisle declares that no subject can give sentence on his sovereign; and to satisfy these scruples, the king is made to pronounce his own deposition. In the eyes of the most reasonable personages of the play the crown is as subject to the law as any other dignity. The hereditary right of the king is only one of many such rights. York urges, that if the king prevents Hereford’s succession, he invalidates his own (H.i.191). And Bolingbroke (II. iii), If that my cousin King be King of England, It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster. [2.3.123-4]

So York says in 2 [sic] Hen. VI, i.78, ‘’Twas my inheritance, as the Earldom was –’ [3 Henry VI, 1.1.78] or, as it stood better in the True Tragedy, ‘as the Kingdom is.’[20] And the hereditary claim may be modified by testamentary appointment. Elinor in King John can produce a will to bar Arthur’s succession. Henry VI (3 Hen. VI, I.i.135) asks,

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‘May not a king adopt an heir,’ when he disinherits his son, and entails the crown on York. And Gaunt tells Richard II that if Edward III had known his grandson’s insufficiency, From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame, Deposing thee before thou wert possessed – [2.1.107].

The poet seems to regard the deposition of a bad king, not as a right for courts to enforce, but as a fatal and natural consequence of his follies. The process develops itself almost to completion in King John, and to its final conclusion in Richard II, Henry VI, and Richard III. The nobles and people are alienated by misgovernment and by crime. And the crowning delinquency is often the murder of the heir to the crown. Shakespeare unhistorically represents this to be the cause of John’s unpopularity; and rightly, that of Richard III. He also makes Henry VI’s disinheriting his own son to be the central knot of his unhappy career. The murder of Richard II is shown as a stain on the conscience not of Henry IV only, but of Henry V also. It is a pity that we have not Shakespeare’s own direct judgment upon the affair of Mary Queen of Scots. After the murder or disinheriting of the right heir, the prince’s abuses of his ordinary power are causes of his fall. If he tampers with the tenure of land, (as I suppose is the meaning of ‘farming his realm’ [Richard II, 1.4.45], and making himself ‘landlord, not King of England’ [2.1.113], and ‘binding the whole land with rotten parchment bonds’ [2.1.63-4]); if he is unjust to the nobles, gives ear to flatterers, cherishes informers, pills the commons with taxes, fines the nobles for old quarrels, devises new exactions, such as blanks and benevolences, fails to account for the money, but becomes bankrupt, unable to borrow and obliged to rob; suffers his garden to be overrun with caterpillars, permits great and growing men to do wrong without correction, and wastes his idle hours instead of attending to his work – then he must fall. The nation commits all these works to his hands without constitutional safeguards for his proper performance of them, except this – that if he notably fails, he must have notice to quit; for the crown is responsible to the nation. . . . (432-4)

XI. Shakespeare’s View of The Church The feelings of Shakespeare about the Church perhaps come out in his representation of Churchmen. There is none good among them from Pandulph to Cranmer, except the Bishop of Carlisle in Richard II, and Rutland’s tutor in [3] Henry VI. All the prelates are Machiavellians; all the inferior clergy are conjurers or impostors. . . . [Simpson argues that the largely negative image of the clerics in the history plays reflects Shakespeare’s covert criticism of the Anglican clergy of his own day, not for the most part a criticism of the Roman church.] [The dramatist] gives us quite natural and touching pictures of the piety (superstitious in the eyes of his generation) of Richard II and Henry V. In fact, he is careful not to outrage any one’s religious conscience, however severe he may be on religious politicians. This abstinence on his part places him in the strongest possible contrast to all his brother playwrights, who all spent their deepest-sought

 Richard Simpson, Richard II and Elizabethan Politics 289 wit in ridiculing and outraging the religion which they did not like, whether that was Popery or Puritanism. In this characteristic we may trace, not the influence of Essex, for in Shakespeare it was natural, and independent of any political views; but a frame of mind which would naturally incline him to take the part of the unlucky Earl. (438-9)

XII. Shakespeare’s Politics [After having discussed each of the chronicle plays in succession, Simpson sums up.] This general sketch seems enough to show that there was a poltical current in Shakespeare’s mind, which in the days of Elizabeth led him into opposition. If he welcomed the accession of James, he was soon undeceived. … Such a study not only imparts a new life into English history, but vivifies the dry husks of Shakespearian biography. We see [Shakespeare] in his earliest works choosing the reigns of Henry VI and Richard II (perhaps helping Marlowe in Edward II), the stock examples of weak princes ruined by their favourites and ministers – then deepening the black of Richard III, the typical Machiavellian prince, to show how the stars in their courses fight against omnipotent wickedness, how the corruption of the nobles generates the tyrant and how the corruption of the tyrant generates successful revolution. Then in John and Henry IV, we find him dilating on the miseries of the justest rebellion, of invoking foreign aid, even of full success. Then in Henry V, we have a manifesto of the politcal scheme of the friends of Essex. Finally in the Shakespearian torso of Henry VIII, we have the conclusion of the drama of the fall of the English nobility. First comes a period when the memory of Leicester’s preponderance was fresh, then a period of impatience at the dodges of Cecil, then a time when the poet was full of anxiety lest his young friends should follow the Percies, or give their hands to unpatriotic alliances, like the Nevilles, the Pagets, and the Throgmortons. Then a time when his hopes were raised high for the success of Essex, and then a time of reaction, when he began but did not finish a picture of the condition of England under the Tudors, when professional men, lawyers or clergymen, were raised to be the ministers of the royal will. The two great tetralogies of the rise and the fall of the house of Lancaster were not written consecutively, though the dramas arrange themselves in right order, as the sonnets do, by reason of the unity of the philosophy which underlies them. They were however written as occasional pieces, under the impulse of the political influences of the hour. Finally, I repeat that my theory must not be condemned though every single instance I have adduced may be plausibly explained away on aesthetic or dramatic principles. The dramatist who took the opposition side in Shakespeare’s day was obliged to write words which might be plausibly explained. He might compliment the Queen and Council with the broadest flattery, and it was his interest to do so. If he criticised them, he was obliged to veil his meaning in words of which he could forswear the peccant sense. It is in the aggregate, as a whole, that we can best judge of the political tendency of these dramas. One, two, twenty instances, may be explained away; but when the same allusions recur with ‘damnable iteration’ [1 Henry IV, 1.2.90], then we begin to see the force of the current. (440-1)

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Edward Dowden, the immaturity of Richard II and the realism of Bolingbroke 1875

From Shakespeare: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art (London, 1875); 3rd edition revised (London, [c. 1879]), reprinted (London, 1962). Edward Dowden (1843–1913), literary critic, biographer, editor, and minor poet, was a native of Cork and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, to whose newly established chair of English literature he was appointed in 1867 – only four years after his graduation. A cosmopolitan scholar of British and continental inclination, he wrote prolifically on a wide diversity of authors, being interested in both French and German literature as well as English and American. Essays Modem and Elizabethan (London, 1910), printed shortly before his death, displays the catholicity of his literary tastes. The corner stone of his scholarly career, however, was Shakespeare, and although he edited numerous individual works of the dramatist in popular formats, composed critical introductions for others, and wrote a biography, his study of the playwright’s mind and art (many times reprinted) was undoubtedly his most influential book. One of the hallmarks of Dowden’s approach, for which he was later ridiculed, was his conviction that Shakespeare’s own changing moods, developing attitudes, and intellectual growth could be traced in the sequence of his plays, with the implication that the entire canon might be read as a kind of emotional-spiritual autobiography of the dramatist. The extracts given below are taken from a reprint of the third and slightly revised edition of Dowden’s work (London, 1962).

[From ‘Chapter IV. The English Historical Plays’] [1] [Section ‘IV’: on the character of Richard II] The play of King Richard II possesses none of the titanic stormy force which breathes through King Richard III, but in delicate cunning in the rendering of character it excels the more popular play. The two principal figures in King Richard II, that of the king who fell, and that of the king who rose – the usurping Bolingbroke – grow before us insensibly through a series of fine and characteristic strokes. They do not,

 Edward Dowden, the Immaturity of Richard II and the Realism of Bolingbroke 291 like the figures in King Richard III, forcibly possess themselves of our imagination, but engage it before it is aware, and by degrees advance stronger claims upon us, and make good those claims. It will be worth while to try to ascertain what Shakespeare looked upon as most significant in the characters of these two royal persons, – the weak king who could not rule, and the strong king who pressed him from his place. There is a condition of the intellect which we describe by the word ‘boyishness.’ The mind in the boyish stage of growth ‘has no discriminating convictions, and no grasp of consequences.’ It has not as yet got hold of realities; it is ‘merely dazzled by phenomena instead of perceiving things as they are.’ The talk of a person who remains in this sense boyish is often clever, but it is unreal; now he will say brilliant things upon this side of a question, and now upon the opposite side. He has no consistency of view. He is wanting as yet in seriousness of intellect; in the adult mind.1 Now if we extend this characteristic of boyishness, from the intellect to the entire character, we may understand much of what Shakespeare meant to represent in the person of Richard II. Not alone his intellect, but his feelings, live in the world of phenomena, and altogether fail to lay hold of things as they are; they have no consistency and no continuity. His will is entirely unformed; it possesses no authority and no executive power; he is at the mercy of every chance impulse and transitory mood. He has a kind of artistic relation to life, without being an artist. An artist in life seizes upon the stuff of circumstance, and with strenuous will, and strong creative power, shapes some new and noble form of human existence. Richard, to whom all things are unreal, has a fine feeling for ‘situations.’ Without true kingly strength or dignity, he has a fine feeling for the royal situation. Without any making real to himself what God or what death is, he can put himself, if need be, in the appropriate attitude towards God and towards death. Instead of comprehending things as they are, and achieving heroic deeds, he satiates his heart with the grace, the tenderness, the beauty, or the pathos of situations. Life is to Richard a show, a succession of images; and to put himself into accord with the aesthetic requirements of his position is Richard’s first necessity. He is equal to playing any part gracefully which he is called upon by circumstances to enact. But when he has exhausted the aesthetic satisfaction to be derived from the situations of his life, he is left with nothing further to do. He is an amateur in living; not an artist.2 Nothing had disturbed the graceful dream of Richard’s adolescence. The son of the Black Prince, beautiful in face and form, though now past his youth, a king since boyhood, he has known no antagonism of men or circumstance which might arouse the will. He has an indescribable charm of person and presence; Hotspur remembers him as ‘Richard, that sweet, lovely rose’ [1 Henry IV, 1.3.175]. But a king who rules a discontented people and turbulent nobles needs to be something more than a beautiful blossoming flower. Richard has abandoned his nature to self-indulgence, and therefore the world becomes to him more unreal than ever. He has been surrounded by flatterers, who helped to make his atmosphere a luminous mist, through which the facts of life appeared with all their ragged outlines smoothed away. In the first scene of the play he enacts the part of a king with a fine show of dignity; his bearing is splendid and irreproachable.

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Mowbray is obstinate, and will not throw down the gage of Bolingbroke; Richard exclaims: – Rage must be withstood: Give me his gage: lions make leopards tame. [1.1.173-4]

But Mowbray retains the gage. ‘We were not born to sue, but to command’ [1.1.196], declares Richard with royal majesty; yet he admits that to command exceeds his power. What of that? Has not Richard borne himself splendidly, and uttered himself in a royal metaphor: ‘Lions make leopards tame?’ At this very moment Bolingbroke, with eye set upon his purpose afar off, has resolutely taken the first step towards attaining it. The challenge of Mowbray conceals a deeper purpose. So little does Bolingbroke really feel of hostility to his antagonist, that one of his first acts, as soon as he is in a position to act with authority, is to declare Mowbray’s repeal.3 But to stand forward as champion of the wrongs of England, to make himself the eminent justiciary by right of nature, this is the initial step towards future kingship; and Bolingbroke perceives clearly that the fact of Gloster’s death may serve as fulcrum for the lever which is to shake the throne of England. Nor is the King quite insensible of the tendency of his cousin’s action. Already he begins to quail before his bold antagonist: ‘How high a pitch his resolution soars’ [1.1.109]. Richard tries gracefully to conceal his discomposure, and to deceive Bolingbroke; but he is not, like Richard the hunchback, a daring and efficient hypocrite. He betrays his weakness and his distrust, administering to the two men decreed to exile an oath which pledges them never to reconcile themselves in their banishment, and never to plot against the king. Bolingbroke accepts his exile, parts from the English crowd with an air of gracious, condescending familiarity, which flatters (whereas Richard’s undignified familiarity only displeases),4 and bids farewell to his country as a son bids farewell to the mother with whom his natural loyalty remains, and whom, in due time, he will see again. John of Gaunt is lying on his death-bed. The last of the great race of the time of Edward HI, no English spirit will breathe such patriotism as his until the days of Agincourt. With the prophetic inspiration of a dying man he dares to warn his grand-nephew,[5] and to rebuke him for his treason against the ancient honour of England. Richard, who, with his characteristic sensibility of a superficial kind, turns pale as he listens, recovers himself by a transition from overawed alarm to boyish insolence. The white-haired warrior, now a prophet, who lies dying before him, is ‘A lunatic, lean-witted fool, / Presuming on an ague’s privilege’ [2.1.115-6] who dares with a frozen admonition to make pale the royal cheek of Richard. The facts are very disagreeable, and why should a king admit into his consciousness an ugly or disagreeable fact? By and by, being informed that John of Gaunt is dead, Richard has the most graceful and appropriate word ready for so solemn an occasion: The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be. [2.1.153-4]

In which pilgrimage the first step is to seize upon

 Edward Dowden, the Immaturity of Richard II and the Realism of Bolingbroke 293 The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables, Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed. [2.1.161-2]

Even York, the temporising York, who would fain be all things to all men if by any means he might save himself, is amazed and ventures to remonstrate against the criminal folly of this act. But Richard, like all self-indulgent natures, has only a half belief in any possible future; he chooses to make the present time easy, and let the future provide for itself; he has been living upon chances too long; he has too long been mortgaging the health of to-morrow for the pleasure of to-day: Think what you will, we seize into our hands His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands. [2.1.209-10]

But now the tempest begins to sing. Bolingbroke (before he can possibly have heard of his father’s death and the seizure by Richard of his own rights and royalties) has equipped an expedition, and is about to land upon the English coast. The King makes a hasty return from his ‘military promenade’ in Ireland.6 The first words of each, as he touches his native soil, are characteristic, and were, doubtless, placed by Shakespeare in designed contrast. ‘How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?’ [2.3.1]. The banished man has no tender phrases to bestow upon English earth, now that he sets foot upon it once more. All his faculties are firm set, and bent upon achievement. But Richard, who has been absent for a few days in Ireland, enters with all possible zeal into the sentiment of his situation: I weep for joy To stand upon my kingdom once again. Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand, Though rebels wound thee with their horses’ hoofs; 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. [3.2.4-11]

Which sentimental favours form a graceful incident in the play of Richard’s life, but can hardly compensate the want of true and manly patriotism. This same earth which Richard caressed with extravagant sensibility was the England which John of Gaunt with strong enthusiasm had apostrophised: This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear’d by their breed, and famous for their birth, Renowned for their deeds. [2.1.50-3]

It was the England which Richard had alienated from himself and leased out ‘like to a tenement or pelting farm’ [2.1.60]. What of that, however? Did not Richard address his

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England with phrases full of tender sensibility, and render her mockery favours with his royal hands? Bolingbroke has already gained the support of the Welsh. Richard has upon his side powers higher than natural flesh and blood. Shall he not rise like the sun in the eastern sky, and with the majesty of his royal apparition scare away the treasons of the night? Is he not the anointed deputy of God? Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed king: The breath of worldly men cannot depose The deputy elected by the Lord. [3.2.54-7]

Yes; he will rely on God; it is devout; it is not laborious. For every armed man who fights for Bolingbroke, ‘God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay / A glorious angel’ [3.2.60-1]. And at this moment Salisbury enters to announce the revolt of Wales. Richard has been slack in action, and arrived a day too late. Remorseless comment upon the rhetorical piety of the King! A company of angels fight upon his side; true, but the sturdy Welshmen stand for Bolingbroke! He is the deputy elected by the Lord; but the Lord’s deputy has arrived a day too late! And now Richard alternates between abject despondency (relieved by accepting all the aesthetic satisfaction derivable from the situation of vanquished king) and an airy, unreal confidence. There is in Richard, as Coleridge has finely observed, ‘a constant overflow of emotions from a total incapability of controlling them, and thence a waste of that energy, which should have been reserved for actions, in the passion and effort of mere resolves and menaces. The consequence is moral exhaustion and rapid alternations of unmanly despair and ungrounded hope, every feeling being abandoned for its direct opposite upon the pressure of external accident.’7 A certain unreality infects every motion of Richard; his feelings are but the shadows of true feeling. Now he will be great and a king; now what matters it to lose a kingdom? If Bolingbroke and he alike serve God, Bolingbroke can be no more than his fellow-servant. Now he plays the wanton with his pride, and now with his misery: Of comfort no man speak: Let’s talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs; …………… For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings. [3.2.144-56]

At one moment he pictures God mustering armies of pestilence in his clouds to strike the usurper and his descendants; in the next he yields to Bolingbroke’s demands, and welcomes his ‘right noble cousin’ [3.3.122].[8] He is proud, and he is pious; he is courageous and cowardly; and pride and piety, cowardice and courage, are all the passions of a dream. Yet Shakespeare has thrown over the figure of Richard a certain atmosphere of charm. If only the world were not a real world, to which serious hearts are due, we

 Edward Dowden, the Immaturity of Richard II and the Realism of Bolingbroke 295 could find in Richard some wavering, vague attraction. There is a certain wistfulness about him; without any genuine kingly power, he has a feeling for what kingly power must be; without any veritable religion, he has a pale shadow of religiosity. And few of us have ourselves wholly escaped from unreality. ‘It takes a long time really to feel and understand things as they are; we learn to do so only gradually.’9 Into what glimering limbo will such a soul as that of Richard pass when the breath leaves the body? The pains of hell and joys of heaven belong to those who have serious hearts. Richard has been a graceful phantom. Is there some tenuous, unsubstantial world of spirits reserved for the sentimentalist, the dreamer, and the dilettante? Richard is, as it were, fading out of existence. Bolingbroke seems not only to have robbed him of his authority, but to have encroached upon his very personality, and to have usurped his understanding and his will. Richard is discovering that he is no more than a shadow; but the discovery itself has something unreal and shadowy about it. Is not some such fact as this symbolised by the incident of the mirror? Before he quite ceases to be king, Richard, with his taste for ‘pseudo-poetic pathos,’10 would once more look upon the image of his face, and see what wrinkles have been traced upon it by sorrow. And Bolingbroke, suppressing his inward feeling of disdain, directs that the mirror be brought. Richard gazes against it, and finds that sorrow has wrought no change upon the beautiful lips and forehead. And then exclaiming, ‘A brittle glory shineth in this face, / As brittle as the glory is the face’ [4.1.287-8], he dashes the glass against the ground. For there it is crack’d in a hundred shivers. Mark, silent King, the moral of this sport, How soon my sorrow hath destroy’d my face.    Boling. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy’d The shadow of your face.   K. Rich. Say that again. The shadow of my sorrow! ha! let’s see. [4.1.289-94]

Does Richard, as Professor Flathe (contemptuously dismissing the criticisms of Gervinus [No. 34 above] and of Kreyssig) maintains, rise morally from his humiliation as a king?11 Is he heartily sorry for his misdoings? While drinking the wine and eating the bread of sorrow, does he truly and earnestly repent, and intend to lead a new life? The habit of his nature is not so quickly unlearnt. Richard in prison remains the same person as Richard on the throne. Calamity is no more real to him now than prosperity had been in brighter days. The soliloquy of Richard in Pomfret Castle (Act v, Scene 5) might almost be transferred, as far as tone and manner are concerned, to one other personage in Shakespeare’s plays – to Jacques [of As You Like It]. The curious intellect of Jacques gives him his distinction. He plays his parts for the sake of understanding the world in his way of superficial fool’s-wisdom. Richard plays his parts to possess himself of the aesthetic satisfaction of an amateur in life, with a fine feeling for situations. But each lives in the world of shadow, in the world of mockery wisdom, or the world of mockery passion. Mr. Hudson is right when he says, ‘Richard is so steeped in voluptuous habits that he must needs be a voluptuary even in his sorrow, and make a luxury of woe itself; pleasure has so thoroughly mastered his spirit, that he cannot

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think of bearing pain as a duty or an honour, but merely as a license for the pleasure of maudlin self-compassion; so he hangs over his griefs, hugs them, nurses them, buries himself in them, as if the sweet agony thereof were to him a glad refuge from the stings of self-reproach, or a dear release from the exercise of manly thought.’12 Yet to the last a little of real love is reserved by one heart or two for the shadowy, attractive Richard; the love of a wife who is filled with a piteous sense of her husband’s mental and moral effacement, seeing her ‘fair rose wither’ [5.1.8], and the love of a groom whose loyalty to his master is associated with loyalty to his master’s horse, roan Barbary. This incident of roan Barbary is an invention of the poet. Did Shakespeare intend only a little bit of helpless pathos? Or is there a touch of hidden irony here? A poor spark of affection remains for Richard, but it has been kindled half by Richard, and half by Richard’s horse. The fancy of the fallen king disports itself for the last time, and hangs its latest wreath around this incident. Then suddenly comes the darkness. Suddenly the hectic passion of Richard flares; he snatches an axe from a servant, and deals about him deadly blows. In another moment he is extinct; the graceful futile existence has ceased. (193-204) [2] [Section ‘V’: on the character of Bolingbroke] Bolingbroke utters few words in the play of Richard II; yet we feel that from the first the chief force centres in him. He possesses every element of power except those which are spontaneous and unconscious. He is dauntless, but his courage is under the control of his judgment; it never becomes a glorious martial rage like that of the Greek Achilles, or like that of the English Henry [i.e. Henry V], Bolingbroke’s son. He is ambitious, but his ambition is not an inordinate desire to wreak his will upon the world, and expend a fiery energy like that of Richard III; it is an ambition which aims at definite ends, and can be held in reserve until these seem attainable. He is studious to obtain the good graces of nobles and of people, and he succeeds because, wedded to his end, he does not become impatient of the means; but he is wholly lacking in genius of the heart; and therefore he obtains the love of no man. He is indeed formidable; his enemies describe England as ‘A bleeding land, / Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke [2 Henry IV, 1.1.207-8]; and he is aware of his strength; but there is in his nature no fund of incalculable strength of which he cannot be aware. All his faculties are wellorganized, and help one another; he is embarrassed by no throng of conflicting desires or sympathies. He is resolved to win the throne, and has no personal hostility to the king to divide or waste his energies; only a little of contempt. In the deposition scene he gives as little pain as may be to Richard; he controls and checks Northumberland, who irritates and excites the king by requiring him to read the articles of his accusation. Because Bolingbroke is strong, he is not cruel.13 He decides when to augment his power by clemency, and when by severity. Aumerle he can pardon, who will live to fight and fall gallantly for Henry’s son at Agincourt. He can dismiss to a dignified retreat the Bishop, who, loyal to the hereditary principle, had pleaded against Henry’s title to the throne. But Bushy, Green, and such like caterpillars of the Commonwealth, Henry has sworn to weed and pluck away. And when he pardons Aumerle he sternly decrees to death his own brother-in-law.[14]

 Edward Dowden, the Immaturity of Richard II and the Realism of Bolingbroke 297 The honour of England he cherished not with passionate devotion, but with a strong considerate care, as though it were his own honour. There is nothing infinite in the character of Henry, but his is a strong finite character. When he has attained the object of his ambition he is still aspiring, but he does not aspire towards anything higher and further than that which he had set before him; his ambition is now to hold firmly that which he has energetically grasped. He tries to control England as he controlled roan Barbary: Great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seem’d to know, With slow but stately pace kept on his course. [5.2.7-10]

‘Even in his policy,’ Mr. Hudson has truly said, ‘there was much of the breadth and largeness which distinguished the statesman from the politician.’[15] He can conceive before hand with practical imaginative faculty the exigencies of a case, and provide for them. Of Richard’s hectic fancy (which must not be mistaken for imagination) Henry has none. Nor does he ever unpack his heart with words. Aiming at things, his words are right and efficient without aiming. In the scene of Richard’s deposition, while the king is setting his fancy to work in making arabesques out of all the details of the situation, Bolingbroke does not become impatient. The wound which he inflicts on Richard must of course suppurate. ‘I thought you had been willing to resign’ [4.1.190]. ‘Are you contented to resign the crown?’ [4.1.200]. With these brief and decisive sentences Henry calmly urges his point. In a later scene, where Aumerle has flung himself before the king and confessed his treason, while York, who speedily transferred all his loyalty from the deposed prince to his successor, pleads eagerly against his son, and the duchess on her knees implores his pardon, Henry allows the passionate flood to foam about his feet. He has resolved upon his part, and knows that in a little while he can allay this tempest. ‘Rise up, good aunt,’ ‘Good aunt, rise up,’ ‘Good aunt, stand up’ [5.3.92, 111, 129] – these words, uttered in each pause of the passionate appeal, are all that Henry has at first to say; and then the traitor is forgiven, and a loyal subject gained for ever. ‘I pardon him as God will pardon me;’ ‘With all my heart I pardon him’ [5.3.131, 135-6]. … (204-7)

39

A. C. Swinburne, an unsympathetic view of Richard II 1875

From ‘The Three Stages of Shakespeare’, Fortnightly Review, N.S. 17 (1 May 1875); reprinted in A Study of Shakespeare (London, 1880). Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909), prolific poet and critic, was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. Eccentric in both personality and physique, and supported by a small income from his father, he settled in London, where his epilepsy and a life of dissipation several times brought him close to death. His wide knowledge of literature, particularly of poetry, astonished his friends and helped nourish his own lyrical gifts, which emerged early. His poetic drama, Atalanta in Calydon (1865), modelled on Greek tragedy, established his reputation, but his Poems and Ballads (1866) ignited intense controversy, being bitterly attacked in some quarters for their unrestrained sensuality and anti-Christian views, but praised in others for their infusion of vitality and freshness into Victorian verse. His literary criticism, like much of his poetry, has become notorious for its prolixity, its flamboyant style, its exaggeration, and its intemperate enthusiasms and hostilities; but it remains historically important, like that of Lamb, for its championing of the Elizabethan dramatists – particularly Marlowe, Webster, Chapman, Jonson, and Ford –and for its refusal (as in the extract reprinted below) to isolate Shakespeare from his theatrical contemporaries.

[Swinburne defines the first of the three stages of Shakespeare’s style (the ‘lyric and fantastic’ to which Richard II belongs) as characterized by excessive rhyme and verbal conceits.] . . . The same effusion or effervescence of words is perceptible in King Richard II as in the greater (and the less good) part of Romeo and Juliet; and not less perceptible is the perpetual inclination of the poet to revert for help to rhyme, to hark back in search of support towards the half-forsaken habits of his poetic voyage. Feeling his foothold insecure on the hard and high ascent of the steeps of rhymeless verse, he stops and slips back ever and anon towards the smooth and marshy meadow whence he has hardly begun to climb. Any student who should wish to examine the conditions

 A. C. Swinburne, an Unsympathetic View of Richard II 299 of the struggle at its height may be content to analyse the first act of this the first historical play of Shakespeare.[1] As the tragedy moves onward, and the style gathers strength as the action gathers speed, as (to borrow the phrase so admirably applied by Coleridge to Dryden) the poet’s chariot-wheels get hot by driving fast,[2] the temptation of rhyme grows weaker, and the hand grows firmer which before lacked strength to wave it off. The one thing wholly or greatly admirable in this play is the exposition of the somewhat pitiful but not unpitiable character of King Richard: among the scenes devoted to this exposition I of course include the whole of the death-scene of Gaunt, as well the part which precedes as the part which follows the actual appearance of his nephew on the stage; and into these scenes the intrusion of rhyme is rare and brief. They are written almost wholly in pure and fluent rather than in vigorous or various blank verse; though I cannot discern in any of them an equality in power and passion to the magnificent scene of abdication in Marlowe’s Edward II. This play, I think, must undoubtedly be regarded as the immediate model of Shakespeare’s; and the comparison is one of inexhaustible interest to all students of dramatic poetry. To the highest height of the earlier master I do not think that the mightier poet, who was as yet in great measure his pupil, has ever risen in this the first (as I take it) of his historic plays. Of composition and proportion he has perhaps already a better idea. But in grasp of character, always excepting the one central figure of the piece, his hand is as yet the unsteadier of the two. Even after a life-long study of this as of all other plays of Shakespeare, it is for me at least impossible to determine what I doubt if the poet could himself have clearly defined – the main principle, the motive, and the meaning of such characters as York, Norfolk, and Aumerle. The Gaveston and the Mortimer of Marlowe are far more solid and definite figures than these; yet none after that of Richard is more important to the scheme of Shakespeare. They are fitful, shifting, vaporous: their outlines change, withdraw, dissolve, and ‘leave not a rack behind’ [The Tempest, 4.1.156]. They, not Antony, are like the clouds of evening described in the most glorious of so many glorious passages put long afterwards by Shakespeare into the mouth of his latest Roman hero. ‘They cannot hold this visible shape’ [Antony and Cleopatra, 4.14.14] in which the poet at first presents them even long enough to leave a distinct image, a decisive impression for better or for worse, upon the mind’s eye of the most simple and open-hearted reader. They are ghosts, not men; ‘simulacra modis pallentia miris.’[3] You cannot descry so much as the original intuition of the artist’s hand which began to draw and never relaxed its hold of the brush before the first lines were firmly traced. And in the last, the worst and weakest scene of all [5.3], in which York pleads with Bolingbroke for the death of the son whose mother pleads against her husband for his life, there is a final relapse into rhyme and rhyming epigram, into the ‘jigging vein’ dried up (we might have hoped) long since by the very glance of Marlowe’s Apollonian scorn.[4] It would be easy, agreeable, and irrational to ascribe without further evidence than its badness this misconceived and misshapen scene to some other hand than Shakespeare’s. It is below the weakest, the rudest, the hastiest scene attributable to Marlowe; it is false, wrong, artificial beyond the worst of his bad and boyish work; but it has a certain likeness for the worse to the crudest work of Shakespeare. It is difficult to say to what depths of bad taste the writer of certain passages in Venus and Adonis could not fall before his genius or his judgment were full grown. To invent an earlier

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play on the subject and imagine this scene a surviving fragment, a floating waif of that imaginary wreck, would, in my opinion, be an uncritical mode of evading the question at issue. It must be regarded as the last hysterical struggle of rhyme to maintain its place in tragedy; and the explanation, I would fain say the excuse, of its re-appearance may perhaps be simply this – that the poet was not yet dramatist enough to feel for each of his characters an equal or proportionate regard, to divide and disperse his interest among the various crowd of figures which claim each in his place, and each after his kind, a fair and adequate share of their creator’s attention and sympathy. His present interest was here wholly concentrated on the single figure of Richard; and when that for the time was absent, the subordinate figures became to him but heavy and vexatious encumbrances, to be shifted on and off the stage with as much of haste and as little of labour as might be possible to an impatient and uncertain hand. Now all tragic poets, I presume, from Aeschylus the godlike father of them all to the last aspirant who may struggle after the traces of his steps, have been poets before they were tragedians; their lips have had power to sing, before their feet had strength to tread the stage, before their hands had skill to paint or carve figures from the life. With Shakespeare it was so as certainly as with Shelley, as evidently as with Hugo. It is in the great comic poets, in Molière and Congreve,5 our own lesser Molière, so far inferior in breadth and depth, in tenderness and strength, to the greatest writer of the ‘great age,’ yet so near him in science and in skill, so like him in brilliance and in force, – it is in these that we find theatrical instinct twin-born with imaginative dramatic power, with inventive perception. (Fortnightly Review, 628-31; Study of Shakespeare, 37-43)

40

F.J. Furnivall, the topicality of Richard II and the character of its protagonist 1877

From The Leopold Shakespeare. The Poet’s Works, in Chronological Order, From the Text of Professor Delius With ‘Edward III’ and ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen,’ and an Introduction by F.J. Furnivall, Illustrated (London, 1877). Frederick James Furnivall (1825–1910), philologist and editor of prodigious energy and output, was educated at University College, London, and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He prepared for a legal career, being called to the bar in 1849, but never pursued the law professionally. A man of remarkable energies, he promoted among other projects the reform of spelling based on phonetic principles (as in his idiosyncratic spellings here – ‘ruind’, ‘belongd’, ‘containd’ and the like). He is famous now for his founding of the Early English Text Society (1864), which promoted knowledge and published literary works of England’s medieval past. He also began the Chaucer Society (1868), the New Shakespeare Society (1873), the Shelley Society (1876), and the Browning Society (1881). Furnivall conceived and did some preliminary work on the dictionary that in other hands eventually became the OED, and (with J.W. Hales) brought out a three-volume edition of the manuscript ballads in Bishop Percy’s collection (1868). His growing interest in Shakespeare led to studies of the playwright’s chronology based on metrical tests – a method satirized by more aesthetically inclined critics such as Swinburne. Furnivall’s long introduction to The Leopold Shakespeare (a reprint of Delius’s text) takes up all the works in what the introducer took to be their compositional sequence; the brief remarks on Richard II are chiefly contextual, but in their unsympathetic assessment of the progtagonist’s character betray Furnivall’s somewhat puritanical fervour. Like Simpson (No. 37 above), though in less detail, Furnivall believed that topical commentary was a leading motive behind the writing of the history plays as a group.

[From ‘Richard the Second’] Shakespeare turned from his play [i.e. Romeo and Juliet] and his poems of passion, to deal with the great political questions which were stirring his countrymen in his own time. One cannot believe that he who knew the object of playing was to show ‘the very

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age and body of the time, his form and pressure’ [Hamlet, 3.2.23-4], could have been indifferent to the greatest questions pressing on his age, when he freely satirised the petty fashions of men’s coats and breeches, and women’s false hair and face-painting and the like. The chief questions troubling his time were the disputed succession of Elizabeth and her title to the Crown, her government by favourites, the continual conspiracies against her, either home-grown or supported by foreign aid. And whether Shakespeare took up the topic of historical plays because it was popular with English audiences, and had been dealt with by former writers, or because he had his own say on Elizabethan politics to say to his countrymen, I cannot doubt that he did speak his own opinions and preacht his own moral through his historical plays. That he loved his country, every play and poem of his shows. That he was a patriot above party, even though he may have inclined to Southampton and Essex’s side, his historical plays show too. He first took the weak kings, and of them first, Richard the Second, who by favouritism ruind England. Elizabeth herself said to [William] Lambarde, ‘I am Richard the Second: know you not that?’ And her favouritism is still one of the just, among the many unjust, stains on her character. That Shakespeare’s Richard II was the play acted in the streets of London by direction of Essex’s friends on the afternoon before his rebellion broke out, is almost certain, for the arrangement for the performance of the play was made with ‘Augustine Phillipps, servant to the Lord Chamberlain, and one of his Players,’1 that is, a member of the company to which Shakespeare belongd; and that Shakespeare’s Richard II from the first containd the Deposition Scene, though this was not printed in the first quarto, is clear from the lines that come before and after the omission. Shakespeare shows by this weak king’s history, what is the end of a sovereign’s unwise favouritism, and he also protests against the benevolences and daily new exactions raised in Elizabeth’s reign,2 especially about 1591-3. I do not contend that in Richard, Shakespeare meant to picture Elizabeth: she was far other than he. This degenerate son of the Black Prince, the flower of warriors, is shown in Shakespeare’s pages as a mere royal sham. Personate a king in tongue he can; but act as one he can’t. His claim to command is belied by the action of the quarrelsome nobles in his very presence in the first scene. The utter meanness of his nature is shown by his inability to take the reproof of the noble, dying Gaunt. His stage-actor’s hollowness is shown on his return to England when, idiot that he is, he affects to favour England’s earth by touching it with his royal hand, and then claims on the one hand the certainty of help from heaven, and on the other grovels in the mire of despair as soon as bad news comes. Good tidings lift him again for a moment, but he falls at once into the slime to which by nature he belongs. He cannot part with his crown without calling for a glass to look at himself in: and it is not till he suffers and dies in prison, that we have any feeling of regret for the majesty he so little represented on the throne. His rival Bolingbroke, on the other hand, the son of that Gaunt, through whom Shakespeare has spoken his own love of ‘this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England’ [2.1.50], the son of Chaucer’s sweet-voiced Duchess Blanche, is shown with all his mother’s gracious ways winning the hearts of the common folk, wiling the tediousness of Northumberland’s journey, and astutely seizing the chances that fortune and Richard’s misgovernment give him to ascend the throne. His hint for Richard’s murder is caught

 F.J. Furnivall, the Topicality of Richard II 303 up by Exton, and the king has soon to learn that the deed is worse than a crime; it is a blunder. The passion and fancy of the last group of Shakespeare’s works give way to the patriotism and the rhetoric of the present set of historical plays. As in the former the fancy sometimes verged on conceit, so in the latter does the rhetoric sometimes verge on rant, as in Bolingbroke’s and Mowbray’s speeches. In the later scenes, too of Richard II, ryme seems to make its last effort to stand as part of Shakespeare’s regular means for working out his plays. But these scenes are singularly weak; and with the repetition of the nobles’ challenge constitute a blemish on the play. Another blemish is the want of comic relief, and the making of the gardener and his mates talk like philosophers or Friar Laurence. A strong link with Romeo and Juliet is seen in the up-and-downness of the characters of Richard the Second and Romeo. Richard II is founded, like Shakespeare’s other Historical Plays, upon Holinshed’s Chronicle, with such changes and additions as it pleasd the poet to make in his original. Among the inventions here are the fine scene between John of Gaunt on his deathbed and his nephew; Aumerle’s continuing faithful to Richard; Northumberland’s not kneeling to the King, whereas he did kneel; the scene of the Queen and the gardeners; Richard’s interview with her after his return from Ireland; the lament of Henry over Richard’s corpse. York’s description of the progress of Richard and Bolingbroke is from Stowe [Annals of England, 1631 edn.] p. 322. See, too, Daniel’s poem, History of the Civil Wars, bk. ii. . . . (xxxvi-xxxvii)

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Denton J. Snider, Richard II and the right of revolution 1877

From ‘Richard the Second’ in System of Shakespeare’s Dramas . . . (2 vols., St. Louis, 1877). Volume I. Reprinted in The Shakespearian Drama: A Commentary. The Histories (St. Louis, 1889). Denton Jaques Snider (1841–1925), American author, educator, and literary critic, was born in Ohio, educated at Oberlin College, served as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War, and then settled in St. Louis as a teacher of Latin and Greek. One of the founders of the St. Louis Philosophical Society, Snider spent many years touring in the Middle West as a lecturer, carrying his idealistic principles and broadly based culture to the intellectually deprived cities of the region. During his lifetime he produced more than forty volumes – novels, biographies (of Lincoln, Emerson, and Shakespeare), various philosophical and psychological writings, commentaries on Dante, Goethe, Homer, and Shakespeare, several autobiographical works, and even original verse. Snider’s aesthetic criticism, of which the chapter reprinted below is a representative example, probably reflects greater originality and refinement of sensibility than the philosophical formulations by which he hoped to be known. Despite (or perhaps because of) the logical schematism of its methodology, the essay on Richard II is historically significant as the first sustained analysis of the play’s structure in conjunction with an interpretation of its political theory. Snider’s piece is also notable for being one of the earliest to stress in extenso the romantic concept of Richard as the poet-king – a figure ‘like the fabled swan, singing his own death-song’ (1877 edn., p. 335; 1889 edn., p. 334). I reprint from the original 1877 edition but give pagination from both it and the 1889 reissue.

Richard the Second In Richard the Second the fundamental theme is the right of revolution. We behold a king deposed, and the grounds of his deposition declared in the most explicit manner. It is manifest that the Poet intended to justify the change of rulers, and thus to show when revolution may be necessary for the welfare – perhaps for the existence – of

 Denton J. Snider, Richard II and the Right of Revolution 305 the nation. The whole action is the story of a king who loses the essential attribute of kingship, and, hence, loses his crown. In English History the royal authority has been often claimed to be of God; Shakespeare boldly puts this religious element also into the conflict, and makes it subordinate to the national principle. Though Richard asserts the divinity of his office and its superiority to any human control, he is still hurled from his throne by the people of England. There is no disguise, no softening of the collision – it is the divine right of Kings against the temporal right of the State. The latter is supreme – is, indeed, the most divine of all things. Let us note the connection between this and the preceding drama. In King John we see the monarch making good his defective title by his determined support of nationality. He maintains the independence and honor of England against her stalwart enemies – France and the See of Rome. Thus he is the true ruler, and receives the unquestioned loyalty of the people. But he loses his lofty principle of action, namely, the defense of nationality; he submits abjectly to the Church, and the country suffers the ignominy of a French invasion. The change in his conduct and character is complete; he is no longer King, indeed, and we may suppose his violent death anticipated dethronement. The main point to be noticed is that John failed to support nationality against the external powers which sought to subject it; he could not, therefore, remain the representative of the free nation. In Richard the Second it is not a combat without, but a struggle within; it is not the attitude of the king toward foreign States, but his attitude toward his own subjects. The issue is wholly internal, and now the right of the individual becomes the paramount object of interest. But Richard, as well as John, violates the principle of nationality, though in a different manner. The English State can not and ought not to be placed under the yoke of an external power as long as its supreme end is to secure the liberties of the subject. The government which most adequately maintains the rights of the individual will be most strongly pillared in the hearts of the people. The depth and intensity of national feeling must in the end repose upon the excellence and purity of national institutions, whose highest object may be stated to be the security of the Will of the Person in all its manifestations. Let this be destroyed by a government, then such a government is not worthy of its independence, and the people are not fit to be free. Here lies the violation of King Richard – he assailed the truest principle of nationality by committing wrongs upon the subject. He refused to be controlled by the law; the institution of which he was the head, and whose end is to secure to every man his rights, was perverted by him into an instrument of the most arbitrary extortion. The very ruler was thus destroying the State, was assailing in its most tender germ the principle of nationality. From being the means of protecting person and property, government in his hands has become the most potent engine of their destruction. Such a king must be put out of the way; the struggle cannot be avoided. The question is: Shall the nation or the sovereign endure? The answer is given in this drama by the deposition and death of King Richard the Second. But the conflict cannot end here. There are two sides – both have their validity; each party has committed a violation. The title of Richard is unquestioned; his right to the crown is asserted by that same law for the defense of which he has been deprived of the throne. The wrong of Richard has been punished by the loss of his kingdom,

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but his punishment has begotten a new wrong, which, by the same inexorable logic, must call forth a new retribution. Such a result will take place, but to portray it will far transcend the limits of a single drama. Hence arises the necessity of the Tetralogy, or a series of four plays; two such Tetralogies now follow in regular sequence. It ought also to be observed that the king who succeeds Richard is not the next in line of succession. Thus the right of inheritance is doubly violated – the second time without any guilt on the part of the true heir. After two generations of men, and after the original violators have lain long in their tombs, the penalty will come – the most terrific struggle known in English History, the Wars of the Roses, will break out concerning the right of inheritance, and sweep the descendant of Bolingbroke from the throne, and his entire family into the grave. Thus we pass from the Lancastrian to the Yorkian Tetralogy. But we have at present to consider the Lancastrian Tetralogy, whose logical frame work should be carefully examined. King Richard is deposed – in undermining the law he has undermined his own throne, which rested upon the law; the consequence of his deed has been visited upon him. But who is to succeed him? Here it is naturally the man who has been most deeply wronged – who, in his own person, most adequately represents the majesty of violated justice. Thus a subject has revolted from the king and made himself king; he has obtained the crown by acknowledging and maintaining in arms the right of revolution. The new king has, therefore, called into existence the principle of his own dethronement, and has enforced it as a basis of action for the entire nation. For the conviction of the people must go along with their deed; that deed has been dethronement, and, hence, their conviction is now grounded upon the right of deposing the legal sovereign. This is the difficulty of all revolutions; they are aimed at the stability of institutions – hence they cannot be very stable of themselves. A revolutionary government is logically a contradiction in terms, for its purpose is to upset government – to destroy that which is established; hence its success depends entirely upon the speed with which it abandons its own principle. Having seen the right of revolution, we now behold the wrong of revolution – a wrong which will be brought home to every country that attempts revolutionizing, even from the most justifiable causes. A nation has to endure the penalty of violation, although that violation may be absolutely necessary to preserve a higher element of national existence. It is a genuine conflict of principles; both sides are right, both are wrong, yet in different degrees; the ultimate test of their relative worth is the universality of their principle. The chief characteristic of the Historical Drama is that it rises above the guilt and punishment of the mere individual, and shows the guilt and punishment of whole nations and whole epochs, thus manifesting how the deed in history returns to the land with a whip of scorpions, even after the lapse of generations. The deposition of Richard, therefore, will not end the conflict; revolution has been let loose in the country, and must, in its turn, be put down. It was stated that the act of Bolingbroke is in its nature contradictory of itself; that the dethronement of the king, applied as a general principle, must mean his own dethronement. The logic of the situation at once begins to disclose itself; the very men who aided him in acquiring the crown are just as ready to take it away again. Indeed, they must claim this to be a right of the subject. Thus the government of Bolingbroke inherits rebellion and revolution,

 Denton J. Snider, Richard II and the Right of Revolution 307 which must be put down by force of arms – that is, he is forced to turn around and undo his own work, counteract his own principle, stamp out the doctrine of revolt by which he ascended the throne. If he is successful, he will restore the nation to harmony, confirm the succession in his family, and solidify the shattered institutions of the land. This is the great work whose accomplishment is portrayed in the First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth, a truly national poem, whose theme is the restoration of England to internal peace and greatness. Therefore, if Richard the Second showed the right of revolution and its success, Henry the Fourth shows the wrong of revolution and its defeat. Still, there is one deep, underlying principle to both these works – it is the right of nationality, which at one time hurls the monarch from his throne and at another time tramples into dust the standard of rebellion. The English nation, united within and confident of its strength, feels an aspiration for its ancient glory. There is nothing to do at home; the national enthusiasm cannot be restrained. Moreover, it finds in a new king a man of heroic mould. Just across the channel are situated the fair domains of France, the hereditary foe of the nation, and a large portion of these domains once lay at the feet of England. The play of Henry the Fifth is the last of this first group; it exhibits the spirit of nationality bursting its limits and going forth to subjugate other peoples. It is an epoch of national glory; England has become the proud conqueress; she seems poised on the very pinnacle of fame and prosperity. Thus ends the great Lancastrian Tetralogy, passing off the stage in a blaze of success and patriotic fervor. But at the same time it must not be forgotten that just here can be traced the source of the unutterable calamities which followed, and which brought on the overthrow of the Lancastrian dynasty. For England, through foreign conquest, is really destroying herself; she is assailing the independence of other nations, and therein is undermining her own principle of nationality, as well as opposing the world-historical movement of modern times, which is to maintain the autonomy of the individual State. She, therefore, is guilty of the deepest wrong against the spirit of the age and against the family of European nations, as well as of a crime against herself; hence bitter will be her retribution. But these considerations will be more fully developed when the Yorkian series comes up for treatment. The drama of Richard the Second may now be unfolded in its details. Its purely poetic merits are of the highest order; in radiant glow of imagery and in fiery intensity of expression it is unsurpassed. It possesses also the national exaltation of the English Historical Drama generally; it lightens with passages of combined patriotic and poetic enthusiasm. Indeed, the leading character may be justly called a poet, whose own misfortunes inspire utterances of deep passion, mingled with the most brilliant hues of fancy. There is a lyrical coloring diffused over the entire work, and, as a drama exhibiting action and characterization, it can by no means be esteemed as highly as when it is considered simply as a beautiful poem. The action exhibits a double change; it is a stream with two currents sweeping alongside of each other in opposite directions. It shows how to lose a realm and how to acquire a realm; it passes on the one hand from kingship to deprivation, and on the other hand from deprivation to kingship. It will, therefore, be manifest that the drama moves on two threads, having as their respective centers of interest the monarch dethroned and the monarch enthroned. The cause of this reciprocal change of situation

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is the wrong done to the subject by the king; a subject then defends his own rights, which is the right of the nation against the sovereign, and therein makes himself the representative of nationality. He thus takes the place of the king, since the latter is at the head of the State, whose highest function is to secure justice, and not to be the instrument of wrong. That subject, therefore, who, in his own person, supremely represents justice, and vindicates it when assailed, is in truth the ruler of the people. The present drama will simply show this thought working itself into reality. There are also two movements in the play – the first of which shows the guilt of the king, the second his retribution. Each movement carries along within itself the two threads above mentioned – that of Richard and that of Bolingbroke. The one falls, the other rises; at the point of crossing, in their descent and ascent, lies in general the dramatic transition. First we are made acquainted with the crimes and follies of Richard – the murder of his uncle, the supremacy of favorites, the banishment of Bolingbroke, the expedition to Ireland. The counter-thread unfolds the scheme of Bolingbroke, his banishment and his return, together with the disaffection of the nobles and commons. The second movement exhibits the downward career of Richard to dethronement and death, as well as the execution of his favorites, while at the same time Bolingbroke ascends the throne with the general consent of the realm. Thus the guilt of Richard is punished by that person upon whom he has inflicted a most wanton injury; hence wrong and its retribution make up the whole action. I. At the beginning of the play the two threads run together for a while, and then separate. The duel shows the opposing sides, though Richard seems to be playing the part of a mediator. He calls upon his uncle, the venerable John of Gaunt, to bring forward Harry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, who had challenged Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. The two combatants at once appear, and each gives his statement of the case. Bolingbroke, who is the son of Gaunt and cousin of Richard, makes a number of charges, which seem to be in the nature of indefinite surmises, and which he himself did not seriously entertain; but there is one most emphatic accusation which manifestly embraces the whole ground of the challenge – his uncle, Gloster, was murdered by Mowbray. This deed of blood calls for justice, and Bolingbroke swears that he will be the avenger of his relative. Herein he declares his principle, which he will afterwards carry out in its extreme application. Mowbray easily answers the other charges, but the death of Gloster he hurries over with an ambiguous expression, in striking contrast with his general candor and plainness of statement. Something is the matter, and we shall watch sharply for the true explanation in the future course of the drama. Richard tries to conciliate the fiery duelists by a little humorous banter, and then by an exercise of royal authority. But both refuse obedience in the most unequivocal manner. Herein we catch a slight glimpse of a principle which was supreme among the feudal nobility. Honor was above everything; if it collided with authority, the latter must yield; the king had no right of command in its realm. The individual alone is the monarch there, and is responsible for both word and deed. Life belongs to the sovereign and would be readily given at his bidding, but not honor; hence arose the duel, which was a trial above the law. Richard cannot reconcile the combatants, and so appoints a day for the fight.

 Denton J. Snider, Richard II and the Right of Revolution 309 But, before we proceed to the final result of the contest, we are fully initiated into the motives of all the prime actors. The truth comes out plainly; Richard is himself the cause of Gloster’s murder, and Mowbray was at most only his instrument. The entire situation clears up at once; Bolingbroke is striking at Richard through Mowbray; already the wily politician snuffs the future revolution in the air. Hence throughout this duel the real combatants are the King and Bolingbroke. Here, too, is shown the difference between young manhood and old age – between son and father. Gaunt refuses to stir for the punishment of his brother’s murderers; though implored by the widowed Duchess of Gloster, he can only leave vengeance to God, who will, in His own good time, bring retribution upon the offenders. Gaunt clearly sees what the conflict involves. Justice invokes him to slay Richard, yet thereby he will fall into guilt himself; his age and disposition lead him to shun such an entangling collision, and leave the wrong to Heaven for rectification. But the son, Bolingbroke, is ready to undertake the struggle, whose consequences will keep him busy the rest of his life. For he can right the wrong only by doing a wrong, which, in its turn, will call for its penalty. The preparations for the duel are made in magnificent style; the two combatants leap forth with an eager delight for the fray, and utter mutual defiance. But, just as they are about to engage, the King stops the encounter and declares against both the sentence of banishment. Here Richard appears in his best light; he says that he will not suffer civil strife in his dominions, and that he will remove all cause for internal war. In such combats he beholds the ‘grating shock of wrathful iron arms’ [1.3.136], and he darkly forebodes the bloodshed which will hereafter result from feudal turbulence. The young monarch – for he always appears as a youth – does not lack intellectual vision; he will repeatedly manifest the clearest insight into his surroundings, and foresee results far in the future with the inspiration of a prophet. But there is no action corresponding to his intuition; he can neither control himself, nor does he know how to employ instrumentalities to control others. His attempt to subordinate the principle of honor to authority is worthy of success, but his means are utterly inadequate. When we reflect, too, that he was well aware of the ambition and character of Bolingbroke, we fully comprehend how unable such puny hands were to wield the massive tools of government. Let us now see in what manner the two noblemen conduct themselves under decree of exile. Bolingbroke receives the sentence with a sort of defiant submission. His actions seem to declare that banishment is one of the means of accomplishing his political ambition; he goes but in order to return. The parting interview with his father is somewhat frosty, and suggests dissimulation. It does not, indeed, appear that Bolingbroke had already laid out consciously the complete plan of his future career, but political instinct was urging him all the same toward the throne. Mowbray, on the contrary, overflows with sorrow of hopeless separation; his punishment is more severe, though less deserved, than that of Bolingbroke, and he plainly insinuates ingratitude against Richard – doubtless with good reason. His beautiful lament has for its burden the loss of the English tongue, which he must now forego [sic] in a strange land; it is a sentence which condemns him to a speechless death. His function in the play is thus accomplished; he will appear no more. Though there are some later allusions to him,

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his part in the murder of Gloster is not cleared up by them, and the first suspicion hangs over him to the last. With this duel begins the strife which only ends with the Wars of the Roses. It is the prelude which opens a great epoch of internal struggle – a struggle which lasts nearly three generations, and forms in Shakespeare the theme of two dramatic cycles. Its intensity shows the strength of the disease; the baleful virus of personal animosity and insubordination had permeated the entire body politic. Long will be the fever, deep and oft-recurring the throes of the malady, until the poison is eliminated from the system, and the strong arm of the Tudors, in suppressing individual license, will assail individual liberty, whence will arise a new and almost as lengthy a conflict. But this period lies beyond the work of the Poet. At present we are to witness the transition from feudalism, in which the quarrel of two noblemen could involve the peace of the whole realm, to the modern world, in which the State has brought into subordination the turbulent, though powerful and high-born, subject. Nor should we fail to notice the redeeming trait of these people; they all are fired with an intense feeling of nationality. Whatever else they may do, they never forget that they are Englishmen. Both the exiled nobles express the same attachment to country; Richard glows with it, and the aged Gaunt on his death-bed sings the praises of England in an unrivaled strain of poetic exaltation. Nationality is the grand swelling theme, in which all discord is swallowed up. This is the sound germ which will sprout into a healthy and vigorous tree when it is fully developed. Thus distinctly appears even now the national consciousness of England, which is her unifying principle amid all dissension, and the course of her history will be to unfold it into institutions which will give to it an absolute validity in the real world. 1. The two threads of Richard and Bolingbroke, which have hitherto run together, here separate, and will not unite again till the situations of the two men are reversed. We can now take up the part of Richard and follow it through to the end of the first movement. Bolingbroke has departed, but his designs are not unknown to the King, who has ‘observed his courtship of the common people’ [1.4.24], and noted with just suspicion his great popularity. ‘Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench’ [1.4.31] – an act of condescension whose motive can easily be discerned. Richard draws the conclusion with absolute precision; Bolingbroke acts ‘as were our England in reversion his, and he our subjects’ next degree in hope’ [1.4.35-6]. The monarch has unquestioned power of insight – here he states the whole difficulty of the future. But what does he do? He furnishes an opportunity to his enemy by banishment; certainly he takes no steps to act in accordance with his knowledge. Indeed, he appears to defy his own judgment by resorting to the most odious abuses of which government is capable, namely, favoritism and extortion. Richard has almost foretold his own fate; it will now be announced to him in the most emphatic terms by the way of warning. It is the old devoted John of Gaunt, now lying at the point of death, who tells him that his abuse of kingship will dethrone him; that the spilling of kindred blood will receive its recompense. Richard answers the dying patriot with vituperation – even with threats. Next he proceeds to his crowning act of wrong towards the subject – he confiscates the property of the banished Bolingbroke.

 Denton J. Snider, Richard II and the Right of Revolution 311 This deed also is not accomplished without a warning; even the weak-spirited York utters a protest: Take Hereford’s rights away, and take from time His charters and customary rights; Let not to-morrow, then, ensue to-day; Be not thyself; for how art thou a king, But by fair sequence and succession? [2.1.195-9]

This passage states in the most direct manner the logical nature of Richard’s deed. The same law which secures to Hereford his property secures to the King his crown. If the King, therefore, disregard that law, he is destroying his own authority. Here we have the thought of the whole play – sovereign and subject have the same fundamental right; if the former tries to ruin the latter, he is really trying to ruin himself, and will succeed in the attempt. Richard thus is strangling his own authority, and – when we consider that the person who is in this manner elevated by his wrongs into being the representative of the cause of right is the powerful and popular Bolingbroke – there can be only one result. Such is the crowning deed of wrong done by Richard; now follows his crowning deed of folly. He quits England at the critical nick of time, and makes an expedition to Ireland, leaving as governor during his absence the Duke of York – aged, imbecile, and not firmly attached to his interests. The strong outlines of the King’s character are now before us. There is a divorce between his intellect and will of a peculiar kind; he possesses foresight, he comprehends results, but he seems to think that a monarch’s conduct is above all guidance through the judgment. What he knows need not direct what he does; his action is quite the contrary of his thought. Ordinary mortals may be controlled by their intelligence – but is he not sovereign and above all control? Sunk in pleasure, poisoned by flattery, he has come to believe that in his case there is no responsibility for the deed. This is the Richard of prosperity; adversity will soon show a new phase of his character. 2. Going back and taking up the thread of Bolingbroke after his banishment, we may observe all the tendencies which conspire to bring him to the throne. In the first place, the circumstances are favorable – events which he did not control catch him up and carry him forward in their current. But in the second place, the greater part of the governing influences he did set in motion; though the time was ripe for a change, he caused himself to be chosen as its leader. This deep political purpose is everywhere manifest, and still deeper is his political instinct, which sets him on the right course without his knowing why. It is often very difficult to draw the line between consciousness and unconsciousness in his action, but both his conscious an unconscious methods of working are equally well adapted to the end in view. Nor does the character require any such distinction; indeed, it would be spoiled thereby, for Bolingbroke is to be portrayed as the natural politician whose impulse is as good as, or better than, his reflection. Kingship hovered before him – perhaps darkly – when he challenged Mowbray in order to reach Richard. He hastens to make the issue; he intends to reap every possible advantage of the murder of Gloster, for whom he appears as the avenger, knowing all the while who is the guilty

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man. Profound, too, is his dissimulation; profounder, indeed, than he wills it to be, since it is the very marrow of his nature. To conceal, and at the same time to carry out, his design are the two conflicting objects which must be united in his action. His courtship of the people has partially revealed him, though without any evil result, owing to the character of his adversary. But we are mostly left to hover between his instinct and his intention, in seeking to explore the dark depths of his spiritual being. He never soliloquizes, thus manifesting, to a certain extent, an absence of reflection and of self-conscious purpose. Favored by the people, aided by the nobles who see in his wrong the possibility of their own, Bolingbroke soon comes back to England. The whole manner of his return indicates that it is the result of a deep-laid, well-executed conspiracy, though its details are left wholly to surmise. His hand of cunning is seen in every movement, though that cunning is often purely instinctive. The King is absent in Ireland; the odious favorites run away; the impotent York is left to weather the storm alone. The latter is a character that is half and half – on both sides and on neither; the type of senile indecision. He sympathizes with Bolingbroke, yet will adhere to the King; too weak in body on account of his age for the rough activity of war, he is much too weak in will to prop a fallen kingdom. He has no money, no forces; he goes to his revolted nephew and gives him a sound lecture on the sin of rebellion and ends by declaring his neutrality. The old man, therefore, can do nothing; thus the last hope from any English source vanishes. Next we hear that the Welsh have dispersed on the rumor of the King’s death. It is manifest that Richard cannot control instrumentalities; every implement for his defense falls from his hand harmless to the ground, while Bolingbroke manifests the most subtle appreciation of each means of success. His main supporter among the nobility is Northumberland, who will hereafter play a leading part in the reign of King Henry the Fourth. Northumberland is the representative of rebellion; his life is made up of factious opposition to authority. His principle is thus hostile to all government; he embodies the feudal insubordination to law; his pleasure is in being a king-maker. Such is the chief instrument of Bolingbroke – an instrument which is manifestly as dangerous to his supremacy as to that of Richard. Here we see the future peril which will spring up in the realm, and there is suggested the new conflict which arises from the present conflict. Bolingbroke will first use the rude weapon of rebellion, and then break it to pieces. Indeed, the family of Percy are all here – Northumberland, Hotspur, and Worcester – aiding the revolt, a family which will have to be eliminated from the State. Bolingbroke, in most unequivocal manner, places himself at the head of the national movement and centers it in himself. He sees precisely the strong point of his cause, and gives it a forcible expression: ‘If that my cousin King be King of England, / It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster [2.3.123-4]. His right is the same as that of the King; he is really upholding the law of the realm. But, since he is not allowed to vindicate his claim by judicial process, there remains to him the way of revolution: – I am a subject, And challenge law; attorneys are denied me, And, therefore, personally I lay my claim To my inheritance of free descent. [2.3.133-6]

 Denton J. Snider, Richard II and the Right of Revolution 313 But he purposes much more – in fact, all that lies in his deed; for, if he be the supreme arbiter of the State, then he can only be its ruler. Accordingly he proceeds at once to the work of reform; he condemns to death Richard’s favorites – ‘those caterpillars of the commonwealth’ [2.3.166]. But towards the men around him he keeps up his dissimulation; he declares that he has come only for his rights. To the King also he professes the most devoted loyalty, yet at the same time prescribes the conditions of his submission. So profound is his concealment that even his most trusted and active supporter, Northumberland, is not fully assured of his future action. Bolingbroke, therefore, has secured the favor of the nation by maintaining that the king is to guard, and not to violate, what is legally established, and that the king himself is not above the law, but its creature. Such is the deepest political principle of the English nationality, and with it the subtle Bolingbroke is careful to place himself in harmony. A subordinate thread is the reflection of the whole struggle in an unconscious form – in the dim, nebulous forebodings of the soul. First is the Queen; she feels that something is out of joint, yet she does not know what it is. She only knows that there is a dull presentiment of evil weighing down her spirits. It is the deep instinctive nature of the wife to feel beforehand what is going to happen to the husband with whom she is so closely bound up in emotion. Moreover, the Queen has seen the throes of the kingdom; she has heard the prophetic warning of the dying Gaunt, as well as the earnest protest of the aged York. She draws the conclusion, and the correct conclusion – not with her intellect, but with her feelings. In like manner the Welsh, the superstitious men of the mountains, have been thrilled with the premonition of impending disaster, and read it in blazing letters inscribed on the face of heaven. So, too, the gardener has felt the throbbing pulse of the time, and, as he looks upon the sprays, weeds, and flowers of his own little commonwealth, he beholds the various manifestations of the political world. Each has thus a special way of expressing that which is wildly rocking and heaving in the soul of the nation. II. Such is the first general movement of the play. The threads of Richard and Bolingbroke again strike together, and cross at this point; the one man is mounting towards kingship, the other descending to death. In the second movement, which will now be unfolded, both their characters will develop latent phases. Richard is to be stripped of his infatuation, and is to be brought to see that even a monarch is held accountable for his deeds at the bar of eternal justice. Bolingbroke will gradually work out of his ambiguous position, and assume both the title and the authority of ruler. 1. Taking up the thread of Richard and following it through the second movement, we shall hear poetic strains of enchanting melody, as one wave of misfortune after another rolls the young King towards the final goal of his destiny. He truly becomes a poet now – like the fabled swan, singing his own death-song. It is a new and unexpected phase of his character, yet by no means inconsistent with what we already know of him. Calamity has opened the sluices of the soul; that sensuous nature of his, which was before sunk in self-indulgence, now comes upon the grim reality of life and is stricken into throes of passionate despair. Its utterance partakes still of this sensuous element in the man, and its theme is the noblest theme of Tragedy – the Nemesis of the human deed. His intellect, whose penetration was previously noted, remains with him yet, and now rises out of the slough of pleasure on the many-colored wings of the imagination,

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and looks far down into the future of England with a prophetic insight. The odious tyrant, the ignoble sensualist, the contemptible weakling of the first movement, thus develops the most exalted side of his character, and becomes a personage with qualities highly attractive and ennobling, if not heroic. But before he begins to descend he is to be placed on the very pinnacle of kingly infatuation; this is his belief in divine right – a dangerous doctrine for English monarchs, as English history abundantly shows. He imagines that his presence will be sufficient to put down rebellion, that his will is God’s will, and that he simply cannot lose his throne by any deed. Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an annointed king; The breath of wordly men cannot depose The deputy elected by the Lord. [3.2.54-7]

The outcome of this doctrine is manifest: The king is not responsible for his action; he is above the great law of retribution. Moreover, his energy is sapped by such a faith; against every soldier on the side of Bolingbroke he imagines that ‘God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay a glorious angel’ [3.2.60-1]. The justice of a thing, the moral quality of an act, do not concern the sovereign who rules over eternal right as over the meanest subject. Early authority, false education, and, above all, poisonous flattery, have inflated him into an immense puff-ball, to be blown off his throne by the first rude wind of adversity. Even the Bishop of Carlisle reproves his extreme reliance on a power external to man, and declares that ‘the means that Heaven yields must be embraced’ [3.2.19]. The good Bishop, though a dignitary of the Church, believes that fate is not religion, and that self-determination in man is the true faith in God. The imagination of Richard has, however, a picture for the situation; he, like the sun, need only appear, when the clouds of revolt will of themselves disperse before his majestic presence. Such is the summit of his delusion. Reports of misfortune come in rapidly from every side. He hears that the Welshmen, his main support, have scattered in every direction. The King grows pale at the news, but recovers himself when he thinks of his uncle, York. Word is next brought that both old and young, men and women, have gone over to Bolingbroke, and that the favorites have been executed. Finally, when it is announced that York has joined the rebels, the last prop is taken away; universal revolt has wrested England from the scepter of Richard. What now will be his conduct? His intellect will fully comprehend the situation – his imagination will dress it up in all the brilliant colors of poetry; but his will, his power of action, his ability to recover himself, lies paralyzed within him, smothered in the delicious fragrance of his own soul. A man who relies entirely on external power must fall into despair when everything goes against him – when that external power shows itself hostile. In express contrast to the religious resignation of Richard stands the prelate, Carlisle, who reproves this very element in him and tries to spur him forward to an energetic defense of his cause. Alongside of the worthy Bishop is the secular man of action, Aumerle, who also seeks to rouse the King from his supineness. But Richard can only fluctuate between the two

 Denton J. Snider, Richard II and the Right of Revolution 315 extremes of his nature – between fatuitous reliance and unmanly despair; there is no internal vigor to buoy up his sinking soul. Let us take a rapid survey of his acts as he steps down from kingship into the grave. He repeals the sentence of banishment against Bolingbroke – all whose ‘fair demands shall be accomplished without contradiction’ [3.3.123-4]. In the presence of his rebellious subject Northumberland he utters his own humiliation – indeed, declares his own dethronement. Then Bolingbroke appears in person; Richard clearly foresees what is coming; his surrender is absolute: ‘What you will have I’ll give, and willing, too’ [3.3.206]. Of course this is an invitation to take the crown, even if there was no such intention. But the deeper he sinks in despair the brighter becomes his song; from the ashes of action glows the intense fire of poetry. His fancy has the profusion and brilliancy of a tropical garden; it blooms almost to bewilderment and exhaustion. Still, the spiritual necessity is obvious; he must find relief from his sorrow by casting it out of himself into images – into a long and somewhat labyrinthine gallery of pictures. Such of old has been the need of the bard – in fact, of man; suffering makes the poet and the reader of poetry. Nor must we pass over the prophetic insight which Richard here shows; he, too, knows the consequences of revolution; his intellect is unclouded by misfortune. Rebellion is a monster which eternally begets itself, and whose sweetest food is the blood of its warmest supporters. Tell Bolingbroke, says the inspired King, – He is come to ope The purple testment of bleeding war; But ere the crown he looks for live in peace, Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons Shall ill become the flower of England’s face; Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace To scarlet indignation, and bedew Her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood. [3.3.93-100]

The crown is next brought, and Richard hands it over to Bolingbroke in person, uttering himself the salutation of the new monarch: ‘God save King Harry!’ [4.1.220]. Thus he crowns with his own hand the usurper, and, as he truly observes, has become a traitor to himself with the rest, for he has given his ‘soul’s consent to undeck the pompous body of a king’ [4.1.249-50]. But this is not all; he must acknowledge the justice of his deposition – confess his guilt and its merited punishment. ‘His weaved-up folly’ [4.1.229] is to be raveled out to the last thread; the believer in divine right is now brought face to face with the opposite right – that of dethronement. He has lost his dignity; he will not keep his name; he is no longer himself. A looking-glass is brought which shows his former face. Its image is flattery; he is not King Richard, and he dashes it to pieces. He has come to see his follies as they are; he has atoned for his wrongs. Deprived of every kingly honor, he is brought to behold his deed in all its nakedness. The world of illusion in which he before lived has vanished, and the world of reality dawns upon his wondering eyes. Responsibility for the deed crushes into his soul, and

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a new consciousness has arisen; ‘I see the very book indeed where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself ’ [4.1.274-5]. Verily they are burned into his flesh in colossal letters, which can be read in their true meaning by the most unlearned man who looks upon them. But this is not the end yet. Stripped of his regal robes, he is still to be stripped of his personal freedom; he cannot be permitted to roam through the land as an ordinary person. Royal birth, as it heaps up responsibility, heaps up punishment. He is thrust into prison in order to separate him from society, like a criminal; but he has also to be torn away from the Family, whereby the Queen, too, is hurled into the vortex of suffering. And more yet; his deprivation must be made complete – so he is deprived of life. He is brutally slain in prison. He exhibits courage at the last moment; if he had done so before, he would have commanded more respect, but he would not have been Richard. The hope of life makes him a coward; the certainty of death nerves him to his first act of resistance. There in confinement we see him occupied with his fancies – ‘studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world’ [5.5.1-2]. However remote may be such a comparison, still he will ‘hammer it out’ [5.5.5]. He possesses not fancy merely – his speech is not a string of images merely – but the whole conception is poetic, and he is gifted also with the higher quality of imagination. As king, Richard is an utter failure; as poet, he is a complete success. And it is this fact which not only reconciles us to him, but arouses a warm sympathy with his misfortune. Retributive justice looks ugly when smiting down this beautiful form with its inexorable mace of steel. A weak, sensual tyrant would have been a repulsive object to both the moral and the aesthetic sense; but clothe him in the brilliant robes of the poet, and, though he still must remain morally offensive and be punished according to his guilt, he becomes a true theme for tragic Art. The internal conflict of Richard begins with his descent, and corresponds to the external conflict; as he is hurled down from without, he suffers within, singing in his descent with deeper and deeper glow till the light goes out in the darkness of death. 2. The second thread of the second movement is Bolingbroke’s, whose career to the end of the play is now to be glanced at. He has hitherto concealed his real purpose, but the time has come when it must be revealed to the world, and also to himself in a certain degree. The weakness of Richard, who tells him to take the crown, could only confirm him in his secret design. But he was not able to do otherwise, for what security will he have against a repetition of injury? Here, then, is the difficulty: Bolingbroke is compelled to do a wrong against the king in order to secure the right of himself and of the subject. The penalty must come; the consequences of his violation will be visited upon him, and still more upon the nation which assisted, or at least acquiesced. This is, indeed, the greatest of all difficulties – the tragic difficulty of the world – wherein a man cannot turn to do a great right without at the same time falling into a great wrong, for which he is bound to endure the punishment. Bolingbroke gets his property, and obtains restoration to his country, but to make them sure he must have supreme authority. This act is the precursor of the Wars of the Roses. The deeds of Richard’s reign are to be undone. The death of Gloster is investigated; it is not clear who was his executioner, and the matter remains undecided. Duelists

 Denton J. Snider, Richard II and the Right of Revolution 317 again appear, as at the beginning of the play, but their differences are made ‘to rest under gage’ [4.1.105]. Bolingbroke accepts the crown; the only voice heard in protest is that of the brave, clear-headed Bishop of Carlisle, who here presents the side of the wrong done by dethroning Richard. A subject cannot pass sentence on his king; it is a violation of human law, and still more of divine law. The noble prelate also utters a prophecy of the terrible consequences of the usurpation; the blood of England shall manure the ground; kindred shall war with kindred: Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny Shall here inhabit, and this land be called The field of Golgotha and dead men’s skulls. [4.1.142-4]

Thus Bolingbroke has his wrong and its retribution held up before him, and the Poet gives the motive for the plays which are to follow. A slight reaction begins; a conspiracy in which both clergy and laity are represented is formed to get rid of the new king. The plot is discovered through the carelessness of Aumerle by his father, the Duke of York, who at once sets out to inform the monarch. The interest of this little scene lies in the conflict between father and mother – their son is a traitor. The father, maintaining the principle of the State, will bring to punishment his own child; the mother, maintaining the principle of the Family, will conceal his act and protect him. All three ride a race to the abode of the King, who adroitly pardons the son, even against the prayers of York, who shows himself to be an unnatural parent in his superlative loyalty. This form of the domestic collision might be made the basis of a whole tragedy, but it seems not to have been touched upon by Shakespeare in any other play. The conspiracy is broken up; the lords, spiritual and temporal, who were engaged in it lose their heads, except the bold Bishop of Carlisle; Henry Bolingboke is firmly seated on the throne of England. But the death of Richard he did not purpose; though he wished him dead, he loves him murdered – the fear of retribution is stronger than the hate of the royal person. The wrong of Bolingbroke is now complete, and he has become fully conscious of it. He declares in deep contrition at the end of the play his own guilt, whose stain he intends to wash off by a voyage to the Holy Land. This is, indeed, a prophetic drama. Three leading characters have now prophesied the troubles which are to result from the present usurpation, and thus have pointed to the succeeding plays. The precise nature of the conflict is also foretold: Northumberland, who has deposed a king, will try to do so again; the rebel must then be subordinated to authority. Richard the seer has seen and uttered both the essential circumstances, and the true logic of the future situation: Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne, The time shall not be many hours of age More than it is ere foul sin, gathering head, Shall break into corruption; thou shalt think, Though he divide the realm and give thee half,

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It is too little, helping him to all; And he shall think that thou, which know’st the way To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again, Being ne’er so little urged, another way To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne. [5.1.55-65]

(1877 edn., I, 317-43; 1889 edn., 311-44)

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P.A. Daniel, time problems in Richard II 1879

From ‘Time-Analysis of the Plots of Shakespeare’s Plays: Part III. The Histories’ in Transactions of the New Shakespeare Society (1877-79), Part II, pp. 264–70. Peter Augustin Daniel (fl. 1870–1904), textual scholar and editor, produced Notes and Conjectural Emendations of Certain Doubtful Passages in Shakespeare’s Plays (1870) and edited the quarto versions, often in facsimile, of several Shakespearian and non-Shakespearian plays including Richard II [see No. 49 below]. He also edited three plays for A.H. Bullen’s variorum edition of The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (4 vols., 1904–12). His time analyses of Shakespeare’s histories, originally read to the New Shakespeare Society on 13 June 1879, rehearse the plots of the plays in a scene-by-scene fashion, attempting to establish the logical intervals between parts of the action and to reconcile the events as dramatized with the known dates and places of actual history. As one of the first scholars to draw attention to Shakespeare’s compression and expansion of historical time for the purposes of dramatic convenience or effect (the virtual elimination of the period between Bolingbroke’s banishment and his return, for instance, has profound implications for the interpretation of the usurper’s character), Daniel’s work is still worth consulting, despite his rather plodding methodology and tendency to consider Shakespeare’s dramaturgically flexible treatment of time somewhat too literalistically.

[From Daniel’s section on Richard II] [1] [Daniel discusses 2.1, the scene in which King Richard visits the dying Gaunt.] . . . Act II, sc. i, Ely House [3rd Feb., 1399].[1] The King comes to visit the dying Gaunt, who reproaches him with his ill government; he is carried out, and Northumberland immediately after enters to announce his death. The King determines to seize on his wealth and lands to furnish forth the Irish expedition, on which he proposes to depart on the morrow [he sailed from Milford Haven 31st May 1399]. The nobles are disgusted at the King’s injustice, and on Northumberland revealing to them that Bolingbroke is already prepared with a fleet and an army to invade England, and is only delaying his

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arrival till the King departs for Ireland, they at once agree to post to Ravenspurgh to welcome him. The connection of this scene with the preceding one[2] is too close to allow of more than one day for the two; and here we have a singular instance of the manner in which the dramatist annihilates time. It is evident that Bolingbroke cannot yet have quitted the English coast, while at the same time we hear that he is already prepared to return to it; and that, too, before he could possibly have heard of his father’s death, the ostensible cause of his return. Some slightly greater degree of apparent probability might be given to the plot, in stage performance, by dividing this scene; making a separate scene of the latter half when the King has left the stage. The direction of the Folio, however, is – ‘Manet North. Willoughby, and Ross’ [2.1.223.2-3]. But even with this break in the action we should still have no probable time for the evolution of the story; neither would this arrangement meet the reference to Bolingbroke’s sojourn at the French court during his exile contained in York’s speech, where he mentions the ill turn the King has done him in the prevention of his marriage with the Duke of Berri’s daughter (II. 167, 168). . . .[3] (265-6) [2] [Daniel notes a time inconsistency in 5.3, the scene in which Aumerle is pardoned by Henry IV for his part in an abortive conspiracy against him.] . . . Act V, sc. iii. Aumerle arrives in the King’s presence, and sues for pardon. His father, York, enters to denounce him. The Duchess now joins them, and at her entreaties the King pardons Aumerle, but resolves that the other conspirators who had purposed to kill him during certain triumphs to be shortly holden at Oxford shall die the death of traitors. At the commencement of this scene the King inquires for his unthrifty son, whom he has not seen for ‘three months’ [1. 2]. Putting aside all consideration of historical dates – any attempt to reconcile which with the plot of the drama would plunge us into a sea of contradictions and confusion – this three months mentioned by King Henry would suppose the lapse of at least that period since his accession to the throne, that is, between Days 11 [i.e. the deposition scene and Richard’s farewell to his queen, 4.1 and 5.1] and 12 [i.e. York’s account to his duchess of Bolingbroke’s procession, with Richard, into the capital, 5.2]; and yet, so long an interval as three months seems quite at variance with the march of the drama, and to be irreconcilable with York’s description of the entry into London, with which the first scene of this Day 12 commences. I mark an interval between the two days, but am unable to determine its length. . . . (268-9)

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Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare’s concern with costume in Richard II 1885

From ‘Shakespeare and Stage Costume’, Nineteenth Century, 17 (May 1885), 800–18; reprinted as ‘The Truth of Masks: A Note on Illusion’ in Intentions (London, 1891), pp. 217–58. Oscar Fingall O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854–1900), Irish playwright, fiction writer, poet, and wit, is almost as famous for the comi-tragic spectacle of his life as for his distinguished contributions to letters. Influenced by John Ruskin and Walter Pater, he espoused the doctrine of ‘art for art’s sake’, cut a brilliant figure in London intellectual and social circles as the inventor of bans mots, clever paradoxes, and epigrams – a style that characterizes the dialogue of such stage masterpieces as The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Convicted of sexual immorality on account of his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas (the son of the Marquess of Queensberry), he was imprisoned for two years in Reading Gaol; after his release he lived in France where he died from the effects of general debility, alcoholism, and bankruptcy. Before his disgrace, Wilde was also popular as a lecturer and essayist; his dandyism and cultivated eccentricity of dress are indirectly reflected in his interesting remarks on Shakespeare’s awareness of costume and in his defence of a degree of historical or period realism in the production of Shakespearian dramas.

In many of the somewhat violent attacks which have recently been made on that splendour of mounting which now characterises our Shakespearian revivals in England, it seems to have been tacitly assumed by the critics that Shakespeare himself was more or less indifferent to the costume of his actors, and that, could he see Mr. [Henry] Irving’s production of his Much Ado About Nothing, or Mr. Wilson Barett’s setting of his Hamlet, he would probably say that the play, and the play only, is the thing, and that everything else is leather and prunella.[1] While, as regards any historical accuracy in dress, Lord Lytton, in an article in this Review, has laid it down as a dogma of art that archaeology is entirely out of place in any play of Shakespeare’s, and that the attempt to introduce it is one of the stupidest pedantries of an age of prigs.[2] . . .

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. . . The point . . . which I wish to emphasise is, not that Shakespeare appreciated the value of lovely costumes in adding picturesqueness to poetry, but that he saw how important costume is as a means of producing certain dramatic effects. . . . . . . Even small details of dress, such as the colour of a major-domo’s stockings, the pattern on a wife’s handkerchief, the sleeve of a young soldier, and a fashionable woman’s bonnets, become in Shakespeare’s hands points of actual dramatic importance, and by some of them the action of the play in question is conditioned absolutely. . . . . . . As regards the resources which Shakespeare had at his disposal it is to be remarked that, while he more than once complains of the smallness of the stage on which he has to produce big historical plays, and of the want of scenery which obliges him to cut out many effective open-air incidents, he always writes as a dramatist who had at his disposal a most elaborate theatrical wardrobe, and who could rely on the actors taking pains about their make-up. . . . (800-4) ***** Of course the aesthetic value of Shakespeare’s plays does not, in the slightest degree, depend on their facts, but on their truth, and truth is independent of facts always, inventing or selecting them at pleasure. But still Shakespeare’s adherence to facts is a most interesting part of his method of work, and shows us his attitude towards the stage, and his relations to realism. Indeed he would have been very much surprised at any one classing his plays with ‘fairy tales,’ as Lord Lytton does; for one of his aims was to create for England a national historical drama, which should deal with incidents with which the public was well acquainted, and with heroes that lived in the memory of a people. Patriotism, I need hardly say, is not a necessary quality of art; but it means, for the artist the substitution of a universal for an individual feeling, and for the public the presentation of a work of art in a most attractive and popular form. It is worth noticing that Shakespeare’s first and last successes are both historical plays. It may be asked, what has this to do with Shakespeare’s attitude towards costume? I answer that a dramatist who laid such stress on historical accuracy of fact would have welcomed historical accuracy of costume as a most important adjunct to his realistic method. And I have no hesitation in saying that he did so. . . . [Wilde cites as examples the allusion to helmets in the prologue to Henry V and the military tabards in Henry VI, mentioning that Shakespeare could have seen such relics in the Westminster Abbey and St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, of his own day.] . . . Costume is a growth, an evolution, and a most important, perhaps the most important, sign of the manners, customs, and mode of life of each century. The Puritan dislike of colour, adornment, and grace in apparel was part of the great revolt of the middle classes against Beauty in the seventeenth century. An historian who disregarded it would give us a most inaccurate picture of the time, and a dramatist who did not avail himself of it would miss a most vital element in producing a realistic effect. The effeminacy of dress that characterised the reign of Richard the Second was a constant theme of contemporary authors. Shakespeare, writing two hundred years after, makes the King’s fondness for gay apparel and foreign fashions a point in the play, from John

 Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare’s Concern with Costume in Richard II 323 of Gaunt’s reproaches down to Richard’s own speech in the third act on his deposition from the throne [i.e. 3.3.143 ff.]. And that Shakespeare examined Richard’s tomb in Westminster Abbey seems to me certain from York’s[3] speech: – 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. [3.3.62-6]

For we can still discern on the King’s robe his favourite badge – the sun issuing from a cloud. In fact, in every age the social conditions are so exemplified in costume, that to produce a sixteenth-century play[4] in fourteenth-century attire, or vice versâ, would make the performance seem unreal because untrue. And, valuable as beauty of effect on the stage is, the highest beauty is not merely comparable with absolute accuracy of detail, but really dependent on it. To invent an entirely new costume is impossible, and as for combining the dress of different centuries into one, the experiment would be dangerous, and Shakespeare’s opinion of the value of such a medley may be gathered from his incessant satire of the Elizabethan dandies for imagining that they were well dressed because they got their doublets in Italy, their hats in Germany, and their hose in France. . . . Besides, and perhaps this is the most complete answer to Lord Lytton’s theory, it must be remembered that neither in costume nor in dialogue is beauty the dramatist’s primary aim at all. The true dramatist aims first at what is characteristic, and no more desires that all his personages should be beautifully attired than he desires that they should all have beautiful natures or speak beautiful English. The true dramatist, in fact, shows us life under the conditions of art, not art in the form of life. (811-5)

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A.W. Verity, Marlowe’s influence on Richard II 1886

From The Influence of Christopher Marlowe on Shakespeare’s Earlier Style, Being the Harness Prize Essay for the Year 1885 (Cambridge, 1886). Arthur Wilson Verity (1863–1937) was educated at Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge. Little is known about his private life, but he was a fairly prominent annotator and editor of literary texts, especially of drama. His most ambitious undertaking was an edition of the works of Sir George Etherege (1888), but he also edited Marlowe’s Edward II (1896) for the Temple Dramatists series and contributed editions of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and Richard II to the Pitt Shakespeare. His Cambridge prize essay was the first serious attempt to study the stylistic debt of Shakespeare’s early plays to Marlowe and to use this data to draw conclusions about their chronology, one of his major points being that Shakespeare’s gradual abandonment of rhyme and increasing reliance on blank verse was due in large part to his imitation of the earlier dramatist. Verity’s monograph is also notable for its recognition of the merits of Marlowe’s Edward II, which, although it clearly influenced Richard II, is seen (with Lamb [No. 10] and Swinburne [No. 39] and in opposition to Dowden [No. 38]) as being ‘a play of remarkable power’ (p. 79), the death scene of which is ‘unspoilt by the diffuseness that mars the parallel scene in Richard II’ (p. 82). Verity was among the first to assert that Marlowe in Edward II ‘created a new dramatic form’, ‘a new type of play’ (p. 83) – i.e. the unified chronicle drama in largely unrhymed blank verse, which then enabled Shakespeare to develop the genre further. Verity’s view prevailed more or less unchallenged until it was demonstrated much later by scholars such as Peter Alexander (Shakespeare’s ‘Henry VI’ and ‘Richard III’ [Cambridge, 1929]) and Madeleine Doran (‘Henry VI, Parts II and III’: Their Relation to the ‘Contention’ and the ‘True Tragedy’ [Iowa City, 1928]) that the Henry VI plays were genuinely Shakespearian and that they preceded Edward II.

[After discussing the early plays of Shakespeare in relation to the presence or lack of Marlovian influence, Verity takes up Richard III and Richard II.] . . . There are two other important plays on the list [of early Shakespearian works], Richard III and Richard II.

 A.W. Verity, Marlowe’s Influence on Richard II 325 After reading the criticisms of various writers – and still more – after reading the plays themselves, I cannot doubt that Richard III is the earlier work. The two dramas raise one of the questions, where the metrical test conflicts with the aesthetic. But in such cases the internal evidence of style and treatment cannot be neglected; some special explanation of metrical peculiarity must, if possible, be sought for, and the principle can be applied here. In all respects but one, Richard II is a far finer play than Richard III. The latter, however, is written in blank verse; the former contains much rhyme. But there is a special reason why blank verse should preponderate in Richard III. In that play Shakespeare was writing altogether on the lines of Marlowe; his treatment of the subject, apart from the metre, strongly reflects the influence of his friend. In all probability they had been working together at the revision of Henry VI, Parts II and III, and it is clearly to that group, dealing with the fortunes of the House of York, that Richard III belongs. Shakespeare in contributing his share to Parts II and III had been guided by Marlowe’s example, and we may fairly assume that in rounding off the series he would keep to the method employed in the first two dramas of what is really a trilogy of plays. In the same way it is not unnatural to suppose that in writing Richard II Shakespeare, being removed from the immediate influence of his friend who had died in 1593, would at times slip back into the old channel. And even in Richard II his instinct is true as ever. The superb speech of Gaunt (ii.1.31-68), is not profaned by the jingle of any rhyme; the vigorous speeches of York in the same scene are equally rhymeless (163185 and 186-208); similarly the great soliloquy of Richard in the fifth act is all in blank verse, and generally throughout the play the poet rarely in the best parts falls back into rhyme. It is in the first scene where, like the eagle in Horace,[1] he is getting ready for a flight, that rhyme runs riot, and again in the fifth act, scene 3, where it makes desperate struggles to hold its ground. For the rest the poet can write vigorous and varied blank verse, until in King John rhyme has perceptibly decreased to 150 lines in a total of 2403; afterwards it steadily declined, as Mr. Fleay’s table shows, until in the Tempest there are but two rhymed lines, in the Winter’s Tale, not one.[2] At times, of course, Shakespeare employed it even in his greatest plays, but always for some special object. . . . This blank verse question is obviously one of great importance, and if I might summarise my impressions I should say that the credit of having created blank verse belongs not to Shakespeare – assuredly not to Norton and Sackville, but absolutely to Christopher Marlowe – that there were when Shakespeare came up to London as a playwright two dramatic schools, engaged in a fierce struggle over the question of rhymed or unrhymed compositions – that Marlowe, the author of blank verse, was the recognized leader of the blank verse party, while Greene perhaps was his most distinguished opponent on the other side – that Shakespeare did not definitely join either school, but preserved for a time an ambiguous attitude, poetic instinct leading him to adopt blank verse as the most natural vehicle of dramatic expression, while tradition, inexperience and perhaps personal sympathies made him adhere to the old rhymed system – that in his earlier plays we can trace the struggle of these two motives, the more serious and reflective parts of his work being written as a rule in blank verse, the higher and less earnest in rhyme – that somewhere about the time of the composition of the original draft of his first tragedy Romeo and Juliet, where the quality

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of the scenes in blank verse is markedly superior to the general level of the scenes in rhyme, he became associated with Marlowe in the revision of the earlier sketches of Henry VI, Parts II and III – that while still working under the influence of Marlowe’s style he produced Richard III, in which blank verse is for the time triumphant – that after the death of Marlowe he wrote Richard II, and in the scenes which on general aesthetic grounds must be placed on a lower level than the body of the work, relapsed into the old groove, – that the ground lost in Richard II was quickly recovered in King John, and the battle finally won in the Trilogy of Henry IV Parts II and III (1597),[3] and Henry V (1599), in favour of blank verse . . . I said that there was one other point in which Shakespeare was strongly affected by the work of his predecessor. This was Marlowe’s treatment of the historical play. The connection between the drama of Shakespeare and the drama of Marlowe is best seen in Richard III and Richard II. . . . The first two historical plays of Shakespeare that we can feel any certainty in discussing are Richard III4 and Richard II; each was written on a model furnished by Marlowe. Richard III approximates to the peculiar type of drama represented by Tamburlaine, the Jew of Malta and Faustus; in Richard II we have a continuation of the legitimate historical play first seen in Edward II. In other words, these two plays correspond to the radical differences of dramatic construction that divide the earlier and the later styles of Marlowe. Richard III is a one character play; the main interest of the piece turns on the central figure of Richard. We follow him from scene to scene, as slowly but surely, consumed by pent-up fiery energy, he works his way like some pitiless personification of destiny to the final goal. The rest of the play only hangs together so far as it is all dominated by this one overshadowing power. . . . . . . Marlowe did not care very much about the finer shades of character-drawing; the subtler nuances that came readily enough to the delicate touch of Shakespeare stood outside the range of his power. His heroes move upon the scene splendid, impressive, and after they have fretted their hour on the stage we can trace no material difference in them; as some one has expressed it, they are counters stamped at the outset. Thus Marlowe might have drawn Richard III; Richard II he could never have achieved. . . . If Richard III was modelled on Marlowe’s earlier style, Richard II is a continuation of the later method adopted in Edward II. I endeavoured in speaking of the latter to show that it is the first specimen of genuine historical drama our literature possesses. Up to the production of Edward II, there had been chronicle plays, but no proper dramatization of history, pageants loosely strung together, but never an animated organic whole. A true historical drama, like any other play, must be wrought round some definite idea – unity of purpose must inform the various parts. The playwright has abundance of material from which to choose, but in selecting his incidents he bears in mind their applicability to the development of his plot. He admits nothing superfluous. Each scene must be a link in the chain. And so with the characters. Complexity of motive is essential to the action of a piece, and in each case the motives of the dramatis personae must be patent and adequate. The historical play, in other words, only differs from the ordinary drama in that the poet drawing on history takes the actual events as the framework of his story, and fills in the rest with such dramatic details as his imagination suggests. This Marlowe had done in Edward II, and henceforth the historical drama proceeded on the lines laid down in that play. If

 A.W. Verity, Marlowe’s Influence on Richard II 327 Edward II marked a decided advance on the construction of Tamburlaine, Richard II was, I think, no less superior in general conception and effectiveness to Richard III. We no longer have the concentration of interest, the singleness of motive that made the latter turn from first to last on the one figure which dominated the scene; Richard II is more complex, penetrated altogether with a finer dramatic spirit. Primarily indeed our gaze is riveted on the king himself, the man of brilliant phrases who can do nothing; we follow him from scene to scene, somewhat pitiful, as Mr. Swinburne says, but not pitiable, [5] and by the sheer force of his suffering our sympathy is wrung from us. But Richard does not stand alone; there are other characters in the piece in whose motives and action the dramatist strives to interest us. Whether he succeeds, whether York, Aumerle and Mowbray are as tangible, as life-like as the parallel dramatis personae in Marlowe’s play is another question; Mr. Swinburne thinks they are not. ‘They are shifting,’ he says ‘fitful, vaporous, their outlines change, withdraw, dissolve . . . they cannot “hold this visible shape” in which the poet presents them even long enough to leave a distinct image, a decisive impression for better or for worse, on the mind’s eye of the most simple and open-hearted reader’ [No. 39]. For myself, I do not think any serious exception can be taken to this criticism; Mortimer to my mind is a far more solid and vivid creation than any of the subsidiary characters, York perhaps alone excepted, who gather about Richard. We need not, however, institute any elaborate comparisons between the two plays; it is enough to have noted the points of connection between them, above all to have emphasized the importance of Marlowe’s work as marking an immense advance in the direction of the true historical drama. To estimate exactly the obligations of one writer to another is always a difficult, if not altogether impossible, task: the second comer enters upon the inheritance, the literary capital, so to speak, that the efforts of his predecessor have amassed, and we must rest content with showing what this inheritance was. If Marlowe had never lived, would Shakespeare have written as he did? who can say? As I have already remarked, we can only assume that Marlowe’s introduction of blank verse on the stage rendered the use of that metre much easier for Shakespeare; in the same way, we can only assume that Marlowe’s having led the way with Edward II made it much less difficult for Shakespeare to write Richard II, and the historical plays that followed, than would have been the case had the works of Greene, and Peel, and Kyd been his sole guide what to avoid and what to aim at. To show what Marlowe did, and what previous dramatists (save the mark) had not done, is here, I think, as always, the best commentary on Shakespeare’s debt to him. That the reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty in Edward II suggested the main idea of Richard II anyone who read the two dramas could see for himself without requiring to possess the critical sagacity of a Charles Lamb:[6] whether the second version is an improvement on the first is likewise a question that each reader will decide on his own account. There is just one scene in Richard II that Marlowe, I believe, could never have conceived; it is the scene in the Duke of York’s garden. There is nothing in Edward II parallel to this exquisite interlude. Shakespeare gives us here an instance of the happy tact that, stooping to small things, lends such convincing individuality to his plays, bringing home to us the terrible truth of what he describes. We have a similar instance of this fine felicity in the introduction of the old

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servant in the last act, with the homely talk that follows. By such prosaic touches the full force of what is passing on the stage is borne in upon us. We stand with the queen and listen to the gardener, and when at last she cries out, the break in the silence comes as a positive relief to our tension. And the same effect is produced by the entrance of the groom just after Richard’s soliloquy. It helps us more than anything else to realize the position of the king; the terrible blending of the tragic and the commonplace is the realism of life, and it is all part of Shakespeare’s unfailing sensibility, of that indefinable quality which made him write – to borrow Wordsworth’s phrase – ‘with his eye on his object,’[7] a quality of which Marlowe was singularly devoid. On the other hand, if Marlowe could not have hit on the garden scene, assuredly he would never have been guilty of ‘the jigging veins of rhyming mother wits’ [1 Tamburlaine, Prologue, 1] that disfigure the intolerable scene in Act V. – ‘Speak it in French, king, say “pardonnez moi’” [5.3.119] – in all Marlowe’s work there is no line like this. (90-103)

45

Richard Grant White, Richard III and Richard II compared 1886

From Studies in Shakespeare (Boston, 1886). This collection, made up primarily of writings published in various periodicals but revised and condensed by the author, was published the year after White’s death. In the passage reprinted below White is chiefly interested in the developing style of the histories as a clue to their chronology. For biographical details see the headnote to No. 33 above.

[White discusses 2 and 3 Henry VI and Richard III as apprentice works heavily indebted to Marlowe and Peele.] . . . Compare [Richard III] with Richard II, which was written a year or two after it, and in which Shakespeare seems to have taken his first great step toward originality in style and in the treatment of his material. As not infrequently happens in such cases, he went too far, and produced a play the very reverse in style and spirit of Richard III. It is a tragic dramatic poem rather than an historical play. The action, which in the earlier history of the later Richard is so vivid, lags; the movement is languid, and passages of reflection and contemplation abound. It has passages which are somewhat in Shakespeare’s early and constrained manner both as to thought and versification. Such are these: – Old John of Gaunt, time-honour’d Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band, Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son, Here to make good the boisterous late appeal, Which then our leisure would not let us hear, Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray? [1.1.1-6] Alas, the part I had in Glou’ster’s blood Doth more solicit me than your exclaims,

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To stir against the butchers of his life! But since correction lieth in those hands Which made the fault that we cannot correct, Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven; Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth, Will rain hot vengeance on offenders’ heads. [1.2.1-8]

Compare these passages with the blank verse of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and see the similarity between them; not, of course, in the thoughts, but in the manner of thought and in the rhythm. Observe, in all, the frequency of the pause at the end of the line; the sense and the rhythm drooping together. These traits and the frequent recurrence of rhymed passages and of couplets in rhyme at the close of speeches in blank verse, a style of ending sometimes called tagrhymes, might lead a reader with whom the external and material had more weight than the internal and spiritual to infer that Richard II was the earliest in production of all Shakespeare’s historical plays, – before even Richard III, – as it is of all those which are wholly original. But such traits, although they are of some value as guides in deciding the question of the succession in which Shakespeare’s plays were produced, and so as to the order in which they should be read by those who wish to follow the development of his genius, are of an inferior order, and cannot be relied upon. Their evidence is to be accepted as confirmatory or accessory, and should be reckoned as a part only of that which must be taken into consideration. For it could not be relied upon, even should we set aside all other as of no account. Thus, for example, the tag-rhymes in Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Two Gentlemen of Verona are very few in comparison with those in Richard II and Richard III, although the comedies were produced at about the same time as the histories and unquestionably before them. As to the order of production, such passages as the following are of great weight: – To please the king I did; to please myself I cannot do it. Yet I know no cause. . . . [Quotes 2.2.5-13] Glad am I that your highness is so arm’d To bear the tidings of calamity. . . . [Quotes 3.2.104-20]

Compare these with any parts of the four plays [i.e. Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona] that we took up for examination in our previous section, and see in them unmistakable evidence of greater maturity of thought, freer command of language, more skilful construction of verse. There can be no doubt, I think, that they are the product of Shakespeare’s mind at its first attainment of free and independent action, while, however, other passages in the same play show that it was yet somewhat restrained in its action by a memory of his predecessors and by the influence of his contemporaries. It would be well, therefore, to begin acquaintance with Shakespeare’s historical plays by reading the mixed play Richard III first, then Richard II, and then King John. . . . (23-6)

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Havelock Ellis, on the inferiority of Richard II to Marlowe’s Edward II 1887

From Christopher Marlowe. Edited by Havelock Ellis with an Introduction by J. A. Symonds (London, 1887). Henry Havelock Ellis (1859–1939), pioneer in the scientific study of sex, critic, poet, essayist, and editor, was educated at private schools in Surrey, taught in New South Wales, then pursued a lifelong career as a scholarly investigator of sexuality, deriving aesthetic pleasure from the search for scientific truth. Ellis encountered official hostility on the grounds that his writings on sex were obscene, but he did much to alter public attitudes in the direction of greater enlightenment, humaneness, and tolerance. Preoccupied equally with artistic and scientific interests, he inaugurated the famous ‘Mermaid Series’ of popular editions of Elizabethan and Stuart playwrights, thus making Shakespeare’s contemporaries and successors cheaply available to a broad cross-section of the public; the extract reprinted below is taken from the influential Mermaid volume of Marlowe’s plays and strongly ratifies the high valuation of Edward II expressed earlier by Lamb, Swinburne, and Verity (see Nos. 10, 39, and 44 above).

[From Ellis’s introductory remarks] . . . In Edward II Marlowe reached the summit of his art. There is little here of that amour de I’imposible, which is, as Mr. Symonds observes, his characteristic note; his passionate poetry is subdued with severe self-restraint in a supreme tragic creation. It has long been a custom among critics to compare Edward II with Richard II. This is scarcely fair to Shakespeare; the melodramatic and careless murder of Richard cannot be mentioned in presence of the chastened tragedy and highly-wrought pathos of Edward’s last days; the whole of Shakespeare’s play, with its exuberant eloquence, its facile and diffuse poetry, is distinctly inferior to Marlowe’s, both in organic structure and in dramatic characterisation. It was not till ten years later that Shakespeare came near to this severe reticence, these deep and solemn tragic tones. (xlii)

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Frank A. Marshall, the theatrical weakness of Richard II 1888

From The Works of William Shakespeare. Edited by Henry Irving and Frank A. Marshall and Other Shakespearian Scholars . . . (8 vols., London, 1888–90). Volume II (1888). Francis Albeit Marshall (1840–89), dramatist, critic, and editor, was born in London, attended Harrow and Exeter College, Oxford, but took no degree. For a time he worked as a clerk of the audit office in Somerset House; in 1868 he resigned to pursue his all-absorbing interest in the theatre, writing for the stage and contributing dramatic criticism to the London Figaro. He composed a handful of plays, two of which were written for his friend, the actor Henry Irving, a memoir of whom he published in 1883. Marshall produced A Study of Hamlet (1883) but is best remembered for the popular eight-volume ‘Henry Irving Edition of Shakespeare’ upon which he collaborated with several other scholars and to which Irving himself added a general introduction. To this work Marshall contributed scholarly introductions of individual plays (which contained historical and literary background, stage history, and critical assessments) and extensive notes. Marshall’s critical evaluations are historically valuable for their unusual consciousness of Shakespeare’s plays as living theatre pieces, not merely as poetic works for the study. The harsh estimate of Richard II as a vehicle for the stage – principally on the ground that the central characters are too inconsistent and unsympathetic – although extreme even for this critic’s own period, is not untypical of an age that had but scant tolerance for moral, political, and psychological ambiguity. Marshall’s suggestion that the play may have been intended as a political satire, although eccentric, repeats the emphasis on topicality sounded in a different key by Richard Simpson and F.J. Furnivall (Nos. 37 and 40 above). His notion that ‘a very inferior hand to Shakespeare’s’ (II, 398) participated in the writing takes up Heraud’s idea of divided authorship (No. 35 above).

[From Marshall’s ‘Introduction’ to King Richard II; after giving the usual account of the early editions, discussing the play’s putative connection with the Essex rebellion and the other Elizabethan plays on the same reign, and providing a usefully extensive stage history, Marshall turns to his critical assessment.]

 Frank A. Marshall, the Theatrical Weakness of Richard II 333

Critical Remarks This play has been very much praised by some critics. Coleridge, indeed, would assign to it the first place among Shakespeare’s historical plays [No. 20 above]. It seems to me that, from whatever point of view we regard it, it is one of his weakest plays. Certainly it contains some fine speeches, but it contains also many tedious and weak passages written in rhyme – the work, as I believe, of a very inferior hand to Shakespeare’s. As a play for the stage, Richard II is deficient in plot and in character. There is scarcely any female interest, for the Queen is little more than a shadow. If Bolingbroke was intended to be the hero, his gross hypocrisy alienates from us all the sympathy which his gallantry might otherwise excite. Richard himself is a weak, inconsistent character, as he is presented to us in the first two acts. Both from what he says and from what he does, no less than what other characters tell us about him, we cannot but hold him to be at once mean and profligate. In act i, sc. 1, he affects a tenderness for his uncle John of Gaunt’s feelings, and professes to remit four years of the son’s banishment in deference to the father’s sorrow; but in act ii, sc. i, his conduct towards the same John of Gaunt when he is dying is simply brutal. He displays a petty vindictiveness which is thoroughly feminine, and a gross selfishness which seems the only masculine thing about him. One might forgive him some lack of affection for his uncle; but one can scarcely forgive the indecent haste with which, before the breath is almost out of the noble old man’s body, this epicene king seizes his ‘plate, coin, revenues and moveables’ [2.1.161]. It is true that when King Richard finds himself deserted by most of his professed adherents, and betrayed by others, he gives vent to some very fine sentiments, which might fittingly come from the mouth of a king who, although guilty of misgovernment, was making a brave stand against his enemies; but Richard is doing nothing of the sort. Certainly luck is against him; the Welsh army, on whose support he relied with, perhaps, too much confidence, is hastily broken up under a misunderstanding. That arch-hypocrite York, after talking a great deal about his loyalty, betrays, in the most dastardly manner, the solemn charge which had been placed in his hands as regent. The laborious professions of tenderness for Richard’s feelings and respect for his person which Bolingbroke utters, could scarcely have deceived him even in his weakest moments; but, in spite of the beautiful speeches that he makes, Richard does nothing either brave, or noble, or dignified, in the presence of his misfortunes. He vacillates between picturesque despair and spasmodic self-assertion: his sorrow is more that of a discarded mistress than of a dejected king. At the very end, when he is weakly resigning his undoubted rights as sovereign, he is full of fine sentiments, which he utters in eloquent language; but of the true dignity, which Charles I, for instance, showed in the face of his enemies, he has none. The spirit of his father flares up in him, for a moment, when he is attacked by Exton and his small band of assassins; indeed, it may be said of Richard of Bordeaux, as has been said of many more weak-natured persons placed by fate in high positions: ‘Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it’ [Macbeth, 1.4.7-8]. Sympathy with such a character is surely insufficient to sustain the interest of a play so weak as this. It might have been better for dramatic purposes, but less true to nature, if Shakespeare had either ignored Richard’s faults entirely, or had unscrupulously blackened Bolingbroke’s character.

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That the latter ever intended anything else, in spite of his protestations and oaths, than seizing the kingdom for himself, no one can doubt, judging at least from what he says and does in this play; but one might have forgiven him that, if he had not thought fit to assume, with such ostentatious hypocrisy, consideration and respect for his lawful sovereign whom he was resolved to depose. Nor does one like Henry Bolingbroke any the better, because he plays that very old trick of ambitious men who hate their rivals, and yet have neither the courage nor the shamelessness – if one may call it so – openly to murder them, but drop cunning hints in the presence of those who they know will execute their intentions; and then, when the deed is done, and their enemy is out of their way, with a nauseous assumption of outraged virtue, they endeavour to wash their hands of blood-guiltiness. Of the other characters in the play little need be said. Except the time-serving, plausible York, they are all more or less commonplace. Not a gleam of humour – no, not even in the character of the Gardener – serves to relieve the picture. To compare such a play as this with King John or Henry IV or, indeed, with any of the other historical plays, except the first part of Henry VI, is an idle task. What is there in Richard II that can touch the wonderful pathos of Constance; the admirable wit and audacity of the Bastard; the sardonic strength and titanic villainy of Richard III; to say nothing of that masterpiece, Henry V, every page of which abounds in touches of genius which we look for in vain in this play? Much emphasis has already been laid upon the political character of this play;[1] and, perhaps, in estimating it as a dramatic work it is only fair to consider that Shakespeare, when compiling it from Holinshed, with or without the aid of an older play on the same subject, had in his mind more the writing of a political satire in a dramatic form, than the construction of a strong play from historical material. Although we have no letters, nor essays, nor journals of Shakespeare’s – nothing but his poems and dramatic works, by which to read the history of his intellectual growth – yet we know that he must have been not only a close observer of human nature and life, but a patient gatherer of all materials at his command for the study of human character. The history of the reigns of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth must have been tolerably familiar to him, at least from oral tradition; and it is probable that, in writing Richard II he was thinking of those spasmodic conversions and convulsive attacks of loyalty, to which many statesmen and courtiers fell victims in those two reigns. The character of York, certainly, when studied closely, excites our contempt and detestation; but it may be that, in the very gross inconsistencies which he displays – at one moment rebuking his sovereign with dignified courage for his many faults, the next accepting from that sovereign the very greatest position of trust as regent of the kingdom; betraying that trust shortly afterwards, at the same time that he launches stern rebukes against the rebel Bolingbroke; lost in admiration at the majestic appearance of his lawful sovereign in the midst of his misfortunes (iii.3.66-71), while making himself, shortly after, the complaisant bearer of that sovereign’s unwilling resignation, and urging him, it would almost seem, to that dishonourable course; finally, throwing himself into a paroxysm of virtuous indignation because he finds his son has been plotting against the successful usurper; clamouring for the blood of that son, unmoved by the sight of the weeping mother who pleads for his life, though that mother was

 Frank A. Marshall, the Theatrical Weakness of Richard II 335 his own wife: – it may be that, in this revolting monster of inconsistency, Shakespeare deliberately designed to draw a man whose moral character was so weakened by old age, or by inherent blemishes, that he was unable to make up his mind to be either a loyal subject, or an honest rebel. If we accept York as a political satire, and not as a dramatic character with whom we are supposed in any way to sympathize, we must admit that he is a very masterly creation, and one to whom it would be easy to find a parallel in more modern history. Certain it is that every one who has attempted to deal with Richard II as a work for the stage, has felt it absolutely necessary to modify the character of York; because his inconsistencies, however true to nature, present most insuperable difficulties in actual representation on the stage. If, therefore, we accept Richard II as a political satire cast in a dramatic shape, we can give it very high praise; but, as a drama appealing to human sympathies and human passions, it can never take any high rank among its great author’s works. (II, 398-400)

48

Walter Pater, ritual and lyricism in Richard II 1889

From ‘Shakespeare’s English Kings’, in Appreciations: With an Essay on Style (London, 1889), pp. 192–212; reprinted (London, 1913). Walter Horatio Pater (1839–94), critic and humanist, went from the King’s School, Canterbury, to Queen’s College, Oxford, studied classics with Jowett, and in 1864 was elected to a fellowship at Brasenose. Abandoning the idea of becoming an Anglican priest, he travelled in Italy, the experience of which strongly fortified his interest in Renaissance art and weakened his faith in Christianity. He wrote for several periodicals, collecting these essays in his Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873). His best-known work, Marius the Epicurean (2 vols., 1885), is a philosophical romance intended to illustrate the principle that beauty is the true object of the questing soul; the book established Pater as the high priest of late Victorian aestheticism and a stylist of elaborately self-conscious refinement. The work in which Pater’s essay on Shakespeare’s histories appears is a collection of miscellaneous pieces, almost as notable for their rarified prose as for their ideas. The appreciation of Richard II, however, which forms the core of the present essay, marks a new turn in criticism of the play by emphasizing the idea of inverted ritual in the deposition of the king and by stressing the lyricism of the drama as a principle of its unity. Pater also develops further the idea of Richard as the poet-king. In the extract reprinted below I give the pagination of the more readily available second edition of 1913.

Shakespeare’s English Kings A brittle glory shineth in this face: As brittle as the glory is the face.

[Richard II, 4.1.287-8]

The English plays of Shakespeare needed but the completion of one unimportant interval to possess the unity of a popular chronicle from Richard the Second to Henry the Eighth, and possess, as they actually stand, the unity of a common motive in the

 Walter Pater, Ritual and Lyricism in Richard II 337 handling of the various events and persons which they bring before us. Certain of his historic dramas, not English, display Shakespeare’s mastery in the development of the heroic nature amid heroic circumstances; and had he chosen, from English history, to deal with Coeur-de-Lion or Edward the First, the innate quality of his subject would doubtless have called into play something of that profound and sombre power which in Julius Caesar and Macbeth has sounded the depths of mighty character. True, on the whole, to fact, it is another side of kingship which he has made prominent in his English histories. The irony of kingship – average human nature, flung with a wonderfully pathetic effect into the vortex of great events; tragedy of everyday quality heightened in degree only by the conspicuous scene which does but make those who play their parts there conspicuously unfortunate; the utterance of common humanity straight from the heart, but refined like other common things for kingly uses by Shakespeare’s unfailing eloquence: such, unconsciously for the most part, though palpably enough to the careful reader, is the conception under which Shakespeare has arranged the lights and shadows of the story of the English kings, emphasising merely the light and shadow inherent in it, and keeping very close to the original authorities, not simply in the general outline of these dramatic histories but sometimes in their very expression. Certainly the history itself, as he found it in Hall, Holinshed, and Stowe, those somewhat picturesque old chroniclers who had themselves an eye for the dramatic ‘effects’ of human life, has much of this sentiment already about it. What he did not find there was the natural prerogative – such justification, in kingly, that is to say, in exceptional, qualities, of the exceptional position, as makes it practicable in the result. It is no Henriade he writes, and no history of the English people, but the sad fortunes of some English kings as conspicuous examples of the ordinary human condition. As in a children’s story, all princes are in extremes. Delightful in the sunshine above the wall into which chance lifts the flower for a season, they can but plead somewhat more touchingly than others their everyday weakness in the storm. Such is the motive that gives unity to these unequal and intermittent contributions toward a slowly evolved dramatic chronicle, which it would have taken many days to rehearse; a not distant story from real life still well remembered in its general course, to which people might listen now and again, as long as they cared, finding human nature at least wherever their attention struck ground in it. . . . [A paragraph on King John intervenes.] It was perhaps something of a boyish memory of the shocking end of his father [i.e. King John] that had distorted the piety of Henry the Third into superstitious terror. A frightened soul, himself touched with the contrary sort of religious madness, doting on all that was alien from his father’s huge ferocity, on the genialities, the soft gilding, of life, on the genuine interests of art and poetry, to be credited more than any other person with the deep religious expression of Westminster Abbey, Henry the Third, picturesque though useless, but certainly touching, might have furnished Shakespeare, had he filled up this interval in his series, with precisely the kind of effect he tends towards in his English plays. But he found it completer still in the person and story of Richard the Second, a figure – ‘that sweet lovely rose’ [1 Henry IV, 1.3.175] – which haunts Shakespeare’s mind, as it seems long to have haunted

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the minds of the English people, as the most touching of all examples of the irony of kingship. . . . [A paragraph in which Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, and Richard II are briefly discussed intervenes.] With a prescience of the Wars of the Roses, of which his errors were the original cause, it is Richard who best exposes Shakespeare’s own constant sentiment concerning war, and especially that sort of civil war which was then recent in English memories. The soul of Shakespeare, certainly, was not wanting in a sense of the magnanimity of warriors. The grandiose aspects of war, its magnificent apparelling, he records monumentally enough – the ‘dressing of the lists,’ the lion’s heart, its unfaltering haste thither in all the freshness of youth and morning. – Not sick although I have to do with death –

The sun doth gild our armour: Up, my Lords! –

I saw young Harry with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d, Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury.

[Richard II, 1.3.65]

[Henry V, 4.2.1]

[1 Henry IV, 4.1.104-6]

Only, with Shakespeare, the afterthought is immediate: – They come like sacrifices in their trim. – Will it never be to-day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces.

[1 Henry IV, 4.1.113]

[Henry V, 3.7.80-1]

This sentiment Richard reiterates very plaintively, in association with the delicate sweetness of the English fields, still sweet and fresh, like London and her other fair towns in that England of Chaucer, for whose soil the exiled Bolingbroke is made to long so dangerously, while Richard on his return from Ireland salutes it – That pale, that white-fac’d shore, –

As a long-parted mother with her child. –

So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth! And do thee favour with my royal hands. –

[King John, 2.1.23][1]

[Richard II, 3.2.8]

[Richard II, 3.2.10-11]

 Walter Pater, Ritual and Lyricism in Richard II 339 Then (of Bolingbroke) Ere the crown he looks for live in peace, Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons Shall ill become the flower of England’s face; Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace To scarlet indignation, and bedew My pastures’ grass with faithful English blood. –

[Richard II, 3.3.95-100]

‘Why have they dared to march? – ’ asks York, ‘So many miles upon her peaceful bosom, / Frighting her pale-fac’d visages with war? –’ [Richard II, 2.3.92-4], waking, according to Richard, ‘Our peace, which in our country’s cradle, / Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep – ’ [1.3.132-3], bedrenching ‘with crimson tempest’ ‘The fresh green lap of fair king Richard’s land – ’ [3.3.46-7], frighting ‘fair peace’ from ‘our quiet confines,’ laying ‘The summer’s dust with showers of blood, / Rained from the wounds of slaughter’d Englishmen’ [1.3.137; 3.3.43-4], bruising ‘Her flowerets with the armed hoofs / Of hostile paces’ [1 Henry IV, 1 -1-8-9].[2] Perhaps it is not too fanciful to note in this play a peculiar recoil from the mere instruments of warfare, the contact of the ‘rude ribs’ [Richard II, 3.3.32], the ‘flint bosom’ [5.1.3], of Barkloughly Castle or Pomfret or ‘Julius Caesar’s ill-erected tower’ [5.1.2], the ‘Boisterous untun’d drums / With harsh-resounding trumpets’ dreadful bray / And grating shock of wrathful iron arms’ [1.3.134-6]. It is as if the lax, soft beauty of the king took effect, at least by contrast, on everything beside. One gracious prerogative, certainly, Shakespeare’s English kings possess: they are a very eloquent company, and Richard is the most sweet-tongued of them all. In no other play perhaps is there such a flush of those gay, fresh, variegated flowers of speech – colour and figure, not lightly attached to, but fused into, the very phrase itself– which Shakespeare cannot help dispensing to his characters, as in this ‘play of the Deposing of King Richard the Second,’3 an exquisite poet if he is nothing else, from first to last, in light and gloom alike, able to see all things poetically, to give a poetic turn to his conduct of them, and refreshing with his golden language the tritest aspects of that ironic contrast between the pretensions of a king and the actual necessities of his destiny. What a garden of words! With him, blank verse, infinitely graceful, deliberate, musical in inflexion, becomes indeed a true ‘verse royal,’ that rhyming lapse, which to the Shakespearian ear, at least in youth, came as the last touch of refinement on it, being here doubly appropriate. His eloquence blends with that fatal beauty, of which he was so frankly aware, so amiable to his friends, to his wife, of the effects of which on the people his enemies were so much afraid, on which Shakespeare himself dwells so attentively as the ‘royal blood’ [2.1.118] comes and goes in the face with his rapid changes of temper. As happens with sensitive natures, it attunes him to a congruous suavity of manners, by which anger itself became flattering: it blends with his merely youthful hopefulness and high spirits, his sympathetic love for gay people, things, apparel – ‘his cote of gold and stone, valued at thirty thousand marks.’[4] the novel Italian fashions he preferred, as also with those real amiabilities that made people

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forget the darker touches of his character, but never tire of the pathetic rehearsal of his fall, the meekness of which would have seemed merely abject in a less graceful performer. Yet it is only fair to say that in the painstaking ‘revival’ of King Richard the Second, by the late Charles Kean,[5] those who were very young thirty years ago were afforded much more than Shakespeare’s play could ever have been before – the very person of the king based on the stately old portrait in Westminster Abbey, ‘the earliest extant contemporary likeness of any English sovereign,’ the grace, the winning pathos, the sympathetic voice of the player, the tasteful archaeology confronting vulgar modern London with a scenic reproduction, for once really agreeable, of the London of Chaucer. In the hands of Kean the play became like an exquisite performance on the violin. The long agony of one so gaily painted by nature’s self, from his ‘tragic abdication’ till the hour in which he ‘Sluiced out his innocent soul thro’ streams of blood’ [1.1.103],[6] was for playwrights a subject to hand, and became early the theme of a popular drama, of which some have fancied surviving favourite fragments in the rhymed parts of Shakespeare’s work. . . . Strangely enough, Shakespeare supposes him an over-confident believer in that divine right of kings, of which people in Shakespeare’s time were coming to hear so much; a general right, sealed to him (so Richard is made to think) as an ineradicable personal gift by the touch – stream rather, over head and breast and shoulders – of the ‘holy oil’ of his consecration at Westminster; not, however, through some oversight, the genuine balm used at the coronation of his successor, given, according to legend, by the Blessed Virgin to Saint Thomas of Canterbury. Richard himself found that, it was said, among other forgotten treasures, at the crisis of his changing fortunes, and vainly sought reconsecration therewith –understood, wistfully, that it was reserved for his happier rival. And yet his coronation by the pageantry, the amplitude, the learned care, of its order, so lengthly that the king, then only eleven years of age, and fasting, as a communicant at the ceremony, was carried away in a faint, fixed the type under which it has ever since continued. And nowhere is there so emphatic a reiteration as in Richard the Second of the sentiment which those singular rites were calculated to produce. Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed king, – [3.2.54-5]

as supplementing another, almost supernatural, right. – ‘Edward’s seven sons,’ of whom Richard’s father was one, ‘Were as seven phials of his sacred blood’ [1.2.11-12]. But this, too, in the hands of Shakespeare, becomes for him, like any other of those fantastic, ineffectual, easily discredited, personal graces, as capricious in its operation on men’s wills as merely physical beauty, kindling himself to eloquence indeed, but only giving double pathos to insults which ‘barbarism itself ’ [5.2.36] might have pitied – the dust in his face, as he returns, through the streets of London, a prisoner in the train of his victorious enemy. ‘How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face!’ [4.1.291], he cries, in that most poetic invention of the mirror scene, which does but reinforce again that physical charm which all confessed. The sense of ‘divine right’ in kings is found to act

 Walter Pater, Ritual and Lyricism in Richard II 341 not so much as a secret of power over others, as of infatuation to themselves. And of all those personal gifts the one which alone never altogether fails him is just that royal utterance, his appreciation of the poetry of his own hapless lot, an eloquent self-pity, infecting others in spite of themselves, till they too become irresistibly eloquent about him. In the Roman Pontifical, of which the order of Coronation is really a part, there is no form for the inverse process, no rite of ‘degradation,’ such as that by which an offending priest or bishop may be deprived, if not of the essential quality of ‘orders,’ yet, one by one, of its outward dignities. It is as if Shakespeare had had in mind some such inverted rite, like those old ecclesiastical or military ones, by which human hardness, or human justice, adds the last touch of unkindness to the execution of its sentences, in the scene where Richard ‘deposes’ himself, as in some long, agonising ceremony, reflectively drawn out, with an extraordinary refinement of intelligence and variety of piteous appeal, but also with a felicity of poetic invention, which puts these pages into a very select class, with the finest ‘vermeil and ivory’ work of Chatterton or Keats. ‘Fetch hither Richard that in common view / He may surrender! – ’ [4.1.155-6]. And Richard more than concurs: he throws himself into the part, realises a type, falls gracefully as on the world’s stage. – Why is he sent for? ‘To do that office of thine own good will / Which tired majesty did make thee offer –’ [4.1.177-8]. ‘Now mark me! how I will undo myself [4.1.303]. ‘Hath Bolingbroke deposed thine intellect?’ the Queen asks him, on his way to the Tower: – ‘Hath Bolingbroke / Deposed thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?’ [5.1.27-8]. And in truth, but for that adventitious poetic gold, it would be only ‘plume-plucked Richard’ [4.1.108]. – I find myself a traitor with the rest, For I have given here my soul’s consent To undeck the pompous body of a king. [4.1.248-50]

He is duly reminded, indeed, how ‘That which in mean men we entitle patience / Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts’ [1.2.33-4]. Yet at least within the poetic bounds of Shakespeare’s play, through Shakespeare’s bountiful gifts, his desire seems fulfilled – ‘O! that I were as great / As is my grief ’ [3.3.136-7]. And his grief becomes nothing less than a central expression of all that in the revolutions of Fortune’s wheel goes down in the world. No! Shakespeare’s kings are not, nor are meant to be, great men: rather, little or quite ordinary humanity, thrust upon greatness, with those pathetic results, the natural selfpity of the weak heightened in them into irresistible appeal to others as the net result of their royal prerogative. One after another, they seem to lie composed in Shakespeare’s embalming pages, with just that touch of nature about them, making the whole world akin,[7] which has infused into their tombs at Westminster a rare poetic grace. It is that irony of kingship, the sense that it is in its happiness child’s play, in its sorrows, after all, but children’s grief, which gives its finer accent to all the changeful feeling of these wonderful speeches: – the great meekness of the graceful, wild creature, tamed at last – ‘Give Richard leave to live till Richard die!’ [3.3.174], his somewhat abject fear of death, turning to acquiescence at moments of extreme weariness: – ‘My large kingdom for a

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little grave! / A little little grave, an obscure grave! – ’ [3.3.153-4], his religious appeal in the last reserve, with its bold reference to the judgment of Pilate, as he thinks once more of his ‘anointing.’ And as happens with children he attains contentment finally in the merely passive recognition of superior strength, in the naturalness of the result of the great battle as a matter of course, and experiences something of the royal prerogative of poetry to obscure, or at least to attune and soften men’s griefs. As in some sweet anthem of Handel, the sufferer, who put finger to the organ under the utmost pressure of mental conflict, extracts a kind of peace at last from the mere skill with which he sets his distress to music – ‘Beshrew thee, Cousin, that didst lead me forth / Of that sweet way I was in to despair!’ [3.2.204-5]. ‘With Cain go wander through the shades of night!’ [5.6.43] – cries the new king to the gaoler Exton, dissimulating his share in the murder he is thought to have suggested; and in truth there is something of the murdered Abel about Shakespeare’s Richard. The fact seems to be that he died of ‘waste and a broken heart;’[8] it was by way of proof that his end had been a natural one that, stifling a real fear of the face, the face of Richard, on men’s minds, with the added pleading now of all dead faces, Henry exposed the corpse to general view; and Shakespeare, bringing it on the stage, in the last scene of his play, does but follow out the motive with which he has emphasised Richard’s physical beauty all through it – that ‘most beauteous inn’ [5.1.13], as the Queen says quaintly, meeting him on the way to death – residence, then soon to be deserted, of that wayward, frenzied, but withal so affectionate soul. Though the body did not go to Westminster immediately, his tomb, ‘That small model of the barren earth / Which serves as paste and cover to our bones’ [3.2.153—4],9 the effigy clasping the hand of his youthful consort, was already prepared there, with ‘rich gilding and ornaments,’ monument of poetic regret, for Queen Anne of Bohemia, not of course the ‘Queen’ of Shakespeare, who however seems to have transferred to this second wife something of Richard’s widly proclaimed affection for the first. In this way, through the connecting link of that sacred spot, our thoughts once more associate Richard’s two fallacious prerogatives, his personal beauty and his ‘anointing.’ According to Johnson, Richard the Second is one of those plays which Shakespeare has ‘apparently revised;’[10] and how doubly delightful Shakespeare is where he seems to have revised! ‘Would that he had blotted a thousand’[11] – a thousand hasty phrases, we may venture once more to say with his earlier critic, now that the tiresome German superstition has passed away which challenged us to a dogmatic faith in the plenary verbal inspiration of every one of Shakespeare’s clowns. Like some melodiously contending anthem of Handel’s, I said, of Richard’s meek ‘undoing’ of himself in the mirror-scene; and, in fact, the play of Richard the Second does, like a musical composition, possess a certain concentration of all its parts, a simple continuity, an evenness in execution, which are rare in the great dramatist. With Romeo and Juliet, that perfect symphony (symphony of three independent poetic forms set in a grander one12 which it is the merit of German criticism to have detected) it belongs to a small group of plays, where, by happy birth and consistent evolution, dramatic form approaches to something like the unity of a lyrical ballad, a lyric, a song, a single strain of music. Which sort of poetry we are to account the highest, is perhaps a barren question. Yet

 Walter Pater, Ritual and Lyricism in Richard II 343 if, in art generally, unity of impression is a note of what is perfect, then lyric poetry, which in spite of complex structure often preserves the unity of a single passionate ejaculation, would rank higher than dramatic poetry, where, especially to the reader, as distinguished from the spectator assisting at a theatrical performance, there must always be a sense of the effort necessary to keep the various parts from flying asunder, a sense of imperfect continuity, such as the older criticism vainly sought to obviate by the rule of the dramatic ‘unities.’ It follows that a play attains artistic perfection just in proportion as it approaches that unity of lyrical effect, as if a song or ballad were still lying at the root of it, all the various expression of the conflict of character and circumstance falling at last into the compass of a single melody, or musical theme. As, historically, the earliest classic drama arose out of the chorus, from which this or that person, this or that episode, detached itself, so, into the unity of a choric song the perfect drama ever tends to return, its intellectual scope deepened, complicated, enlarged, but still with an unmistakable singleness, or identity, in its impression on the mind. Just there, in that vivid single impression left on the mind when all is over, not in any mechanical limitation of time and place, is the secret of the ‘unities’ – the true imaginative unity -of the drama. (185-204)

49

P. A. Daniel, a nonpolitical reason for omitting the deposition scene from the early quartos of Richard II 1890

From King Richard the Second by William Shakespeare. The First Quarto, 1597. A Facsimile. With an Introduction by Peter Augustin Daniel (London, 1890). Until Daniel’s work most scholars took it for granted that Elizabethan censorship was responsible for the excision of the deposition scene in the early quartos of Richard II. Daniel offers an alternative explanation. For biographical information on Daniel, see headnote to No. 42 above.

[From Daniel’s ‘Introduction’. In the excerpt reprinted here Daniel discusses 4.1 of Ql-2, near the end of the scene where Bolingbroke leaves the stage, having just declared his intention to be crowned king, and the Abbot of Westminster and the Bishop of Carlisle remain (4.1.319 ff.).] . . . On the departure of Henry and his confederates, after ‘Lords be ready all’ [4.1.320], the Q[uartos] 1 [1597] and 2 [1598] are again in substantial agreement with the later quartos 3 [1608] and 4 [1615]:[1] the Abbot of Westminster, the Bishop of Carlisle and Aumerle remain to discuss what has passed and it seems to be agreed on all hands that the first speech, by the Abbot – ‘A wofull Pageant haue we heere beheld’ [4.1.321], could only apply to the woeful spectacle presented by Richard in his forced resignation of the crown into the hands of Bolingbroke, and must be taken as proof positive that the ‘additions’[2] lines formed part of the original scene. Perhaps so; but had these ‘additions’ lines not come down to us we might, indeed we must, have supposed that the Abbot’s speech referred to the, to him, woeful pageant of the ascent of the throne by Bolingbroke, and his acclamation as Henry the Fourth (11. 111-113). Pageant for pageant, this open act of usurpation must have excited woe and indignation in the loyal breasts of the Abbot and his companions at least equal to that they might be

 P. A. Daniel 345 supposed to feel for the somewhat querulous and undignified laments of Richard. Proof, however, that the ‘additions’ formed part of the original play does not rest entirely on the Abbot’s speech, and independently of the strong evidence of the lines themselves, in their exact agreement in ‘style, diction and rhythm with the rest of the play’ [Clarendon Press edn.],[3] we may notice how the passage is linked with the first scene of the next act: in line 316 of the ‘additions’ Bolingbroke orders Richard to be conveyed to the Tower [4.1.316] and in V.I we find the ex-king on his way thither, when Northumberland enters with the news that the mind of Bolingbroke is changed, and that Richard must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower [5.1.51-2]. It seems, indeed, impossible to come to any other conclusion than that the ‘additions’ formed part of the original play. Why were they excised? A propable reason may, perhaps, be found in the fact that in Act III, Scenes ii and iii, Richard’s want of manliness had already been largely and sufficiently displayed; moreover, the story loses nothing in completeness or intelligibility by the suppression of the passage; for York (II. 107-112) has already announced Richard’s resignation and his adoption of Bolingbroke as his successor [4.1.107-12]. I can see no reason to suppose that it was struck out from any political motive; there are far more ‘dangerous’ passages in the play than this, and more likely to have called down the censor’s veto if the representation on the stage of the mis-government of a weak king was deemed perilous; and it seems highly improbable in that case that he should have contented himself with striking out a passage the only possible effect of which would be to excite the sympathy of the audience on behalf of the deposed monarch. Be this as it may, these ‘additions’ were never printed in the Queen’s life time; nor, so far as we know, was any edition of the play itself published between 1598 and 1608. How [Matthew] Law obtained his copy of the ‘additions’ is quite unknown: as, however, for the bulk of the play he printed his first edition – Q3, 1608[4] – from Q2 it is permissible to suppose that the copy of that quarto which he made use of was one made over to him by [Andrew] Wise in 1603, containing these additions in MS.[5] The cancelled title, which makes no mention of these ‘additions,’ suggests that he was not at first aware of these MS. additions, and, judging from their inferiority to the version given in the F[olio], it is not likely that he could have had access to any authentic MS. (x-xi)

50

Cyril Ransome, character disclosure and dramatic symmetry in Richard II 1890

From Short Studies of Shakespeare’s Plots (London, 1890). Cyril Ransome (1851–97), chiefly noted for his textbooks on history, was a graduate of Merton College, Oxford (M.A. 1876), and became a professor of history and literature at Yorkshire College, Leeds, then part of the Victoria University of Manchester. Ransome’s best known works, many times reprinted, were his Handbook in Outline of Political History in England (written in collaboration with Sir A.H.D. Acland, Bart., 1882) and An Advanced History of England from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1895). The work from which the following extracts are taken is made up of a series of essays, originally delivered ‘as popular lectures before a mixed audience’ (p. v), on Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, King Lear, Richard II, Othello, Coriolanus, and The Tempest. Ransome deplored the dry philological and anti-literary approach that too frequently characterized the teaching of Shakespeare in the schools and colleges of his own day; therefore, in reaction, his book was intended to help students appreciate Shakespearian plays as works of art worth studying for themselves by concentrating on the careful way the dramatist constructs plot and gradually reveals character. His purpose was ‘to revive the popularity of Shakespeare in the mind of a generation which, if the present system is persisted in, is likely to detest him with as thoroughgoing an aversion as if he had written his great masterpieces in Latin or Greek’ (p. viii). Ransome’s long essay on Richard II, virtually a scene-by-scene commentary on the play using extensive quotation, although it traverses much familiar ground, is nevertheless significant for its painstaking demonstration of how small details of speech and action accumulate to build up a larger structure of political complexity and subtlety in characterization (note, for instance, the parallel between Richard and Hamlet which Ransome underlines). This method is particularly evident in his close analysis of the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke with its ambiguities of motive as regards both the combatants and the king.

[From ‘Richard II]

Part I [1] [On Act I]

 Cyril Ransome, Character Disclosure and Dramatic Symmetry in Richard II 347 [Ransome begins by sketching in the historical events and conditions of Richard’s reign – with emphasis on the death of Gloucester – that led up to the action dramatized in the opening scene of the play; he asserts that ‘Shakespeare made the assumption that the general outline of events was known to his audience’ (p. 162).] . . . The old associates Mowbray and Bolingbroke quarrelled, and Bolingbroke accused Mowbray of treason. The crisis was exceedingly serious, for Mowbray was the keeper of the secret of Gloucester’s death [i.e. of Richard’s ultimate responsibility for his death], while Bolingbroke was known to be a man of great ability and ambition, whose hopes of succession to the crown had been balked by the proclamation as heir of Roger Mortimer, the grandson of the Duke of Clarence. As no one knew the details of the quarrel between Bolingbroke and Mowbray – for there had been no witnesses of its occurrence – Bolingbroke was ordered to lay the matter before Parliament. This was done, and in February 1398 the two dukes met in Richard’s presence. Here Shakespeare’s play opens. . . . The very first speech of Richard, as is so often the case with Shakespeare’s heroes, is designed to give us the key to his character. It is dignified and courteous, friendly but not familiar, the speech of a man who knew what was fitting both to himself and to others, but it is not that of a strong man. There is an air of complaint about the word ‘boisterous,’ and a confession of unbusiness-like habits in the phrase ‘which then our leisure would not let us hear’ [1.1.4-5], that at once betrays the inherent weakness of his character. It is clear too that he is uneasy, and that both he and Gaunt feel that in dealing with Hereford they have to do with a man of stronger character than themselves. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him, If he appeal the duke on ancient malice; Or worthily, as a good subject should, On some known ground of treachery in him? [1.1.8-11]

Gaunt’s answer, though expressed with some hesitation, is reassuring. As near as I could sift him on that argument, – On some apparent danger seen in him, Aimed at your highness, no inveterate malice. [1.1.12-14]

Richard’s mind is relieved, and he gives orders that the dukes shall be brought before him. On their arrival, the difference between their characters is at once apparent. Bolingbroke takes the initiative. His address to the king is formal, polite, studied, and is evidently that of a man who weighed his words; but when he comes to address Mowbray his manner, though not less artificial, undergoes a complete change. It is clear that he wishes to drive Norfolk to an extremity of passion. First he treats him with insolent swagger. Thou art a traitor, and a miscreant; Too good to be so, and too bad to live;

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……………… Once more, the more to aggravate the note, With a foul traitor’s name stuff I thy throat. [1.1.39-44]

Mowbray, however, keeps his temper in control, and excusing himself from speaking his mind on the ground of Bolingbroke’s relationship to the king, confines himself to a statement that the accusation is false. Bolingbroke then tries the effect of a taunt of cowardice, but Mowbray merely repeats his readiness to fight. So far Mowbray has appeared distinctly to the greater advantage, and Richard, satisfied with the turn affairs are taking, asks Bolingbroke to make his charges in specific terms. Bolingbroke’s accusation, however, turns out to be something quite different from what John of Gaunt had led the king to expect. Instead of being ‘some apparent danger seen in him, aimed at your highness,’ it is made up of a charge of embezzlement, a vague accusation of having been a leader in the plots and conspiracies of the last eighteen years – which was equally true of the man who made it – and concludes with an assertion that the Duke of Norfolk was the murderer of the Duke of Gloucester. We have now before us a very curious scene. The man who had really been responsible for Gloucester’s death was not Norfolk but Richard himself, as Shakespeare might assume was known to his audience. Consequently of the four chief actors, Gaunt, as we see a moment later, knew the king’s guilt; Bolingbroke knew it, and was now striking at Richard through Norfolk; Norfolk knew it, but was too loyal to defend himself by throwing the blame on the true murderer; and Richard was of course conscious of his own guilt. ‘How high a pitch his resolution soars!’ [1.1.109] is the half-muttered aside of the king. Before all things, however, he must keep up his show of impartiality, and he solemnly calls on Mowbray for his answer. Mowbray’s reply is honest and fearless. The embezzlement he wholly explains. Of the murder of the duke he accepts just so much responsibility that being governor of Calais, he had not guarded his prisoner with greater care. He even goes out of his way to confess a conspiracy against John of Gaunt which did not form part of the indictment, and summing up the rest of the charge under the general heading of ‘the rancour of a villain’ [1.1.143], he hurls down his glove at the foot of his accuser. Richard’s great object now is to find some method of bringing the scene to an end. Will not his royal authority, backed by what he calls ‘the unstooping firmness of my upright soul’ [1.1.121], be sufficient to keep the peace? No, indeed. Neither will give way. Parental reproof has no more effect on Bolingbroke than the royal orders have on Mowbray, and the man ‘who was not born to sue but to command’ [1.1.196] finds that only moral force can secure unquestioning obedience. Each moment the anger of the rivals becomes fiercer; Gaunt leaves the scene, and Richard much against his will, is obliged to order the quarrel to be settled by a judicial combat in the lists at Coventry. A high sense of the outward dignity of kingship without either moral rectitude or force of character appears so far to be the characteristic of the king, and that at a time when the tempestuous and ungovernable jealousy of his barons made a sovereign of uprightness and vigour absolutely essential to the preservation of the peace of the realm.

 Cyril Ransome, Character Disclosure and Dramatic Symmetry in Richard II 349 The next scene (Act i, Scene 2) opens with a dialogue between John of Gaunt and the widow of the murdered Gloucester. Mowbray’s simple defence had allowed the murder to fall into the background, so Shakespeare, who wished to impress on the audience the fact of Richard’s guilt, and the enormity of the murder of a relative, uses the mouth of the duchess to paint the full horror of the deed. Nor are any of the audience allowed to remain in doubt for a moment as to who is its author. Cautiously and then boldly John of Gaunt points to the king, first when he says, ‘But since correction lieth in those hands, / Which made the fault which we cannot correct’ [1.2.4-5]; and later, ‘Heaven’s is the quarrel; for heaven’s substitute, / His deputy anointed in his sight, / Hath caused his death’ [1.2.37-9]. But at the same time, when Shakespeare brands Richard as a man, he is careful to reserve the respect due to the office, ‘The which if wrongfully, / Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift / An angry arm against his minister’ [1.2.39-41]. At the same time it is made clear that Mowbray is also held responsible; and supposing, as Bishop Stubbs puts it, that ‘if Gloucester was murdered, the guilt must be divided between Norfolk and the king,’[1] it is clear that the duchess was not far wrong. The scene next shifts to Coventry (Act i, Scene 3), where the lists have been prepared for the fight. Nothing is omitted which can lend solemnity to the occasion. The point of special note is the difference between Richard’s final greetings to the champions. To Bolingbroke, as knowing him to be in the wrong, he uses the Delphic words, ‘Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right, / So be thy fortune in this royal fight’ [1.3.55-6]; and to Mowbray, the one in reality fighting his own battle, ‘Farewell, my lord; securely I espy / Virtue with valour couched in thine eye’ [1.3.97-8]. Richard, however, with a sort of knavish cunning, has a way of his own out of his difficulty. At the very moment when the champions are moving to the encounter, he throws his warder down, and so brings to a close a combat which, however it had ended, would have left him in a position so difficult that he declined to face it. Instead of facing it, he adopts an expedient which, though it furnishes an immediate solution, is pregnant with consequences ruinous to himself. He calls a council, and as the result of its deliberations announces that Bolingbroke is to be banished for ten years, and Norfolk for life. The grounds on which this is done are stated in terms which were not ill calculated to secure the support of the peace-loving section of the nation; but they were not sufficient to gloss over the real injustice of the deed. And note further: not one single word of Gloucester’s death is uttered by any one of the actors in the scene. Richard is evidently much relieved by the patient manner in which each receives his sentence. It is a triumph of royal authority, and in an excess of confidence he proceeds to exact from them a futile and foolish oath – futile because he had no means to enforce its observance, and foolish because it was only calculated to suggest the danger which he wished to avoid. You never shall . . . Embrace each other’s love in banishment; Nor ever look upon each other’s face; Nor ever write, regreet, nor reconcile This lowering tempest of your home-bred hate;

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Nor ever by advised purpose meet, To plot, contrive, or complot any ill, ‘Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land. [1.3.183-90]

Before they separate, Bolingbroke presses Mowbray to confess himself a traitor, but Mowbray not only declines to do so, but also gives a very clear hint to the king of the course which affairs will probably take. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor, My name be blotted from the book of life, And I from heaven banished, as from hence! But what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know; And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue. [1.3.201-5]

Relieved of the embarrassment of Norfolk’s presence, Richard makes a feeble attempt to win favour from the House of Lancaster by remitting a portion of Bolingbroke’s sentence, a remission which in no way effects its object, while by attempting to throw the blame of the decision of the council on poor old John of Gaunt he is guilty of an incredible meanness. Nothing shows Richard’s weakness more than his attempts, repeated again and again, to bolster up his will by the use of the language of decision, – ‘The unstooping firmness of my upright soul’ [1.1.121]; ‘After our sentence, plaining comes too late’ [1.3.175]; ‘Six years we banish him, and he shall go’ [1.3.248] – language which no strong man would feel the need of, and for which no weak one would feel the stronger. As the audience are now to take leave of Bolingbroke for a time, and their feelings towards him so far have hardly been the most favourable, Shakespeare contrives that his last conversation with Gaunt shall do something to raise their estimation of his nobility, and he quits the stage with an expression which leaves in their minds a pleasant recollection. ‘Where’er I wander, boast of this I can, – / Though banished, yet a true-born Englishman’ [1.3.308-9]. We now pass to Act i, Scene 4, in which we are to obtain a further insight into Richard’s character. A considerable period has elapsed, and Bolingbroke is now in exile. We find Richard in close conclave with Aumerle, the son of the Duke of York, the same who in the last scene begged Hereford to keep him informed of his place of exile [1.3.250]. There is a perfect understanding between the two speakers. Hatred and fear of Bolingbroke are the links that bind them together. Aumerle knows that he has a ready ear into which to pour his satirical description of his parting with the man they hated, and Richard has no hesitation in making Aumerle the confidant of his disquietude with regard to Bolingbroke’s intentions. Aumerle says – Marry, would the word ‘farewell’ have lengthened hours And added years to his short banishment, He should have had a volume of farewells; But since it would not, he had none of me. [1.4.16-19]

 Cyril Ransome, Character Disclosure and Dramatic Symmetry in Richard II 351 And Richard – He is our cousin, cousin; but ‘tis doubt, When time shall call him home from banishment, Whether our kinsman come to see his friends. Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green, Observed his courtship to the common people; – How he did seem to dive into their hearts, With humble and familiar courtesy; …………………. As were our England in reversion his, And he our subjects’ next degree in hope. [1.4.20-36]

Such are the true feelings of the man who had parted from Bolingbroke with mock sorrow and the oily phrase of ‘Six frozen winters spent, / Return with welcome home from banishment’ [1.3.211-2]. But we have not quite finished with Richard yet. We have only seen him in his relation to the royal family and to the nobility. To them he may be as unscrupulous as a Tudor, but yet be as good a sovereign as Elizabeth herself. Was he so? We shall see. There is further trouble brewing in Ireland, and the king will go in person to the wars. But the sinews of war are absent.[2] Too great a court and too liberal largess had exhausted the royal revenue, and it was necessary to mortgage the supplies of the future for a supply of ready money. If that came short, a system of benevolence was to be called into service, for the business is pressing and brooks no delay. Suddenly a further source of supply is opened, and Shakespeare knew well that fatal facility with which the code of honour is sapped by impecuniosity. Old John of Gaunt is ill, and sends to request the presence of his nephew; and how does Richard receive the news? Now put it, heaven, in his physician’s mind To help him to his grave immediately! The lining of his coffers shall make coats To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars. – Come, gentlemen, let’s all go visit him: Pray heaven we may make haste, and come too late. [1.4.59-64] (163-73)

[2] [On Act II] Shakespeare now (Act ii, Scene 1) transports us to the bedside of Gaunt. Here we find the Duke of York, who now with Lancaster alone survives of the last generation, and we are put in possession of the reason why the sick man has sent for his nephew. His object is to reprove him, possibly because he feels that hitherto he has too much held his peace, and has not given that active opposition to the ill courses of the king which his position demanded of him. York’s view is that all counsel to the king is wasted,

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and he brushes aside Gaunt’s suggestion that the words of dying men have an unusual influence. Richard’s ears are filled with flatteries; evil companions and addiction to Italian habits have corrupted his manners. It is little use to appeal to the wit when the will draws the other way. In spite, however, of this discouragement, Gaunt persists in his intention, and in a speech, quoted again and again for the pure spirit of patriotism which it breathes, he sets forth the special iniquity of neglect of kingly duty in an English sovereign. But we should note that Gaunt’s loyalty, though true, is not personal. It is England, not England’s king, that appeals to his affection. . . . [Quotes from the famous apostrophe to England, 2.1.40-50 and 2.1.59-60]. Such is the frame of mind in which Gaunt is at the moment when Richard enters. With him comes the queen, whose presence brings to remembrance the unpopular truce with France which accompanied her marriage. France was ever cruel in the queens she sent to England. From Isabella the She-wolf down to Henrietta Maria their names spelt ruin to the land of their adoption,[3] and the unfortunate child before us (she was in reality only ten), though in no sense guilty, supplied not the least important element in the causes of Richard’s fall. Beside the queen walks Aumerle, the double-faced son of York, who had just been fanning Richard’s enmity against the banished Hereford. Behind him stand Bushy, Green, and Bagot, typical of the low-born favourites whose rise to power had ever coincided with evil times; and scowling in the far background are Ross and Willoughby, representing the ancient nobility of the realm, the hereditary enemies of the king’s favourites. It was a striking and suggestive congregation. . . . [A discussion of Gaunt’s advice, Richard’s deafness to it, and York’s protest of the seizure of Gaunt’s property after his death intervenes.] Even York, who represents the slowly-moved conscience of the easy-going man of loyalty, slow to open the mind to new impressions, and so fit emblem of the people over whom Richard had to rule, is moved by this [i.e. the confiscation of Gaunt’s estates]; and had Richard possessed a spark of insight into character, he might have read in York’s speech a sentence of deposition against himself. What right had he himself to the crown which did not equally entitle Hereford to the property of his father? By what law was he king if not by the law of inheritance? And was not his action in seizing another’s goods the open proclamation of the fact that the reign of law was over and that the good old times had returned, ‘When he shall take who has the power, / And he shall keep who can’?[4] In such an era possessors of Richard’s character are like to fare ill. But the warning of York, like that of Lancaster, falls all unheeded. ‘Think what you will, we seize into our hands / His plate, his goods, his money and his lands’ [2.1.209-10]. And what is still more remarkable, Richard, who hears York say, I’ll not be by the while; my liege, farewell: What will ensue hereof, there’s none can tell; But by bad courses may be understood, That their events can never fall out good, [2.1.211-4]

appoints him next moment regent of the kingdom during his own absence in Ireland; and so saying, gaily leaves the stage with the queen and his favourites.

 Cyril Ransome, Character Disclosure and Dramatic Symmetry in Richard II 353 The time is now come to see what are the sentiments of the high nobility of England, who have so far stood by in silence. We have three of them before us – Northumberland, the representative of the ancient name of Percy, Willoughby, and Ross. Their conversation is extremely significant. Percy takes the lead, the others meet him with cautious but approving looks. Their sentiments are admirably selected to show the attitude of mind which the English always attempted to preserve as long as possible to an erring king. ‘The king is not himself, but basely led / By flatterers’ [2.1.241-2]. That is precisely the sentiment which sent Gaveston to his doom on Blacklow Hill, and placed the executions of Strafford and Laud before that of Charles I.[5] Personal danger is the spur to immediate action. What they will inform, Merely in hate, ‘gainst any of us all, That will the king severely prosecute ’Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs. [2.1.242-5]

The probability of successful action is based upon the infatuation with which Richard has alienated all classes of his subjects. The commons hath he pilled with grievous taxes, And quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fined For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts. [2.1.246-8]

Nor can these exactions be justified by necessity. The king’s income has not been spent on heroic enterprises. Wars have not wasted it, for warred he hath not, But basely yielded upon compromise That which his ancestors achieved with blows: More hath he spent in peace than they in wars. [2.1.252-5]

Such is the picture of England that is drawn by the earls: but Northumberland, a man of action, is ready with the remedy. Let them strike a blow for themselves. Already the Duke of Hereford and with him many trusty friends are on the move, and ‘With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war, / Are making hither with all due expedience . . .’ [Quotes 2.1.286-90]. With one accord the cry is: ‘Ho, for Ravenspurg!’[6] Such is the first step towards Richard’s fall. So far the impressions we have received of Richard’s character have been wholly bad. We have seen him at once weak, frivolous, spendthrift, unscrupulous, cunning, and impolitic. Had he no good side? Shakespeare answers that he has, and in Act ii, Scene 2 he begins the process of building up in his audience a new feeling of pity for the erring king. The first step towards this is to excite our pity for the innocent queen. In her mouth he is ‘sweet Richard’ [2.2.9], a man capable of inspiring a tender passion; and it is by the forebodings of this lady that the chord of pity is first touched. . . .

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. . . Meanwhile Bolingbroke is steadily rising in popular favour. Without a check he has made his way from Ravenspurg to Berkeley in Gloucestershire (Act ii, Scene 3). To every one he meets the cunning dissembler gives the same graceful reception and tells the same plausible tale. He has come to require at the king’s hands his forfeited estates. He demands the rights which the law gives him. Such a show of legality appeals to York, the typical Englishman, on his weak side. He will commit himself to neither party; he will remain a neutral; nor does he refuse to be Hereford’s companion on the march to Bristol, whither he goes to weed and purge away the traitors of the commonwealth, ‘Bushy and Bagot and their complices’ [2.3.165]. . . . [Ransome ends this section by discussing the scene (3.1) in which Bolingbroke condemns Bushy and Green.] This scene concludes the first part of the play. We have seen King Richard in prosperity, linking together the chain of events which has placed his cousin Hereford in the position of ruler of England; we have yet to trace the development of events when the king de jure and the king de facto are brought face to face. (173-83) [3] [On the falling action of Richard II]

Part II Addison, in criticising the poem of Paradise Lost, points out the ingenuity with which Milton, by exhibiting to his readers two Adams, one sinless and one fallen, has in reality doubled the character.[7] In this play Shakespeare uses a similar device. We have already had an opportunity of estimating the character borne by Richard in his days of prosperity. How will it be affected by the advent of adversity? After long delay, and on the very day after the dispersal of Salisbury’s forces, he has landed (Act iii, Scene 2) on the shores of Wales. In his first speech we have an example of the fantastic mode of thought and expression which euphuism had brought into fashion. Richard fancies that his England’s soil is wounded by the tread of rebel hoofs. He implores the spiders and heavy-gaited toads to plant themselves in their way. May adders lurk beneath every flower they stoop to gather. Let Nature put forth her weapons against his adversaries, for This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms. [3.2.24-6]

In this speech Shakespeare seems wishful to draw our attention to the unpractical, almost feminine character of Richard. He has an intense love of his country, but it shows itself not in deed but in word. He has an immense capacity for thought, but his resolves die away before they can be translated into action. So long as all went well with him, so long as he was able to rest his title to respect and loyalty upon an undisputed possession of his throne, such sentiments might not have been

 Cyril Ransome, Character Disclosure and Dramatic Symmetry in Richard II 355 inappropriate, but they are wholly out of place now. The world has been reduced to its pristine elements. Every man is to have the position for which he is fit, and here is Richard speaking as though kingship without kingliness were still a possibility. . . . [Ransome expatiates upon Richard’s delusion and volatility during the crescendo of bad news, followed by his despair and the intention to ‘pine away’ (3.2.209) at Flint Castle.] In the next scene (Act iii, Scene 3) we find that even this poor hope of escape has failed him, for Bolingbroke has found his place of refuge. How will the fallen king be treated? The attitudes which Bolingbroke, York, and Northumberland adopt towards him are each different. Northumberland has already so far forgotten his duty as to leave Richard’s title of royalty unpronounced. York is all pity and regret. Bolingbroke, though studiously observant of all outward respect and courtesy, cannot help showing the masterfulness of one who feels that the future development of the situation is in his hands. As yet, however, he carefully avoids a larger claim than to the restoration of his hereditary lands. In the scene that follows, the whole initiative of his fall is taken by Richard himself. Whether he speaks in private to Aumerle or in public to Bolingbroke and York, his every word suggests that from his grasp the sceptre is passing away, and that, to adopt his own words, Bolingbroke’s sole part is that of one who ‘offers no opposition to the will of heaven’ [paraphrased from 3.3.17-19]. It is Richard who first uses the phrase ‘King Bolingbroke’ [3.3.173]. It is his mouth which utters the true criticism on the situation, ‘Well you deserve: – they well deserve to have, / That know the strong’st and surest way to get’ [3.3.200-1], and it is he who first proposes the journey to London which was the natural prelude to an abdication of the crown. In Act iii, Scene 4 we are shown in the misery of the queen what is the fate which Richard’s ill conduct has brought upon his friends. The garden with its enclosing fence is the type of England. Its order and peace are designed to show how easily such a compact and isolated dominion might be ruled by a competent hand. The operations of the garden exhibit, as in a glass, the true maxims of government, which even the commonalty can appreciate. We learn from the mouth of the gardener that Richard’s fate is recognised to be the natural outcome of his inefficiency. What pity is it That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land, As we this garden! ... . [Quotes 3.4.55-69, 83-5, 87-9]

The next scene (Act iv, Scene i) gives additional evidence of the perfidy of Richard’s courtiers, for it appears from the mouth of Bagot that Aumerle is the real murderer of Gloucester [4.1.10-13]. A violent outburst of recrimination and denial follows this declaration, which is chiefly useful as showing the impassive but strong character of Bolingbroke, who contrives with no special appeal to his authority to keep the disputants under his control. So far Bolingbroke has studiously avoided any action which could be construed into making a bid for the crown; but now the suggestion comes to him from Richard himself, who, by York’s mouth, announces that he

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With willing soul Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields To the possession of thy royal hand: Ascend his throne, descending now from him – And long live Henry, of that name the fourth! [4.1.108-12]

The move once made, Bolingbroke loses no time in closing with the suggestion. ‘In God’s name, I’ll ascend the regal throne’ [4.1.113]. Here, however, it is time for Shakespeare to pronounce his opinion on the rebellion of subjects and the deposition of kings. On this point Shakespeare took up no uncertain ground. Richard may have been unfit to reign. He may have handed over his duties to others still more unfit to discharge them than himself; but that in no way excused those who took a part in his deposition. After all, to his mind, the right attitude was that of Gaunt – Heaven’s is the quarrel; for heaven’s substitute, His deputy anointed in his sight, Hath caused his death; the which if wrongfully, Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift An angry arm against his minister [1.2.37-41]

– and he places in the mouth of the honest and efficient Bishop of Carlisle the duty of announcing his views. Marry, God forbid! ………….. What subject can give sentence on his king? [Quotes 4.1.114, 121-9, 134-8, 145-9]

The remainder of Act iv is occupied with a representation of the deposition, and it is not one upon which we can with much satisfaction dilate. No material advance is made in our knowledge of the character either of Richard or of Bolingbroke. The one is as fantastic, emotional, and ineffective as the other is practical, cold, and immovable. There is more in Richard’s speech to call out our contempt than to provoke our pity. His utter want of control over his emotions strikes us as un-English and effeminate. That a man who was cast in such a mould could for so long impose himself upon the nation is in itself a puzzle. We feel it a relief when Richard’s departure for the Tower brings the scene to a close. On its way the gloomy pageant finds itself beneath the windows, or passing the spot in the street, where his queen has taken her post. The scene is a remarkable one, for Shakespeare seems to have introduced it here mainly to show how Richard, deprived of his crown, has become, even to the eyes of those most intimate with him, a changed man. In the broken-spirited prisoner before her his queen can barely recognise the kingly form of her sweet Richard. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind Transformed and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke

 Cyril Ransome, Character Disclosure and Dramatic Symmetry in Richard II 357 Deposed thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart? [Quotes 5.1.26-34]

It is too true. Even this appeal fails wholly to move the sentimental king. In action how impotent; in word how strong! How masterful in his firm grasp of the wickedness of rebellion, yet how powerless to strike a blow for a rightful cause! With what vigour of expression does he turn upon Northumberland when that mouthpiece of brutality announces his incarceration at Pomfret! With what accuracy does he paint the invariable tendency of rebellion to reproduce her brood! Of the somewhat grotesque scene (Act v, Scene 2) in which Aumerle’s new treachery is discovered by his father while his life is granted at the prayer of his mother it is needless to say very much. It advances the plot by explaining the pretext on which the usurping king decides on the death of his rival: but its real importance lies in the light it throws on the character of York. York is weak but loyal; true to Richard so long as Richard is true to himself. Between Richard and Bolingbroke he is neutral, but he can be thoroughly loyal to a real king. In this he is a type of the populace, not prone to revolt, but quick to recognise a master-hand. Though unable to initiate, it readily accepts the logic of facts. We may pass rapidly towards the completion of the story. A prisoner in Pomfret Casde, Richard exhibits precisely the same tendency to sentimental reflection that we have already noted as the dominant trait in his character. Yet Shakespeare even here finds means to remind his audience that Richard was beloved. A poor groom of his stable travelling towards York, and mindful of his old master, contrives to visit him (Act v, Scene 5), and the honest fellow’s genuine emotion at the thought of Richard’s favourite horse being employed to bear Bolingbroke in his triumphal entry, tells us again the same story of Richard’s personal amiability of character which has been so often emphasized by the mouth of the queen. Then comes the final scene. Confronted with his murderers, Richard, whose tone of mind has for some time irresistibly reminded us of Hamlet, especially in the speech which begins, ‘I have been studying how I may compare / This prison where I live unto the world’ [5.5.1-2], shows the same fierce energy of despair as does the Dane. One after another his would-be assassins fall beneath his blows, but his energy has come too late, and with a phrase that recalls to us the last moments of Louis XVI,[8] the unfortunate king miserably dies. (183-93) [4] [Ransome’s summary assessment of the play] Such is Shakespeare’s rendering of the destiny of Richard II, and we must admit that, considering the materials at his disposal, he has contrived to construct a tragedy of remarkable power. It is true that the play can hardly be classed in the very front rank of his works. It stands on a distinctly lower level than the great tragedies with which we have hitherto dealt.[9] On the whole, we must be of opinion that Shakespeare found the plot somewhat deficient in interest for his purpose. There is here no sense of an over-abundance of material as is felt in Hamlet or in King Lear. On the contrary, there is in many of the scenes somewhat of prolixity and of over-refinement of sentiment; and this is especially the case in the deposition scene, where Richard, with exasperating verbosity, tells us little or nothing which adds to our knowledge of his character.

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If we examine the play as a whole, we shall find that both in the arrangement of characters and in the incidents of the plot there is a symmetry of a very remarkable kind. At the head of one group stands Richard, of the other Bolingbroke. Each has his immediate group of followers. Hereford’s are Northumberland, Percy, Ross, Willoughby, and Fitzwater; Richard’s Aumerle, Bushy, Bagot, Green. But what a contrast there is between the two! All Bolingbroke’s followers are powerful in themselves, eager to anticipate his action and to move forward whether he will or no. Richard’s followers are his minions, the favourites of his lighter hours; but having no strength in themselves, they not only fall away but drag their master with them. Between the two groups stand York and Carlisle. York is easy-going, loyal, but with a loyalty which instinctively leads him to attach himself rather to the king de facto than to him who reigns dejure; while Carlisle, with a stronger hold on principle, is equally ready to denounce with firmness the follies of a king, and to brave the wrath of a usurper. It is worthy of note that Carlisle only comes to the front when misfortunes begin to close around his prince. The court of Bagot, Bushy, and Green had been no place for him. He is the type of the counsellor whom Richard might have attached to himself had he possessed the faculty of discerning true worth, as Salisbury and York were specimens of those who were ready to serve him had they been allowed to do so. What a different character would York have been had the hereditary king been a man of real power! As it is, he first falls into ineffectiveness through want of a leader, and then, attracted by the stronger side, becomes a thorough-going supporter of a usurper. Of the ladies, the queen recalls to us the lovable character of Richard as a man; the Duchess of Gloucester, equally devoted to her husband, shows how crimes of violence the innocent. In the conduct of the plot the same balance is maintained. We have Richard in prosperity and in adversity, and Bolingbroke in the like. We see Bolingbroke under the doom of banishment and Richard under sentence of deposition. We see how one while king is unable to command obedience, even when it is demanded as a right; while the other, even before his elevation to the throne, can command an unquestioning submission. The one as a king cannot order the commonwealth; the other, even without a vestige of legality, secures adherents by his show of practical ability to reform the weakened state and to mete out justice to those who had wasted her. Similarly we find Richard, when confronted with a quarrel between his nobles, first weakly procrastinating and then outraging propriety by a flagrant violation of the principles of justice. We see Bolingbroke, on the other hand, not only refusing to take advantage of a similar quarrel to get rid of a double-dyed traitor like Aumerle, but even protecting him at the risk of offending powerful adherents. Even when an act of overt treachery puts Aumerle into his power, Bolingbroke refuses to imitate the example of Richard; and in spite of York’s appeals to the dictates of policy, declines to smear his hands in his kinsman’s blood. In estimating Richard II it is impossible to keep out of sight the fact that this play is but the introduction to a series of historical dramas. In Richard we have the king who, though a king by right, loses an inherited crown by his want of kingly character. In Henry IV we have a sovereign who, though a usurper, keeps his crown because he deserves to be a king. In Richard we have a wasteful prince who allows the companions of his lighter hours to become the guides of his political conduct and the keepers of

 Cyril Ransome, Character Disclosure and Dramatic Symmetry in Richard II 359 his conscience. In Henry V we have a prince as pleasure-loving as Richard, but, unlike Richard, able to shake himself loose at will from his companions, and in the long-run showing that even the family of a usurper could produce a model of English kingship. Again, in Henry VI we have a reproduction of the weaknesses of Richard if not of his vices. ‘Delicta majorum immeritus lues.’[10] But the Nemesis is strong upon him; and, strange to say, it is the death of another Gloucester which forms the turning-point in his reign. Such is Shakespeare’s reading of history. Richard had committed two crimes. He had slain a kinsman; he had betrayed his country. For this he is condemned to be deposed as a punishment for his political offence, and to be put to death at the suggestion of a kinsman as the proper retribution for his crime against his family. But for both of these full punishment must follow. Henry, who had been a usurper, is as king tormented by frequent rebellions, and by anticipations that his own son will turn out to be as worthless a character as Richard. This is brought out in Act v, Scene 3, where Bolingbroke asks, almost piteously, of the whereabouts of his ‘unthrifty son’ [5.3.1]. Henry’s great fear is that the prince will turn out another Richard II, and he tells him so plainly in Henry IV, Part I, Act iii, Scene 2 [3.2.60-91]. But Shakespeare was careful to differentiate the two. Richard II could never have made the speech pronounced by Henry at the close of Scene 2, Act i, Henry IV, Part I, in which he gives the audience to understand that while he may divert himself with Falstaff, he has character enough to be himself when he chooses [1.2.195-217]. After this speech the audience could enjoy the Falstaff scenes, which would have been quite impossible had they believed themselves to be looking on at the creation of another ruined character like Richard II. Henry IV even fears that the prince in his turn is plotting against the crown itself [3.2.124-8]. And full punishment comes for both crimes when Henry VI is not only deposed by a descendant of Roger Mortimer [i.e., Edward IV], but also falls a murdered sovereign in the Tower.[11] But the nation, which had looked on passive while her rightful king was deposed, must also suffer, and her lot is to bear the curse of civil war. So crime breeds crime, and curse is visited by curse, till at last, when retribution is exhausted, another Henry [i.e. Henry VII], too little related to the House of Lancaster to be responsible for its misdeeds,[12] inheriting only the patriotism of John of Gaunt, arises, and after himself dealing out the last sentence of justice upon the murderous Richard III, seats himself upon the throne to become the progenitor of the noble family under whose rule England, according to Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, was in his time flourishing and at peace. (194-8)

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E.K. Chambers, the artistry of Richard II 1891

From ‘Introduction’ to The Tragedy of King Richard the Second. The Plays of Shakespeare: The ‘Falcon’ Series (London, 1891). Partially reprinted in ‘Richard II’: Critical Essays, ed. Jeanne T. Newlin (New York, 1984), pp. 207–16. Sir Edmund Kerchever Chambers (1866–1954) was a medieval and Elizabethan scholar of great eminence, best remembered today for his indispensable histories of the English theatre – The Medieval Stage (2 vols., 1903) and The Elizabethan Stage (4 vols., 1923), and for his exacting documentary work, William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems (2 vols., 1930). Educated in classical studies at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he entered upon a career as a British civil servant in the Education Department (1902–26), producing his scholarly work in his leisure hours. The edition of Richard II was his earliest major contribution to English studies. Chambers’s major scholarship – monumental, meticulous, acute, carefully organized, scrupulous in separating established truth from speculation, and synthetic in the best sense – makes little attempt to evaluate Elizabethan drama but rather to excavate the sociological, economic, and biographical facts of its production as the necessary foundation of future criticism; his essay on Richard II, which concentrates on the play’s structure, characterization, tone, and style, is therefore somewhat untypical.

[From the ‘Introduction’ to Richard II] The histories of Shakespeare have a threefold burden. They are largely epical in character, a bead-roll, as it were, of English kings, stretching from Magna Charta to the coming of the Tudors. The period from Richard II onwards is practically complete; the rest remains unfinished, but the interval left after King John is partly bridged over by Peele’s Edward I, by Marlowe’s Edward II, and by the play of Edward III, wherein Shakespeare himself may have had a hand. It is easy to find the motive for such a dramacycle in the ‘new spring’ of patriotic enthusiasm born in England of the Spanish Wars: to this spirit the youthful poet,1 for all his deeper insight into things, fully and frankly yielded himself; the expression of it is the common prerogative of all the personages in these plays, of John and Richard no less than of Henry V himself. In the sixteenth

 E.K. Chambers, the Artistry of Richard II 361 century, History was just beginning to fill the place of mere contemporary Chronicle; Englishmen were just awaking to a wider outlook over the world, and with it to a sense that they had, as a people, a past in which they were bound to feel an interest and a pride. At such a time it was natural that Poetry too should take a retrospect, and make her harvest of all that was pity-moving or soul-stirring in the national record. Secondly, there is the element of purely human, of tragic interest in the spectacle of so many men called one after another, not from any grace or gift of their own, but by the accident of being kings, to grapple with dangerous moral and social forces, and, most often, failing in their task. The Vergilian ‘sense of tears in mortal things’ [Aeneid, I.462] is nowhere more manifest than in the annals of Roman emperors or English sovereigns.2 Though this is much, there is ‘more in it’ [Henry VIII, 3.2.88]. At bottom Shakespeare is always a student, and these plays are the outcome of a student’s reflection on grave questions concerning the well-being of a nation. For Shakespeare, as for Thucydides, History becomes at once a judgment of the past and a forecast of the future; no longer merely a tale of ‘forgotten, far off things,’ it is an ‘eternal possession,’ and a potent factor in determining the conduct of life.3[3] Thus Richard II and the rest are studies in kingship, wherein, to those who can read, the poet has laid bare his mind upon the problems of government in the form which they appeared in to our ancestors. His answer to them is one which Plato might have applauded. He finds the true foundation of regal authority neither in an imaginary divine right nor in the will of a parliamentary assembly: the genuine king and leader of men is he who best understands and sympathises with the needs and aspirations of his people, and is best fitted to guide them in the working out of their proper destiny. John forgot this, and left his country in the hands of a foreign invader; Richard II and Henry IV failed to regard it, and overwhelmed her with all the horrors of the Wars of the Roses. In the days in which this message was delivered, it was sorely needed. The Tudors wrought a great work for England, but their task was already achieved when Shakespeare wrote. The country was at last free, united, prosperous, a pleasant and a merry land to dwell in. And now the evils inherent in the Tudor conception of monarchy began to outweigh its influence for good; the gradual extension of the royal prerogative threatened to swamp the liberties of the people. As yet the danger was hardly felt; it was reserved for the next century to preach once more the doctrines, dangerous to princes as princes themselves to those who put their trust in them, of the ‘divine right of kings,’ but Shakespeare saw more clearly than People, Parliament, or Queen: his wider vision stretched back to Runnymede and to Pontefract, and on, with vague poetic foresight, to the scaffold outside Whitehall. The English histories are his word of warning to a regardless nation, and the fatality which has always hung around revivals of Richard II forms a curious commentary on the text.4 There are thus threads of unity running through all these plays; in all we find a common dramatic treatment of history; but the smaller group, almost an English trilogy, which deals with Richard II and his two immediate successors, is woven even more closely into one web. It exhibits to us three types of king, one of them perfect, Shakespeare’s ideal ruler, the other two imperfect, because lacking in the essential elements of that ideal. Henry V has all the notes of a true king. He has gone through

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no degrading intrigues to win his crown; neither is he weak and vain, but rather full of resource and overflowing with energy. This superabundant vitality made him wanton in his youth, but once he is on the throne it is soon converted into more fitting channels. Above all, he is neither unjust nor self-seeking; fully in harmony with the life of his people, he is ready to put himself at their head and lead them on to the accomplishment of their high fortunes. It is true that Shakespeare regards these fortunes as inextricably bound up with foreign conquest; there he is the child of his age; but, however much his spirit may resound to the ‘pomp and cirumstance of glorious war’ [Othello, 3.3.354], yet we feel that the horrors and the ‘pity of it’ [Othello, 4.1.195-6] are never far from his thoughts. The other two kings, in different ways, fall short of the ideal. Both are purely selfish in their aims, and unscrupulous of the rights of the nation in their pursuit of uncontrolled power. Moreover, Richard is unstable and frivolous; Henry has the blot of treachery and murder upon his soul. Thus both their lives are failures; it is good to be a lawful king, and it is good to be strong and self-reliant, but it is only devotion to a people’s cause that can save from ruin. Yet Shakespeare does not choose to paint in crude colours; both these men have the outward aspect, the speech and bearing of a king. Richard II forms part of a trilogy, and its meaning is amplified and enriched by comparison with the plays that follow it; yet, as it stands, it has a self-centred, independent unity of its own. It seems to have been written some years before Henry IV and Henry V, and perhaps slightly modified at a subsequent period in order to take its place in the series. The first essential of every work of art is a principle of unity, and the English romantic drama – having rejected the so-called classical or formal unities of place, time, and action – gradually evolved for itself an inner spiritual unity of thought. In Shakespeare this takes the form of an underlying central idea whose truth is illustrated by the development of the action. These ideas are generally human in their bearing; they deal with Character and Love and Kingship, or, in many of the later plays, with the deepest problems of the origin and destinies of man and the government of the world. The central idea of Richard II is a tragical one; it is a tragedy of failure, the necessary failure of a king, however rightfully he may reign, however ‘fair a show’ [3.3.71] he may present, if he is weak and self-seeking and lawless. The action of the play presents the working-out of this tragedy; it traces the downfall of Richard from the scenes where he appears as a powerful monarch, disposing with a word of the lives of his subjects, to that where his unkinged, murdered corpse is borne on to the stage. The instrument of his ruin is his cousin Henry, and therefore Bolingbroke’s rise becomes a natural parallel to Richard’s fall. The king’s own image of the two buckets [4.1.184-9] holds good: in the first act Richard is supreme, Henry at the lowest depth; gradually one sinks, the other ascends, until they are on a level, when they meet at Flint Castle. As is often the case, the turning-point of the action is put precisely in the middle of the play. Still the same process continues, and when the final catastrophe of the last act occurs, the original positions of the two are exactly reversed; it is now Henry’s word that is potent to doom Richard. Whether the play has been revised or not, it is at least a marvel of careful workmanship; situations and phrases constantly occur in the second half of the play which are pointed inversions of others at the beginning. The

 E.K. Chambers, the Artistry of Richard II 363 moving forces of the play are thus to be found in the characters of the chief personages, in the clash of two spirits, one capable, the other incapable, of making circumstances the stepping-stones to his own end. This is carefully brought out in the first scene; the opposition between the kings, hidden as yet from others, is here clearly revealed to themselves, and the key-note of the whole play is touched. A comparison of the two natures is ample to explain the outcome of the struggle between them. On the delineation of Richard all the resources of Shakespeare’s genius have been poured: it is a work of art and of love. We have presented to us the portrait of a finely tempered man, gifted and graced in mind and body. He ‘looks like a king’ [3.3.68] for beauty and majesty, with his fair face in which the blood comes and goes. His marvellous wealth of eloquent imaginative speech irradiates the play. His power of personal fascination, no less than his intense selfishness and pitiful fate, remind us of Charles Stuart, the melancholy-eyed man, who lured Stafford to his doom; it enthrals the queen, it enthrals Aumerle, it enthrals even the ‘poor groom of his stable’ [5.5.72]. He meets them with answering affection that twines itself around not men and women only, but the horse he rides upon and the earth he treads. The very root of his nature is an exquisite sensitiveness, intellectual and emotional; he reads his cousin’s thoughts in his face; he is a lover of music and of pageantry, of regal hospitality and refined luxurious splendour. And withal there are lacking in him the elements which go to make up the backbone of a character. This beautiful, cultured king, for all his delicate half-tones of feeling and thought, is a being devoid of moral sense, treacherous, unscrupulous, selfish; he murders his uncle, robs his cousin, and oppresses his people; he trails the fair name of England in the dust; even in the days of his captivity he regrets his follies, but scarcely regards his crimes. It is not in moral sense only that he is deficient, but in moral and intellectual fibre; like Plato’s ‘musical man’ he has ‘piped away his soul with sweet and plaintive melodies;’5 he can divine Bolingbroke’s wishes, but he cannot judge his character aright, nor can he forecast the results of his own lawless acts. In prosperity he yields himself to flatterers; in adversity he puts an idle confidence in a supposed God-given commission to reign. Contrary events are for him not a spur to action, but an incentive to imagination; he plays around them with lambent words; he is always ‘studying how to compare’ [5.5.1]. The best side of him appears when he is fallen; he becomes the part of victim better than that of tyrant; the softer qualities in him move our pity, the sterner ones that he has not are less needed. True, he strikes no blow, and finds a ready comfort in despair, but he keeps his plaining and poetic laments for his friends, and meets the rebel lords with subtle scorn and all the dignity of outraged royalty. Yet even here he betrays, like another of Shakespeare’s characters – Orsino in Twelfth Night – what we are accustomed to think of as essentially modern faults; he is a shade too self-conscious, a touch too theatrical in his attitude. To the checkered lights and shadows of such a disposition Bolingbroke presents the most complete contrast. He leaves the impression of little grace and intense power. A man of iron will and subtle pertinacious intellect, a true ‘crown-grasper,’ he clearly envisages his end and remorselessly pursues it, playing with a masterly hand upon the hates and loves and ambitions of other men. Rarely does he betray any emotion; very rarely does he speak an uncalculated word. He can ‘steal courtesy from heaven’ [1 Henry IV, 3.2.50] to win the hearts of the citizens or the favours of the Percies, but his

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genuine temper is shown in the undertone of studied sarcasm which runs through his bearing towards Richard in the first act, and makes itself heard at intervals thoughout the play. His life is a web of intrigue; the disillusioned Hotspur in Henry IV calls him ‘subtle king’ [1 Henry IV, 1.3.169] and ‘vile politician’ [1 Henry IV, 1.3.241], while upon his unhappy death-bed he whispers to the watching prince ‘by what bypaths and indirect crooked ways he met his crown’ [2 Henry IV, 4.5.184-5]. His schemes are for the time successful, but before long they recoil upon him in the alienation of the nobles he has tricked and the wild life of his son. As is not seldom the case in the early plays, many of the minor characters are less carefully wrought. They fall mainly into two groups, clustering respectively around Richard and Bolingbroke; but their interest is purely subordinate, as there is no secondary plot. Between the opposing parties stand the two dukes, York and Lancaster. John of Gaunt represents the heroic age of England, of ‘noble Edward’ [2.1.171] and the Black Prince; he unites the loyalty and piety of the olden days with a deep hatred of the king’s crimes and newfangled vanities. Yet he is no rebel; he has a private grief in the banishment of his son, a public one in the inglorious peace and shameful misgovernment of the realm, but he is content to ‘put his quarrel to the will of heaven’ [1.2.6], and his death removes the last barrier between Richard and ruin. The Duke of York is of quite another type; he too is pious, old-fashioned and loyal, but with the loyalty not of the high-principled statesman, warrior, and idealist, but of the weak, indolent opportunist, content to maintain the established order, and serve whatever king may reign. Among Richard’s supporters, Aumerle is interesting as the champion of his cousin’s claims, but personally he is shadowy. Mowbray is a plain, upright soldier and servant of his king; his unjust exile comes like a thunderbolt upon him; he utters only a few words of dignified remonstrance and leaves his country, to die of a broken heart. The Bishop of Carlisle plays the part of the stern ascetic prelate; it is his function to emphasize Richard’s claim to rule by divine right, and pronounce the curse of heaven on the usurper. The king’s flatterers are curiously characterless; so too are the Percies and Fitzwaters who surround Bolingbroke; they typify the headstrong, boisterous nobility of the day, whom he duped and made his tools. On the other hand the women, though they have little share in the action, are important; they touch the world of politics and intrigue with the warmth of human personal emotion. The Duchess of Gloucester makes us feel Richard’s villainy; the queen makes us feel his sorrow; the first scene where she speaks brings about a change in our attitude towards him. And after all, in this play, it is the effect on the emotions that is the great thing; there is hardly another that moves us, that overwhelms us, like this. For here Shakespeare has not been content with producing a single type of unity; he has attempted to secure it not alone in the sphere of imagination but in that of feeling, the unity of music as well as of painting. He would have us leave the play with something of the impression that we get from a faultless lyric – a sense of some over-mastering emotion, that satisfies our consciousness for the moment, and stirs the ‘god within us.’6[6] Whether such an effect is really within the scope of a drama may be doubtful; certainly none has so nearly attained it as Richard II. Here it is a divine pity that wells up as we watch the slowlygathering fate of the beautiful, sad king. About the same time Shakespeare made a similar experiment with the intenser, more personal emotions of love in Romeo and

 E.K. Chambers, the Artistry of Richard II 365 Juliet. Afterwards he seems to have preferred to develop the drama on lines distinct from those of the lyric, and to find its proper province in the delineation of character rather than the expression of passion. Yet one is almost tempted to wish that, even at the expense of skilful workmanship and stage capabilities, he had given us some more of these soul-piercing, poignant poem-plays, so suffused with warmth and colour, each of them, as has been said of those of the master-singer of our own day, like Some pomegranate which, if cut deep down the middle, Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.7[7]

The element of lyricism is strong in Richard II, as it is throughout the early plays, in details of style, no less than in general outline of structure; it shows itself in the character of the versification, in the proportion of rhyming lines,8 in the alternating one-line dialogue, akin to the sticomythia[9] of Greek tragedy, and in the couplets, quatrains, and sestets which occasionally occur. In Love’s Labour’s Lost entire sonnets are inserted in the text, while in Romeo and Juliet an acute criticism has traced the influence of the great forms of love-poetry, the Sonnet, Epithalamium, and Aubade: possibly the ‘parting-song’ between Bolingbroke and Gaunt and Richard and his queen may owe something to a similar origin.10 Another indication of the early date of the play is to be seen in the prevalence of alliteration and also of puns and other verbal conceits. Sometimes, as at the end of act iii, sc. 1, these are used with splendid effect; they express the grim humour which is the nearest approach to a laugh in this tragedy; but often they are farfetched and out of place. Prose is not used; that is proper only to light scenes, and there are none here. A peculiar effect is occasionally produced by the broken irregular metre which serves to express strong and bewildering emotions. The complete absence of comedy makes the play rather unique, and it receives especial distinction from the wonderful magic of phrase, above all when the king himself speaks. It is not the terse, pregnant phrase of the later plays, but a picturesque, exuberant, imaginative one, where the language is at times almost too rich, too full for the thought. The influence of Shakespeare’s two greatest predecessors, John Lyly and Christopher Marlowe, is plainly perceptible. The mocks which the poet threw at certain forms of Euphuism in Love’s Labour’s Lost have somewhat served to conceal the debt which he owed to the real, if affected, genius of Lyly. Midsummer Night’s Dream is largely inspired by him, and the present play shows traces of a very careful study of his masterpiece, Euphues. Moreover the tendency to alliteration and verbal conceits is eminently characteristic of the earlier writer.11 As for Marlowe, the resemblance in general outline to Edward II leaves little room for doubt that Shakespeare used it as a model. It could hardly be otherwise, considering the force and beauty of Marlowe’s play, and the strange parallel between the fortunes of the two kings: the wonder is that the plays should be so different, not that they should be so alike. Nor is it easy to agree with Mr Swinburne [see No. 39 above] that the death of Edward is more striking than that of Richard: the self-restraint of the younger poet is incomparably in advance of the extravagance and long-drawn-out horror in which the elder one revels. The spirit of

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Marlowe may also be seen in the ‘strained passion’ and occasional bombast that mark some passages of this play, notably the opening scene. The inevitable question arises as to Shakespeare’s conception of history, and his treatment of historic facts. It must be dismissed here very briefly. It seems certain that he meant to record faithfully, within the limits imposed by the scope of a drama, the spirit of the past, to give actions their true proportions, and trace the real forces that underlay the sequence of events. We, from a modern standpoint, and with the results of modern research to work upon, may perhaps see our way to a different view of Richard and his age; but, so far as an Elizabethan might, Shakespeare means to pass an honest and final judgment upon them. On the other hand, it is equally clear that he held lightly the value of details; the mere fact that they happened is not enough by itself to render them precious to him. In this play, he remorselessly rehandles chronology, he alters the ages of most of his characters, he confuses Richard’s two Queens and makes two Duchesses of York into one. Sometimes these inaccuracies would seem to be due purely to want of care, more often they have a meaning; while he is willing to preserve the most trivial touches if they seem to bear a significance beyond themselves. The treatment of Aumerle and of John of Gaunt will serve to illustrate the manner of his more purposeful alterations. Aumerle was really a double-dyed traitor; he deserted to Henry at an early stage, then plotted against him, and finally betrayed his confederates. Shakespeare needs someone to make the balance between the two parties even, to represent Richard’s cause when he is in prison, and to link him to the claims of the House of York. Therefore he takes Aumerle and does his best to whitewash him. Quite similarly, John of Gaunt was really a selfish, ambitious man, a bad general, and an unpopular minister; Shakespeare makes him an impersonation of the patriotic, chivalrous spirit that really shone in his brother, the Black Prince, in order to provide a striking contrast to the degenerate days of Richard. . . . (vii-xix)

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C.H. Herford, miscellaneous comments on Richard II 1893

From The Tragedy of King Richard II Edited by C. H. Herford . . . The Warwick Shakespeare (London, [1893]). Charles Harold Herford (1853–1931), scholar, biographer, and critic of immense productivity, was born in Manchester where as a youth he attended Owens College, going on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won various essay prizes. He held chairs of English at Aberystwyth and Manchester. Among Elizabethan scholars Herford may be best remembered today for his work with Percy Simpson on the monumental Oxford edition of Ben Jonson (11 vols., 1925–52), to which he contributed the bulk of the first two volumes (1925) containing a life and an introduction to the plays. Herford was an active Shakespearian; he produced the ‘Eversley’ edition of Shakespeare (10 vols., 1899) as well as individual volumes in the ‘Warwick Shakespeare’. His books included Shakespeare’s Treatment of Love and Marriage (1921), A Sketch of Recent Shakespearian Investigation, 1893-1923 (1923), and, A Sketch of the History of Shakespeare’s Influence on the Continent (1925). Herford’s Shakespearian criticism is broadly humanistic. His ‘Introduction’ to Richard II takes up in orderly fashion such standard topics as the literary history and date of the play, the artifice of its style, its departures from the source material, its characterization, and its overall effect. Among its most interesting features is the argument that Shakespeare, far from being the mere ‘disciple’ of the Marlowe of Edward II, was reacting decisively ‘from his influence’ (p. 17). 

[From the ‘Introduction’ to Richard II. Herford devotes Section I to the ‘Literary History of the Play’, then takes up ‘The Date of the Play’ (Section II) from which the opening three extracts in the following are drawn.] 

Style  Richard II is conspicuous among the Histories for a certain rhetorical ingenuity of style, a lavish use of point and epigram, which, like its wealth of rhymes, can only be paralleled in the early comedies, and perhaps in Romeo and Juliet.

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This quality, however, instead of being equally diffused throughout the play, is principally concentrated in the speech of two characters – Richard and Gaunt. It is a dramatic artifice rather than an involuntary trait of style. Shakespeare has made a certain delight in epigrammatic word-play characteristic of both. Such a habit accords obviously enough with Richard’s other traits – with his brilliant but puerile fancy, with his boyish turn of mind in general. It surprises more perhaps in the ripe and ‘timehonoured’ [1.1.1] Lancaster; but that Shakespeare used it deliberately is even clearer in his case than in Richard’s. ‘Can sick men play so nicely with their names?’ [2.1.84] the dying Gaunt is asked, as he pauses in his string of bitter jests. ‘No, misery makes sport to mock itself ’ [2.1.85], is his reply. Throughout Gaunt’s part verbal epigram is made to contribute to express the deep and eloquent passion of his nature, just as in Richard it gives point to his facile fancy. It is a mark of Shakespeare’s middle period thus to discriminate character by the aid of distinctions of style in verse. In his early work all drawing of character is comparatively broad and superficial; in his later, the effect is got rather by profound insight into men’s thoughts and feelings themselves, than by nice imitation of their modes of utterance. While, however, the style of Richard II is by no means that of a very early play, it stands clearly apart from that of the later histories. The blank verse, though often singularly eloquent, has still a touch of constraint, of symmetrical stateliness, of art not wholly at ease; while that of Henry IV has a breadth and largeness of movement, an unsought greatness of manner, which marks the consummate artist who no longer dons his singing robes when he sings. 

Construction  The immense variety of subjects which Shakespeare handled, and the (after all) limited number of his plays, makes it much harder to detect the changes in his method of construction than the changes in his metre or his style. We can rarely be quite sure that a change which seems due to riper art is not prompted by difference of subject. The nearest approach to criteria of such change is the following. (1) In the early comedies there is an evident delight in symmetry of plan (as in the three lords and three ladies of Love’s Labour’s Lost, the two pairs of twins in Comedy of Errors, &c. . . . (2) In the Histories there is a growing emancipation from two influences – that of historical tradition, and that of his great contemporary Marlowe. Let us examine Richard II from these two points of view.  (a) As will be seen more in detail in the next section, Richard II is conspicuous for its close agreement with the Chronicle. The deliberate variations are insignificant, and there is no approach to the free and prodigal invention which produced the Falstaff scenes of Henry IV, though the tradition of ‘the skipping king’, who ‘ambled up and down With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits’,1 provided an opening for them. But this close agreement must not be confounded with servility such as we find in much of Henry VI. If Shakespeare here follows history closely it is because history happens to provide him with what he wants. If he does not materially alter what he takes, it is because he has carefully selected what did not need to be materially altered. It is significant that, though the play is called Richard II, it deals not with the reign, but only

 C.H. Herford, Miscellaneous Comments on Richard II 369 with the catastrophe which closed it – a single event of absorbing interest, which gives the play a classical unity of effect quite foreign to the tumultuous complexity of the previous histories. A contemporary dramatist had, as we have seen, made a Richard II on the older plan – a chronicle history in which the exciting events of the former part of the reign are crowded together.[2] One trace only survives in Shakespeare’s play of the earlier, cruder method – the scenes in the fifth act relating to Aumerle’s conspiracy – a somewhat irrelevant appendix to the essential action of the drama.3 This criterion, therefore, so far as it goes, supports the view that the play falls between Richard III and Henry IV. (b) The relation of Richard II to the influence of Marlowe throws a more definite light upon its date. In 2 and 3 Henry VI Shakespeare was perhaps his coadjutor, in Richard III he wrote under the spell of his genius; in Henry IV he is entirely himself. Richard II is the work of a man who has broken decisively with Marlowesque influence, but yet betrays its recent hold upon him, partly by violent reaction and partly by involuntary reminiscence. In Richard III he had treated a subject of Marlowesque grandeur and violence in the grandiose manner of Marlowe; in the story of Richard II there was little scope for such treatment. Marlowe had himself, however, in Edward II shown how powerfully he could handle the tragedy of royal weakness; and the resemblance of subject throws into strong relief the different methods of the two dramatists. Marlowe has woven all the available material into a plot full of stirring incident and effective situations, extending in time from Edward’s accession to his death. Shakespeare, as we have seen, has isolated a single momentous event from the story of Richard’s reign, and treated it with a severity and repose quite foreign to Marlowe. Edward’s infatuation for his favourites is made, with extraordinary effect, the ground of his ruin; those of Richard appear for a moment like shadows in his train, but have no sensible influence upon his destiny. The grim horror of Edward’s end is brought before us with appalling and remorseless power; but Shakespeare seems to avoid the obvious and facile pathos of physical suffering. He gives us the prolonged agony of the deposition, and the brief emotion of the parting with his queen, but he adds a touch of heroic dignity to his death. Edward’s queen is an active, though secret, agent in his ruin; Richard’s (a child in reality) is used by Shakespeare in a quite un-Marlowesque way to bring home to us by her devotion his personal charm. How fine, yet how different, are the strokes of pathos which these two relationships are made to evoke! – Richard’s queen waiting in the street for the fallen king to pass on his way to the Tower – ‘But soft, but see, or rather do not see / My fair rose wither’ [5.1.7-8]: Edward, from his reeking dungeon, covered with filth, unnerved by hunger and sleeplessness, sending that last message to his queen – ‘Tell Isabel the queen I looked not thus, / When for her sake I ran at tilt in France, / And there unhors’d the Duke of Cleremont’ [5.5.67-9]. In a word, while Marlowe seeks intrinsically powerful situations and brings out their power by bold and energetic rather than subtle strokes, Shakespeare chooses incidents the tragic quality of which has to be elicited and disclosed by delicate character-painting. Into this he has thrown all his genius; in this lies the worth and distinction of a drama which in wealth of interest and in harrowing power by no means equals Marlowe’s dramatic masterpiece. 

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Richard II was, then, not the work of a disciple of Marlowe; it bears the marks of decisive reaction from his influence. That it is not free from occasional reminiscences will appear in the Notes.4 It is difficult, then, to resist the conclusion that it was written later than Richard III. 

Summary To sum up this somewhat complicated discussion, the evidence of metre points to a date between Richard III and Henry IV; that of style is at least compatible with this position; that of construction hardly admits of any other. Now Richard III is with practical certainty assigned to the years 1590-3; Henry IV to 1596-7. This leaves us with 1593-5 as a period within which Richard II almost certainly falls. The palpably greater maturity of Henry IV points to the earlier rather than the later part of this period as its actual date. The tolerably firm ground thus obtained enables us now to suggest a reason for the anomalies of metre and style already spoken of: viz. that in abandoning Marlowe’s methods in construction, Shakespeare adopted also with some energy the rhymed verse which Marlowe had eschewed, but in which his own triumphs had been won.  Two other plays, connected with ours by various slight links, must belong to nearly the same date, – Romeo and Juliet, and King John. The latter, sharing with Richard II the absence of prose, is, judged by metre, a little earlier; judged by construction, and especially by the infusion of comedy, rather nearer to Henry IV, the Comedy-History par excellence. 

III. The Source of the Incidents  Shakespeare drew the materials for this, as for the other English Histories, in the main from the Chronicle of Holinshed, and apparently, as the Clarendon Press Editors point out, from the second edition (1586), which alone contains a detail used in ii.4.8 (see note).[5] A slight detail here and there is perhaps due to Holinshed’s predecessor, [Edward] Hall. The picture of Mowbray’s career in Palestine (iv.1.97) may be an expansion of a hint in Stowe’s Annals (1580). The commital of Carlisle to the custody of the Abbot of Westminster was derived from some unknown source. There is no reason to suppose that Shakespeare knew more of the history of Richard than he found in these books. We have, therefore, in studying the origin of the play, to take note solely of his way of handling the story as they tell it. If their story diverges from history, and he follows them, the fact may be important for the historical student, but has only a secondary interest for the student of Shakespeare.6 As already stated . . . , none of the Histories diverges so slightly from Holinshed as Richard II. The process of converting shadows into living and breathing men has involved very little change of outline. The actual divergences fall under three heads: alterations of time and place, – alterations affecting character, – new characters and new incidents. 

 C.H. Herford, Miscellaneous Comments on Richard II 371

Divergences: Time and Place The first class of divergences are inevitable in any dramatic treatment of history. What we think of as a single ‘historical event’ is commonly made up of a crowd of minor incidents happening in different places and on different days. The dramatist concentrates them into a single continuous act.7 We have several instances of this in Richard II. The following are the most important. The rest are pointed out in the Notes. (a) i.3. Bolingbroke’s leave-taking and the partial remission of his sentence immediately follow the sentence itself. Holinshed makes him take leave of the king later, at Eltham, and there receive the remission of four years.  (b) ii.2. The death of the Duchess of Gloucester is anticipated, in order apparently to add to the helpless embarrassment of York (cf. ii.2.98 ff).  (c) iii.2 [actually 3.3]. The surrender of Flint Castle to Northumberland is retarded; see note.[8] (d) iv.1. The events of three separate meetings of Parliament are combined in one great sitting, and also taken in a different order. (e) v.2. Richard’s and Bolingbroke’s entry into London is made part of the same pageant. In Holinshed it occurs on successive days.  (f) We may include under this head certain trifling alterations of age. Thus Prince Henry (v.3) is clearly meant to be beyond his actual age (12).  To give a clearer idea of Shakespeare’s procedure we give here the passage of Holinshed referred to in (d), which the student should carefully compare with act iv. . . . [Quotes several long extracts from Holinshed recounting the quarrels of Aumerle, Fitzwater, and Surrey and concerning the Bishop of Carlisle’s speech protesting King Richard’s deposition.] 

Divergences Affecting Character Shakespeare is, in his Histories, far more chary of alterations affecting character. He is on the whole true to the principle laid down by Lessing in a classical passage:9 ‘How far may the poet depart from historic truth? In all that does not concern the characters, as far as he pleases. The characters alone are sacred in his eyes: to enforce them, to put them in the most telling light, is all that he is permitted to do. The smallest essential alteration would remove the reason for which he gives them the names they bear.’ Shakespeare has certainly in several cases filled in the outlines of tradition with singular daring and freedom (as in the case of Richard); but there seem to be only three cases in which he has deliberately departed from it. (a) The Queen. As a child of nine years, the queen could scarcely be considered as a historic character. In making her a woman (though with the naive ardour of girlhood still about her) Shakespeare was rather creating a new character than modifying an old. The purpose of the change has been already hinted.  (b) Mowbray. The character of Mowbray is somewhat obscure in Holinshed, and Shakespeare has not made it wholly clear. Yet he handles him on the whole more favourably than the chronicler. His reply to Bolingbroke’s charge of treason in Holinshed contains two weak points: he excuses the detention of state money with a

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bad reason, viz. that the king was in his debt; and he ignores altogether the accusation of Gloucester’s murder. Shakespeare makes him plead that he had the king’s warrant for the former act, and hint vaguely that he had it for the second. And Shakespeare throws over him a glamour of chivalry and patriotism which wins the reader’s heart for him, – as in his bitter lament over his banishment, and the recital of his prowess in Palestine. Moreover, we are not allowed to see, what Shakespeare himself tells us in Henry IV, that Mowbray was as bitterly hated in the country as Bolingbroke was loved, and not without deserving it. It is only there we learn . . . that had not Mowbray been banished he would never have left the lists of Coventry alive. Westmoreland addresses Mowbray’s son: – But if your father had been victor there, He ne’er had borne it out of Coventry: For all the country in a general voice Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on And bless’d and graced indeed, more than the king. [2 Henry IV, 4.1.132-7]

The effect, and probably the intention, of this more favourable colouring of Mowbray, is to make his banishment seem still more wanton and arbitrary. (c) Gaunt. With scarcely any deviation from definite historical fact (except in the addition noticed below), the whole complexion of Gaunt’s character is nevertheless changed. A self-seeking, turbulent, and far from patriotic politician is exalted into an embodiment of the love of country in its noblest form; – into the voice through which England speaks. The old play seen by [Dr Simon] Forman[10] was in this respect truer to history. Shakespeare took a more defensible course in King John, where English patriotism is embodied with less real violence to history, in the subordinate figure of Faulconbridge. 

New Characters The gardener and his servant (iii.4) and the groom (v.5) are new characters. The first two show us how the people regard the crisis; and tend to justify Bolingbroke’s intervention. The groom adds to our sense of Richard’s personal charm and to the pathos of his lonely fate. 

Incidents  The most important new incidents are the great death-scene of Gaunt (ii.1), and the still greater deposition-scene of Richard (iv.1). Both are superb examples of imaginative creation within the lines of historical tradition; for though neither  happened, both realize and embody the very spirit of that which did. They give us the soul of the story, that inner truth which the facts left unexpressed.

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Omissions  While Shakespeare has thus altered comparatively little in his record, he has omitted points in it which to the modern student of history seem highly important. Such a student wonders to find no reference to the process by which Richard had acquired the despotic power which he is found exercising from the first: to the packed parliament of Shrewbury (1398), to the nomination by it of the Council of his own partisans which thenceforth virtually assumed the functions of parliament. He wonders, too, to find Gloucester’s murder used as one of the chief motives of the action without a hint of the causes which provoked it. But Shakespeare thought little of parliamentary functions; and it is not surprising that the dramatist who gives us the struggle of King John and his Barons without a word of Magna Charta, should have ignored the sham formalities which gave a show of legality to the despotism of Richard. Nor does he in the Histories care to account for events which lie before the opening of the drama, any more than to account for the character which his persons exhibit. We accept Richard as we accept Lear or Hamlet, as being what they prove to be, without learning how they have come to be it. The obscurity of the murder of Gloucester is part of the general obscurity in which Shakespeare is content to leave Richard’s early career; – or, to be more accurate, it is one of the mass of antecedent facts which he could take for granted before an audience familiar with the older play. 

IV. Critical Appreciation In the last section we have attended merely to the points in which Shakespeare as a dramatic artist actually diverges from his source. We have now to study the art quality of the play as a whole. We have to watch the artist at work, to note where his imagination is busy and where it rests, which parts it loads with poetic gold, and which it leaves bare; and thus to arrive at his interpretation of the story he tells, and his intentions in telling it. Only so can we pretend to judge his work.  It is plain that the imaginative work is, to an unusual degree in Shakespeare, unequal. We have a number of figures which did not greatly interest him, and on which he has bestowed little pains. The royal favourites, Bushy, Green, and Bagot; the group of lords, Surrey, Fitzwater, Northumberland, Percy, Ross, Willoughby, Salisbury, Berkeley; the Abbot and Marshal; Scroop and Exton; and the Duchesses of York and Gloucester, are either mere shadows or are defined only with a single dominant trait. Aumerle, Mowbray, and Carlisle stand on a higher plane of interest; but play only secondary or futile parts. York and Gaunt are drawn with far greater refinement and wealth of detail; but also rather enter into, than compose, the action. Two figures stand out from all the rest both by their supreme importance in the story, and by the extraordinary care with which they are wrought. In these two we shall probably find the best clue to the comprehension of the whole. 

Richard The character of Richard is only gradually disclosed. No opening monologue announces his policy, like that in which Richard the Third sets before us his appalling programme

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of evil deeds. Little by little the materials for judging him are brought into view; and this reserve is the more remarkable, since no previous drama of Shakespeare’s had led up to this, as Henry VI led up to Richard III or as Richard II itself was to lead up to Henry IV. Shakespeare will not allow us to prejudge Richard. We see him at the outset in the situation where he shows to most advantage – on the throne, wearing with grace and ease the ceremonial dignity of kingship. His authoritativeness is not yet petulant, his eloquence not yet fantastic or trivial. Presently we get a hint of rifts in this melodious lute, but the hint is so unobtrusive as to be easily ignored. First, the vague suggestion of his complicity in Gloucester’s murder (directly asserted only in i.2); then, his helplessness before the strong wills of  Bolingbroke and Mowbray, which is rather illustrated than disguised by the skilful phrase with which he covers his retreat: ‘We were not born to sue, but to command’, &c. (i.1.196 ff.). The third scene shows him at once arbitrarily harsh and weakly relenting. In the fourth we get the first glimpse of his reckless misgovernment of the country, and his wanton plundering of the rich is set significantly beside Bolingbroke’s astute courtesy to the poor; both causes were to contribute to his ruin. Yet, as we have seen, Shakespeare refrains from picturing Richard even here, among his favourites, in the grossly undignified guise which he wears in the scornful recollection of Henry IV. On the contrary, as we obtain insight into his crimes and follies, we are made also to feel his beauty and his charm; and the crowning exposure in the second act, where we hear of England bartered ‘like to a tenement or pelting farm’ [2.1.60], ‘the commons pill’d with grievous taxes, the nobles fined for ancient quarrels’ [2.1.246-8], and where all this is made credible by the shameless confiscation of Bolingbroke’s inheritance before our eyes – this terrible exposure is with fine tact immediately followed by the pathetic picture of the queen’s wistful forebodings for her ‘sweet Richard’ [2.2.9]; while York’s indignant comparison between him and his father, the Black Prince, is pointed by the admission that outwardly he resembled that paragon of English chivalry – ‘His face thou hast, for even so look’d he’ [2.1.176]. The impression is enforced with strokes of brilliant imagery throughout the play: ‘the fiery discontented sun’ [3.3.64-5], ‘yet looks he like a king’ [3.3.68], ‘his eye as bright as is the eagle’s’ [3.3.68-9], ‘like glistering Phaeton’ [3.3.178], ‘my fair rose wither'd’ [5.1.8]. It is notable too that the popular indignation is only brought into prominence at a later stage, when it serves to quicken pity rather than resentment. In the second act it is a hearsay; in the third, after his capture, it finds expression in the grave dialogue of the gardener and his servant; in the fifth (v.2) it becomes virulent and ferocious, but the ‘dust thrown upon his sacred head’ [5.2.30] by the London mob tempts us to forget in the spectacle of his ‘gentle sorrow’ [5.2.31] what exceedingly good reason London had for throwing it. His return from Ireland (iii.2) discloses a new aspect of his character, which belongs essentially to Shakespeare’s imaginative reading of him. Adversity, to use a favourite Elizabethan image, brings out the perfume of his nature; only, be it well noted, it is a perfume of brain and fancy, not of heart and conscience. He is humiliated, dethroned, imprisoned; and every trifling incident serves now as a nucleus about which he wreathes the beautiful tangles of his arabesque wit; but he shows no touch of true remorse. He recognizes his follies, but only in order to turn them into agreeable imagery. His own fate preoccupies him, yet chiefly on its picturesque side; he is dazzled by the spectacle

 C.H. Herford, Miscellaneous Comments on Richard II 375 of his own tragedy. He sees himself as ‘glistering Phaeton’ [3.3.178] fallen – nay, as Christ, whom ‘you Pilates have here delivered . . . to my sour cross’ [4.1.240-1]. With great skill, this trait is made to work into and further the plot. By throwing himself into the rôle of the ‘fallen king’, he precipitates his fall. Yet his fall itself, tame and unkingly though it be, acquires distinction and dignity from the poetic glamour which he sheds about it. His eloquence grows more dazzling as his situation grows more hopeless. Mr. Pater (in the essay already quoted)[11] has specially emphasized this aspect of Richard – ‘an exquisite poet if he is nothing else,12 . . . with a felicity of poetic invention which puts these pages (the deposition scene) into a very select class, with the finest "vermeil and ivory" work of Chatterton or Keats’.13 Yet if an exquisite, he is not a great, poet. Even his finest touches, such as ‘A brittle glory shineth in that face, / As brittle as the glory is the face’ [4.1.287-8], are not laden with that lightning of imagination which penetrates to the heart of things, like the outbursts of Lear or Hamlet; they are beautiful fancies beautifully phrased. The name dilettante, felicitously suggested by Kreyssig14 and adopted by Dowden,15 best fits his literary as his kingly character. He is a dilettante in poetry as well as in kingship. ‘Let no one say’, adds Kreyssig, ‘that a gifted artist-nature goes to ruin in Richard: the same unbridled fancy, the same boundless but superficial sensibility which wrecks the king would also have ruined the poet.’

Bolingbroke In bold yet subtle contrast to Richard is his rival Bolingbroke. He, like Richard, is only gradually disclosed to us; a series of fine touches lets us see by degrees the man he is, and, without exactly foreshadowing the sequel, makes it intelligible when it comes. From the first he imposes by a quiet power, which pursues its ends under constitutional forms, knows how to bide its time, uses violence only to avenge wrong, and carries out a great revolution with the air of accepting a position left vacant. Nor are we allowed to think of him as a mere usurper. The time calls for a strong king. The country, exasperated by Richard’s mad and lawless rule, is ready to override the claims of legitimacy if it can get merit. If Bolingbroke uses the needs of the time for his own purpose, he is the man to fulfil them. If he is ambitious to rule, there is in him the stuff of a great ruler. The state of England is ‘out of joint’; he is the man to ‘set it right’ [Hamlet, 1.5.188-9]. No crime-interest is allowed to arise in regard to him such as from the first fascinates us in the career of Richard  III. His only act of violence is to sentence, with the sternness of the judge rather than of the conqueror, the favourites of Richard to the death they deserved. His first act as king is to inquire into the murder of Gloucester. The play closes upon his remorse for the murder he had wished, but not designed. He loves England too, as Gaunt, as Richard, as Mowbray, love it, each in his way. If he does not waste precious time after landing, like Richard, in an eloquent address to his III. His only act of violence is to sentence, with the sternness of the judge rather than of the conqueror, the favourites of Richard to the death they deserved. His first act as king is to inquire into the murder of Gloucester. The play closes upon his remorse for the murder he had wished, but not designed. He loves England too, as Gaunt, as Richard, as Mowbray, love it, each in his way. If he does not waste precious time after landing,

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like Richard, in an eloquent address to his ‘dear earth’ [3.2.6], his brief farewell, as he goes into banishment, to the ‘sweet soil, my mother and my nurse’ [1.3.306-7], is full of restrained passion and pathos. Thus Bolingbroke blends the characters of the ambitious adventurer and the national deliverer – the man of the hour. But, though never lacking the dignity of kingship, he wants the personal charm of Richard. Richard is hated by the people he misrules, but captivates his intimates – from the queen and Aumerle down to the unnamed and unseen singer, who unbidden makes music for his disport in prison; nay, even Bolingbroke ‘loves him, dead’ [5.6.39-40]. Bolingbroke himself, on the contrary, owes his popularity partly to his warlike prestige, partly to a deliberate combination of habitual reserve with occasional condescension.16 

Two Aspects of Their Contrast  In the contrast of Richard and Bolingbroke lies, as has been said, the key-note of the play. Now that contrast seems to be worked out from two points of view, which belong to different phases of Shakespeare’s thought. On the one hand, it represents the struggle between two opposite political principles – kingship by inheritance and kingship by faculty – which has several times involved the destinies of England. It reflects Shakespeare’s political thinking, his passion for his country, his loving study of her past. On the other hand, it represents a conflict between two antagonistic types of soul, the rude collision of fantastic inefficiency with practical power – the tragedy of a royal dilettante confronted with a King. It reflects Shakespeare’s growing absorption in the profound study of human character and in the vaster issues of life which lie outside the domain of politics and country. In a word, though Richard II is still called a ‘History’, it is history shaping itself towards tragedy, without having yet lost the relation to political issues and to historical tradition which marks Shakespeare’s English histories as a whole. Let us look at the play more closely from these two points of view. 

(1) The ‘History’ of ‘Richard II’ Regarded as a ‘History’, Richard II is the first act in that great drama closing with Richard III, of which it has been aptly said that the ‘hero’ is not any English king, but England. In so far, it is a product of that prolonged outburst of national enthusiasm which, fed from many sources, was stimulated to the highest pitch by the ruin of the Armada, and among other literary fruit, produced, besides Shakespeare’s great series, Marlowe’s Edward II (about 1590), Peele’s Edward I (1593), and the anonymous  pseudo-Shakespearian Edward III (probably 1596). The history aspect of the play is most prominent in the earlier acts. We are shown the passionate devotion of all the main actors in the story to their country, just raised to European renown by the outwardly glorious reign of Edward III. The magnificent ceremonial of chivalry, which Edward encouraged, is paraded in unshorn state before us; the visible sign of the great yesterday of conquest, still apparently commemorated in the grand figure of the Shakespearian John of Gaunt. The peculiar sting of Richard’s exactions, to the mind of his angry nobles, is that they have been squandered in peaceful luxury – ‘Wars have not wasted it, for warr’d he hath

 C.H. Herford, Miscellaneous Comments on Richard II 377 not, / But basely yielded upon compromise / That which his noble ancestors achieved with blows’ [2.1.252-4]. Of this indignant patriotism, in its loftiest form, Gaunt is made the mouthpiece (without a hint from the Chronicle). He thus may be said to stand, in our play, as Faulconbridge does in King John, as the younger Henry in some sort does in Henry IV and Henry V, for England herself. The closing lines of King John breathe a spirit identical with that of Gaunt’s prophecy, and have become hardly less famous. Gaunt represents that loyalty, which, with all devotion to the king as the ‘deputy of God’ [cf. ‘deputy elected by the lord’, 3.2.57], yet puts the country before the king. He will not lift his arm against him, but he will speak the daggers he may not use. How subtly is the relation between father and son drawn! In both we discern, though in different proportions, loyalty to law and vision for facts. The father votes his son’s banishment; the son obeys. The father, wrung by the misery of England, utters the protest which the son effects. But with Gaunt ideal loyalty preponderates; in Bolingbroke, practical sagacity. Gaunt has more imagination, Bolingbroke more shrewdness. Note how finely this trait is suggested in their parting dialogue (i.3), where the father’s store of imaginative resources in suffering – ‘Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it / To lie that way thou go’st, not whence thou comest’ &c. [1.3.286-7] is met with the reply of sorrowful common sense: ‘O, who can hold a fire in his hand / By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?’ &c. [1.3.294-5]. 

York and Aumerle  York and Aumerle belong also essentially to the political drama, and their relation, though far less subtly drawn, likewise repays study. They are types of that grosser kind of loyalty which is little more than a refined form of cowardice. York, whose submissiveness to Richard is tempered only by one senile protest, surrenders, after a little bluster, to Bolingbroke, and is soon his abject tool; Aumerle, though he remains longer true, saves his life by lying (iv.1), and by betraying his friends (v.2).  Lastly, it may be asked, how did Shakespeare view the political problem of the History, – that struggle between legitimacy and aptitude which the nation so rapidly settled in favour of the latter? That he felt the element of violence in Bolingbroke’s procedure is plain from the confession he afterwards attributes to Henry IV (‘How I came by the crown, O God, forgive!’ 2 Henry IV, iv.5.219) and to Henry V (‘Not to-day, O Lord, O not to-day, think not upon the fault My father made in compassing the crown!’ Henry V, iv. 1.277); but he probably felt no less keenly that the situation admitted of no other solution. He neither excused the act nor ignored its consequences. The usurpation was necessary for England, but it was not the less necessary that England should suffer for it.17

(2) Tragedy of ‘Richard II’  Secondly, under the aspect of tragedy. In Shakespearian tragedy two types of tragic effect appear to be fused: (1) Nemesis following Guilt or Error; (2) Character at discord with Circumstance. The first is the classical conception of tragedy. It is the note of Shakespeare, that he habitually grounds both guilt and error on character. He rarely indeed, as in Macbeth, builds tragedy upon crime; commonly, as in Lear, Othello, Hamlet, the crime and its punishment affect only the secondary actors, and the real

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tragedy belongs to those who err only through some fatal discord between their character and the circumstances in which they are set, but are none the less ruined by their error. There is here no question of Nemesis, of proportion between suffering and fault; Othello is not, in any intelligible sense, punished for his credulity, nor Lear for his blindness, nor Hamlet for his thought-sickness.  Now in Richard II the germs of both these types of tragedy are distinctly traceable, but apart. We have the framework of a tragedy of Guilt and Nemesis in the dark tale of Gloucester’s murder, the starting-point of the whole action, which Bolingbroke makes it his mission to avenge. On the other hand, and far more prominently, we have a tragedy of Character and Circumstance. As handled by Shakespeare, the story of Richard exemplified a kind of tragic subject which towards the middle of his career obviously interested him, — the discord between the life of thought and feeling pursued for themselves, and the life of practical interests between the poet or the thinker, the philosopher, the lover, and the world in which he assumes, or has thrust upon him, a part he is not fitted to play. Brutus and Hamlet are forced to play parts for which the one is unfitted by his abstract academic creed, the other by his ingrained habits of thought. The love of Romeo and Juliet is fatal to them, because it has to be evolved in a society consumed by mean and purposeless hate. An unmistakable trait of kinship connects these tragic figures with Shakespeare’s Richard. He is a creature of thought and emotion, though his thought is not reflective like Hamlet’s, but fanciful, his emotion not passionate like Romeo’s, but sentimental. He follows momentary impulse, like a brilliant wayward dreamer, taking no account of the laws and limits of the real world, and turning each rude collision with them merely into the starting-point of a new dream. And these laws and limits are for him personified in Bolingbroke, the representative of the people he misruled; the embodiment of that genius for action which enables a man to get the iron will of facts on his side, to make the silent forces of law and custom, of national needs and claims, work for him by making himself their symbol. We shall not overstate the degree of resemblance between Richard and the tragic figures we have compared with his, if we say that Shakespeare has imagined his character in a way that seems natural and obvious for the poet who within a year or two (earlier or later) created Romeo and Juliet, and who was, some six or eight years later, to create Brutus and Hamlet. 

Conclusion Richard the Second is not one of the greatest of Shakespeare’s plays. But it is one of the most instructive. It does not enlarge our conception of his powers, — of some of them (e.g. his humour) it hardly contains a trace. But it gives us valuable insight into their development, at one of those moments between youth and maturity when the work of any great and progressive artist is apt to be loaded with subtle suggestions of both. This period was apparently not, with Shakespeare, one of those epochs of Titanic storm and stress, in which all the latent potencies of a man’s nature are brought confusedly to the surface. It was rather a time of relative clearness and calmness, of measure and reserve, of balance and serenity, intervening between the buoyant extravagances and daring

 C.H. Herford, Miscellaneous Comments on Richard II 379 experiments of the young man, and the colossal adventures of the mature Shakespeare ‘into strange seas of thought alone’.[18] For a piece of Shakespearian work Richard II seems at first strikingly simple and bare. It has an imposing unity and singleness of plot. It suggests a careful pruning of excrescences rather than that reaching out after various kinds of effect which produces many-sided affinities. Yet, as we have seen, this apparent simpleness and singleness is found, on closer view, compatible with a blending of distinct artistic aims. We watch the procedure of a great tragic poet, emancipating himself from the methods of the national history, and conceiving his work, both on the historical and on the tragical side, under the influence of a reaction from the methods of Marlowe. Of all the political tragedies it is the least Marlowesque. The reaction was in part temporary, in part final and progressive. The infusion of lyrical sweetness and lyrical rhyme is rapidly abandoned for a blank verse more nervous and masculine than Marlowe’s own. The interest of character on which the play is so largely built remains a cardinal point of Shakespeare’s art; but interest of plot emerges from the complete subordination which marks it here. And the tragedy which arises rather out of character than out of crime becomes the absorbing theme of Shakespeare’s maturity. In Richard we have one of the earliest notes of that profound Shakespearian pity which has little relation to the personal compassion excited by the sufferings of Marlowe’s Edward; pity which penetrates beyond the doom of an individual to the social milieu by which the doom was provoked; and reflects a sad recognition of what Mr. Pater has called ‘the unkindness of things themselves’,[19] – the tragedy of the world itself. Such pity, like every emotion that lifts beyond personal misfortune, has its ‘purifying’ power upon meaner forms of pity, and by drawing us into conscious contact with the universal issues of life, exalts while it saddens. It is the test of great tragedies not to fail of this exalting power upon the spectator, however harrowing the sufferings which evolve it; so that, in the noble words of one of the great moral teachers of our time, – ‘though a man’s sojourn in this region be short, yet when he falls again the smell of the divine fire has passed upon him, and he bears about him, for a time at least, among the rank vapours of the earth something of the freshness and fragrance of the higher air.’20 (14-35) 

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Beverley E. Warner, characterization and history in Richard II 1894

From English History in Shakespeare’s Plays (New York, 1894). Beverley Ellison Warner (1855–1910), Episcopal priest and miscellaneous author, was born in Jersey City, N.J., and after taking holy orders became rector of Trinity Church, New Orleans, La., in which post he served for over thirty years. Apart from theological and apologetical works, he wrote two guides for American youth and a novel. A dedicated Shakespearian, Warner published a full study of Shakespeare’s use and interpretation of medieval history (from which the following extracts are drawn) and edited a collection of Famous Introductions to Shakespeare’s Plays (New York, 1906). Warner’s chapter on Richard II not only enlarges upon the historical events that constitute the background of Shakespeare’s play but does so in a way that becomes critically significant by interpreting the often uncertain or ambivalent motivation of the major characters – mostly to the detriment of Bolingbroke and the partial amelioration of Richard. Although a great admirer of the work, Warner is unusually negative in his assessment of the scenes involving the queen. His approach also belongs to the steadily developing ‘literary’ tradition of asserting that ‘the play is better regarded as a poem than as an acting drama’ (p. 87). 

[From ‘Chapter III. Richard II – The Lancastrian Usurpation’] [1] [On anachronism and the character of the queen]  . . . The gravest anachronism is that of making Queen Isabel a woman of mature years. She was in reality but eleven years old,[1] and Richard’s marriage with her (1396) and the alliance with France so secured, was one of the incidental reasons of popular dissatisfaction which came to a head in his deposition. Isabel is the only female character of any importance in the play, and if her age was advanced a few years, so that her relations with the king should add a touch of pathos to the story, it must be admitted, with [Augustine] Skottowe [No. 18 above], that the effort was a failure. The scenes in which Isabel appears are the weakest in the tragedy. Shakespeare’s was yet a

 Beverley E. Warner, Characterization and History in Richard II 381 ‘prentice hand in the delineation of female character, and the genius which was to rise so high in the portrayal of Katharine of Arragon ‘imped on a drooping wing’ [Richard II, 2.1.292] with Isabella of France. The scenes grouped about the deposition of the king and the enthroning of Bolingbroke are reversed in order of time; and Aumerle’s mother who pleads for him with the usurper, in the last act, had been dead some years. But as usual with the poet, his use of wide license in such matters tended to the greater vividness of his dramatic pictures. These anachronisms are so few and trifling, and so practically unimportant to the literal historic movement, that for purposes of illustration Richard II is one of the best of the chronicle plays. . . . (60-1)  [2] [On the banishment and return of Bolingbroke]  Shakespeare deals with three historical events of importance within the limits of the play, around which cluster and out of which grow the minor incidents. These are (I) the banishment of Bolingbroke; (II) his return and rebellion, as Duke of Lancaster; and (III) the deposition and death of Richard II.  The banishment of Bolingbroke is a natural sequence of the events of the reign which preceded it. The quarrel between Bolingbroke and Mowbray, with which the play opens, culminating in the lists of Coventry and the common exile of the participants, is one of those historical secrets, the explanation of which is lost in the mazes and intricacies which characterized the political life of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The two contestants had been leagued together formerly in the ‘treasons of these eighteen years’ [1.1.95], and both had guilty knowledge of conspiracies to hold the king in leading strings. Mowbray was, on the whole, more loyal to Richard than Bolingbroke, although the latter had been pardoned for his share in the late treasonable practices. It was now recalled that Mowbray was in charge of the Duke of Gloucester when he met his suspicious death.  The mutual recriminations of the two nobles in the first scene of Act I do not throw much light upon their quarrel, save that Mowbray is accused of being a traitor on general principles, which on general principles he denies:  That all the treasons for these eighteen years  Complotted and contrived in this land  Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring . . .  ................. That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester’s death. [1.1.95-100] 

Mowbray, in a very eloquent plea, puts in a defence:  And interchangeably hurl down my gage  Upon this overweening traitor’s foot,  To prove myself a loyal gentleman. [1.1.146-8] 

As a matter of fact there was no noble of Richard’s court but that had some hand in the treasons of those eighteen years; and a charge of malfeasance in office and misuse

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of public moneys is a customary move of political warfare not unknown to our own days.  The accusation of Gloucester’s death was a more serious one. In reality it was an arraignment of Richard over Mowbray’s shoulders, and all the parties concerned knew it. It was well known that if Gloucester had suffered a violent end it must have been the inspiration of Richard. Gaunt and Gloucester’s widow voiced the common opinion when the latter appeals to the old Duke:    To safeguard thine own life  The best way is to venge my Gloucester’s death.    Gaunt. Heaven’s is the quarrel; for heaven’s substitute His deputy anointed in his sight  Hath caused his death. [1.2.35-9]

It was a bold cast of Bolingbroke to hurl that malicious dart, and he won by it. The king could not defend Mowbray without incriminating himself. Mowbray could not, from loyalty or, indeed, with any safety, lay the death of Gloucester upon the king. The trial by battle is appointed at Coventry, and at the moment of beginning the contest the king (with the advice of his council, not arbitrarily as the play suggests) throws down his warder, declines to allow the duel to proceed, and sentences Mowbray to life exile, and Bolingbroke to banishment for ten, afterward reduced to six years.  This change of front was quite typical of the king. While it seemed to lean to the side of mercy, it was an exhibition of that despotic power which, even in small affairs, delighted Richard. And it was a logical sequence of those earlier years of his reign, during which he had the semblance, while deprived of the reality of power. Morevoer, if Bolingbroke won the duel, he had given boastful public notice that he felt it incumbent upon him to avenge his uncle’s death. Which blood, like sacrificing Abel’s, cries Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth, To me for justice and rough chastisment: And, by the glorious worth of my descent, This arm shall do it, or this life be spent. [1.1.104-8]

Richard had proved the loyalty of Mowbray, and their common guilty knowledge of Gloucester’s death acted as a further bond between them. It would be as easy to recall Mowbray, after a short time, as to banish him for life, and the king felt that Mowbray’s loyalty would stand the test of the temporary discomfort of exile for his sovereign’s sake. On the other hand, Bolingbroke’s popularity with the Commons, whom Richard had offended, his royal blood and powerful political as well as family connections, all conspired to make of him a foe to be feared. This appears to have been the secret of the change of the king’s mind in regard to the duration of his cousin’s exile. It seemed a master-stroke of policy. As though to intimate to the haughty noble that his punishment were merely nominal after all. Of Mowbray we hear but once again. Sacrificed (although perhaps but temporarily) to the selfish interest of the master he

 Beverley E. Warner, Characterization and History in Richard II 383 had loyally served, and who was soon to lose the power, even had he the intention, to restore his friend, the gallant ‘Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray’ [1.1.6], took service under the banner of the Crusaders, and when Bolingbroke, as Henry IV, would have recalled his ancient enemy, it was too late. Norfolk was dead. ‘Many a time hath banished Norfolk fought / For Jesus Christ, in glorious Christian field . . . ’ [Quotes 4.1.92-100].  But the king’s compromise failed. He had put off the evil day of reckoning, not delivered himself from the necessity of it. It was nearer even than any of the prominent actors in it dreamed. Richard’s public reason, why the sentence of banishment on both contestants was preferable to allowing them to settle their quarrel by the duello, reads strangely with our later knowledge:  For that our kingdom’s earth should not be soiled  With that dear blood which it hath fostered,  And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect  Of civil wounds plowed up with neighbor’s swords. [1.3.125-8] 

He would avoid civil wars, but the banishment of the two nobles was the opening skirmish of the severest and bloodiest fratricidal strife in England’s history, the ‘Wars of the Roses.’ Bolingbroke’s absence emboldened the king to confiscate the estates of his house upon the death of ‘John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster’ [1.1.1]. This act gave the ambitious noble a pretext to return from exile, and to gather a force under his banner for the restoration of his lands and seignories. Rebellion and the deposition of Richard followed; Bolingbroke challenged the throne and secured it. ‘Plume-plucked Richard’ [4.1.108] died by force or otherwise, in prison. The Bishop of Carlisle needed no more than ordinary inspiration to prophesy:  The blood of English shall manure the ground .…………….. O! If you rear this house against this house  It will the woefullest division prove . . . . [Quotes 4.1.137, 145-9] 

Old Gaunt’s speech also . . . made to Richard from his dying bed, not only analyzes the state of the realm but, seer-like, predicts the course affairs must take unless, ‘Though Richard my life’s counsel would not hear, / My death’s sad tale may yet undeaf his ear’ [2.1.15-16]. Some of the learned critics sagely remark that there is no historic authority for this speech. Doubtless not for the literalists. Even dukes when about to die did not send for chroniclers in order that their final message to the world might be set forth in due form. It is sufficient for historical purposes, and adapted to dramatic exigencies, that the situation of affairs be summed up so accurately as in the words of this dying man, than whom no living soul was better versed in the trend of national politics and the connections with them of Richard’s weakness and rapacity. We have anticipated the story here to illustrate Richard’s fatal facility of deafness and blindness, when

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to hear and to see were easier. The Irish wars attract him. ‘Now for our Irish wars . . .’ [Quotes 2.1.155-6, 159-62, in which Richard declares his intention to confiscate Gaunt’s properties]. The scene shifts and with the same personages a new turn is given to this drama of real life. Bolingbroke hears of the escheatment of his estates and the death of his father. His heart is hot against Richard on another count beside that of his banishment, for the king’s influence had prevented his marriage with a daughter of the Duke de Berri (Mary de Bohun) while he was high in favor at the French court. Bolingbroke hears of the continued discontent of the Commons and the sullen attitude of the great nobles. He hestitates no longer. Having, with all his faults, the genius of catching the flood tide in the affairs of men, possessed of inordinate ambition, inspired by hatred, and nerved by a courage that never swerved in ‘plucking the flower of safety from the nettle danger’ [1 Henry IV, 2.3.9-10], he landed in England with a handful of attendants on July 4, 1399.  This brings to our notice the second point of historic action illustrated by the poet in this play – the return and rebellion of Bolingbroke. In taking his departure for the Irish wars Richard had made his surviving uncle, Duke of York, regent during the period of his absence. Ordinarily it was a safe and crafty arrangement, for York was the most timid, irresolute, and unambitious of men. No danger could be suspected from any ulterior designs of his, upon either the affections of the people or the throne of the realm. But these very qualities made him as paper-pulp in the hands of the scheming and arbitrary Bolingbroke. Upon hearing of the latter’s landing and the growth of an army under his banner, York becomes as supine and helpless as a child. ‘If I know / How or which way to order these affairs / Thus thrust disorderly into my hands, / Never believe me . . .’ [Quotes 2.2.108-14, 1212].  Forces gather about Bolingbroke, among whom especially welcomed were the powerful Percys: Northumberland, his brother Worcester, and gallant young Harry Hotspur, three thorns afterward to sting the hand within whose grasp they had placed the sceptre of power. There are two possible views of Bolingbroke’s rebellion against Richard. It is within the limits of probability that before his banishment he was in correspondence with the nobles who afterward joined him, and that the conspiracy, nipped in the bud by the king’s interference in the personal quarrel at Coventry, blossomed anew, with the pretext of the exile’s return to reclaim his unjustly seized estates. Northumberland’s speech, when he hears of the landing of Bolingbroke, implies that rebellion against the crown and not the restoration of a brother’s noble lands, was his leading motive.  If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,  Imp out our drooping country’s broken wing,  Redeem from broken pawn the blemished crown,  Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre’s gilt,  And make high majesty look like itself,  Away with me in post to Ravenspurg. [2.1.291-6] 

In Mowbray’s counter accusation there may be an implication of some such plot:

 Beverley E. Warner, Characterization and History in Richard II 385 No, Bolingbroke. If ever I were traitor,  My name be blotted from the book of life,  And I from heaven banished as from hence.  But what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know:  And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue. [1.3.201-5] 

On the other hand Shakespeare is historically correct in making Bolingbroke’s protest, first to his allies, and afterward to the king’s own face, that he was impelled to return in seeming rebellion only to win back his hereditary estates, and that the nobles and Commons forced him, for the sake of England’s better government and honor, to assume the crown.  When poor old York endeavors feebly to withstand the rush of Bolingbroke’s popularity, and petulantly cries, ‘Tut, tut! grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle, I am no traitor’s uncle’ [2.3.86-8], he is very quickly silenced by his nephew’s special pleading, backed by the powerful Northumberland’s indorsement, who says:  The noble duke hath sworn his coming is  But for his own; and for the right of that  We all have strongly sworn to give him aid,  And let him ne’er see joy that breaks that oath. [2.3.148-51] 

York’s attitude is really pitiable. He is a type of character quite common in stirring times, who slide along safely, and even gracefully, over the surface of events, until deep currents disturb the ordinary flow of life. In the main such a one perceives the right thing to do, and if he had his preference would choose to do it. But he will not commit himself irretrievably to the right, if it be in a minority. He will warn others, but go no further by example. Here York cries:  Well, well, I see the issue of these arms:  I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,  Because my power is weak and all ill left:  But if I could, by him that gave me life,  I would attach you all and make you stoop  Unto the sovereign mercy of the king:  But since I cannot, be it known to you  I do remain as neuter. [2.3.152-9] 

Bolingbroke was very well satisfied to have no sharper opposition from the regent and his army than ‘neutrality,’ especially as the declaration was followed by an invitation to become York’s guest at his castle for the night.  Meanwhile Richard was acting out the character he had been accreting for a score of troubled years. . . . [At this point Warner discusses Richard’s volatile emotions upon learning of Bolingbroke’s return and the wholesale defection of his supporters.]  Brought face to face with Bolingbroke at last, the king’s temper shifts and veers in the same uncertain way. But although his moods thus express themselves, it is not now

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from sudden bravery or sheer affright. The whole of scene third, act third, in which the first interview takes place, and which ends with the setting forth of the chief personages in company to London, marks a notable transition in the character of Richard.  It must be remembered that, although Shakespeare makes no mention of the fact, Richard, in these preliminary interviews with Bolingbroke and his messengers, was probably intending treachery as well as expecting it. If he had been suddenly transformed into an angel of humility it would have been a miraculous event. His bringing up in undignified bondage to his uncles, while yet wearing the splendid pomp of a heaven-anointed sovereign, had seemed to confuse his moral sense. His reliance was not so much upon God as that he believed even God could not but espouse the cause of ‘his elected deputy’ [3.2.57].  Shakespeare gives the substance but not the form of Richard’s meeting with Bolingbroke. In reality he was betrayed by Northumberland. The latter came as an ambassador, apparently unattended, to Conway Castle where the king was, and ‘admitted to the castle he proposed certain conditions to the king, which were willingly agreed to, as they impaired not the royal authority, and to the observance of these Northumberland swore. It was promised that Lancaster should come to Flint and, having asked pardon on his knees, should be restored to the estates and honors of his family.’2 The king was on his way from Conway to Flint when he was made a prisoner by the treacherous Northumberland’s forces, and from that moment there was no further hope of a meeting on equal terms between the two foes. This episode is passed over by Shakespeare, for unknown reasons. The chronicles record it. It would surely have afforded a dramatic scene, and have helped to illustrate that entire change in Richard’s character which is manifestly the design of Shakespeare in these later scenes. For, from the moment he appears before Bolingbroke, practically a prisoner, the king is no longer the Richard of the earlier portions of the play, and we are indebted to the dramatist, far more than to the chroniclers, for this vivid character drawing of the last days of the once arrogant and proud Plantagenet. It is not desperation, nor sorrowful bombast, nor the whine of despair that brings the king to his knees before the subject he had banished from the realm.[3] Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee  To make the base earth proud with kissing it.  …………………. Up, cousin, up; your heart is up I know,  Thus high at least (touching his own head) although your knee be low.  …………………. Cousin, I am too young to be your father,  Though you are old enough to be my heir.  What you will have, I’ll give, and willing too;  For do we must what force will have us do. [3.3.190-207] 

This is not the language of mere sordid weakness and cowardice. It is the yielding to fate of one to whom the further game is not worth the candle.

 Beverley E. Warner, Characterization and History in Richard II 387 Richard would never have won a crown by force of masterful assertion and his good right arm. Having royalty as an heritage, he held it as a right not to be disputed, rather than a trust to be administered.  His weakness in defence was moral not physical. So long as he was surrounded by a brilliant court and backed by a powerful army, the crown was the most glorious possession in the world. But to him, it was not worth ‘the stress and storm.’ Shakespeare’s pathetic speech put in the king’s mouth seems the justest estimate of his feeble yet not undignified (if the paradox may be allowed) character. ‘What must the king do now? Must he submit? / [Quotes 3.3.143-59]. Coleridge would have him weak and womanish throughout, ‘what he was at first he was at last, except so far as he yields to circumstances.’[4] It was exactly . . . this ‘yielding to circumstances’ that marks the transition and denotes the essential change in Richard. If he had yielded earlier he would have been a stronger king; that he did so eventually made him a better man. (64-79)  [3] [On the deposition and death of Richard]  The third and last historic centre of action in this drama is the deposition and death of Richard, and incidentally the crowning of Henry Bolingbroke as Henry IV. It was inevitable of course. A discrowned and imprisoned king seldom escapes his earthly trials save through ‘the grave, and gate of death’.[5] The play assumes, in entire consonance with the chronicles, that Richard’s resignation of the crown was voluntary, and that he designated Bolingbroke as a fitting successor.    York. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee  From plume-plucked Richard; who with willing soul  Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields  To the possession of thy royal hand.  Ascend his throne, descending now from him;  And long live Henry, of that name the fourth. [4.1.107-12] 

The poet, for no conceivable reason, dramatic or historic, that appears on the surface, places Bolingbroke’s ‘In God’s name I’ll assume the regal throne’ [4.1.113] before the formal resignation of Richard. This slight anachronism does not prevent the fourth act (of which there is but one scene) from being an admirable picture, down to the least detail, of the dethronement of the king and the usurpation of Henry of Lancaster. . . .  The effort is made to commit Richard to his own deposition, and Northumberland addresses him: ‘Read / These accusations and these grievous crimes . . . ’ [Quotes 1.4.222-7]. Richard’s pathetic protest might have moved even the cold sternness of the powerful nobles who thus played, cat-like, with his griefs. ‘Must I do so? And must I ravel out / My weaved-up follies? . . . ’ [Quotes 1.4.228-32]. The bill of particulars referred to here, and contained in the impeachment of Richard before the Commons, had thirty-three charges, the most important of which were those laying the death of Gloucester at his door, the seizure of Bolingbroke’s estates, and general accusations

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of despotism, unfaithfulness, and inconstancy. That they were untrue no one would claim. That they offered sufficient grounds for a forced abdication of the throne, in that rude age, is open to argument. Henry VIII was far more guilty after a lapse of more than two centuries, and died in his bed, shrieking out with his last earthly breath a despotic command that was all but carried out.[6] Guilty as Richard undoubtedly was, ‘so variable and dissembling in his words and writings, that no man living who knew his conditions could or would confide in him,’[7] still he was the victim of a youth which had been formed for him by others, and chiefly by those who shouted Hail! to Henry of Lancaster, as he ascended the throne from which he had plucked his cousin. And the marvellous skill of the dramatist in these scenes portrays the reality, under the show of things, in such a way that the reader knows the truth, and that it is not with Bolingbroke. The act (IV) which tells this story concludes significantly. The new king announces a day for his coronation and leaves the stage to a handful of those whose loyalty to ‘unkinged Richard’ [1.4.220] remained unshaken.  Abbot. A woeful pageant have we here beheld.  Bishop of Carlisle. The woe’s to come: the children yet unborn  Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.  …………… Abbot. I see your brows are full of discontent,  Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears:  Come home with me to supper: I will lay  A plot shall show us all a merry day. [4.1.321-34] 

Two points of interest remain; the death of Richard, and the abortive plot to rise in rebellion against his successor. Over the whole of the last act in which these events are dramatically set forth, there is thrown a glamour of pity for the dethroned monarch. The interview between Richard and his queen does not rise to more than mediocrity, perhaps because it is both historically inaccurate and psychologically impossible. The king and queen did not meet again at all after their parting when Richard set out for Ireland, and Queen Isabel was a child. In no other point does the play show its early composition so certainly as in the poet’s handling of this character. That knowledge and appreciation of womanhood which is one of the noblest components of his later works, is lamentably deficient here.  York’s interview with his duchess, interrupted by sobs and weepings on both their parts, and containing the pathetic picture, trite but ever thrilling, of the double entry of Bolingbroke and Richard to London, ends with the duke’s pious resignation: But heaven hath a hand in these events, To whose high will we bow our calm contents; To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,  Whose state and honor I for aye allow. [5.2.37-40]

The frantic efforts of York to impound his own son for treason, in order to prove his own loyalty and ‘calm content’ [5.2.38], has something revolting in it. Yet it is dramatically in

 Beverley E. Warner, Characterization and History in Richard II 389 harmony with all that precedes, to indicate the germs of rebellion already beginning to swell in the souls of Englishmen, before the usurper was settled in his royal chair. And perhaps our lack of sympathy with York is gratified, at having the stalk of revolt push itself above the surface of ‘calm contents’ in the unstable Duke’s own family. Otherwise, next to the scenes in which Isabel is introduced, those concerning Aumerle’s discovered treason add least to the play, whether it be viewed as poem or drama.  The close student of our great poet will be interested in comparing the 4th and 6th scenes of the 5th Act of this play, with scene 3d of Act III, and scene 2d of Act IV of King John. In both he repudiates the murder once accomplished. King Henry and Exton are cut from the same pattern as King John and Hubert. It is disputed by historians whether Richard died by violence or at the command of Bolingbroke. It is certain that he did not die as shown in the play, where Exton is represented as striking him down while he is struggling with the servants who are commissioned to kill him; for some years ago Richard’s body was exhumed and no signs of a blow upon the skull were discoverable. He might have been stabbed to the heart, or starved to death, however, and on the whole we may believe the latter was his fate. Bolingbroke would not have the stain of actual blood upon him. He would not kill Richard outright, but would let him die, a more quiet and king-like way of reaching the desired end. For death was inevitable. There is no room on earth for a king uncrowned by force. He is a constant source of danger to the reigning monarch, a centre around which will gather those discontented and daring spirits to whom peace has no prizes, and upon whom established order has no claim. . . . When we come to consider the events of Bolingbroke’s reign as treated by Shakespeare in the first and second parts of Henry IV, it will be seen that the sceptre even of England might be too dearly bought. We will discover that Bolingbroke was perfectly conscious of the treachery of his course, and that he accepted the many sorrows of his life as a well-earned retribution. We will find also the nobles, who raised him one round on the ladder of power and dignity above themselves, recalling Richard’s prophecy to Northumberland. ‘Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal / The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne . . . ’ [Quotes 5.1.55-65].  If all is granted concerning the alleged evils of Richard’s mismanaged government, and the parliamentary decree to depose him from the throne for cause is judged fair, still Bolingbroke may not be relieved of the crime of usurpation.  He claimed the throne in right of descent from Edward III, of whom it is true he was the grandson. But Richard failing for whatever reason, the crown belonged to Edmund Mortimer, [fifth] Earl of March, lineal descendant of [Lionel, Duke of] Clarence, third son of Edward III; while John of Gaunt, Bolingbroke’s father, was fourth son, and out of the line of succession. This Edward [i.e., Edmund] was but ten years of age.[8] Of his claim could be said, as was said of the unfortuante Richard by [William] Langland, ‘Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child.’[9] Again, we must consider that, granting Richard’s incompetency, the nobles and parliament had precedent (in the case of King John over Arthur of Brittany) for  preferring to place the sceptre in the strong hands of a man rather than in the weak grasp of a child. It was not his usurpation [of] the throne that disturbed Henry of Lancaster, usurpation though it was; it was remorse for the steps he took to mount

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so high. ‘Heaven knows,’ says Henry the Fourth, with his very latest counsel to the son he loved:    Heaven knows, my son,  By what by-paths and indirect crooked ways  I met this crown: and I myself know well  How troublesome it sat upon my head:  To thee it shall descend with better quiet,  Better opinion, better confirmation.  For all the soil of the achievement goes  With me into the earth. 

[2 Henry IV, 4.5.183-90]

It has been already noted that the play covers but a short two years of Richard’s reign. This is in dramatic keeping with the idea hitherto thrown out, that the decline and fall of the House of Plantagenet is the theme of these eight dramas between King John and Henry VIII, in relation to which continued story, the former stands as prologue and the latter as epilogue. It is in these last two years that the seeds of the final dissolution of the House are sown, in those historic events which brought about the internecine rivalry of the families of York and Lancaster. This will be more clearly developed as the story of succeeding reigns unrolls before us on the superb canvas of our great poet.  The character of Richard is the tour de force of the drama. So large a space is devoted to the development of his personality that the play is better regarded as a poem than as an acting drama. As Coleridge says: ‘But in itself, and for the closet, I feel no hesitation in placing it as the first and most admirable of all Shakespeare’s purely historical plays’ [No. 20 above]. The student will note how clearly the chief elements in Richard’s education, circumstances, and character are indicated in the first scenes of the play: whereby the attention of the reader is attracted, and his mind prepared for all that follows. He is in the midst of treasons and plots and conspiracies. He deals with them not with a masterful hand, but with a sort of shifty, cunning policy, which must o’erreach itself in the end. We cannot agree with those historians who give to Richard any deep or large sense of the royal dignity. While patriotism and love of country is one of the themes of the play (as of all the English histories), Richard himself seems to value his crown for its glitter; his realm as a source of revenue; and his anointment as the ‘deputy elected of the Lord’ [3.2.57] as a matter of course, requiring no stewardship on the one hand, or accounting for on the other. In his day of humiliation he sees more clearly than before, but it stirs no kingly fire, and arouses no princely courage. While to the last he resents the illegality of his deposition, in his heart of hearts he accepts its moral fitness. There would be more to say of the character of Bolingbroke if his story ended here. Over him also comes a change when once the cares as well as the glories of kingship are upon him. In the last Act (V, sc. 4) we note that anxiety over his son’s courses which shows a father’s yearning love creeping from beneath a noble’s o’erweening ambition,

 Beverley E. Warner, Characterization and History in Richard II 391 and his gentle treatment of the rebellious Aumerle is not such as would be naturally expected of high-mounting Bolingbroke. By these signs of a finer realization of noblesse oblige, we are prepared for the wide difference between usurping Bolingbroke and the reigning monarch Henry IV, a contrast which the poet sets forth in the succeeding play. . . . (79-88) 

54

Barrett Wendell, Richard II as an archaic masterpiece 1894

From William Shakespeare: A Study in Elizabethan Literature (London, 1894).  Barrett Wendell (1855–1921), teacher and man of letters, came from a prominent Boston family that included the writer Oliver Wendell Holmes among its forebears. He graduated from Harvard in 1877, and later enjoyed a distinguished career on the faculty, having studied under James Russell Lowell. His comparatively early volume on Shakespeare, from which the following extracts are taken, is an exercise in what Wendell called ‘serious criticism’ – that is, the attempt, often impressionistic and general in its methods, ‘to increase our sympathetic knowledge of what we study that we may enjoy it with fresh intelligence and appreciation’ (p. 1). His sensitivity to Shakespearian style and the contrasts that he draws between Richard II and Richard III on the one hand and between Richard II and Edward II on the other exemplify such ‘fresh intelligence’ as he sought to embody in the book as a whole. 

[1] [From Chapter VII, Section V: ‘Richard II’; I omit Wendell’s headnote on the publication history, source, and date of the play.]  Like Richard III, Richard II must for our purposes be regarded as a chronicle-history written at a moment when Shakespeare’s best energies were concentrated on comedy and tragedy. As we should expect, its method is essentially conventional, – nothing is done or said exactly as it would have been in real life. The story, in short, is translated from Holinshed into a dramatic form plainly influenced by Marlowe’s, whose Edward II this play closely resembles. For all this, Richard II differs from Shakespeare’s earlier chronicle-histories in two respects: it has distinct unity of purpose, – its scenes and incidents are carefully selected, and organically composed; and it is so complete in finish that its numerous beauties of detail are not salient. In other words, while Shakespeare’s earlier chronicle-histories may be regarded as experiments, Richard II,

 Barrett Wendell, Richard II as an Archaic Masterpiece 393 without palpable originality, uses a mastered archaic method for the expression of a definite artistic purpose.  Of course, Shakespeare was not inventing. Unless we constantly discard the notion of invention, we cannot understand chronicle-history. Actual historical facts, however, impress historians who are also artists in specifically emotional ways; and such emotions even modern writers of history, if they be artists, try to express. This is what Shakespeare has done in Richard II; and if Richard III remind one of some modern figure painted on a thirteenth-century background, Richard II, consistent throughout, reminds one more vividly still of the quaintly life-like portrait of Richard himself enthroned in golden glory, still to be seen in the choir of Westminster Abbey.  In many places, Shakespeare follows Holinshed’s actual words with a closeness which makes the superb sound of Shakespeare’s language amazing; this is notable, for example, in the heralds’ speeches, at the lists at Coventry.1 When Shakespeare invents his speeches, too, as in the scene where for eleven consecutive lines the dying Gaunt puns on his own name,2 or in the scene where Richard, just deposed, goes through sixteen lines of sentimental euphuism with a mirror,3 Shakespeare’s method is as archaically conventional as ever. This conventionality, however, is no more salient than the actual beauties which surround it; such for example, as Gaunt’s noble speech about England,4 or as Carlisle’s wonderful narrative of the death of Norfolk: – Many a time hath banish’d Norfolk fought  For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,  Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross  Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;  And toil’d with works of war, retired himself  To Italy; and there at Venice gave His body to that pleasant country’s earth, And his pure soul unto his captain Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long. [4.1.92-100] 

Conventionalities and beauties alike, each seems exactly in place. What is more, while none even of the beauties are inevitably human utterances, each generally helps to define the character who utters it; for while the conventionality of phrase in Richard II prevents the characters from seeming exactly human, they have distinct individuality. Carlisle, brave, loyal, simple, is an ideal English gentleman; York, always honest, is weak and dull; Bolingbroke, supple, intriguing, yet somehow royal, reminds one curiously of Louis Napoleon; Richard himself, in his feeble, delicate complexity, is the most individual of all. Amiable, almost fascinating, he is fundamentally unable to keep fact in view; with graceful sentimentality he is always wandering from plain matters of fact to fantastic dreams and phrases. Euphuism, so inapt when we stop to criticise it in Gaunt or Bolingbroke, becomes in Richard strongly characteristic. Winning in the irresponsibility of private life, such a character when clothed with the dignity of royalty becomes a public danger. The fatal incompatibility of the character and the duties of Richard II involves the tragedy which pervades this play. 

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For besides being a chronicle-history, and a masterpiece of its archaic kind, Richard II is a really tragic prologue to the series of chronicle-histories which it opens. Thus we generally think of it, neglecting its position in the literature of its time. To define this, we should compare it with its obvious model, the Edward II of Marlowe. In this tragedy – so profoundly tragic that one inclines to forget its real character as chronicle-history – there are passages more human than anything in Shakespeare’s play. Shakespeare, for instance, has no lines which touch one like Edward’s speech amid the squalid horrors of his dungeon: – Tell Isabel the queen, I look’d not thus, When for her sake I ran at tilt in France,  And there unhors’d the Duke of Cleremont. [5.5.67-9]

The entire death-scene of Edward is finer than that of Richard. As a whole, however, Edward II, while at times more vitally imaginative than Richard II, shows far less mastery of art. If more imaginative, it is much less evenly sustained. The trait of Richard II in the development of Shakespeare begins to define itself. At a moment when he was making permanent tragedies and comedies, which occupied his best energy, he was also making the old conventions of chronicle-history serve to express, in a thoroughly mastered archaic form, his growing sense of fact. (133-7)  [2] [From Chapter VII, Section VI: ‘King John’; on a stylistic difference between Richard II and King John]  . . . Creative imagination [in King John], to all appearances spontaneous, has made real, living people out of what had previously been stage types.  In this very fact lies the reason why King John generally impresses one as more archaic, or at least as more queer, than Richard II. Such a phrase as Richard’s ‘Old John of Gaunt, time-honour’d Lancaster’ [Richard II, 1.1.1], could never have been uttered by any real man; such a phrase as John’s ‘Now say, Chatillon, what would France with us?’ [King John, 1.1.1] might be uttered by anybody still. In Richard II, then, the consistent conventionality of everything makes us accept the whole play if we accept any part of it. In King John the continual confusion of real, human vitality with the old quasi-operatic conventions combines with the general carelessness of construction to make each kind of thing seem more out of place than it would seem by itself. Like any other transitional incongruity,[5] King John is often harder to accept than the consistent conventions from which it departs. Its very excellences emphasize its faults and its oddities. . . . (142-3)  [3] [From Chapter IX, Section VIII: ‘King Lear’; comparing the trial-by-combat scenes in Richard II and King Lear]  . . . Two or three examples may serve to emphasize the excessive compactness of King Lear. Perhaps none are more to our purpose than may be found in the trial by battle [i.e., 5.3.107-51]. . . . Distinctly the most elaborate previous use of it, however, and the use most similar to what we find here, occurred in Richard II. There the first 122 lines

 Barrett Wendell, Richard II as an Archaic Masterpiece 395 of the third scene are given to the trial by battle between Bolingbroke and Norfolk. Every one of these lines is a sonorous piece of half-operatic verse; though they do not mean much, they sound splendidly; and no matter how fast the actors should rattle them off, there is no serious danger of obscurity. The first challenge is a fair example of the whole scene: – ‘Mar. In God’s name and the king’s, say who thou art / And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms. . . ’ [Quotes 1.3.11-25]. Compare with this the challenge in King Lear: – ‘Her. What are you? / Your name, your quality? and why you answer / This present summons? . . . [Quotes 5.3.119-24]. A little later in the scene Edmund thus returns the lie to Edgar: – Back do I toss these treasons to thy head;  With the hell-hated lie o’erwhelm thy heart;  Which, for they yet glance by and scarcely bruise,  This sword of mine shall give them instant way,  Where they shall rest for ever. Trumpets, speak! [5.3.147-51] 

Read these last two speeches as fast as an actor, duly counterfeiting the excitement of the moment, must give them, and you will find that they puzzle any hearer who does not know them by heart. The contrast shown by these quotations persists throughout the scenes in question. In Richard II the trial by battle fills 122 lines, and even then only begins; in 44 lines of King Lear, which involve vastly more dramatic expression of character than is found in the older scene, the trial by battle is carried to an end. (289-91) 

55

Frederick S. Boas, diseased will and sentimentalism in Richard II  1896

From Shakespeare and his Predecessors (London, 1896). Frederick Samuel Boas (1862–1957), British historian, editor, and authority on Elizabethan literature, was of Jewish extraction but converted to Anglicanism as a young man. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took no fewer than three firsts (in classics, modern literature, and history). He held various academic posts after leaving Oxford in 1887, and from 1905 to 1922 was Inspector in English Literature and History for the London County Council. His earliest book, from which the following extract is taken, led to a steady stream of volumes: University Drama in the Tudor Age (1914), Shakespeare and the Universities (1922), An Introduction to the Reading of Shakespeare (1927), Marlowe and his Circle (1929), An Introduction to Tudor Drama (1933), and An Introduction to Stuart Drama (1946). His criticism of Shakespeare, as the present example shows, is marked by clarity, common sense, an incisive style, and impressive historical knowledge; his essentially unsympathetic view of Richard, however, which stresses the self-destructive and emotionally shallow aspects of his nature, continues a long tradition of critical hostility to the fallen monarch. 

[From ‘Richard II’]  Richard II cannot be dated with absolute accuracy. It must have been written at least before 1597, when a quarto edition appeared, and we cannot be far wrong in assigning it to about 1594. In spite of its containing a larger number of rhymed lines, it almost certainly comes after Richard III, for it shows a finer ear for rhythm, and is free from luridly melodramatic touches. Like Richard III, however, it shows the influence of Marlowe, for if the hunchback king resembles the earlier dramatist’s Tamburlaine and Barabas, his Edward II . . . supplied hints for the picture of Richard II. Whether the play is to be placed before or after King John is doubtful. It is designed on a slighter scale; it is wanting in the humorous element supplied by Faulconbridge, and it contains several immature episodes. These indications point to its being the earlier of the two dramas,

 Frederick S. Boas, Diseased Will and Sentimentalism in Richard II 397 but, on the other hand, the portrait of Constance seems to be a preparatory sketch for that of Richard II, and the play, as a whole, is linked indissolubly to the other portions of the Lancastrian tetralogy. . . .  [Boas gives a brief account of the sources (Holinshed ‘with some additional hints from Stowe’) and in a long footnote argues for the probability of Shakespeare’s play having been revived on the eve of the Essex rebellion. Boas believes that although the deposition scene was omitted from the early quartos, the missing lines ‘were spoken on the stage’ during Elizabeth’s reign.]  . . . The subject [of Richard II] attracted [Shakespeare] because it offered another opportunity of dealing with the problem of hereditary claim versus personal fitness as a title to sovereignty. We are shown, as in King John, the fatal results of weak government, but here internal discontent is emphasized rather than foreign humiliation; while the failure of the ruler has its root not in a criminal, but a diseased, will. The sentimentalist, in Shakespeare’s view, is always a dangerous factor in society; in Richard II we see him enthroned, and the result is national disaster, till a deliverer arises in Bolingbroke, the iron-willed man of affairs. In the detailed contrast of character between the two men lies the cardinal interest of the play.  This contrast is made prominent in the opening episode. There is no more decisive test of a king’s quality than his method of dealing with the great subjects who stand nearest to the throne. The fierce party-struggles among the nobility which had marked Richard’s entire reign culminate in a violent outbreak between Henry Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. In the royal presence Bolingbroke ‘appeals’ [1.1.9] Mowbray of peculation, treason, and the main share in the death of the Duke of Gloucester, Richard’s uncle, who had been mysteriously murdered. But Richard himself, as appears from subsequent words of John of Gaunt, was believed to have instigated the crime, and Bolingbroke in bringing the charge against Mowbray gives the first proof of his far-sighted diplomacy, for his blow is in fact aimed at the king, and is intended to stir up the popular fury less against Norfolk than the real author of the deed of blood. That Richard is alive to the true issue is proved by his troubled aside ‘How high a pitch his resolution soars’ [1.1.109], and his anxiety to hush up the matter is shown in his endeavour to reconcile the opponents. He bids each throw down the other’s gage, and his command takes the form of a picturesque metaphor, ‘Lions make leopards tame’ [1.1.174]. Those few words are an index to Richard’s whole habit of mind. His effeminate outward beauty, which wins for him the title of ‘sweet lovely rose’ [1 Henry IV, 1.3.175], is matched by a puerile grace of fancy that tinges the facts of life with an unreal, pseudo-poetic glow. Instead of grappling with its stern necessities, he takes an aesthetic delight in the ‘situations’[1] which it provides. His whole attitude is that of an onlooker, a dilettante whose will has never been braced to mould and fashion circumstances; he is, as Dowden has summed it up, ‘an amateur in living, not an artist’ [No. 38 above]. Thus, on an occasion which requires the resolute exercise of authority, he is satisfied with making a grandiloquent comparison, while he suffers his command to be defied, and is forced to fix a day for the ordeal of battle between the rival lords. But in the lists at Coventry he gives more signal proof of impulsive weakness. Before the combatants can close, he flings down his warder, stops the tourney, and banishes Bolingbroke for six years and Mowbray for life. This act, as

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Mowbray’s son asserts at a later period in Henry IV, Part II, was the beginning of all the evils that befell him later: O when the king did throw his warder down,  His own life hung upon the staff he threw,  Then threw he down himself: [2 Henry IV, 4.1.123-5]

For Richard, alarmed at the popular manifestations in Bolingbroke’s favour, sends to perpetual exile the man whom he loves, and who would have proved faithful to him, while he inflicts a lighter and yet exasperating penalty upon the aspiring lord whom he secretly fears. Amid the prayers and blessings of the multitude, and with patriotic sighs of farewell to the ‘sweet soil’ [1.3.306] of England, Bolingbroke departs to bide his time beyond the seas. It is the natural mistake of a weak nature to think that it is enough to banish a dangerous enemy without striking at the real source of his power, which lies in the widespread popular disaffection. A vivid glimpse into Richard’s maladministration is given in his interview with the parasites, Bagot and Green, before he sets out for the Irish war. The realm is let out to farm; blank charters are issued for the levy of ‘benevolences’; the news of John of Gaunt’s approaching death is hailed with delight as making his coffers, private property though they be, an easy prey. . . . [Gaunt chastises Richard from his deathbed.] But Richard, though he quails before the lofty words of rebuke, which, as he complains with a characteristic flourish, chase ‘the royal blood’ [2.1.118] from his cheek, gives no ear to their stern significance. He dismisses them as the vapourings of ‘A lunatic leanwitted fool / Presuming on an ague’s privilege’ [2.1.115-6], and his practical retort, the moment the breath is out of the old hero’s body, is to seize ‘The plate, coin, revenue, and movables / Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed’ [2.1.161-2]. Such a wanton invasion of the rights of inheritance is too much for even the pliant York – last left of Richard’s uncles – who plucks up heart to point out that he is setting a suicidal precedent by his violation of ‘fair sequence and succession’ [2.1.199], upon which his own royal title rests. But again Richard is deaf to good counsel, though with singular lack of judgement he appoints this very York, unstable as water, and chagrined by his nephew’s contempt for his warning words, to be governor of England during the Irish campaign. Thus, with a mere figurehead presiding over the realm, with the Commons alienated by oppressive imposts, and the nobles alarmed at the illegal outrage upon the rights of one of their order, England, during Richard’s absence, lies at the mercy of a bold aspirant to the throne. With characteristic promptitude Bolingbroke seizes his opportunity. . . . [Bolingbroke lands in England; under pressure York declares his neutrality.] But Bolingbroke preferring to keep so impartial a personage under his own eye, carries him in his train to Bristol, where he gives proof that his objects are not merely private by sending to their death Richard’s favourites, Bushy and Green, or, in his own phrase, weeding the commonwealth of its ‘caterpillars’ [2.3.166]. In executing such summary justice Bolingbroke is already exercising the functions of an uncrowned king. . . .  . . . [After unwise delay, Richard returns from Ireland to Wales.] He has not in him a spark of true patriotism, but his return to English soil excites him to a hysterical

 Frederick S. Boas, Diseased Will and Sentimentalism in Richard II 399 outburst of smiles and tears, and of ‘favours,’ as he terms them, to the ground from his ‘royal hands’ [3.2.11]. There is, in his opinion, no need for him to deal vigorously with the foe. . . . [Richard clings to the notion of divine right and the belief that angels will deliver him from danger.] But, while he is buoying himself up with these fancies of celestial succour, prosaic tidings begin to pour in of the loss of earthly auxiliaries. Salisbury enters to tell of the defection of the Welsh, and ere the blood which the news drives from Richard’s cheek can return, Scroop announces the general uprising of the Commons, and the execution of the favourites at Bristol. Richard’s mercurial sensibility now rushes down to the lowest depths of artificial despair. He would fain have all ‘sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of kings’ [3.2.155-6], and he revels in every gloomy detail with which he can trick out the theme. Again the Bishop of Carlisle warns him that wise men do not ‘sit and wail their woes’ [3.2.178], and Aumerle suggests that his father York has a force at the royal service. Then the heaviest blow falls, for Scroop tells that York has joined Bolingbroke. Once more Richard’s spirits, which had momentarily swept upward, sink to the very nadir of depression. He abandons all hope, discharges the forces under him, and sets out for Flint Castle, where he can pine away and submit himself to ‘kingly woe’ [3.2.210]. But this mood is as transient as all others, though its practical consequences are beyond recall. Bolingbroke with his followers appears before the Castle, and when Richard shows himself on the walls, the grace and charm of his bearing force an eloquent simile even from his austere rival’s lips, while York, anxious to show that his sympathies are not all in one camp, cries with enthusiasm: ‘Yet looks he like a king; behold, his eye, / As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth / Controlling majesty’ [3.3.6870]. Richard indeed can always ‘look like’ a king; to borrow a theatrical phrase which fits his theatrical nature, he can ‘dress the part’ of sovereign to perfection, and he delights in its ceremonial show. Thus when Northumberland is sent by Bolingbroke as envoy, Richard flares up in indignant rebuke because he omits the fearful bending of his knee to his lawful king, consecrated of God, Who is mustering ‘armies of pestilence’ [3.3.87] on his behalf. But a few moments afterwards, with kaleidoscopic shift of emotions, this very king by divine right is suggesting his own deposition, and the exchange of his ‘Large kingdom for a little grave, / A little, little grave, an obscure grave’ [3.3.153-4]. And stimulated by the incontinent imagination which revels in every possible detail of abasement, Richard commits the incredible folly of bestowing the ironical title of ‘King Bolingbroke’ [3.3.173] on his rival, who has hitherto claimed only his private rights, and who, when Richard descends to the base court of the castle, meets him with bended knee, and with the dutiful declaration ‘My gracious lord, I come but for mine own’ [3.3.196]. To Richard’s irritable fancy the words are pregnant with meaning, and he replies with undignified repartee, ‘Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all!’ [3.3.197]. And when Bolingbroke puts a courteous gloss upon this retort, Richard expands the idea with infatuated emphasis:  They well deserve to have,  That know the strong’st and surest way to get.  [……………….] Cousin, I am too young to be your father, 

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King Richard II

Though you are old enough to be my heir.  What you will have, I’ll give, and willing too.

[3.3.200-1,204-6] 

Thus he lays down a doctrine of possession which entirely invalidates his own right, and hands over his inheritance, though with ironical intent, to his cool, reserved rival. Even had Bolingbroke’s original aims been simply those he avowed, Richard himself would have helped to thrust him into the kingly seat.  At the opening of Act IV we see Bolingbroke already practically enthroned, and the situation is a designed counterpart to the earliest scene of the play, that the contrast may be enforced between the new rulers and the old. A number of lords accuse Aumerle, as Bolingbroke had formerly accused Norfolk, of having had the chief hand in the death of Gloucester. As Aumerle had been Richard’s most faithful follower, it would have been to Bolingbroke’s interest to let him fall beneath the swords of the accusers, but he is determined that full justice shall be done. Norfolk has been adduced as a witness of Aumerle’s guilt, and Bolingbroke decrees that no further step shall be taken till the banished Duke can be recalled: even when he learns that his ancient adversary is dead, he orders that all differences shall ‘rest under gage’ [4.1.105] till due day of trial can be appointed. Such a spectacle of justice, clemency, and firmness awes the turbulent assembly into obedience. The usurper at this crisis displays the kingly qualities which are so wanting in him who is still in name the king. But the outward patent of power is no longer to be separated from its reality. York, to whom the office of go-between naturally appeals, enters to formally announce that ‘plume-plucked’ Richard surrenders his sceptre to ‘Henry, fourth of that name’ [4.1.108-12], and, with a laconic appeal to Heaven, Bolingbroke mounts the regal seat. But one voice rises in protest. The Bishop of Carlisle, careless of his own safety, boldly denies the right of subjects to sit in judgement on their prince, and foretells that, if this foul traitor Hereford is crowned, intestine war with all its horrors will sweep over the land, till it be called ‘the field of Golgotha and dead men’s skulls’ [4.1.144]. This prophecy of the civil strife, consequent on the Lancastrian accession, is so explicit that it cannot be dismissed as merely a dramatic utterance. It is true that in Shakespeare’s eyes the cardinal title to kingly rank is the possession of kingly qualities. He lays bare, as with a surgeon’s scalpel, the fatal defects, moral or intellectual, which unfit a lineal holder of the sceptre for his high vocation. Neither Henry VI nor Richard II escapes a damning indictment. But the poet with his instinctive reverence for inherited rights, his tenacious grasp of the principle of stability in the social order, could not view without the gravest concern the overthrow of an established dynasty, however deeply at fault, by rebellious subjects. Such a revolutionary course, though prompted in the main by patriotism, would necessarily have an alloy of the baser motives of self-seeking and ambition, and these would entail a righteous Nemesis. Of the divine right of kings in the Stuart or Legitimist sense Shakespeare could never have been the champion, but he was keenly alive to the ‘seamy side’ [Othello, 4.2.146] of rebellion, and through the lips of the brave Bishop of Carlisle, on whom Bolingbroke with generous statesmanship takes no revenge, he sets forth its disastrous consequences.

 Frederick S. Boas, Diseased Will and Sentimentalism in Richard II 401 While the misdeeds of the new master of England arouse this voice of eloquent protest, Richard is left to a more merciless condemnation out of his own mouth. Summoned before Bolingbroke, that in the very presence of the usurper he may formally resign the crown, he runs through the whole range of feelings for which the situation can be made to give the cue. He revels in epigrams, and imagery. To his adversary’s cold, sharp queries, whether he is willing to resign, he gives in a breath contradictory answers, ‘Ay, no; no, Ay’ [4.1.201], words which, as Kreyssig has suggested, form the motto of his character.[2] At one moment he renounces the emblems and prerogatives of kingship with legal amplitude of detail, setting the seal thereto by the cry ‘God save King Harry’ [4.1.220]; at another he calls himself a traitor for making such a surrender, and bewails that he has now ‘no name, no title’ [4.1.255], not even that given him at the font. This final touch of exaggeration expresses Richard’s feeling that his very personality is oozing away under the pressure to which it is subjected; a feeling which finds utterance in the fantastic outburst: ‘O that I were a mockery king of snow, / Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke / To melt myself away in water-drops!’ [4.1.260-2].  Northumberland harshly seeks to cut short Richard’s riot of fancy by urging him to read a list of accusations framed against him, but Bolingbroke saves him from this indignity, and grants with imperturbable calm his request for a mirror wherein to view his face. The glass reflects the old outward beauty, for it takes a heartfelt grief to write wrinkles on the brow, while Richard’s is but a phantom sorrow; and cheated of the aesthetic satisfaction of poring over the outward marks of woe, the petulant man dashes the mirror to the ground, crying, as it shivers: ‘Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport, / How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face’ [4.1.290-1]. And Bolingbroke, who has hitherto watched Richard’s parade of emotion with speechless disdain, at last utters a retort of pregnant irony: ‘The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed / The shadow of your face’ [4.1.292-3]. Even at this tragic crisis Richard’s passion is without substance; it is a mere mirrored reflex of true grief, suited to some brittle image-world, not to the sphere of stern and solid fact.  While Richard’s bearing earns the contempt of the practical statesman, it is not without a certain wistful charm that appeals especially to those of his nearer private circle. At intervals during the progress of the drama the Queen has been shown in the background, and her tender feeling for her ‘sweet’ lord [2.2.9] proves his attractive power. As she sees him pass on the way to confinement, by Bolingbroke’s order, she weeps to see her ‘fair rose wither’ [5.1.8], though mingled with her sorrow is an indignant feeling that ‘pupil-like’ [5.1.31] he takes his correction mildly, and kisses the rod. But it is impossible to shame Richard out of his luxury of grief into manly self-reproach, and it is with conceits and flourishes on his lips that he takes his last farewell of his faithful bride. Faithful too is the poor groom who visits him in prison, though his loyalty towards his master is strangely mingled with affection for roan Barbary, his master’s horse. But even captivity cannot quench the pyrotechnic blaze of Richard’s fancy. He peoples his prison with thoughts, each resembling some dweller in the world; a strain of music played out of time jars on his sensitive ear and forces him to reflect how he failed to note ‘broken time’ [5.5.46, 48] in the concord of the State, and then, with an abrupt turn of the metaphor, he sees in himself time’s ‘numbering clock’ [5.5.50], and revels in an ingenious elaboration of this idea. It may truly be said

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that, to Richard, ‘stone walls do not a prison make’;[3] the feverish working of his fancy shuts out all sense of actual hardhip. But his dream is rudely shattered. Bolingbroke, though he has no personal malice against him, feels his seat unsteady while Richard lives. He lets fall hints which find ready interpreters, and the captive king, fighting with one strange flash of latent valour, dies by a murderer’s hand. The deed arouses no unseemly exultation in Bolingbroke’s breast; he protests, and without hypocrisy: ‘My soul is full of woe / That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow’ [5.6.45-6]. He is already beginning to feel the first strokes of Nemesis. An abortive conspiracy is formed at Oxford for his overthrow, and he has to sentence his brother-in-law to death for taking part in it.[4] Nor is this his only domestic trouble. He is cut to the heart by the riotous conduct of his ‘unthrifty son’ [5.3.1], the haunter of taverns and stews, though he sees in him ‘some sparks of better hope’ [5.3.21]. Bolingbroke has won the wishedfor crown, but it has brought him no truce from care, and with a grave heart he turns to the thought of a voyage to the Holy Land, to appease the wrath that is yet to come. (249-59)

56

Georg Brandes, Edward II and Richard II contrasted 1898

From William Shakespeare: A Critical Study [trans. William Archer and Diana White] (2 vols., London, 1898). Volume I; partially reprinted in King Richard II: With an Introduction by George Brandes . . . (London, 1904), pp. v–xi. Georg Morris Cohen Brandes (1842–1927), Danish literary critic and historian of enormous productivity, was born in Copenhagen, embraced atheism in youth, renouncing the Judaism of his ancestors, and after receiving his doctorate in 1870, taught at the University of Copenhagen, where he became a professor in 1902. His travels in England, Italy, and France in 1870–71 fuelled his numerous critiques of the intellectual provincialism of his native Denmark, where his spirit of rebellion, partly inspired by such Romantic writers as Shelley, Byron, Victor Hugo, and Heine, created bitter controversy. In 1888, falling under the spell of Friedrich Nietzsche, he veered away from the naturalistic aesthetics and democratic liberalism of his earlier writings and took up a sort of aristocratic hero-worship that praised radical individualism and embodied the cult of personality. This latter tendency can be detected in his massive two-volume study of Shakespeare, published in Danish in 189596 but not translated into English until 1898. Although Brandes’s penchant for explaining Shakespeare’s art by reference to his imagined personality and life experience, and his fondness for identifying the words of dramatic characters with the dramatist’s own voice are untrustworthy and distortive, his often penetrating aesthetic judgements were influential when they appeared and remain valuable still.

[From Chapter XVII: ‘Shakespeare Turns to Historic Drama . . . ’]  . . . There were older plays on the subject of Richard II, but Shakespeare does not seem to have made any use of them. The model he had in his mind’s eye was Marlowe’s finest tragedy, his Edward II. Shakespeare’s play is, however, much more than a clever imitation of Marlowe’s; it is not only better composed, with a more concentrated action, but has also a great advantage in the full-blooded vitality of its style. Marlowe’s style is here

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monotonously dry and sombre. Swinburne, moreover, has done Shakespeare an injustice in preferring Marlowe’s character-drawing to that of Richard II [see No. 39 above]. The first half of Marlowe’s drama is entirely taken up with the King’s morbid and unnatural passion for his favourite Gaveston; Edward’s every speech either expresses his grief at Gaveston’s banishment and his longing for his return, or consists of glowing outbursts of joy on seeing him again. This passion makes Edward dislike his Queen and loathe the Barons, who, in their aristocratic pride, contemn the low-born favourite. He will risk everything rather than part from one who is so dear to himself and so obnoxious to his surroundings. The half-erotic fervour of his partiality renders the King’s character distasteful, and deprives him of the sympathy which the poet demands for him at the end of the play.  For in the fourth and fifth acts, weak and unstable though he be, Edward has all Marlowe’s sympathies. There is, indeed, something moving in his loneliness, his grief, and his brooding self-reproach. ‘The griefs,’ he says,  of private men are soon allay’d; But not of kings. The forest deer, being struck,  Runs to an herb that closeth up the wounds: But when the imperial lion’s flesh is gor’d,  He rends and tears it with his wrathful paw. [5.1.8-12] 

The simile is not true to nature, like Shakespeare’s, but it forcibly expresses the meaning of Marlowe’s personage. Now and then he reminds us of Henry VI. The Queen’s relation to Mortimer recalls that of Margaret to Suffolk [i.e. in Shakespeare’s 2 Henry VI]. The abdication scene, in which the King first vehemently refuses to lay down the crown, and is then forced to consent, gave Shakespeare the model for Richard the Second’s abdication. In the murder-scene, on the other hand, Marlowe displays a reckless naturalism in the description and representation of the torture inflicted on the King, an unabashed effect-hunting in the contrast between the King’s magnanimity, dread, and gratitude on the one side, and the murderers’ hypocritical cruelty on the other, which Shakespeare, with his gentler nature and his almost modern tact, has rejected. It is true that we find in Shakespeare several cases in which the severed head of a person whom we have seen alive a moment before is brought upon the stage. But he would never place before the eyes of the public such a murder-scene as this, in which the King is thrown down upon a feather-bed, a table is overturned upon him, and the murderers trample upon it until he is crushed. Marlowe’s more callous nature betrays itself in such details, while something of his own wild and passionate temperament has passed into the minor characters of the play – the violent Barons, with the younger Mortimer at their head – who are drawn with a firm hand. The time had scarcely passed when a murder was reckoned an absolute necessity in a drama. In 1581, [Robert] Wilson, one of Lord Leicester’s men, received an order for a play which should not only be original and entertaining, but should also include ‘all sorts of murders, immorality, and robberies.’[1] Richard II is one of those plays of Shakespeare’s which have never taken firm hold of the stage. Its exclusively political action and its lack of female characters are mainly to blame for this. But it is exceedingly interesting as his first attempt at independent

 Georg Brandes, Edward II and Richard II Contrasted 405 treatment of a historical theme,[2] and it rises far above the play which served as its model.  The action follows pretty faithfully the course of history as the poet found it in Holinshed’s Chronicle. The character of the Queen, however, is quite unhistorical, being evidently invented by Shakespeare for the sake of having a woman in his play. He wanted to gain sympathy for Richard through his wife’s devotion to him, and saw an opportunity for pathos in her parting from him when he is thrown into prison. In 1398, when the play opens, Isabella of France was not yet ten years old, though she had nominally been married to Richard in 1396. Finally, the King’s end, fighting bravely, sword in hand, is not historical: he was starved to death in prison, in order that his body might be exhibited without any wound. Shakespeare has vouchsafed no indication to facilitate the spectators’ understanding of the characters in this play. Their action often takes us by surprise. But Swinburne has done Shakespeare a great wrong in making this a reason for praising Marlowe at his expense, and exalting the subordinate characters in Edward II as consistent pieces of character-drawing, while he represents as inconsistent and obscure such a personage as Shakespeare’s York. We may admit that in the opening scene Norfolk’s figure is not quite clear, but here all obscurity ends. York is self-contradictory, unprincipled, vacillating, composite [i.e. compounded of contraries, complex], and incoherent, but in no sense obscure. He in the first place upbraids the King with his faults, then accepts at his hands an office of the highest confidence, then betrays the King’s trust, while he at the same time overwhelms the rebel Bolingbroke with reproaches, then admires the King’s greatness in his fall, then hastens his dethronement, and finally, in virtuous indignation over Aumerle’s plots against the new King, rushes to him to assure him of his fidelity and to clamour for the blood of his own son. There lies at the root of this conception a profound political bitterness and an early-acquired experience. Shakespeare must have studied attentively that portion of English history which lay nearest to him, the shufflings and vacillations that went on under Mary and Elizabeth, in order to have received so deep an impression of the pitifulness of political instability.  The character of old John of Gaunt, loyal to his King, but still more to his country, gives Shakespeare his first opportunity for expressing his exultation over England’s greatness and his pride in being an Englishman. He places in the mouth of the dying Gaunt a superbly lyrical outburst of patriotism, deploring Richard’s reckless and tyrannical policy. All comparison with Marlowe is here at an end. Shakespeare’s own voice makes itself clearly heard in the rhetoric of this speech, which, with its self-controlled vehemence, its equipoise in unrest, soars high above Marlowe’s wild magniloquence. In the thunderous tones of old Gaunt’s invective against the King who has mortgaged his English realm, we can hear all the patriotic enthusiasm of young England in the days of Elizabeth: – ‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptr’d isle . . . ’ [Quotes 2.1.40-52, 57-68]. Here we have indeed the roar of the young lion, the vibration of Shakespeare’s own voice. But it is upon the leading character of the play that the poet has centred all his strength; and he has succeeded in giving a vivid and many-sided picture of the Black Prince’s degenerate but interesting son. As the protagonist of a tragedy, however, Richard has exactly the same defects as Marlowe’s Edward. In the first half of the

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play he so repels the spectator that nothing he can do in the second half suffices to obliterate the unfavourable impression. Not only has he, before the opening of the piece, committed such thoughtless and politically indefensible acts as have proved him unworthy of the great position he holds, but he behaves with such insolence to the dying Gaunt, and, after his uncle’s death, displays such a low and despicable rapacity, that he can no longer appeal, as he does, to his personal right. It is true that the right of which he holds himself an embodiment is very different from the common earthly rights which he has overridden. He is religious, dogmatically convinced of his inviolability as a king by the grace of God. But since this conviction, in his days of prosperity, has brought with it no sense of correlative duties to the crown he wears, it cannot touch the reader’s sympathies as it ought to for the sake of the general effect. We see the hand of the beginner in the way in which the poet here leaves characters and events to speak for themselves without any attempt to range them in a general scheme of perspective. He conceals himself too entirely behind his work. As there is no gleam of humour in the play, so, too, there is no guiding and harmonising sense of style. It is from the moment that the tide begins to turn against Richard that he becomes interesting as a psychological study. After the manner of weak characters, he is alternately downcast and overweening. Very characteristically, he at one place answers Bolingbroke’s question whether he is content to resign the crown: ‘Ay, no; – no, ay’ [4.1.201]. In these syllables we see the whole man. But his temperament was highly poetical, and misfortune reveals in him a vein of reverie. He is sometimes profound to the point of paradox, sometimes fantastically overwrought to the verge of superstitious insanity (see, for instance, Act iii.3). His brooding melancholy sometimes reminds us of Hamlet’s – ‘Of comfort no man speak: / Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs . . .’ [Quotes 3.2.144-8, 155-65]. In these moods of depression, in which Richard gives his wit and intellect free play, he knows very well that a king is only a human being like any one else: –  For you have but mistook me all this while:  I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,  Need friends. Subjected thus,  How can you say to me, I am a king? [3.2.174-7] 

But at other times, when his sense of majesty and his monarchical fanaticism master him, he speaks in a quite different tone: – ‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea / Can wash the balm from an anointed king . . . ’ [Quotes 3.2.54-61]. Thus, too, at their first meeting (iii.3) he addresses the victorious Henry of Hereford, to whom he immediately after ‘debases himself ’ [3.3.127]: –  My master, God omnipotent, Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf  Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike  Your children yet unborn, and unbegot, 

 Georg Brandes, Edward II and Richard II Contrasted 407 That lift your vassal hands against my head,  And threat the glory of my precious crown. [3.3.85-90] 

Many centuries after Richard, King Frederick William IV of Prussia [1795-1861] displayed just the same mingling of intellectuality, superstition, despondency, monarchical arrogance, and fondness for declamation.  In the fourth and fifth acts, the character of Richard and the poet’s art rise to their highest point. The scene in which the groom, who alone has remained faithful to the fallen King, visits him in his dungeon, is one of penetrating beauty. What can be more touching than his description of how the ‘roan Barbary,’ which had been Richard’s favourite horse, carried Henry of Lancaster on his entry into London, ‘so proudly as if he had disdained the ground’ [5.5.78-83]. The Arab steed here symbolises with fine simplicity the attitude of all those who had sunned themselves in the prosperity of the now fallen King. The scene of the abdication (iv.1) is admirable by reason of the delicacy of feeling and imagination which Richard displays. His speech when he and Henry have each one hand upon the crown is one of the most beautiful Shakespeare has ever written: – ‘Now is this golden crown like a deep well, / That owes two buckets filling one another . . . ’ [Quotes 4.1.184-9]. This scene is, however, a downright imitation of the abdicationscene in Marlowe. When Northumberland in Shakespeare addresses the dethroned King with the word ‘lord,’ the King answers, ‘No lord of thine’ [4.1.253-4]. In Marlowe the speech is almost identical: ‘Call me not lord!’ [5.1.112-3]. The Shakespearian scene, it should be mentioned, has its history. The censorship under Elizabeth would not suffer it to be printed, and it first appears in the Fourth Quarto, of 1608. . . .[3] The reason of this veto was that Elizabeth, strange as it may appear, was often compared with Richard II. The action of the censorship renders it probable that it was Shakespeare’s Richard II (and not one of the earlier plays on the same theme) which, as appears in the trial of Essex, was acted by the Lord Chamberlain’s Company before the conspirators, at the leaders’ command, on the evening before the outbreak of the rebellion (February 7, 1601). There is nothing inconsistent with this theory in the fact that the players then called it an old play, which was already ‘out of use;’[4] for the interval between 1593-94 and 1601 was sufficient, according to the ideas of that time, to render a play antiquated. Nor does it conflict with this view that in the last scenes of the play the King is sympathetically treated. On the very points on which he was comparable with Elizabeth there could be no doubt that he was in the wrong; while Henry of Hereford figures in the end as the bearer of England’s future, and, for the not oversensitive nerves of the period, that was sufficient. He, who was soon to play a leading part in two other Shakespearian dramas, is here endowed with all the qualities of the successful usurper and ruler: cunning and insight, power of dissimulation, ingratiating manners, and promptitude in action.  In a single speech (v.3) the new-made Henry IV sketches the character of his ‘unthrifty son’ [5.3.1], Shakespeare’s hero: he passes his time in the taverns of London with riotous boon-companions, who now and then even rob travellers on the highway; but, being no less daring than dissolute, he gives certain ‘sparks of hope’ [5.3.21] for a nobler future. (142-9)

57

C.E. Montague, on F.R. Benson’s portrayal of Richard II 1899

From ‘Mr. F.R. Benson in Richard II’, Manchester Guardian (4 December 1899); partially reprinted in The Manchester Stage 1880-1900: Criticisms Reprinted from ‘The Manchester Guardian’ (Westminster, [1900]), pp. 76–87; reprinted in full in A.C. Ward (ed.), Specimens of English Dramatic Criticism, XVII-XX Centuries. World’s Classics (London, 1945), pp. 222–30. Charles Edward Montague (1867–1928), man of letters and journalist, was the son of an Irish priest who had renounced his orders and settled in England. After taking first-class honours at Balliol College, Oxford, in both classics and modern literature (1887-89), he became a journalist for the Manchester Guardian, a post which (except for a break during World War I) he held until 1925, having married the editor’s daughter in 1898. He eventually rose to become the newspaper’s second in command, and became a respected reviewer of the theatre, much of his dramatic criticism from the Guardian being reprinted in such collections as The Manchester Stage (1900) – where he shared honours with William Thomas Arnold, Allan Monkhouse, and Oliver Elton – and his own Dramatic Values (1910). Frank Benson, later Sir Frank (1858–1939), who with his company at Stratford-upon-Avon performed almost all the plays of Shakespeare, was one of the most prominent actor-managers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Richard II and Petruchio, both of which roles Montague saw him perform at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, on the same day, were his most successful parts. Benson first revived Richard II in 1896 at Stratford and continued to play it there, in London, and in other places for more than a decade afterwards. Montague’s response to Benson’s characterization of the fallen monarch allowed him to elaborate, philosophically as well as in direct application, Pater’s idea that the king was ‘an exquisite poet’ (see No. 48 above) and to argue against critics such as Dowden (No. 38) and Boas (No. 55) for a conception of Richard as ‘a consummate artist’ (p. 224). The extract given below is taken from A. C. Ward’s reprint of the original article.

 C.E. Montague, on F.R. Benson’s Portrayal of Richard II 409 [From ‘Mr. F.R. Benson in Richard II’; the review opens with a brief discussion of Benson as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, played the same Saturday (in the evening) as the matinee performance of Richard II.] . . . The chief interest of the day, however, attached to Mr. Benson’s Richard II, a piece of acting which is much less known here, and to whose chief interest we do not think that critical justice has ever been done. An actor faulty in some other ways, but always picturesque, romantic, and inventive, with a fine sensibility to beauty in words and situations and a voice that gives this sensibility its due, Mr. Benson brings out admirably that half of the character which criticism seems almost always to have taken pains to obscure – the capable and faithful artist in the same skin as the incapable and unfaithful King. With a quite choice and pointed infelicity, Professor Dowden has called Shakespeare’s Richard II ‘an amateur in living, not an artist’ [No. 38 above]; Mr. Boas, generally one of the most suggestive of recent writers on Shakespeare, has called his grace of fancy ‘puerile’ and its products ‘pseudo-poetic’ [No. 55 above]. The general judgment on the play reads as if the critics felt they would be ‘only encouraging’ kings like the Richard of this play if they did not assure him throughout the ages that his poetry was sad stuff at the best. ‘It’s no excuse’, one seems to hear them say, and ‘Serve you right, you and your poetry.’ It is our critical way to fall thus upon the wicked or weak in books and leave him half-dead, after taking from him even the good side that he hath. Still it is well to see what Shakespeare meant us to, and we wonder whether any one who hears Mr. Benson in this part with an open mind can doubt that Shakespeare meant to draw in Richard not only a rake and muff on a throne and falling off it but, in the same person, an exquisite poet:[1] to show with one hand how kingdoms are lost and with the other how the creative imagination goes about its work; to fill the same man with the attributes of a feckless wastrel in high place and with the quite distinct but not incompatible attributes of a typical, a consummate artist. ‘But’, it will be asked by persons justly tired of sloppy talk about art, ‘What is an artist; what, exactly, is it in a man that makes an artist of him?’ Well, first a proneness in his mind to revel and bask in its own sense of fact; not in the use of fact – that is for men of affairs, the Bolingbrokes; nor in the explanation of fact – that is for the men of science; but simply in his own quick and glowing apprehension of what is about him, of all that is done on the earth or goes on in the sky, of dying and being born, of the sun, clouds, and storms, of great deeds and failures, the changes of the seasons, and the strange events of men’s lives. To mix with the day’s diet of gifts and sounds the man of this type seems to bring a wine of his own that lights a fire in his blood while he takes the meal. What the finest minds of other types eschew he does, and takes pains to do. To shun the dry light, to drench all he sees with himself, his own temperament, the humours of his own moods – this is not his dread but his wish, as well as his bent. ‘The eye sees what the eye brings the means of seeing.’[2] ‘A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.’[3] ‘You shall see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower.’[4] This heightened and delighted personal sense of fact, a knack of seeing visions at the instance of seen things, is the basis of art. Only the basis, though. For that art may come a man must add to it a veritable passion for arresting and defining in words or lines and colours or notes of music,

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not each or any thing that he sees, nor anybody else’s sense of that thing, nor yet the greatest common measure of many trained or untrained minds’ senses of it, but his own unique sense of it, the precise quality and degree of emotion that the spectacle of it breeds in him and nobody else, the net result of its contact with whatever in his own temperament he has not in common with other men. That is the truth of art, to be true less to fact without you than to yourself as stirred by facts. And truth it must be with a vengeance. To find a glove-fit of words for your sense of the ‘the glory and the freshness of a dream’,[5] to model the very form and pressure of an inward vision to the millionth of a hair’s breadth – the vocabulary of mensuration ludicrously fails to describe those infinitesimal niceties of adjustment between the inward feeling and the means of its presentment. And indeed it is only half true to speak as if feeling and its expression were separable at all. In a sense the former implies the latter. The simplest feeling is itself changed by issuing in a cry. Attaining a kind of completeness, given, as it were, its rights, it is not the same feeling after the cry that it was before. It has become not merely feeling interpreted by something outside it and separable from it, but fuller feeling, a feeling with more in it, feeling pushed one stage further in definiteness and intensity, an arch of feeling crowned at last. So, too, all artistic expression, if one thinks the matter out, is seen to be not merely a transcription of the artist’s sense of fact but a perfecting of that sense itself; and the experience which never attains expression, the experience which is loosely said to be unexpressed, is really an unfinished, imperfect experience and one which, in the mind of an artist, passionately craves for its own completion through adequate expression. ‘There are no beautiful thoughts’, a fastidious artist has said, ‘without beautiful forms.’[6] The perfect expression is the complete emotion. So the artist is incessantly preoccupied in leading his sense of fact up to the point at which it achieves not merely expression but its own completion in the one word, phrase, line, stanza that can make it, simply as a feeling of his own, all that it has in it to be. He may be said to write or paint because there is a point beyond which the joy of tasting the world about him cannot go unless he does so; and his life passes in a series of moments at which thought and expression, the sense of fact and the consummate presentation of that sense, rush together like Blake’s ‘soul and body united’,[7] to be indistinguishably fused together in a whole in which, alone, each can attain its own perfection. We have drawn out this tedious description of the typical artist because the further it goes the more close a description does it become of the Richard whom Mr. Benson shows us in the last three acts. In him every other feeling is mastered, except at a few passing moments, by a passion of interest in the exercise of his gift of exquisite responsiveness to the appeal made to his artistic sensibility by whatever life throws for the moment in his way. [Charles] Lamb said it was worth while to have been cheated of the legacy so as not to miss ‘the idea of ’ the rogue who did it.[8] That, on a little scale, is the kind of aesthetic disinterestedness which in Shakespeare’s Richard, rightly presented by Mr. Benson, passes all bounds. The ‘idea of ’ a king’s fall, the ‘idea of ’ a wife and husband torn apart, the ‘idea of ’ a very crucifixion of indignities – as each new idea comes he revels in his own warmed and lighted apprehension of it as freely as in his apprehension of the majesty and mystery of the idea of a kingship by divine right. He runs out to meet the thought of a lower fall or a new shame as a man might

 C.E. Montague, on F.R. Benson’s Portrayal of Richard II 411 go to his door to see a sunset or a storm. It has been called the aim of artistic culture to witness things with appropriate emotions. That is this Richard’s aim. Good news or bad news, the first thing with him is to put himself in the right vein for getting the fullest and most poignant sense of its contents. Is ruin the word – his mind runs to steep itself in relevant pathos with which in turn to saturate the object put before it; he will ‘talk of graves and epitaphs’, ‘talk of wills’, ‘tell sad stores of the death of kings’ [3.2.145, 148, 156]. Once in the vein, he rejoices like a good artist who has caught the spirit of his subject. The very sense of the loss of hope becomes ‘that sweet way I was in to despair’ [3.2.305]. To his wife at their last meeting he bequeaths, as one imaginative writer might bequeath to another some treasure of possibilities of tragic effect, ‘the lamentable tale of me’ [5.1.44]. And to this intoxicating sense of the beauty or poignancy of what is next him he joins the true passion of concern for its perfect expression. At the height of that preoccupation enmities, fears, mortifications, the very presence of onlookers are as if they were not. At the climax of the agony of the abdication scene Shakespeare, with a magnificent boldness of truth, makes the artist’s mind, in travail with the lovely poetical figure of the mirror, snatch at the possibility of help at the birth of the beautiful thing, even from the bitterest enemy, – ‘say that again; / The shadows of my sorrow; ha, let’s see’ [4.1.293-4]. And nothing in Mr. Benson’s performance was finer than the King’s air, during the mirror soliloquy, as of a man going about his mind’s engrossing business in a solitude of its own making. He gave their full value, again, to all those passages, so enigmatic, if not ludicrous, to strictly prosaic minds, in which Richard’s craving for finished expression issues in a joining of words with figurative action to point and eke them out; as where he gives away the crown in the simile of the well, inviting his enemy, with the same artistic neutrality as in the passage of the mirror, to collaborate manually in an effort to give perfect expression to the situation. With Aumerle Richard is full of these little symbolic inventions, turning them over lovingly as a writer fondles a phrase that tells. ‘Would not this ill do well’ [3.3.170], he says of one of them, like a poet showing a threnody to a friend. There was just one point – perhaps it was a mere slip – at which Mr. Benson seemed to us to fail. In the beginning of the scene at Pomfret what one may call the artistic heroism of this man, so craven in everything but art, reaches its climax. Ruined, weary, with death waiting in the next room, he is shown still toiling at the attainment of a perfect, because perfectly expressed, apprehension of such sad dregs as are left him of life, still following passionately on the old quest of the ideal word, the unique image, the one perfect way of saying the one thing: ‘I cannot do it; yet I’ll hammer it out’ [5.5.5]. Everybody knows that cry of the artist wrestling with the angel in the dark for the word it will not give, of [Honoré de] Balzac ‘plying the pick for dear life, like an entombed miner’,[9] of our own [Robert Louis] Stevenson, of [Gustave] Flaubert ‘sick, irritated, the prey a thousand times a day of cruel pain’ but ‘continuing my labour like a true working man, who, with sleeves turned up, in the sweat of his brow, beats away at his anvil, whether it rain or blow, hail or thunder’.[10] That ‘yet I’ll hammer it out’ is the gem of the whole passage, yet on Saturday Mr. Benson, by some strange mischance, left the words clean out. He made amends with a beautiful little piece of insight at the close, where, after the lines, ‘Mount, mount, my soul! Thy seat is up on high, / Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die’ [5.5.111-2], uttered much

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as any other man might utter them under the first shock of the imminence of death, he half rises from the ground with a brightened face and repeats the two last words with a sudden return of animation and interest, the eager spirit leaping up, with a last flicker before it goes quite out, to seize on this new ‘idea of the death of ’ the body. Greater love of art could no man have than this, and it was a brilliant thought of Mr. Benson’s to end on such a note. But indeed the whole performance, but for the slip we have mentioned, was brilliant in its equal grasp of the two sides of the character, the one which everybody sees well enough and the one which nearly everybody seems to shun seeing, and in the value which it rendered to the almost continuous flow of genuine and magnificent poetry from Richard, to the descant on mortality in kings, for instance, and the exquisite greeting to English soil and the gorgeous rhetoric of the speeches on divine right in kings. Of Mr. Benson’s achievements as an actor his Richard II strikes us as decidedly the most memorable. (223-30)

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Sidney Lee, Benson’s Richard II and the acting of minor roles 1900 

From ‘Mr. Benson and Shakespearian Drama’, in The Cornhill Magazine, N.S. VIII (May 1900), 579–85; extensively revised in Shakespeare and the Modern Stage (London, 1906), pp. 111–21.  Sir Sidney Lee (1859–1926), Shakespearian scholar and editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, was educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford. He made a reputation as a student of Shakespeare while still an undergraduate by publishing in the Gentleman’s Magazine articles on the topical significance of The Merchant of Venice and of Love’s Labour’s Lost. In 1882 Lee was appointed sub-editor of the DNB under Leslie Stephen, and, when Stephen resigned because of illness in 1891, became sole editor until 1901. Two of his articles originally contributed to the Dictionary he expanded into volumelength biographies – a Life of William Shakespeare (1898) and Queen Victoria (1902). Lee’s eminence as a textual and historical scholar of Shakespeare was world-wide, his life of the dramatist reaching a thirteenth edition in his own lifetime. He published a facsimile of the First Folio (1902) and brought out an edition of Shakespeare using the text of William Aldis Wright, published first in America as the Renaissance Shakespeare (1907) and later in England as the Caxton Shakespeare (1910). Lee made himself an authority on the continental influences on Elizabethan poetry (especially French and Italian). In Shakespeare’s England (1916) he also edited most of a two-volume collection of essays on the habits and social life of the period. Lee’s essay in defence of Frank Benson was a brave attempt to persuade the theatre-going public of his day of the virtue – indeed the necessity – of producing Shakespearian plays in a manner that approached the historical circumstances of their original presentation. Long runs dominated by ‘star’ performers had been the rule until Benson, in the face of considerable resistance, re-introduced the repertory system – the acting of different plays on successive nights or at least with shorter runs using well-trained actors competent to play minor as well as leading parts on relatively simple and inexpensive sets. The text excerpted below is that of the Cornhill Magazine; I give also, however, the pagination of the revised version in Shakespeare and the Modern Stage.

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. . . Mr. Benson’s company is, I believe, the only one at present in existence which confines almost all its efforts to the acting of Shakespeare. In the course of its eighteen years’ existence its members have interpreted in the theatre no less than two-andtwenty of Shakespeare’s plays. The natural result is that Mr. Benson and his colleagues have learned in practice the varied calls that Shakespearian drama makes upon actors’ capacities. Shakespearian actors should drink deep of the Pierian spring.[1] They should be graduates in Shakespeare’s university, and, unlike graduates of other universities, they should master not merely formal knowledge but a flexible power of using it. The members of Mr. Benson’s company have made excellent use of their opportunities. An actor, like Mr. Frank Rodney,[2] who can on one night competently portray Bolingbroke in Richard II and on the following night with equal effect the clown Feste in Twelfth Night, has clearly realised something of the virtue of Shakespearian versatility. Mr. Weir,[3] whose power of presenting Shakespeare’s humourists shows, besides native gifts, the advantages that come of experienced study of the dramatist, not only interprets, in the genuine spirit, great rôles like Falstaff and Touchstone, but gives the truest possible significance to the comparatively unimportant rôles of the First Gardener in Richard II and Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew. Nothing could be more grateful to a student of Shakespeare than the manner in which the small part of John of Gaunt was played by Mr. Warburton[4] in Mr. Benson’s production of Richard II. The part includes the glorious panegyric of England which comes from the lips of the dying man, and must challenge the best efforts of every actor of ambition and self-respect. But in the mouth of an actor who lacks knowledge of the true temper of Shakespearian drama, this speech is pretty certain to be mistaken for a detached declamation of patriotism – an error which is wholly disastrous to its dramatic significance. As Mr. Warburton delivered it, one listened to the despairing cry of a feeble old man roused for a moment from the lethargy of sickness by despair at the thought that the great country he loved was in peril of decay through the selfish and frivolous temper of its ruler. Instead of a Chauvinist manifesto defiantly declaimed under the limelight, there was offered us the quiet pathos of a dying patriot’s lament over his beloved country’s misfortunes – an oracular warning from a death-stricken tongue, foreshadowing with rare solemnity and dramatic irony the violent doom of the reckless worker of the mischief. Any other conception of the passage, any conscious endeavour to win a round of applause by elocutionary display, would disable the actor from doing justice to the great and sadly stirring utterance. The right note could only be sounded by one who was acclimatised to Shakespearian drama, and had recognised the wealth of significance to be discovered and to be disclosed (with due artistic restraint) in Shakespeare’s minor characters. . . . (Cornhill Magazine, 581-2; Shakespeare and the Modern Stage, 114-6) 

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W.B. Yeats, Richard II and Henry V as emblems of refinement and vulgarity 1901

From ‘At Stratford-on-Avon’, in The Speaker, The Liberal Review, IV (11 May, 18 May 1901), 158–9, 185–7; partially reprinted in Ideas of Good and Evil (London, 1903), pp. 142–67; Part I only reprinted in Uncollected Prose By W. B. Yeats, ed. John P. Frayne and Colton Johnson (2 vols., London, 1970-75), II, 247–52.  William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), Irish poet and dramatist, was born of Protestant background in Dublin, the son of a pre-Raphaelite painter, but was educated in England as well as in his native country. Although he studied his father’s art in youth, he gave up painting for literature, becoming eventually Ireland’s greatest lyric poet. Many of his finest poems, appearing in volumes such as The Tower (1927) and Last Poems (1940), were written late in his career. Identifying himself with the values of Irish nationalism, Yeats became a prominent figure in the Irish National Theatre for which he wrote numerous plays. His aesthetic tastes while he was still a young man were distinctly fin de siècle, bordering even on the precious. Yeats’s critical comments on Richard II and Henry V, occasioned by a 1901 visit to Stratford-upon-Avon where F.R. Benson’s Shakespearian company were performing the chronicle plays in sequence at the Memorial Theatre, reveal the anti-utilitarian, anti-moralistic, and Pateresque views of the art-for-art’s-sake school, and may be contrasted with the unsympathetic assessments of Richard II’s unmanly weakness and sentimental effeminacy that tended to dominate academic criticism of the play by scholars such as G.G. Gervinus (No. 34), Edward Dowden (No. 38), and F.S. Boas (No. 55). They also evince the poet’s life-long belief in the importance of national myths to any really vital culture. Except for the omitted third section of Part I, which focuses on specific actors, Yeats reprinted ‘At Stratford-on-Avon’ in Ideas of Good and Evil, a compilation of pieces that had originally appeared in periodicals; Frayne and Johnson reprint Part I in its entirety, but omit Part II. The excerpts given below are taken from The Speaker, but, because of their greater accessibility, I give also pagination of the reprints (for Part I, Frayne and Johnson (eds.), Uncollected Prose; for Part II, Ideas of Good and Evil). 

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[1] [From ‘At Stratford on Avon’, Part I (11 May 1901)]

I . . . All day [at Stratford] . . . one does not hear or see an incongruous or noisy thing, but spends the hours reading the plays, and the wise and foolish things men have said of them, in the library of the theatre, with its oak-panelled walls and leaded windows of tinted-glass; or one rows by reedy banks and by old farm-houses, and by old churches among great trees. It is certainly one’s fault if one opens a newspaper, for Mr. Benson[1] gives one a new play every night, and one need talk of nothing but the play in the innparlour, under the oak beams blackened by time and showing the mark of the adze that shaped them. I have seen this week King John, Richard II, the second part of Henry IV, Henry V, the second part of Henry VI, and Richard III played in their right order, with all the links that bind play to play unbroken; and partly because of a spirit in the place, and partly because of the way play supports play, the theatre has moved me as it has never done before. That strange procession of kings and queens, of warring nobles, of insurgent crowds, of courtiers, and of people of the gutter, has been to me almost too visible, too audible, too full of an unearthly energy. I have felt as I have sometimes felt on grey days on the Galway shore, when a faint mist has hung over the grey sea and the grey stones, as if the world might suddenly vanish and leave nothing behind, not even a little dust under one’s feet. The people my mind’s eye has seen have too much of the extravagance of dreams, like all the inventions of art, before our crowded life had brought moderation and compromise, to seem more than a dream, and yet all else has grown dim before them. . . . [At this point Yeats comments on the delights of Stratford’s semi-rural setting as a place set aside for artistic contemplation, removed from the vulgar distractions of London, and looks forward with enthusiasm to the growth and expansion of future Shakespeare festivals in the town of the dramatist’s birth, where ‘the arts’ might ‘grow serious as the Ten Commandments’ (Speaker, 158; Uncollected Prose, 249); in section II he then goes on to plead for anti-naturalistic scenery in the production of Shakespeare’s plays, citing Goethe’s dictum that ‘Art is art, because it is not nature!’, cf. ‘dass Kunst eben darum Kunst heisse, weil sie nicht Natur ist’, Wilhelm Meister, ed. Erich Trunz (Hamburg, 1951), p. 250.] 

III Of Mr. Benson and his players one need say little, for they have been in London till a few weeks ago, but one or two things one must say. They speak their verse not indeed, perfectly, but less imperfectly than any other players upon our stage, and the stage management is more imaginative than that of other companies. Richard II beating time to the music at the end of the abdication scene [4.1] and his leaning on Bolingbroke for his protection at the end of the scene before Flint Castle [3.3] are dramatic in the highest sense. Of Mr. Benson’s playing as Richard II one need not

 W.B. Yeats, Richard II and Henry V as Emblems of Refinement and Vulgarity 417 speak, for most people who are likely to read this have seen it, but only those who have been to Stratford have seen Mr. Weir’s[2] admirable, though too benevolent and cleanly, Falstaff, or Mr. Ash’s[3] Jack Cade, and Mrs. Benson’s[4] Doll Tearsheet, which had the extravagance and energy one desires and seldom finds in the representations of the most extravagant of poets. Mr. Rodney[5] and Mr. Sweet[6] played Falconbridge and King John with a barbaric simplicity that was entirely admirable, and helped with a certain bareness and simplicity in the costumes to contrast meaningly with the playing and costuming in Richard II, which describes a time when, as Shakespeare knew from Hollingshead [i.e. Holinshed], life became more splendid and luxurious than it had been before in England. I thought Mr. Benson’s Henry V nearly as good as his Richard II, and admired how he kept that somewhat crude king, as Mr. Waller[7] did not, from becoming vulgar in the love scene at the end, when the language of passion has to become the instrument of policy; but I will speak of Henry V, when I speak of the cycle as a whole, as I believe his character, when contrasted with that of Richard II, lets out a little of Shakespeare’s secret, and all but all the secret of his critics. (Speaker, 159; Uncollected Prose, 248-52)  [2] [From ‘At Stratford-on-Avon’, Part II (18 May 1901)] 

IV  [Yeats attacks didacticism in literary art as exemplified by George Eliot.] . . . George Eliot had a fierceness one hardly finds but in a woman turned argumentative, but the habit of mind her fierceness gave its life to was characteristic of her century, and is the habit of mind of the Shakespearian critics. They and she grew up in a century of utilitarianism, when nothing about a man seemed important except his utility to the State, and nothing so useful to the State as the actions whose effect can be weighed by the reason. The deeds of Coriolanus, Hamlet, Timon, Richard II had no obvious use, were, indeed, no more than the expression of their personalities, and so it was thought Shakespeare was accusing them, and telling us to be careful lest we deserve the like accusations. It did not occur to the critics that you cannot know a man from his actions, because you cannot watch him in every kind of circumstance, and that men are made useless to the State as often by abundance as by emptiness, and that a man’s business may at times be revelation, and not reformation. Fortinbras was, it is likely enough, a better King than Hamlet would have been, Aufidius was a more reasonable man than Coriolanus, Henry V was a better man-at-arms than Richard II, but after all, were not those others who changed nothing for the better and many things for the worse greater in the Divine Hierarchies? Blake has said that ‘the roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword are portions of Eternity, too great for the eye of man,’[8] but Blake belonged by right to the ages of Faith, and thought the State of less moment than the Divine Hierarchies. Because reason can only discover completely the use of those obvious actions which everybody admires, and because every character was to be judged by efficiency in

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action, Shakespearian criticism became a vulgar worshipper of Success. I have turned over many books in the library at Stratford-on-Avon, and I have found in nearly all an antithesis, which grew in clearness and violence as the century grew older, between two types, whose representatives were Richard II, ‘sentimental,’ ‘weak,’ ‘selfish,’ ‘insincere,’ and Henry V, ‘Shakespeare’s only hero.’ These books took the same delight in abasing Richard II that school-boys do in persecuting some boy of fine temperament, who has weak muscles and a distaste for school games. And they had the admiration for Henry V that schoolboys have for the sailor or soldier hero of a romance in some boys’ paper. I cannot claim any minute knowledge of these books, but I think that these emotions began among the German critics, who perhaps saw something French and Latin in Richard II, and I know that Professor [Edward] Dowden, whose book I once read carefully, first made these emotions eloquent and plausible [see No. 38 above].[9] He lived in Ireland, where everything has failed, and he meditated frequently upon the perfection of character which had, he thought, made England successful, for, as we say, ‘cows beyond the water have long horns.’ He forgot that England, as Gordon[10] has said, was made by her adventurers, by her people of wildness and imagination and eccentricity; and thought that Henry V who only seemed to be these things because he had some commonplace vices, was not only the typical Anglo-Saxon, but the model Shakespeare held up before England; and he even thought it worth while pointing out that Shakespeare himself was making a large fortune while he was writing about Henry’s victories. In Professor Dowden’s successors this apotheosis went further; and it reached its height at a moment of imperialistic enthusiasm of ever-deepening conviction that the commonplace shall inherit the earth, when somebody of reputation, whose name I cannot remember, wrote that Shakespeare admired this one character alone out of all his characters. The Accusation of Sin produced its necessary fruit, hatred of all that was abundant, extravagant, exuberant, of all that sets a sail for shipwreck, and flattery of the commonplace emotions and conventional ideals of the mob, the chief Paymaster of accusation.

V I cannot believe that Shakespeare looked on his Richard II with any but sympathetic eyes, understanding indeed how ill-fitted he was to be a King, at a certain moment of history, but understanding that he was lovable and full of capricious fancy, ‘a wild creature’ as [Walter] Pater has called him [No. 48 above]. The man on whom Shakespeare modelled him had been full of French elegancies as he knew from Hollingshead, and had given life a new luxury, a new splendour, and been ‘too friendly’ to his friends, ‘too favourable’ to his enemies. And certainly Shakespeare had these things in his head when he made his King fail, a little because he lacked some qualities that were doubtless common among his scullions, but more because he had certain qualities that are uncommon in all ages. To suppose that Shakespeare preferred the men who deposed his King is to suppose that Shakespeare judged men with the eyes of a Municipal Councillor weighing the merits of a Town Clerk; and that had he been by when Verlaine cried out from his bed, ‘Sir, you have been made by the stroke of a pen, but I have been made by the breath

 W.B. Yeats, Richard II and Henry V as Emblems of Refinement and Vulgarity 419 of God,’[11] he would have thought the Hospital Superintendent the better man. He saw indeed, as I think, in Richard II the defeat that awaits all, whether they be Artist or Saint, who find themselves where men ask of them a rough energy and have nothing to give but some contemplative virtue, whether lyrical fantasy, or sweetness of temper, or dreamy dignity, or love of God, or love of His creatures. He saw that such a man through sheer bewilderment and impatience can become as unjust or as violent as any common man, any Bolingbroke or Prince John, and yet remain ‘that sweet lovely rose’ [1 Henry IV, 1.3.175]. The courtly and saintly ideals of the middle age were fading, and the practical ideals of the modern age had begun to threaten the unuseful dome of the sky; Merry England was fading, and yet it was not so faded that the Poets could not watch the procession of the world with that untroubled sympathy for men as they are, as apart from all they do and seem, which is the substance of tragic irony. Shakespeare cared little for the State, the source of all our judgments, apart from its shows and splendours, its turmoils and battles, its flamings out of the uncivilised heart. He did indeed think it wrong to overturn a King, and thereby to swamp peace in civil war, and the historical plays from Henry IV to Richard III, that monstrous birth and last sign of the wrath of Heaven, are a fulfilment of the prophecy of the Bishop of Carlisle, who was ‘raised up by God’ to make it; but he had no nice sense of utilities, no ready balance to measure deeds, like that fine instrument, with all the latest improvements, [G.G.] Gervinus [No. 34] and Professor Dowden handle so skilfully. He meditated as Solomon,[12] not as [Jeremy] Bentham[13] meditated, upon blind ambitions, untoward accidents, and capricious passions, and the world was almost as empty in his eyes as it must be in the eyes of God.  Tired with all these, for restful death I cry; –  As, to behold desert a beggar born,  And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,  And purest faith unhappily forsworn,  And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,  And right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d,  And strength by limping sway disabled,  And Art made tongue-tied by authority,  And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,  And simple truth miscalled simplicity,  And captive good attending captain ill:  Tired of all these, from these would I begone,  Save that, to die, leave I my love alone. 

[Shakespeare, Sonnet 66] 

VI The Greeks, a certain scholar has told me, considered that myths are the activities of the Daemons, and that the Daemons shape our characters and our lives. I have often

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had the fancy that there is some one Myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought. Shakespeare’s Myth, it may be, describes a wise man who was blind from very wisdom, and an empty man who thrust him from his place, and saw all that could be seen from very emptiness. It is in the story of Hamlet, who saw too great issues everywhere to play the trivial game of life, and of Fortinbras, who came from fighting battles about ‘a little patch of ground’ so poor that one of his Captains would not give ‘six ducats’ to ‘farm it’ [Hamlet, 4.4.1820], and who was yet acclaimed by Hamlet and by all as the only befitting King. And it is in the story of Richard II, that unripened Hamlet, and of Henry V, that ripened Fortinbras. To poise character against character was an element in Shakespeare’s art, and scarcely a play is lacking in characters that are the complement of one another, and so, having made the vessel of porcelain Richard II, he had to make the vessel of clay Henry V. He makes him the reverse of all that Richard was. He has the gross vices, the coarse nerves, of one who is to rule among violent people, and he is so little ‘too friendly’ to his friends that he bundles them out of doors when their time is over. He is as remorseless and undistinguished as some natural force, and the finest thing in his play is the way his old companions fall out of it broken-hearted or on their way to the gallows; and instead of that lyricism which rose out of Richard’s mind like the jet of a fountain to fall again where it had risen, instead of that fantasy too enfolded in its own sincerity to make any thought the hour had need of, Shakespeare has given him a resounding rhetoric that moves men, as a leading article does to-day. His purposes are so intelligible to everybody that everybody talks of him as if he succeeded, although he fails in the end, as all men great and little fail in Shakespeare, and his conquests abroad are made nothing by a woman turned warrior, and that boy he and Katherine were to ‘compound,’ ‘half French, half English,’ ‘that’ was to ‘go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard’ [Henry V, 5.2.207-9], turns out a Saint, and loses all his father had built up at home and his own life. Shakespeare watched Henry V not indeed as he watched the greater souls in the visionary procession, but cheerfully, as one watches some handsome spirited horse, and he spoke his tale, as he spoke all tales, with tragic irony.

VII The five plays,[14] that are but one play, have, when played one after another, something extravagant and superhuman, something almost mythological. These nobles with their indifference to death and their immense energy seem at times no nearer the common stature of men than do the Gods and the heroes of Greek plays. Had there been no Renaissance and no Italian influence to bring in the stories of other lands English history would, it may be, have become as important to the English imagination as the Greek Myths to the Greek imagination; and many plays by many poets would have woven it into a single story whose contours, vast as those of Greek myth, would have made living men and women seem like swallows building their nests under the architrave of some Temple of the Giants. English literature, because it would have grown out of itself, might have had the simplicity and unity of Greek literature, for I

 W.B. Yeats, Richard II and Henry V as Emblems of Refinement and Vulgarity 421 can never get out of my head that no man, even though he be Shakespeare, can write perfectly when his web is woven of threads that have been spun in many lands. And yet, could those foreign tales have come in if the great famine, the sinking down of popular imagination, the dying out of traditional fantasy, the ebbing out of the energy of race, had not made them necessary? The metaphors and language of Euphuism, compounded of the natural history and mythology of the classics, were doubtless a necessity also, that something might be poured into the emptiness. Yet how they injured the simplicity and unity of the speech? Shakespeare wrote at a time when solitary great men were gathering to themselves the fire that had once flowed hither and thither among all men, when individualism in work and thought and emotion was breaking up the old rhythms of life, when the common people, no longer uplifted by the myths of Christianity and of still older faiths, were sinking into the earth. The people of Stratford-on-Avon have remembered little about him, and invented no legend to his glory. They have remembered a drinking bout of his, and invented some bad verses for him, and that is about all. Had he been some hard-drinking, hardliving, hard-riding, loud blaspheming Squire they would have enlarged his fame by a legend of his dealings with the devil; but in his day the glory of a Poet, like that of all other imaginative powers, had ceased, or almost ceased outside a narrow class. The poor Gaelic rhymer leaves a nobler memory among his neighbours, who will talk of Angels standing like flames about his death-bed, and of voices speaking out of bramble-bushes that he may have the wisdom of the world. The Puritanism that drove the theatres into Surrey was but part of an inexplicable movement that was trampling out the minds of all but some few thousands born to cultivated ease. (Speaker, 165-7; Ideas of Good and Evil, 153-67)

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Frederick S. Boas, the relation of Woodstock to Richard II 1902

From ‘A Pre-Shakespearian Richard II’, in Fortnightly Review, 78 (September 1902), 391– 404; revised as ‘Thomas of Woodstock: A Non-Shakespearian Richard II’, in Shakespeare & the Universities and Other Studies in Elizabethan Drama (New York, 1903), pp. 143–66. Although Wolfgang Keller had recently printed the text of the anonymous Woodstock from the Egerton MS. in the British Museum (‘Richard II, Enter Teil’, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, 35 [1899], 3–121), and although as early as 1870 James Orchard Halliwell-Phillips had privately printed the same text in an extremely limited edition, the play was virtually unknown until Boas published his 1902 article describing it in graphic detail, and suggesting not only that Shakespeare knew the drama but that he probably built upon certain of its elements in composing his own Richard II. Boas’s essay thus marks a milestone in the development of critical opinion on Shakespeare’s drama in two respects: (1) for the first time it clearly differentiated all the known plays of the age dealing with Richard’s troubled reign, and (2) it illustrated for the first time in English important links of theme and character that made it possible to argue that Woodstock is ‘an indispensable fore-piece’ (p. 404) to Richard II. Boas expanded his essay in the 1903 collection of his papers, introducing new evidence from the original MS. to cast doubt upon the priority of Woodstock to Shakespeare’s play but, for all that, not altering his previous conclusion; the extracts below are therefore reprinted from the original version. For biographical data on Boas, see the headnote to No. 55 above. 

[From ‘A Pre-Shakespearian Richard II’] Shakespeare’s Richard II has of late years been exceptionally prominent in the eyes of playgoers. The Elizabethan Stage Society performed it not long ago under conditions similar, as far as possible, to those of its original production.[1] Mr. [Frank] Benson, seeking realism of another kind, acted it amidst the ruins of Flint Castle, where part of the action is laid; and his revival of it at the Lyceum was generally recognised as the chief success of his last season in London.[2] Mr. [Herbert Beerbohm] Tree has announced his intention of shortly placing it on the boards of Her Majesty’s

 Frederick S. Boas, the Relation of Woodstock to Richard II 423 Theatre.[3] Shakespeare’s play, however, is not the only Elizabethan drama dealing with the tragic fortunes of the last of the Plantagenets. As Sir Roger de Coverley, in the Spectator, held that there was ‘fine reading in the casualties’ of the reign of Henry IV,[4] so the sixteenth-century playwrights seem to have thought about that of his predecessor. For we know of three, possibly four, plays besides Shakespeare’s in which Richard is a leading figure. First, there is the rough but vigorous piece (of which the first quarto is dated 1593), The Life and Death of Jack Straw, dealing with the insurrection of 1381, and the King’s successful dispersion of the rebels. Secondly, there is the lost play seen by Dr. Simon Forman at the Globe Theatre on April 30, 1611, which (as we learn from the entry in his diary) handled not only, like Jack Straw, the Commons’ rising, but later events, such as the misgovernment of Richard’s favourite, the Duke of Ireland; the murder of the Duke of Gloucester; and John of Gaunt’s intrigues to set his son, Bolingbroke, upon the throne. Thirdly, there is the famous play of King Henry IV and of the killing of King Richard II, performed at the Globe on February 7, 1601, on the eve of Essex’s abortive rising in the City. This was probably Shakespeare’s drama, with its elaborate picture of Richard’s deposition and murder in prison; but the actor Augustine Phillips’ description of it as ‘so old and so long out of use as that they should have small or no company at it,’ and [William] Camden’s still stronger phrase, ‘exoleta tragoedia,’[5] seem scarcely applicable to Shakespeare’s work, and point to a more antiquated piece. Finally, another play on Richard’s reign, different from all the foregoing, has recently been made accessible to students of Elizabethan literature, and forms the subject of the present article. In the German Shakespeare Society’s Jahrbuch, vol. xxxv [1899], Prof. Wolfgang Keller has printed, with an interesting introduction and textual notes, an anonymous piece, which he entitles Richard II, Part I, and which forms one of fifteen plays in the Egerton MSS. 1994, at the British Museum. [James Orchard] Halliwell-Phillips had, it is true, printed eleven copies of the same piece in 1870 for private distribution, but in this extremely limited issue it has been unknown even to experts in Elizabethan literature. Almost the only one who has alluded to it is Mr. [A.H.] Bullen, who in an Appendix to Vol. 2 of his Old Plays (1883) quotes a few short extracts from it, and outlines very imperfectly its subject-matter. Thus the play, in Prof. Keller’s scholarly edition of it in the Jahrbuch, is practically a newly discovered work, and one which, in my opinion, claims the closest study both for its own merits and its relation to Shakespeare’s Richard II.6 The MS. is not quite intact, as it contains no title, and breaks off in the middle of a speech, but Prof. Keller is probably right in his view that only the first and last pages, which formed the covers of the MS. before it was bound up with others, are lacking, and that for critical purposes the play may be considered as practically unimpaired. Its date cannot be precisely fixed, but it is probably about 1592-3. The editor in his introduction seeks to prove that it is influenced by Marlowe’s Edward II and by Henry VI, Part 2, but his argument, though plausible, is based too much, after a prevalent fashion in German criticism, upon mere parallelism of phrases to be conclusive. We can scarcely say more than that the play belongs to the group of Chronicle-Histories in which the years following the defeat of the Armada were so prolific, and that its somewhat monotonous end-stopt verse proves, beyond reasonable doubt, that it was earlier than Shakespeare’s

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Richard II. Holinshed and, in a minor degree, Stow are the dramatist’s authorities, but they are treated with a very free hand, and historical accuracy is ruthlessly sacrificed to secure a symmetrical balance of scenes and characters. . . . (391-2) *****  [The bulk of Boas’s article consists of a detailed description and analysis of the action of Woodstock.]  . . . [The] closing Scenes [of Woodstock] cover roughly the same period of Richard’s reign as the two first Acts of Shakespeare’s play, and we are thus brought to the question of the relation of the later to the earlier piece. That Shakespeare was acquainted with his predecessor’s work is almost certain. It is dangerous to make too much of verbal parallelisms, but some of those to which Prof. Keller draws attention in his Introduction can scarcely be accidental. Thus, in Act IV, Scene 1, of the anonymous play, Richard speaks of himself as renting out his kingdom – ‘Like a petty farme, / That erst was held as fair as Babilon, / The mayden conquerris to all the world’ [4.1.147-9]. And in Act V, Scene 2, Lancaster cries reproachfully to him: ‘And thou no king, but landlord now become / To this great state that terroured christendome’ [5.3.106-7].[7] Must not Shakespeare have had these lines in his memory when he too makes Lancaster lament – Act II, Scene 1 –  This dear, dear land . . .  Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,  Like to a tenement or pelting farm. . . .  That England that was wont to conquer others,  Hath made a shameful conquest of itself [2.1.57-66]; 

and upbraid Richard with the words, ‘Landlord of England art thou now, not king’ [2.1.113]? And when, in the same scene, Lancaster alludes regretfully to ‘my brother Gloucester, plain, well-meaning soul’ [2.1.127], have we not a reminiscence of the kindly ‘plain Thomas’ [1.1.999] of the earlier play – a character, as we have seen, essentially different from the stern Duke of the Chronicles?  The conclusion, which might be fortified by further quotations, that Shakespeare knew the anonymous piece, and could count upon his audience’s familiarity with it, would go far to explain some puzzling features in his own work. It would, to begin with, solve the problem why, out of the rich dramatic material offered by the ‘casualties’ of Richard’s reign, he confined himself to those of its last eighteen months. And it would suggest a reason why the element of popular humour, present, more or less, in all his other historical plays, should be so curiously lacking in his Richard II. For even Shakespeare might have hesitated to work again over the ground covered so admirably by the anonymous writer in the comic prose scenes of the earlier piece. Elizabethan theatre-goers, moreover, to whom this piece was known, would appreciate much in the first half of Shakespeare’s play that, taken by itself, hangs in the air. It has always been a crux to commentators on Richard II how its hearers or

 Frederick S. Boas, the Relation of Woodstock to Richard II 425 readers could be expected to be much moved by its opening scenes, of which the recent murder of Gloucester is the pivot, when the Duke himself was nothing more to them than a name. Again the sting in John of Gaunt’s reproach to Richard for having become landlord of England instead of king is not fully comprehensible, when the strange transaction of leasing the kingdom has never been described. And even the execution of the favourites excites little interest, when we have had no concrete evidence of their misdeeds, and their most memorable utterance has been Bushy’s faniciful comparison between the illusions of grief and of ‘perspectives’ [2.2.14-20]. But all these episodes, to which Shakespeare merely alludes, are fully dealt with, as has been shown in the older play, and would be deeply significant to those who knew it.  In point of historical accuracy, however, Shakespeare has the advantage over his predecessor. He follows Holinshed in representing not Lapoole but Mowbray as Governor of Calais at the time of Gloucester’s murder, and opens his drama with Bolingbroke’s accusation of Mowbray as being privy to the crime. It is Bolingbroke, too, not his father John of Gaunt, whom he exhibits as punishing the favourites, and he omits the imaginary battle in which Greene is slain. In mastery of rhythm and wealth of rhetoric Shakespeare, too, is far ahead of his predecessor; and the portrait of the King in the older play, effective though it is, cannot compare in psychological subtlety and wistful charm to the great dramatist’s marvellous picture of Richard as the crowned sentimentalist whose character causes his ruin. But in its breadth of canvass, its insight into popular feeling, and its abundant comic relief, the anonymous work supplies the very elements that are most to seek in Shakespeare’s drama, to which henceforth, in the study if not on the stage, it should, as I have sought to show, be regarded as an indispensable fore-piece. (403-4)

61

Felix E. Schelling, Shakespeare’s independence in Richard II 1902

From The English Chronicle Play: A Study in the Popular Historical Literature Environing Shakespeare (New York, 1902). Felix Emanuel Schelling (1858–1945), distinguished Elizabethan scholar, was born in New Albany, Indiana, and came from a cosmopolitan family. His father, a Swiss by birth, emigrated to America and became head of the St. Louis Conservatory of Music; his younger brother Ernest was an internationally fam ous concert pianist, conductor, and composer. Felix, although a gifted pianist himself, turned from music to the study of law – and later English literature – at the University of Pennsylvania, where he joined the faculty in 1886 and where he remained until his retirement in 1934. As a literary historian, he became especially authoritative on Renaissance drama. The English Chronicle Play (1902), from which the extracts below are drawn, was the precursor of his magnum opus, Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642 (2 vols., 1908) – a work whose comprehensiveness gained Schelling a considerable reputation in England as well as in America. Although his tendency to classify Elizabethan dramas according to overschematic generic categories somewhat limits his criticism, much of the value of Schelling’s commentary on Richard II lies in its refusal to regard Shakespeare’s achievement in isolation from the broader theatrical context in which it was embedded. It is notable, too, that Schelling, writing in the same year as Boas (No. 60 above), argues that if Shakespeare knew Woodstock, ‘he was content to disregard it’ (p. 108) in composing Richard II.

[1] [From Chapter IV: ‘The Marlowe-Shakespeare Plays’]  . . . In Richard II Shakespeare passes beyond the period of interpolation, revision and imitation [i.e. the period of 1, 2, and 3 Henry VI and Richard III], but he still has his great rival [i.e. Marlowe] in view. The subject of Richard II as already mentioned, is that of Edward II: the struggle of a weak and unprincipled sovereign to maintain his will and finally his crown against a group of rebellious nobles. But Shakespeare has treated this subject in a manner wholly his own. He has rivalled his competitor in his

 Felix E. Schelling, Shakespeare’s Independence in Richard II 427 own field but with weapons, this time, of Shakespeare’s own choosing. He has added to Marlowe’s power, compression and unity of dramatic structure, poetic delicacy and a more searching insight into character. But Shakespeare has not surpassed the tragedy of Marlowe in Richard II. This was yet to come in the greater plays of maturity, in the powerfully contrasted effects of temptation, crime and remorse, in the conception of the delicately adjusted temper of Lady Macbeth and of her coarser-fibered if more imaginative husband, and in the deeper doubts and psychologic questionings of Hamlet. (96-7)  [2] [From Chapter V: ‘Shakespeare and the Triumph of the Epic Type’] Before taking up Shakespeare’s tragedy of Richard II, his earliest independent venture in English historical drama and a realization of the highest capabilities of the tragic type of the Chronicle Play, let us turn to an earlier tragedy [i.e., Woodstock], the events of which also concern Richard of Bordeaux. The consideration of this play has been deferred to this place because of its subject, although it probably belongs, in point of time, before Richard III and synchronizes with Edward II and 2 Henry VI. It seems almost incredible that a play dealing with the earlier events of the reign of an English king whom Shakespeare has immortalized in drama, and a play too of merit, should have been allowed to remain in manuscript and practically unknown until the year 1899 [see No. 60 above]. . . .  [At this point Schelling devotes several pages to a description and analysis of Woodstock]  . . . In Richard II, because written in direct emulation of Marlowe’s tragedy [i.e., Edward II], Shakespeare has varied the catastrophe and made Richard precipitate his death by a characteristic display of hasty temper.1 As to the relations of the tragedy of Thomas of Woodstock to Shakespeare’s Richard II, it is all but certain that Shakespeare’s is the later play. We may agree with Dr. [Wolfgang] Keller[2] that neither did Shakespeare write Richard II as a continuation of the tragedy of Woodstock nor did the unknown author of the latter play follow Shakespeare in an endeavor to write a first part to a play already staged. In substantiation of this want of relation between the two plays Dr. Keller notes especially that in the anonymous play Lapoole is made the plotter of Woodstock’s death, whilst Shakespeare, following the chronicles, charges Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, with that crime.3 If Shakespeare knew this tragedy, he was content to disregard it and return to the usual sources in the chronicles. . . . (98-108) [3] [From the same] As already intimated above in Richard II Shakespeare passes for the first time in the Chronicle Play beyond the shadow of Marlowe’s influence and essays to rival him not by recourse to Marlowe’s methods, as in Richard III, but by means wholly his own. That there might be no mistake as to his intent, Shakespeare boldly chose as his theme the history of the only English king whose fall paralleled that of Edward II and confined himself rigidly to tragedy as Marlowe had done before him. Constructively Richard II is less closely knit than Edward II in which Marlowe’s method demanded the intensest

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concentration of interest on the royal central figure. In Shakespeare’s tragedy the effect is produced by means more varied, and the contrasted kingly personages grow by delicate recurrent touches rather than by means of bold outline and heightened light and shade. Mortimer is a mere instrument whereby the fall of Edward is brought about. Richard’s fall on the other hand involves the rise of Bolingbroke, and Bolingbroke by his abilities and the specious justice of his cause, dilates into the image of the just and moderate sovereign in whose success we can not but feel the deepest interest, despite our knowledge that his claim to kingship is not founded on hereditary right. Richard is shallow, heartless and callous, a man of many words and brimming over with fantasy and eloquent imagery. It is a necessity of his nature that he fill at all times the central rôle. Whether in the lists of Coventry, wantonly throwing his warder down and turning into wandering exiles two champions armed to decide their differences by the arbitrament of the sword, or whether shaking the dust of humiliation from his comely, discrowned head as he rides with silent Bolingbroke through London streets, Richard is always the center of a canvas picturesquely conceived and artistically appreciated by himself. In the very moment of his deposition he calls for a mirror in which to behold the fading lineaments of royalty, and when inevitable death is near, he hurries its oncoming with an impatient daring which would be admirable were it not for its suspicion of melodrama. Over against this figure stands the politic and unimaginative Bolingbroke,4 a man taciturn and reserved, and yet solicitous to conciliate even the humblest. Single in his aim and not to be swerved, he shows an exhaustless patience among the intricacies that lead to attainment. A dauntless warrior and capable of rigor where rigor is imperative, yet temperate in the moment of triumph; a politician, yet jealous of his country’s honor and respecting her institutions, he commands the respect of all though he gains the love of no one, and stands the embodiment of worldly sagacity and circumspection, a usurper in his conscience, a capable and dreaded sovereign before the world. This contrast reaches its climax in Richard’s enforced and reluctant resignation of his crown. In this great scene Richard plays with his sorrow as if it were a bauble, wrapping it in innuendo and word-play and expanding it in similitude and hyperbole. His enemies are Pilates, and he dares impiously to liken himself to Christ betrayed by the kiss of Judas.  Nothing could present a wider contrast to Richard’s torrent of excited eloquence than the calm and half-contemptuous restraint of Bolingbroke throughout this scene. To Richard’s conceit, in which the crown is likened to a well and its two claimants to the full and empty buckets, Bolingbroke’s only reply is: ‘I thought you had been willing to resigne’ [4.1.190]. When Richard, calling for a mirror, descants upon the flattery of its reflected image of his face and says: ‘A brittle Glory shineth in this Face, / As brittle as the Glory, is the Face’ [4.1.287-8], and, dashing the glass to pieces on the ground, exclaims: ‘For there it is, crackt in an hundred shiuers. / Marke silent King, the Morall of this sport, / How soone my Sorrow hath destroy’d my Face’ [4.1.289-91], Bolingbroke’s answer comes, the cold analysis of the practical man of the world: ‘The shadow of your Sorrow hath destroy’d / The shadow of your Face’ [4.1.292-3]. And even Richard is startled at this searching glance into his shallow soul. Recovering from the shock he has but one desire: to go, ‘Whither you will, so I were from your sights’ [4.1.315]. . . . (111-4) 

62

H.F. Prevost Battersby, on Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s Richard II 1903 

From ‘King Richard the Secondary’, in The Saturday Review, 96 (19 September 1903), 358–9. Henry Francis Prevost Battersby (b. 1862), son of Major-General J.P. Battersby, is remembered primarily as an Irish poet and writer of fiction; he published some of his numerous volumes under the pseudonym of ‘Francis Prevost’. Battersby was also a journalist who served for some years as a war correspondent for the Morning Post (London). Battersby’s somewhat quirky, impressionistic notice of Beerbohm Tree’s Richard II, which opened at His Majesty’s Theatre, London, on 10 September 1903, with the actor-manager in the title role, betrays the reviewer’s concern with the more psychological and poetically refined aspects of the play; it almost implies in its flippant irony – perhaps partly unconsciously – an old-fashioned, Romantic distaste for the attempt to stage a work the exquisite subtleties of which can only be realized without vulgarity in the sensitive eye and ear of the private imagination.

King Richard the Secondary One wondered, on the way to see him, what King Richard was doing in London. Historical he may be and perhaps London leans to history more than one might think. But it was not history that interested his historian. That interest was psychological, and in King Richard the dramatist touched a type which moved him in later years still more profoundly.[1] It is psychology hampered a good deal by the stage conventions of the time, hampered too by the author’s immaturity and by his desire to say everything at once; to be always poetical and always impressive: but psychology it as nakedly is as are any of Ibsen’s exasperating studies. And London has emphatically set its face against psychology. One may esteem the play also for its poetry. Perhaps from none so little known have come so many passages that have been minted for popular memory. It is too poetical: it is smothered in poetry. But since when, one would be pleased to know,

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has London developed a liking for that sort of fare? No, one has a right to wonder what King Richard does among us. Mr. Tree clearly shares such misgivings, or rather he goes beyond them, he sees perfectly that King Richard has no business here at all; that our theatre has at present no business with him and that he could certainly do no business for it. Therefore, with great wisdom as a manager, Mr. Tree decides, not indeed to do without the King, but to run him, as one might say, as a kind of subsidiary attraction. In that he admirably succeeds. He gives us a wonderful show, which enlarges our surprise at the resources of stage carpentry, which should leave us many valuable suggestions in costume, which almost saves us a visit to the Hippodrome,[2] and which is incidentally King Richard the Second. That is a result of which any manager may be proud, and from which His Majesty’s should reap a substantial harvest. People who go to see King Richard will leave with the impression that they have spent the evening intellectually. They will not have done that, but they might have easily spent it to less profit; and the almost continuous music and gay variegation of costumes should prevent their missing stimulations to which they may be more accustomed. To do King Richard at all in the compass of an evening – to sandwich it between dinner and supper, entails inevitable compression, and the pace at which it seems fashionable to speak blank verse compels one squeeze the more; and compression of a work so dramatically scattered is a very difficult matter. Mr. Tree has telescoped the five acts into three; skilfully enough, but losing thereby many of those cross reflections on which in drama the moudling of character so much depends. Mr. Tree tries to suggest them by action, but that leads to an accentuation of trivialities which smudge the more essential qualities of relief. He has another method of supplementing what he excises, which, however it may help to elucidate, can only deserve strong condemnation. He transplants speeches. He takes talk from one mouth in one scene, and puts it into another mouth with quite different surroundings. That would be an insult to the meanest dramatist. If dialogue counts for anything in depicting character it counts for everything; and it must be at the base of the dramatist’s belief, that nothing could be said as it is said save by the one person and under the particular provocation. It may be objected that Shakespeare when he wrote King Richard [II] would have been the very first to deride such purist theory; that he was much more concerned for the moment with poetry than with drama, and could plainly be tempted to say prettily what had better not have been said at all. Probable enough! the child queen’s philosophies stand clear to prove it. But for what Shakespeare did, Shakespeare must answer; it is a different matter, and an undutiful precedent to make a hash of his remains. The play suffers also in this version, as might be expected from an upset balance. Inevitably in what has gone there is very little Richard. In the play as written we are wisely given a good many rests from him. Shakespeare may have realised that neurotic studies are apt to harp upon the nerves. So, right up to the finish one hears the echoes of the civil war, the stress and clamour of a divided kingdom, about poor Richard’s ever-paling woe. But at His Majesty’s the King’s figure rises, growing luminously large and expansively pathetic, like some apotheosis in pantomime, as the play closes in, at the fatal moment, itself a consequence, that the dramatic action of the play dies down around it. That is a sufficiently serious misconstruction to imperil the success of the production.

 H.F. Prevost Battersby, on Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s Richard II 431 Before the middle of the play is reached Richard’s serious communings with himself begin. One very long, very suggestive, in parts exquisitely poetic, on his landing in Wales, continued on the battlements of Flint Castle. Another longer still in Westminster Hall, before the wearied peers, continued in the street with his queen. The third in the dungeon, which is undistracted soliloquy. The first two give scope for dramatic ability of a very high order. Both are exceedingly difficult to do well; but they have in common a splendour of speech, a power of colour over the things they picture, an appeal to great and common issues, to the mutability of things and the popular philosophies of resignation. A great actor should be able to make a great deal out of them. But the third is practically outside the compass of all but the few. It requires the most exquisite enunciation to give to its speculation the sense of evanescent scripture on the groping brain, and it demands as well, especially at a late hour of the evening, the supreme gift of personality. The enlargement of Richard at His Majesty’s, by throwing an uncontemplated strain on the man who plays him, and overpowering the movement of the concluding scenes, is from a practical standpoint perhaps the most serious defect. The addition of a coronation scene in a play staged for its pageant serves the double purpose of a showy tableau and of sending the casual playgoer comfortable away. But the play is a tragedy, tragedies should not be comforting, and the right and real impressive ending is over Richard’s bier. The most salient defeature of the representation, at least on the opening night, was, what one always notices so much in English performances of ancient plays, the lack of any standardised conception of how their lines should be given. Some of the younger men rendered their parts at the pace which seems best to extract their vitality, but the average elocution was depressingly slow. Especially when delivering famous speeches the actors seemed grudgingly to defer losing the ear of the house. King Richard’s sigh, which came close on midnight, ‘I wasted time and now doth time waste me’ [5.5.49] had a most striking appropriateness. Yet, though the most in evidence, he was not the worst offender, and started with a delusive promise of speed. The performance was also as a whole as much too loud as it was too slow. Whatever else it is permissible to howl, philosophy and noble grief should never be noisy. There is nothing in Shakespeare so full of a slow nobility of restraint as Gaunt’s great aspostrophe to England. It is heavy with the hopeless sadness of his dying eyes, majestically quiet, solemn with love. It is simply, as the old man speaks it, looking out upon the land he is leaving, the tenderest of farewells: almost maternal in its concern. At His Majesty’s it went with a roar: the roar, possibly, of a wounded lion, but a roar which bruised and mired all its beauty and all its grief. Mr. Tree fell into the same error with many of the King’s speeches, which need to be tentatively spoken not vigorously declaimed. But he showed throughout that the character was beyond him. His reading would have served admirably for an hysterical woman in a man’s disguise, who is always on the point of giving herself away. A man is very seldom suggested, a king never. Yet Richard was a king in his odd moments. The flittings of his delicate fanciful mind Mr. Tree rendered at times with a hard sonority, which suggested nothing less transient than the Decalogue; while, when he lowered his voice, it was to touch not thought but insanity. Granted that Shakespeare’s Richard is undramatic and psychologically insecure; but it is alive, sensitive, and provocatively varied. Mr. Tree not only failed to reach the King, he failed even to touch the soldier. He uses his sword on the coast of

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Wales as his whip in Gaunt’s bedchamber: holding it between thumb and forefinger and running his other hand up and down its double-edged blade. Once more the woman. Mr. Oscar Asche[3] is too truculent as Bolingbroke, but a very effective foil to the King. Miss Lily Brayton[4] spoke her lines beautifully; but the Queen is all of one colour, the colour of tears. Her tears and her frocks very well became her. Of the other parts, the smaller they were the better they were filled. The staging merits a word more. Even though one may not personally admire stage imitation, the trembling castles, flat trees, and paper roses are worth enduring for the sake of the brocades. Except the moonlit knights before Flint Castle, all the pageants look, inevitably, too bright and new. But in these dim days one such sheer gulp of gorgeousness is something reminiscently to be grateful for. The Hippodrome effects are another matter. Mr. Oscar Asche’s tumble proved how popular they are; but it is rather trifling with prosperity to throw one’s Bolingbrokes in that fashion to the mob. (358-9) 

63

Richard G. Moulton, Richard II, the divine right of kings, and the pendulum of history 1903

From The Moral System of Shakespeare: A Popular Illustration of Fiction as the Experimental Side of Philosophy (New York, 1903); reissued as Shakespeare as a Dramatic Thinker (New York, 1907). Richard Green Moulton (1849–1924), university professor, lecturer, and author, was born in Preston, England, the son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, and was educated at the University of London, at Christ College, Cambridge, and at the University of Pennsylvania (where he received his doctorate). In 1892 he became the professor of English at the then newly organized University of Chicago, and in 1901 was appointed head of the department of general literature at Chicago with the new title of professor of literary theory and interpretation. Retiring from his university position in 1919, he returned to England and until his death lived at Tunbridge Wells. Moulton’s three specialized interests were Shakespeare, Greek drama, and the Bible conceived as literature. His most monumental achievement was The Modem, Reader’s Bible (1896–98), a work in twenty-one volumes; but he also published, in addition to the work excerpted here, Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist (1885), The Ancient Classical Drama (1890), and The Literary Study of the Bible (1895). Concerned as he is with the larger patterns and rhythms of Shakespeare’s art, Moulton embeds his remarks on Richard II in a chapter that sees the ten English histories, considered in the order of reigns, as illustrative of a grand principle of historical process, involving ‘a deep-seated alternation in the natural course of things’ (p. 270).

[From Chapter XIII: ‘The Pendulum of History’; Moulton begins by regarding the histories as a large-scale drama of which the two tetralogies form the body and King John and Henry VIII respectively the prologue and epilogue.] . . . A certain principle of history, simple yet highly impressive, appears dramatically enunciated in the prologue play, worked over on the largest scale in the succession of eight historic dramas, and recast with a striking variation in the play which serves as epilogue. The principle is best expressed in metaphorical language: it is the pendulum

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swing of events between one and the other of two rival interests; a deep-seated alternation in the natural course of things. Such a principle needs, however, a corollary. If the general movement is to be a pendulum-like alternation, this will be the more impressive dramatically if it is broken at intervals by what appears like a position of rest: not rest in the negative sense, – as if the alternation at that point was merely not perceptible, – but a peculiar, striking, exceptional evenness between things which before and after are seen rising and falling. Or it may be that there is a pause to gather in fresh material, which is itself presently to become the subject of rapid mutation. This then is the nature of the movement I am seeking in this chapter to trace through the succession of historic plays; a persistent swing in the course of history to and fro, broken by parentheses of emphasised rest, or other preparation for fresh alternation. . . . (270) ***** If a position of rest is wanted as a starting-point for a movement of alternation, we find it surely in that strange sentiment of the divine right of kings, which more or less obtains throughout Shakespeare’s treatment of English history, but in the play of Richard the Second stands out in high relief from contrast with the King who represents it. To Richard the sacred authority of the crown seems valuable only as a means of supply for the expensive vices he displays in company with his creatures. Gaunt. This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, . . . [………………………] Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it, Like to a tenement or pelting farm. [Quotes 2.1.40-6, 59-60]

Frivolity sits upon the throne: none the less gravity bows down in pious submission. From this height of divinely constituted authority the sway of events is seen bringing the royal power down to the depths. The turning-point is dramatically marked. Richard has been delayed in Ireland by contrary winds, all the while that in England rebellion has been gathering head. At last he lands, and fondles with his hand the soil of his kingdom, safe now its rightful ruler has returned. ‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea / Can wash the balm off from an anointed king . . . ’ [Quotes 3.2.54- 62]. From these very words Richard turns to meet the first of a string of messengers bearing news of delay, of dispersion, of death, till further inquiry becomes useless. Aumerle. Where is the duke my father with his power? King Richard. No matter where; of comfort no man speak: Let’s talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs. . . . [Quotes 3.2.143-54]

This passage stands but at the centre of the play; yet all the rest is no more than the swing downward from exalted kingship to humiliation, deposition, imprisonment, murder; the swing upward of Bolingbroke, who entered England humbly claiming the property of his deceased father, to the throne vacated by Richard. . . . (279-81)

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A. C. Swinburne, an iconoclastic view of Richard II 1903

From ‘King Richard II’ (with illustrations by Edwin A. Abbey), in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, 106 (March, 1903), 504–11; reprinted in Three Plays of Shakespeare (New York, 1909), pp. 59–85. Swinburne (1837–1909), having already written unsympathetically on Richard II in 1875 (see No. 39 above), renewed his attack on the play in the even more extreme essay reprinted below. The extravagantly inflated statements of the later piece have been largely rejected, even by those who have taken Swinburne’s criticism seriously (especially his comparison of Richard II with Marlowe’s Edward II), but they are historically important as representing the culmination of a long negative tradition in the assessment of the play. Nor is Swinburne’s essay without praise for specific details of the drama he so generally depreciates, as, for instance, Gaunt’s wordplay on his deathbed, his famous speech on England, Richard’s speech on the mortality of kings, and his final soliloquy; moreover, although Swinburne regards as blemishes the mystifications of the audience as to the true circumstances behind the quarrels of Mowbray and Bolingbroke or of Aumerle and Fitzwater, he nevertheless calls attention to an important aspect of the play’s dramaturgy – its moral ambiguity – that previous critics had either failed fully to recognize or had passed over in silence. For biographical data on Swinburne, see the headnote to No. 39 above.

King Richard II  It is a truth more curious than difficult to verify that there was a time when the greatest genius ever known among the sons of men was uncertain of the future and unsure of the task before it; when the one unequalled and unapproachable master of the one supreme art which implies and includes the mastery of the one supreme science perceptible and accessible by man stood hesitating between the impulsive instinct for dramatic poetry, the crown and consummation of all philosophies, the living

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incarnation of creative and intelligent godhead, and the facile seduction of elegiac and idyllic verse, of meditative and uncreative song: between the music of Orpheus and the music of Tibullus. The legendary choice of Hercules[1] was of less moment than the actual choice of Shakespeare between the influence of Robert Greene and the influence of Christopher Marlowe. The point of most interest in the tragedy or history of King Richard II is the obvious evidence which it gives of the struggle between the worse and the better genius of its author. ‘’Tis now full tide ‘tween night and day.’[2] The author of Selimus and Andronicus is visibly contending with the author of Faustus and Edward II for the mastery of Shakespeare’s poetic and dramatic adolescence.[3] Already the bitter hatred which was soon to vent itself in the raging rancour of his dying utterance must have been kindled in the unhappy heart of Greene by comparison of his original work with the few lines, or possibly the scene or two, in his unlovely though not unsuccessful tragedy of Titus Andronicus, which had been retouched or supplied by Shakespeare; whose marvellous power of transfiguration in the act of imitation was never overmatched in any early work of a Raffaelle while yet the disciple of a Perugino. There are six lines in that discomfortable play which can only have been written, if any trust may be put in the evidence of intelligent comparison, by Shakespeare; and yet they are undoubtedly in the style of Greene, who could only have written them if the spirit of Shakespeare had passed into him for five minutes or so: King, be thy thoughts imperious, like thy name. Is the sun dimmed that gnats do fly in it? The eagle suffers little birds to sing, And is not careful what they mean thereby, Knowing that with the shadow of his wing He can at pleasure stint their melody.

[Titus Andronicus, 4.4.81-6]

There is nothing so fine as that in the elegiac or rhyming scenes or passages of King Richard II. And yet it is not glaringly out of place among the sottes monstruosités – if I may borrow a phrase applied by [Jules] Michelet to a more recent literary creation[4] – of the crazy and chaotic tragedy in which a writer of gentle and idyllic genius attempted to play the part which his friend Marlowe and their supplanter Shakespeare were born to originate and to sustain. To use yet another and a most admirable French phrase, the author of Titus Andronicus is evidently a mouton enragé. The mad sheep who has broken the bounds of his pastoral sheepfold has only, in his own opinion, to assume the skin of a wolf, and the tragic stage must acknowledge him as a lion. Greene, in his best works of prose fiction and in his lyric and elegiac idyls, is as surely the purest and gentlest of writers as he was the most reckless and disreputable of men. And when ambition or hunger lured or lashed him into the alien field of tragic poetry, his first and last notion of the work in hand was simply to revel and wallow in horrors after the fashion, by no means of a wild boar, but merely of a wether gone distracted. Nevertheless, the influence of this unlucky trespasser on tragedy is too obvious in too much of the text of King Richard II to be either questioned or overlooked. Coleridge,

 A. C. Swinburne, an Iconoclastic View of Richard II 437 whose ignorance of Shakespeare’s predecessors was apparently as absolute as it is assuredly astonishing in the friend of Lamb, has attempted by super-subtle advocacy to explain and excuse, if not to justify and glorify, the crudities and incongruities of dramatic conception and poetic execution[5] which signalize this play as unmistakably the author’s first attempt at historic drama: it would perhaps be more exactly accurate to say, at dramatic history. But they are almost as evident as the equally wonderful and youthful genius of the poet. The grasp of character is uncertain: the exposition of event is inadequate. The reader or spectator unversed in the byways of history has to guess at what has already happened – how, why, when, where, and by whom the prince whose murder is the matter in debate at the opening of the play has been murdered. He gets so little help or light from the poet that he can only guess at random, with blind assumption or purblind hesitation, what may be the right or wrong of the case which is not even set before him. The scolding-match between Bolingbroke and Mowbray, fine in their primitive way as are the last two speeches of the latter declaimer, is liker the work of a pre-Marlowite than the work of Marlowe’s disciple. The whole scene is merely literary, if not purely academic: and the seemingly casual interchange of rhyme and blank verse is more wayward and fitful than even in Romeo and Juliet. That the finest passage is in rhyme, and is given to a character about to vanish from the action of the play, is another sign of poetical and intellectual immaturity. The second scene has in it a breath of true passion and a touch of true pathos: but even if the subject had been more duly and definitely explained, it would still have been comparatively wanting in depth of natural passion and pungency of natural pathos. The third scene, full of beautifully fluent and plentifully inefficient writing, reveals the protagonist of the play as so pitifully mean and cruel a weakling that no future action or suffering can lift him above the level which divides and purifies pity from contempt. And this, if mortal manhood may venture to pass judgment on the immortal godhead, I must say that Shakespeare does not seem to me to have seen. The theatrical trickery which masks and reveals the callous cruelty and the heartless hypocrisy of the histrionic young tyrant is enough to remove him once for all beyond reach of manly sympathy or compassion unqualified by scorn. If we can ever be sorry for anything that befalls so vile a sample of royalty, our sorrow must be so diluted and adulterated by recollection of his wickedness and baseness that its tribute could hardly be acceptable to any but the most pitiable example or exception of mankind. But this is not enough for the relentless persistence in spiritual vivisection that seems to guide and animate the poet’s manipulation and evolution of a character which at once excites a contempt and hatred only to be superseded by the loathing and abhorrence aroused at thought of the dastardly ruffian by the death-bed of his father’s noble and venerable brother. The magnificent poetry which glorifies the opening scene of the second act, however dramatically appropriate and effective in its way, is yet so exuberant in lyric and elegiac eloquence that readers or spectators may conceivably have thought the young Shakespeare less richly endowed by nature as a dramatist than as a poet. It is not of the speaker or the hearer that we think as we read the most passionate panegyric on his country ever set to hymnal harmonies by the greatest of patriotic poets but Aeschylus alone: it is simply of England and of Shakespeare. The bitter prolongation of the play upon words which answers the half-hearted if not heartless inquiry, ‘How is’t with aged Gaunt?’ [2.1.72], is a more dramatic touch of

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homelier and nearer nature to which Coleridge has done no more than exact justice in his admirable comment: ‘A passion there is that carries off its own excess by plays on words as naturally, and therefore as appropriately to drama, as by gesticulations, looks, or tones’ [No. 20]. And the one thoroughly noble and nobly coherent figure in the poem disappears as with a thunderclap or the sound of a trumpet calling to judgment a soul too dull in its baseness, too decrepit in its degradation, to hear or understand the summons. ‘Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee! / These words hereafter thy tormentors be!’ [2.1.135-6]. But the poor mean spirit of the hearer is too narrow and too shallow to feel the torment which a nobler soul in its adversity would have recognized by the revelation of remorse. With the passing of John of Gaunt the moral grandeur of the poem passes finally away. Whatever of interest we may feel in any of the surviving figures is transitory, intermittent, and always qualified by a sense of ethical inconsistency and intellectual inferiority. There is not a man among them: unless it be the Bishop of Carlisle: and he does but flash across the action for an ineffectual instant. There is often something attractive in Aumerle: indeed, his dauntless and devoted affection for the king makes us sometimes feel as though there must be something not unpitiable or unlovable in the kinsman who could inspire and retain such constancy of regard in a spirit so much manlier than his own. But the figure is too roughly and too thinly sketched to be thoroughly memorable as a man’s: and his father’s is an incomparable, an incredible, an unintelligible and a monstrous nullity. Coleridge’s attempt to justify the ways of York to man – to any man of common sense and common sentiment – is as amusing in Coleridge as it would be amazing in any other and therefore in any lesser commentator.[6] In the scene at Windsor Castle between the Queen and her husband’s minions the idyllic or elegiac style again supplants and supersedes the comparatively terse and dramatic manner of dialogue between the noblemen whom we have just seen lashed into disgust and goaded into revolt by the villainy and brutality of the rascal king. The dialogue is beautiful and fanciful: it makes a very pretty eclogue: none other among the countless writers of Elizabethan eclogues could have equalled it. But if we look for anything more or for anything higher than this, we must look elsewhere: and we shall not look in vain if we turn to the author of Edward the Second. When the wretched York creeps in, we have undoubtedly such a living and drivelling picture of hysterical impotence on the downward grade to dotage and distraction as none but Shakespeare could have painted. When Bolingbroke reappears and Harry Percy appears on the stage of the poet who has bestowed on him a generous portion from the inexhaustible treasure of his own immortal life, we find ourselves again among men, and are comforted and refreshed by the change. The miserable old regent’s histrionic attempt to play the king and rebuke the rebel is so admirably pitiful that his last unnatural and monstrous appearance in the action of the play might possibly be explained or excused on the score of dotage – an active and feverish fit of impassioned and demented dotage. The inspired effeminacy and the fanciful puerility which dunces attribute to the typical character of a representative poet never found such graceful utterance as the greatest of poets has given to the unmanliest of his creatures when Richard lands in Wales. Coleridge credits the poor wretch with ‘an intense love of his country,’ intended to

 A. C. Swinburne, an Iconoclastic View of Richard II 439 ‘redeem him in the hearts of the audience’ in spite of the fact that ‘even in this love there is something feminine and personal’ [No. 20]. There is nothing else in it: as anybody but Coleridge would have seen. It is exquisitely pretty and utterly unimaginable as the utterance of a man. The two men who support him on either side, the loyal priest and the gallant kinsman, offer him words of manly counsel and manful cheer. He answers them with an outbreak of such magnificent poetry as might almost have been uttered by the divine and unknown and unimaginable poet who gave to eternity the Book of Job: but in this case also the futility of intelligence is as perfect as the sublimity of speech. And his utter collapse on the arrival of bad tidings provokes a counterchange of poetry as splendid in utterance of abjection and despair as the preceding rhapsody in expression of confidence and pride. The scene is still rather amoebaean than dramatic: it is above the reach of Euripides, but more like the imaginable work of a dramatic and tragic Theocritus than the possible work of a Sophocles when content to give us nothing more nearly perfect and more comparatively sublime than the Trachiniae. And it is even more amusing than curious that the courtly censors who cancelled and suppressed the scene of Richard’s deposition should not have cut away the glorious passage in which the vanity of kingship is confronted, by the grovelling repentance of a king, with the grinning humiliation of death. The dramatic passion of this second great speech is as unmistakable as the lyric emotion of the other. And the utter collapse of heart and spirit which follows on the final stroke of bad tidings at once completes the picture of the man, and concludes in equal harmony the finest passage of the poem and the most memorable scene in the play. The effect of the impression made by it is so elaborately sustained in the following scene as almost to make a young student wonder at the interest taken by the young Shakespeare in the development or evolution of such a womanish or semivirile character. The style is not exactly verbose, as we can hardly deny that it is in the less passionate parts of the second and third acts of King John: but it is exuberant and effusive, elegiac and Ovidian, in a degree which might well have made his admirers doubt, and gravely doubt, whether the future author of Othello would ever be competent to take and hold his place beside the actual author of Faustus. Marlowe did not spend a tithe of the words or a tithe of the pains on the presentation of a character neither more worthy of contempt nor less worthy of compassion. And his Edward is at least as living and convincing, as tragic and pathetic a figure as Shakespeare’s Richard. The garden scene which closes this memorable third act is a very pretty eclogue, not untouched with tragic rather than idyllic emotion. The fourth act opens upon a morally chaotic introduction of incongruous causes, inexplicable plaintiffs, and incompehensible defendants. Whether Aumerle or Fitzwater or Surrey or Bagot is right or wrong, honourable or villainous, no reader or spectator is given a chance of guessing: it is a mere cockpit squabble. And the scene of deposition which follows, full as it is of graceful and beautiful writing, need only be set against the scene of deposition in Edward the Second to show the difference between rhetorical and dramatic poetry, emotion and passion, eloquence and tragedy, literature and life. The young Shakespeare’s scene is full to superfluity of fine verses and fine passages: his young compeer’s or master’s is from end to end one magnificent model of tragedy, ‘simple, sensuous, and passionate’ as Milton himself could have desired:[7] Milton, the

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second as Shakespeare was the first of the great English poets who were pupils and debtors of Christopher Marlowe. It is pure poetry and perfect drama: the fancy is finer and the action more lifelike than here. Only once or twice do we come upon such a line as this in the pathetic but exuberant garrulity of Richard: ‘While that my wretchedness doth bait myself ’ [4.1.238]. That is worthy of Marlowe. And what follows is certainly pathetic: though certainly there is a good deal of it. The last act might rather severely than unfairly be described as a series of six tragic or tragicomic eclogues. The first scene is so lovely that no reader worthy to enjoy it will care to ask whether it is or is not so lifelike as to convey no less of conviction than all readers must feel of fascination in the continuous and faultless melody of utterance and tenderness of fancy which make it in its way an incomparable idyl. From the dramatic point of view it might certainly be objected that we know nothing of the wife, and that what we know of the husband does not by any means tend to explain the sudden pathos and sentimental sympathy of their parting speeches. The first part of the next scene is as beautiful and blameless an example of dramatic narrative as even a Greek poet could have given at such length: but in the latter part of it we cannot but see and acknowledge again the dramatic immaturity of the poet who in a very few years was to reveal himself as beyond all question, except from the most abject and impudent of dunces, the greatest imaginable dramatist or creator ever born into immortality. Style and metre are rough, loose, and weak: the dotage of York becomes lunacy. Sa folie en furie est townée.[8] The scene in which he clamours for the blood of his son is not in any proper sense tragic or dramatic: it is a very ugly eclogue, artificial in manner and unnatural in substance. No feebler or unlovelier example exists of those ‘jigging veins of rhyming mother-wits’ [1 Tamburlaine, Pro., 1] which Marlowe’s imperial rebuke should already have withered into silence on the lips of the veriest Marsyas[9] among all the amoebaean rhymesters of his voluble and effervescent generation. The better nature of the young Shakespeare revives in the closing scenes: though Exton is a rather insufficient ruffian for the part of so important an assassin. We might at least have seen or heard of him before he suddenly chips the shell as a full-fledged murderer. The last soliloquy of the king is wonderful in its way, and beautiful from any point of view: it shows once more the influence of Marlowe’s example in the curious trick of selection and transcription of texts for sceptic meditation and analytic dissection. But we see rather more of the poet and less of his creature the man than Marlowe might have given us. The interlude of the groom, on the other hand, gives promise of something different in power and pathos from the poetry of Marlowe: but the scene of slaughter which follows is not quite satisfactory: it is almost boyish in its impetuosity of buffeting and bloodshed. The last scene, with its final reversion to rhyme, may be described in Richard’s own previous words as good, ‘and yet not greatly good’ [4.1.263]. Of the three lines on which the greatest genius that ever made earth more splendid, and the name of man more glorious, than without the passage of its presence they could have been, chose alternately or successively to work, the line of tragedy was that on which its promise or assurance of future supremacy was first made manifest. The earliest comedies of Shakespeare, overflowing with fancies and exuberant in beauties as they are, gave no sign of inimitable power: their joyous humour and their sunbright

 A. C. Swinburne, an Iconoclastic View of Richard II 441 poetry were charming rather than promising qualities. The imperfections of his first historic play, on which I trust I have not touched with any semblance of even the most unwilling or unconscious irreverence, are surely more serious, more obvious, more obstrusive, than the doubtless undeniable and indisputable imperfections of Romeo and Juliet. If the style of love-making in that loveliest of all youthful poems is fantastically unlike the actual courtship of modern lovers, it is not unliker than is the style of love-making in favour with Dante and his fellow-poets of juvenile and fanciful passion. Setting aside this objection, the first of Shakespeare’s tragedies is not more beautiful than blameless. There is no incoherence of character, no inconsistency of action. Aumerle is hardly so living a figure as Tybalt: Capulet is as indisputably probable as York is obviously impossible in the part of a headstrong tyrant. There is little feminine interest in the earliest comedies: there is less in the first history.[10] In the first tragedy[11] there is nothing else, or nothing but what is so subservient and subordinate as simply to bring it out and throw it into relief. In the work of a young poet this difference would or should be enough to establish and explain the fact that though he might be greater than all the other men in history and comedy, he was still greater in tragedy. (504-11)

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A.C. Bradley, on Richard II and tragedy 1904

From Shakespearian Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth (London, 1904); 2nd edition revised (London, 1905). Andrew Cecil Bradley (1851–1935), literary critic and philosophical scholar, came from a well-known clerical and educational family, and was educated at Cheltenham and Balliol College, Oxford, in the heyday of Jowett where he became a fellow and lecturer, first in English and then in philosophy (1875–81). Between 1882 and 1900 he held chairs at University College, Liverpool, and at Glasgow University, and in 1901 was elected to the chair of poetry at Oxford. There he delivered his lectures on Shakespearian tragedy, which, in their published form, were to become probably the most widely read and admired work of Shakespearian criticism of the century. His Oxford Lectures on Poetry (No. 72), four of which concern Shakespeare, were published in 1909. Because Shakespearian Tragedy seeks to define the essence of tragic experience by addressing directly and in detail only the four ‘greatest’ tragedies of the dramatist’s maturity, Richard II, of necessity, gets mentioned incidentally and in contexts that treat it as a lesser and subsidiary example, or even as an exception to the general principles, of tragic structure and feeling that Bradley attempts to illustrate in the so-called major four. At the heart of his conception of Shakespeare’s tragedy is the notion of human greatness – of characters whose intensity of desire, passion, or will causes them to tower above the more ordinary mortals who surround them, and whose inner conflicts confer upon them an extraordinary, almost mysterious stature. Although for Bradley Richard II falls short of such a standard, his few brief comments on the play are worthy of critical attention. The extracts given below come from the second, slightly revised edition of 1905.

[1] [From Bradley’s ‘Introduction’] . . . Much that is said on our main preliminary subjects [i.e. concerning the basic principles of tragedy that can be deduced from the four greatest and purest Shakespearian examples] will naturally hold good, within certain limits, of other dramas of Shakespeare beside Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. But it will often apply to these other works only in part, and to some of them more fully than to others. Romeo and Juliet, for instance, is a pure tragedy, but it is an early work, and

 A.C. Bradley, on Richard II and Tragedy 443 in some respects an immature one. Richard III and Richard II, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus are tragic histories or historical tragedies, in which Shakespeare acknowledged in practice a certain obligation to follow his authority, even when that authority offered him an undramatic material. Probably he himself would have met some criticisms to which these plays are open by appealing to their historical character, and by denying that such works are to be judged by the standard of pure tragedy. In any case, most of these plays, perhaps all, do show, as a matter of fact, considerable deviations from that standard; and, therefore, what is said of the pure tragedies must be applied to them with qualifications which I shall often take for granted without mention. . . . (3-4) [2] [From Lecture I: ‘The Substance of Shakespearian Tragedy’] . . . Tragedy with Shakespeare is concerned always with persons of ‘high degree’; often with kings or princes; if not, with leaders in the state like Coriolanus, Brutus, Antony; at the least, as in Romeo and Juliet, with members of great houses, whose quarrels are of public moment. . . . And this characteristic of Shakespeare’s tragedies, though not the most vital, is neither external nor unimportant. The saying that every death-bed is the scene of the fifth act of a tragedy has its meaning, but it would not be true if the word ‘tragedy’ bore its dramatic sense. The pangs of despised love and the anguish of remorse, we say, are the same in a peasant and a prince; but, not to insist that they cannot be so when the prince is really a prince, the story of the prince, the triumvir, or the general, has a greatness and dignity of its own. His fate affects the welfare of a whole nation or empire; and when he falls suddenly from the height of earthly greatness to the dust, his fall produces a sense of contrast, or the powerlessness of man, and of the omnipotence – perhaps the caprice – of Fortune or Fate, which no tale of private life can possibly rival. Such feelings are constantly evoked by Shakespeare’s tragedies, – again in varying degrees. Perhaps they are the very strongest of the emotions awakened by the early tragedy of Richard II, where they receive a concentrated expression in Richard’s famous speech about the antic Death, who sits in the hollow crown ‘That rounds the mortal temples of a king’ [3.2.161], grinning at his pomp, watching till his vanity and his fancied security have wholly encased him round, and then coming and boring with a little pin through his castle wall. And these feelings, though their predominance is subdued in the mightiest tragedies, remain powerful there. . . . (9-10) [3] [From Lecture I: ‘The Substance of Shakespearian Tragedy’; in a discussion of tragic conflict]  . . . The frequent use of this idea [of conflict] in discussions on tragedy is ultimately due, I suppose, to the influence of Hegel’s theory on the subject, certainly the most important theory since Aristotle’s. But Hegel’s view of the tragic conflict is not only unfamiliar to English readers and difficult to expound shortly, but it had its origin in reflections on Greek tragedy and, as Hegel was well aware, applies only imperfectly to

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the works of Shakespeare.1 I shall, therefore, confine myself to the idea of conflict in its more general form. In this form it is obviously suitable to Shakespearian tragedy; but it is vague, and I will try to make it more precise by putting the question. Who are the combatants in this conflict? Not seldom the conflict may quite naturally be conceived as lying between two persons, of whom the hero is one; or, more fully, as lying between two parties or groups, in one of which the hero is the leading figure. Or if we prefer to speak (as we may quite well do if we know what we are about) of the passions, tendencies, ideas, principles, forces, which animate these persons or groups, we may say that two of such passions or ideas, regarded as animating two persons or groups, are the combatants. The love of Romeo and Juliet is in conflict with the hatred of their houses, represented by various other characters. The cause of Brutus and Cassius struggles with that of Julius, Octavius and Antony. In Richard II the King stands on one side, Bolingbroke and his party on the other. In Macbeth the hero and heroine are opposed to the representatives of Duncan. In all these cases the great majority of the dramatis personae fall without difficulty into antagonistic groups, and the conflict between these groups ends with the defeat of the hero.  Yet one cannot help feeling that in at least one of these cases, Macbeth, there is something a little external in this way of looking at the action. And when we come to some other plays this feeling increases. No doubt most of the characters in Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, or Antony and Cleopatra can be arranged in opposed groups;2 and no doubt there is a conflict; and yet it seems misleading to describe this conflict as one between these groups. It cannot be simply this. For though Hamlet and the King are mortal foes, yet that which engrosses our interest and dwells in our memory at least as much as the conflict between them, is the conflict within one of them. And so it is, though not in the same degree, with Antony and Cleopatra and even with Othello; and, in fact, in a certain measure, it is so with nearly all the tragedies. There is an outward conflict of persons and groups, there is also a conflict of forces in the hero’s soul; and even in Julius Caesar and Macbeth the interest of the former can hardly be said to exceed that of the latter. The truth is, that the type of tragedy in which the hero opposes to a hostile force an undivided soul, is not the Shakespearian type. The souls of those who contend with the hero may be thus undivided; they generally are; but, as a rule, the hero, though he pursues his fated way, is, at least at some point in the action, and sometimes at many, torn by an inward struggle; and it is frequently at such points that Shakespeare shows his most extraordinary power. If further we compare the earlier tragedies with the later, we find that it is in the latter, the maturest works, that this inward struggle is most emphasised. In the last of them, Coriolanus, its interest completely eclipses towards the close of the play that of the outward conflict. Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Richard II, where the hero contends with an outward force, but comparatively little with himself, are all early plays. . . . (16-18) [4] [From Lecture II: ‘Construction in Shakespeare’s Tragedies’; in a discusion of the difficulties of exposition, the imparting of necessary information, in tragedy] 

 A.C. Bradley, on Richard II and Tragedy 445 . . . When the subject comes from English history, and especially when the play forms one of a series, some knowledge may be assumed. So in Richard III. Even in Richard II not a little knowledge seems to be assumed, and this fact points to the existence of a popular play on the earlier part of Richard’s reign. Such a play exists [i.e. Woodstock], though it is not clear that it is a genuine Elizabethan work. See the Jahrbuch d[er] deutschen Sh[akespeare]-gesellschaft for 1899. (42, note)[3] 

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Stopford A. Brooke, purgation through tragic suffering in Richard II 1905 

From On Ten Plays of Shakespeare (London, 1905).  Stopford Augustus Brooke (1832–1916), Anglo-Irish clergyman, essayist, critic, and biographer, was born in Country Donegal, Ireland, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he made a brilliant undergraduate showing. Graduated in 1856 and ordained to the Anglican priesthood the following year, he became famous as a preacher and was rewarded in 1872 by being made chaplain-in-ordinary to Queen Victoria. Shortly afterward, however, his faith in the doctrine of the Resurrection deserted him, and he withdrew from the Church of England to become a freethinker, nevertheless continuing to preach independently. Brooke published extensively. In addition to volumes of sermons, he produced studies of Browning, Tennyson, Shakespeare, and Milton. On Ten Plays of Shakespeare, originally given as a series of public lectures in London and published late in the author’s life, was successful enough to prompt a sequel, Ten More Plays of Shakespeare (1913). Brooke’s reading of Richard II breaks new ground, being among the first to compare the play aesthetically with Richard III, to analyze the garden scene in some detail, to suggest a symbolic parallel between Richard and York as embodying weakness in different generations, and, most importantly, to argue for a series of significant changes in the evolving character of the protagonist. By no means blind to what he sees as flaws in the play, Brooke is also unusual among critics who admire Richard II in pronouncing the mirror episode ‘quite unnecessary’ (p. 94) and in wishing that the entire deposition scene ‘had been shorter, and less sensational’ (p. 95). 

[From Chapter III: ‘Richard II’]  [1] [Richard II compared to Richard III]  . . . Richard II followed, it is supposed, almost immediately on Richard III; and many say that as the verse and style of Richard III emulated Marlowe’s, so Richard II was suggested by Marlowe’s Edward II. It may be so, I do not know. What we do know is that the work of both plays is done in the manner of an artist whose style is his

 Stopford A. Brooke, Purgation through Tragic Suffering in Richard II 447 own. In fire and fury of movement and utterance, in passion of action and rhetoric, in dramatic power and in gloom of fate, Richard III is greater, or shall I say more remarkable, than Richard II. In wisdom, thoughtfulness, in a wider range over human nature, in a kindlier humanity, a softer glow, in the pity which accompanies the dark work of fate, and especially in the loveliness of the poetry, Richard II excels Richard III. It seems astonishing that within a year, two plays, each so great, yet each imbued with so different a spirit, should have been written; but after all it is, at this creative time, no more astonishing than the writing within a few years of plays so different as Tamburlaine and Edward II.  There are, however, other reasons which suggest that Richard II preceded Richard III. Richard II is more full of the flowing poetry, so rich in sentiment, which belongs to most of the previous plays. Rhyme is the natural form of such poetry, and it is used copiously in Richard II, and very sparingly in Richard III. The play has less power, less incident, less action, and more of sentiment than Richard III; it is less close in texture and less complex – that is, it is inferior in dramatic strength and vitality. As an historical drama Richard III is on a higher level than Richard II. Both are fateful, but the fate that broods over Richard III is of a deeper, more solemn gloom, and seems to argue a more experienced hand, a graver cast of thought, a more serious view of history. These considerations might lead us to say that Richard III followed its companion; a conclusion I do not accept. The discussion, however, as to which was first, is not of any importance. The plays were written within the same year, and the reason of their difference in manner, strength, experience, and versification may not arise from any change in Shakespeare’s dramatic power, but simply from an artist’s desire for change. Shakespeare may have written them differently in order to vary his hand, or because he felt that the character of Richard II, being itself sentimental, fantastic, and fluent, was best represented by the fluid, hurrying, rhyming measures he used, and that of Richard III by the stately gravity of blank verse. The subject then, in both cases, would make the differences. . . . (71-2)  [2] [Brooke attributes the proliferation of works on English history, including Spenser’s Faerie Queene, to the rise of patriotism and feelings of national pride and independence at the end of the sixteenth century. He suggests that Shakespeare capitalized upon these popular feelings in order to ground upon them the ‘greater drama’ of the civil wars, dramatizing the origins of the struggle in Richard II, its intermediate phase in the plays on Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI, and its final bloody effects in Richard III.] . . . Some suggest [Shakespeare] did this with a purpose – to show what bad government was, and its evils; what good government was, and its results. I do not think this true. His purpose was artistic. He desired to complete his conception, to combine all the plays into a whole. In completing it, the moral and political philosophy of good or bad government came in, as a necessary part of the conception, but its lessons were not directly but indirectly given. His true aim was to represent human life in action and thought within the events which history laid before him. He did that; and then the parts shaped themselves, under his guiding conception, into an artistic whole. He saw it, and rejoiced. 

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The artistic result is remarkable. We have, in these eight plays, not only eight separate plays, five of which are complete within themselves, but one single drama also, with a unity of its own, with one subject, with one end to which they look forward, and with one divine Justice in them, slowly working out its laws to their fulfilment. And the years over which this mighty drama extends are nearly ninety years. I wish it were possible to act them all in the same day. It would then be seen that Richard III wound up that web of fate which began to be woven in Richard II, and which, weaving on through Henry IV, V, and VI, contains in its living tapestry so great and various a representation of human life as never yet was brought together and harmonised by any genius in the modern world; of life in all classes of society; of life passing from the most tragic sorrows to the most comic even the rudest pleasures; life in the streets of London, in the country, on the battlefield, in the council, at the court and the alehouse, in the camps of France and England, by the dying bed of kings, and in the garret where Falstaff passed away with a broken heart. The Greek trilogies carry us through long histories, and they are united by the dominance of Destiny working out her moral will. This eight-played drama is a bolder effort. The justice of God, ruling states (for such at this time of his life was Shakespeare’s belief), works out in these plays his single aim, and unites them into one Drama. Again, they have not the same unbroken solemnity and dignity which the Greek trilogies possess. They are broken up with comedy and farce, with many scenes unrelated to the end, with the creation of a host of needless characters, with many things said and done which exceed just measure. They have indeed their great and dignified scenes both of action and speech, scattered and mingled through the rest, and these have a great weight and power. They heighten and establish the whole impression, given to us in the plays, of human life which indeed is a more mingled landscape than any Greek play represents. The plays have, then, a great variety, a larger range over human life, than any single trilogy; nor do they want, when we feel them as a whole, an awful solemnity. Their work is unequal, and that is not the case with the giant work of Aeschylus, or the steady greatness of Sophocles – men who do not drop below their power; but Shakespeare was now only learning his work. We do not have him here at his best. Moreover, and this is a great pity, the three plays of Henry VI are not originally from his hand. He had rewritten them altogether, and on the same level as even the two Richard plays, the splendour of this great single drama, made up of eight plays, would blind the eyes of the intellect and of the soul of man. Again, the dramas of Richard II and III are purely historical. Their subject, their persons, their events, were taken by Shakespeare, without change, almost without addition, from the chronicles. They move among kings, nobles, and their dependants. The people are unrepresented except by one or two persons, like the gardener in Richard II, like the two citizens in Richard III. In the second type of the historical play which Shakespeare afterwards invented – in Henry IV and V – many additions are made to the history. The people are brought in, and drawn with mastery. The great folk are there, but so are the other classes – the country justice, his servant, the rustic recruits, the common soldiers, the mistress of a London tavern, the grooms, ostlers, and travellers, thieves, sheriff-officers, courtezans and bullies, the broken-down gentleman, the merchants, the clergy, – a crowd of types,

 Stopford A. Brooke, Purgation through Tragic Suffering in Richard II 449 all invented, all making history vital, all disclosing what lay beneath the battles of kings and nobles, of kites and crows, in the upper air of society. Richard II has none of this, nor Richard III. Nothing is added to events, or to the personages, save the development of their characters. In this play, the character of Richard, carefully and slowly wrought, dominates the whole, makes the events and makes the catastrophe. It is the play. The character of Bolingbroke is quite secondary. Its outlines are drawn, but they are only partly filled up. What he is meant to be is more seen in his opposition to Richard than in himself. He is the strong man against the background of whose character the weakness of Richard stands out clear. But Shakespeare kept the full presentation of his character till he came to write Henry IV. The Duke of York is a good sketch, but in his senile bluster of words, and his weak reversal of them when any action is required, and in his soft yielding to fate, he is only a faded representation of what Richard, without his touch of genius, might have been as an old man. Even in his furious demand for his son’s death as a pledge of his loyalty to Bolingbroke – a scene which is quite unworthy of Shakespeare – he is another image of the excess into which weakness of will is so often betrayed. His haste, his fury, his exaggerated defiance of natural feeling – how could a father ask the King to slay his son? – are nothing more than weakness desperately trying to convince itself that it is strong, a condition of soul into which Richard falls again and again. His loyalty, which is his religion, is first broken down by the iniquity of the King, yet in principle is retained. Then circumstance steals even his principle away, and he joins Bolingbroke. Then he recovers his principle by transferring his loyalty to Bolingbroke. In a word, he is a very old man, and his words and acts are carefully studied from weak old age. The sketch may well be contrasted with that of Gaunt, who is as old a man, but who has not lost his will, his power, or his courage. He stays but a short time, only in two scenes, but we see him as if he were alive before us; one of the old school of Edward III; chivalrous, honourable, fit for the works and the trials of war, as fit as Richard was unfit for them; of deep experience in life, yet tender; rigid in justice even to blaming the King; honouring his own caste, yet loving the people; knowing his duties to them and pressing those duties on the King; loving his son, yet loving England more. Old and with the trembling angers of age, as well as its sorrows; old and dying, but never truer, more valiant, more patriotic, and more sorrowful than in death. As we stand by his deathbed, we see the trouble of the land and presage the doom of Richard. It is part of Shakespeare’s preparation for his catastrophe. That preparation has already begun in the first scene of the first act. The murder of Gloucester, Richard’s uncle, underlies the challenges of Mowbray and Bolingbroke, and also the policy of Richard towards the challengers. That murder was planned by Richard and executed by Mowbray before the play begins. It is now Richard’s policy to exile his tool Mowbray, and then to exile Bolingbroke. He gets rid of his accomplice in the murder, and also of the man whom he suspects as its avenger. Bolingbroke, when he challenges Mowbray, has really attacked Richard for the murder, and the King fears for his crown. This fear is deepened by Bolingbroke’s courtship of the common people. ‘How he did seem to dive into their hearts / With humble and familiar courtesy . . .’ [Quotes 2.3.25-36]. It is a fine sketch of an ambitious politician, as fine as that of Absalom in the Book of Samuel;[1] and the sketch is as admirably finished on the same lines in the rest of the play.

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The first and third scenes, with all the pomp and circumstance of court, and tournament, and procession – artistic delight in which is part of the character of Richard – are one long preparation, not only for the overthrow of the King and his death, but seem by their length to be the stately introduction to a greater drama than this single play; to the vast drama of which I have spoken which culminates in the doom of Richard III and the pacification of tortured England under Henry VII. Every one has said that Richard is a study of weakness of character. But the study is much more complicated than that easy statement would infer. The character of Richard, as freshly conceived by Shakespeare, is originally gentle, good because untempted, imaginative, loving. He is a fantastic, careless dilettante of life, luxurious by nature, easily excited, easily depressed, weak of will, of conscience, and of reason. As long as he was in a private gentleman’s position, and when he first was King, before he fell into the hands of flatterers and luxury, his character was inoffensive, nay more, full of easy charm and poetic sensibility; his weakness did then no harm; his vanity amused but did not injure the state; his slight touch of wild genius made him loveable. He is the Queen’s ‘sweet Richard’ [2.2.9], her ‘sweet guest’ [2.2.8]. But when he becomes a king, he is tempted by power he thinks irresponsible, and by a horde of parasites who play on his idea of himself and his position till he thinks he is lord of the world. And then, his love of luxury, his weakness and light vanity make him their victims. All his good qualities, for the time, are overwhelmed. Vanity with a strong character does not destroy good sense or clear sight of affairs, but combined with a weak character and a luxurious life, it rots away, ‘insatiate cormorant’ [2.1.38], the sense which handles daily life, preys upon itself, and blinds its victim’s eyes to events and men. It is no wonder, then, that Richard, now made vain, weak, luxurious – a king, as he thinks, by the decree of God Himself – should be blind to the danger of exiling Bolingbroke and to the strength of Bolingbroke. Shakespeare marks this total blindness, and while we feel, as we read, the folly in Richard of which it is the result, we also feel, as Shakespeare desires us to feel, the piteousness of it. It is impossible to see that lonely figure, ignorant that he has alienated every friend, starting for Ireland, without some dim compassion for his inevitable doom. Even in this far-off way Shakespeare prepares us for the pity we shall hereafter give him. But it is difficult to give him any pity now. For his ‘rash, fierce blaze of riot’ [2.1.33] has made him insolent. That insolence against law and man and the gods, which the Greeks put into a doomed man, reaches a hateful height in Richard, and is the more hateful because he is young. It is shown when, consulting with Bagot and Green, he lightly says that he will farm all England out and give blank charters to his substitutes that they may wring gold from all classes, without one thought of the civic guilt and mortal danger of this act; still more shown when, indignantly reproved by Gaunt for this iniquity, he violates the decencies of life by mocking and abusing a dying old man who is of as royal blood as himself; who is dignified by his age; whom he should honour as the stay of his kingdom; and to whom his pity is due because he has parted him from the son of his old age. His outburst of wrath at Gaunt’s rebuke is vile. It is said, however, in anger, but his words before he goes to see Gaunt are said without passion, in the cold indifference which belongs to a lawless life, and they are viler still – ‘Now, put it, God, in his physician’s mind / To help him to his grave immediately!’ [1.4.59-60]. This

 Stopford A. Brooke, Purgation through Tragic Suffering in Richard II 451 insolence, rooted in the weakness he thinks strength, has neither courtesy, reverence, nor compassion. It is doubled, with an equal ignorance of the danger he incurs, when, with a breath, he seizes all the goods and revenues of which his uncle dies possessed, and disinherits Bolingbroke. This is the insolence of a fool who thinks he can violate all civil and moral law with impunity, because he is a king. But above kings are the gods. And Shakespeare represents their action. York, Richard’s best support, is shaken to the centre of his loyalty. In a noble speech he appeals to Richard not to be unworthy of his great ancestors, and Richard, blind and doomed, buoyed up by the luxurious insolence in him, only says – ‘Why, uncle, what’s the matter?’ [2.1.186]. York tells him that in seizing on Bolingbroke’s succession, he is endangering his own; ‘you pluck,’ he says to the King, ‘a thousand dangers on your head’ [2.1.205]. ‘Think what you will,’ cries Richard — ‘we seize into our hands / His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands’ [2.1.209-10]. With that, he leaves for Ireland; and Shakespeare ends the scene by deepening our sense of the loneliness of the King and of his certain doom, as we listen to the talk of the nobles — Northumberland, Ross, and Willoby — who are left on the stage. With such a king there is no certainty in property or law. He has attacked their whole Order in attacking one. Moreover, he has pilled the commons, and his flatterers devour, like caterpillars, the state. ‘Let us go to Bolingbroke,’ they cry, ‘he will redeem the crown from pawn’ [2.1.293].[2] The next scene doubles the same impression. The Queen, in Shakespeare’s mystic way, feels beforehand the coming trouble —  Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune’s womb,  Is coming towards me, and my inward soul  With nothing trembles; at some thing it grieves  More than with parting from my lord the King. [2.2.10-13]

And Shakespeare is so interested in this experience of presentiment, that he analyses it in a long conversation. Green breaks in on this quiet scene with the dreadful news of Bolingbroke’s arrival, of all the great lords who have gathered to his standard. York follows, crying treason, but conscious of his inability to meet it. The weakness of his character, in which Shakespeare makes a fresh sketch of the weakness which is so great a part of his subject, appears in every speech. ‘I know not what to do,’ he cries. ‘The King is my kinsman and my king. Bolingbroke is also my kinsman, and he is wronged. I am torn between them.’[3] Then Bushy, Green, and Bagot, the king’s flatterers, are left alone. They know their doom is at hand. They bid farewell; farewell for ever. All is over. The first division of the play is done. The rest is the working out of Richard’s ruin. The reader sees the ruin as if it were already accomplished; and then, so vivid is its presentation, he also sees, in his mind’s eye, the lonely figure of Richard, far away in Ireland, vaguely wandering; who, unconscious of what he has done, is coming back to death; scarcely one friend left in England, and the only lovers of his person flying for their lives; York, his regent, wavering in loyalty, his queen in sad retirement — a blind pathetic figure on whom the shadow of fate lies dark and deep. Even when he is not on the stage his solitary figure thus dominates the play. 

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In these early historical plays, Shakespeare, clinging too much to history, does not weave his characters so closely and so dramatically into one another as he does afterwards. Richard II and Richard III stand, for the most part, apart from and above the rest, and develop almost independently of the other characters. Nor are the secondary characters less isolated from the play of other characters upon them. In this play Bolingbroke is himself alone, so is York, so is Northumberland, so is the Queen. Only Gaunt is in woven with the others, in reciprocating thought and action. It seems as if Shakespeare at first felt, as he read his history, that the personal character of a king or a great noble was everything in those times; that it made or marred a state. And he drew that fact into its conclusions in the two Richard plays. But, as he went on thinking, he felt that this could not be quite true. Men were not really so isolated from their fellows. Their character was not only developed by events, but by their clash with other men or women. And he changed his method. In Henry IV, in Henry V, in King John, and afterwards in the Roman history plays, the leading characters are closely influenced by, and inwoven with, other characters. And the result is that each character, unlike Richard II or Richard III, becomes more various, more complex, more than it originally knew itself to be; not the impersonation of one passion, one vice, or one goodness, but also the presentation of the infinite variety which lies hid in each personality; of the unexpected elements which appear, to our surprise, in men and women whom we think we know, at the touch of new events, at the touch of other characters than their own.  That was a great change in the dramatic development of Shakespeare as a writer of historical plays. I say of historical plays, because he had already reached this point in preceding plays not on historical subjects, as, for example, in Romeo and Juliet, where all the characters, down to the Nurse, so act and react on one another that fresh evolution continually takes place in each character. It was this which Shakespeare added to the historical plays which followed Richard II and Richard III. The lonely dominance of a single character is no longer to be found, except, perhaps, but greatly modified, especially by his close relation to his mother, in Coriolanus. When we meet Richard next, on his return from Ireland, he is a doomed man, brought face to face with the inevitable results of his folly. No change is wrought as yet in his conceit of kingship or in his weakness. But a twofold change has been wrought in him by the sorrow and dismay of the overthrow which has whirled him from the top to the bottom of the world. The first change is that the insolence, the rudeness, the riotous thoughtlessness, the blindness and folly, which marked him in the first scenes, begin to vanish away. The real amiability, gentleness, sentimentality, affectionateness of the man appear — those qualities for which he was loved by the Queen and his friends. The ‘sweet guest,’ ‘the sweet Richard,’ of the Queen takes shape. We see what he would have been, had he never been a king, never been spoilt by the unlimited power which was too greatly charged with temptation for his native weakness to resist. This change is common in similar circumstances. But the second change is uncommon, and illustrates Shakespeare’s desire to carry Richard’s character into variety, to give it originality. He adds poetic passion to the King. The shock has awakened in Richard the imagination and passion which his comfortable luxury had kept in slumber. Yet, the weakness of his nature prevents the poetry Shakespeare

 Stopford A. Brooke, Purgation through Tragic Suffering in Richard II 453 has put into his mouth from being great. It is half-frenzied, crying like a lost child, wild with self-pity, loose and vagrant in thought, ineffectual with rage and pride; but it is alive with images, with a constant stream of ideas, with rapid changes, and is frequently conducted by the logic of the imagination to a finished close, as in the passage on page 88.[4] This is an amazing change from the Richard who presides over the duel, or stands by the deathbed of Gaunt, and it makes him profoundly interesting. We give him now the admiration and sympathy which we give to an imperfect genius, however weak may be his will. He is now outside the common herd of kings, and enters the royal realm of art; most like some wild poet who has a natural weakness of character which prevents excellence, and whom sore trouble of his own making besets; out of which trouble he draws the subjects and the bewildered wailing of his verse. A third change, a moral change, is afterwards represented — so full of ideas is Shakespeare, so attached to Richard’s character. The poetic power of the King continues to the end, but it loses its wildness, because his character loses its weakness. Shakespeare lifts, as we shall see, Richard’s character above itself. But this moral change has not yet taken place, only the first two changes already mentioned. The King’s weakness still remains, though his imagination has awakened. And one idea of his prideful past clings closely to him, till it is beaten out of him by successive blows — his sense of the divinity of kingship. ‘England herself,’ he cries, ‘her very soil and flowers, her animals, her stones, must take their part against rebellion’;[5] This earth shall have a feeling and these stones Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms. [3.2.24-6] 

Nay, God Himself is on the side of anointed kings — ‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea / Can wash the balm from an anointed king . . . ’ [Quotes 3.2.54-61]. So high he flies in the weakness of pride. The next moment, with equal weakness, he is hopeless; hearing from Salisbury that his Welsh army has abandoned him. The next moment, spurred by Aumerle’s reproach — ‘Comfort, my liege, remember who you are’ [3.2.82], he flies as high as before: ‘Awake, thou sluggard majesty! Thou sleepest. / Is not the king’s name twenty thousand names?’ [Quotes 3.2.84-9]. Fine words, to which Sir Stephen Scroop brings news of dire calamity. Then Richard, plunged again into despondency, unloads his weakness in a flux of words. I quote them; they prove that he has realised at last his folly in the past, his weakness in the present. They prove more — they prove that the imaginative poetic element, the dreamy sentiment of his real nature, has now taken command. He is henceforward the reflective poet of many words; never the man of action, never the man with an aim, never Bolingbroke. ‘Of comfort no man speak: / Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs . . . ’[Quotes 3.2.144-77]. Carlisle, Aumerle, urge him to deeds on hearing this. And he lifts his heart again. For the moment the ague-fit of fear is overblown. But, when he hears that his uncle York is gone over to the foe, it is the final blow. The up-and-down of his bewildered passion has passed away. Despair is now his only bedfellow.

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Over against this excited and wavering man is set the cool, steadfast man, with the single aim. Bolingbroke wins the day, but he is not the protagonist of the play. His presence, now that he is again brought face to face with Richard, is used by Shakespeare, not so much to display his character, as to expand the wild, feeble, sentimental character of the King. We have met Bolingbroke twice before; in the scene between him and Mowbray, and in the scene where he is exiled. In the first he is loud-voiced, somewhat of a blusterer, without the politic courtesy of his after manners. But he may have exaggerated his attack on Mowbray in order to conceal from the crowd what his words really meant — a veiled attack on the King, through Mowbray, for the murder of Gloucester. Mowbray blusters also, but it is the bluster of guilt, side-glancing also at the King, who has with him plotted the murder. In the second scene Bolingbroke is quite different, quite self-contained. He speaks to the King whom he despises with covert sarcasm. At heart he is vengeful for Gloucester’s death, angry with himself, sorry for his father, indignant with the King’s treatment of England — but nothing of these passions appears without. The needs of the hour control his soul; and his thirst for power is curbed into waiting. He is content to believe in himself and his fate. Exiled, he knows he will return, though exile galls him to the core. He listens quietly to his father who, out of his long experience, and in the coldness of old age, tries to convince him that exile is nothing to the phiosophic man — ‘Think you are not exiled, and you are not.’[6] But Bolingbroke, as unimaginative as Richard is imaginative, who knows what he is, where he is, and what he means, with absolute clearness, disperses the old man’s unreality. Exile [is] not exile by thinking it is not! ‘O! who can hold a fire in his hand / By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? . . . ’ [Quotes 1.3.294-301]. A full revelation of his practical, clear-sighted, steady character. ‘Let me come home to plain fact,’ it seems to say; and then we know that Richard, who never sees the facts around him, will be broken to pieces when he meets Bolingbroke.7 He meets him now. Bolingbroke, playing his politic game, making no step forward till he has secured his last, luring by a gracious humility Northumberland, York, Percy, to his side, all things to all men, hiding his determined aim to gain the crown, sends a humble message to Richard. ‘On both my knees I kiss King Richard’s hand. Only to win back my lands, to reverse my banishment am I come.’[8] Yet in the midst of these meek words, a certain fury once breaks out, born of the wrath and fixed purpose that he hides beneath them — a subtle touch of Shakespeare’s —  If not, I’ll use the advantage of my power,  And lay the summer’s dust with showers of blood  Rain’d from the wounds of slaughter’d Englishmen. [3.3.42-4]

Northumberland bears this message to the King upon the castle wall. Shakespeare, to lift us into pity, makes Richard look like a king; his eye, like an eagle’s ‘lightens forth controlling majesty’ [3.3.69-70]; and this pity gathers closely round him from this moment; accompanies him to London, to Pomfret, to his death. We forgive the past for the sake of the piteous present. Insolent majesty we resented, but compassion waits on ruined majesty.

 Stopford A. Brooke, Purgation through Tragic Suffering in Richard II 455 What is most pathetic in the castle scene is the inability of its passion. Richard unlades his heart in fluent feebleness till we are touched with contempt. But the contempt is lessened by the imagination in his words. How sensitive they are, every tense nerve thrilling through them; how full of pitiful, half-frantic poetry! He stands at first on his divine right as king. God omnipotent will be his avenger; then he cries that his England will be devastated; her maid-pale peace be changed to scarlet indignation — and in the prophecy Shakespeare means us to presage the Civil Wars which Henry’s usurpation will begin. From this high cry he falls, bending to Bolingbroke’s desire, and, having yielded, regrets his shame with bitter passion —  O God! O God! that e’er this tongue of mine,  That laid the sentence of dread banishment  On yond proud man, should take it off again  With words of sooth. O! that I were as great  As is my grief, or lesser than my name,  Or that I could forget what I have been,  Or not remember what I must be now.  Swell’st thou, proud heart? [3.3.133-40]

He sees Bolingbroke draw near, and the wild, imaginative self-pity, indignation, and fear of what will be, breaks into a storm of self-revealing words —  What must the king do now? Must he submit?  The king shall do it: must he be depos’d?  The king shall be contented: must he lose  The name of king? o’ God’s name, let it go. . . . [Quotes 3.3.143-71]

Exhausted by this ebb and flow of passion, but having freed his soul by it, he meets Bolingbroke with the dignity a doomed man borrows from the belief that all is over, with the sarcasm and the courage which are born in a weak man when he feels that the worst has come; and passes, at Bolingbroke’s command, to London.  This to and fro of excitement and depression, soaring and sinking, — and behind it Richard’s amazed self-pity, and behind that, our deep pity felt through Shakespeare’s pity for one so inevitably mauled by moral law, touched too into sombre colour by our half-contempt for him, and into wild, delicate, sunset colour by our sympathy with his fantastic imagination — are, in this wonderful series of passages, as penetrating, as pathetic as any in the work of Shakespeare.  The act ends with that gentle scene in the Duke of York’s garden, where the Queen and her ladies come to breathe the air. It is Shakespeare’s dramatic way, after the turmoil and the tempest, to place us in a quiet place, and in quiet thought. It is, he thinks, the way of human life to do so with us. But he does not leave in it his subject. Rather, he resumes the whole of the previous action of the play, and anticipates its close, in the allegory the gardener makes. The garden is England. The gardener is the King; the fruit-trees are the nobles; the herbs and flowers the people; and the weeds

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and caterpillars those who devour the state. The gardener and his aids, in their walled quiet, discuss what is good government and what is not; that is, they discuss that which forms one of the underlying motives of the play itself, and of the whole series of plays down to the close of Richard III. And admirably it is done. The serious, philosophic talk of the gardener is set with natural art between the pretty interchange of thought of the Queen and her ladies and the sorrowful break from her ambuscade of the Queen when she hears the gardener blame the King — ‘O! l am press’d to death through want of speaking’ [3.4.72]. What, thought Shakespeare, are kings and queens and the quarrels of great nobles to this honest quiet workman who does with vital interest the work he enjoys, who has no foolish resentment against the great folk, even when they abuse him! Nothing but pity stirs his heart.9 With a delicate sympathy for the Queen and the woman, with the reflective sentiment of one who lives far away from the world, he plants in her memory a bed of herbs whose nature will recall her sorrow and her fate. The lines are exquisitely fitted to the case, the scene, and the man —  Poor queen! so that thy state might be no worse,  I would my skill were subject to thy curse.  Here did she fall a tear; here, in this place,  I’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace;  Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,  In the remembrance of a weeping queen. [3.4.102-7]

The scene at the beginning of the fourth act in Westminster Hall seems needless, a drag on the movement of the play. The only excuses I can find for it are, first, that it forms an introduction to the entrance of King Richard who is the centre of interest; and secondly, that it reveals those elements of disturbance, lying underneath the seeming peace of the usurpation, which in the succeeding plays bring about the Civil Wars. It is filled with the violent quarrels and fierce speech of hot-headed nobles. We anticipate, as we hear them, rebellion and battle. And this anticipation is enforced by the Bishop of Carlisle, who, indignant at Richard’s deposition as violating the divine right of kings, foretells the Civil Wars in a speech which is remembered in [2] Henry IV, when the king draws near to death. The deposition of Richard is the source of the doom that overshadows the following plays. If you crown Bolingbroke, says the Bishop — ‘let me prophesy, / The blood of English shall manure the ground / And future ages groan for this foul act . . .’ [Quotes 4.1.136-49]. It is a passage which suggests that Shakespeare had already conceived the whole series as one drama. Then the King enters. Shakespeare has evidently spent so much trouble over this scene that he has overdone his work. He has introduced that spectacular scene with the mirror which is quite unnecessary, which sins against the ‘Not too much,’ and which, worst of all, not only lowers our pity for Richard because it exhibits his theatrical folly in public, but also degrades the character of Bolingbroke below the level it keeps in the rest of the play. In permitting this antic of Richard, Bolingbroke lays him open to a cruel mockery which his terrible sorrow neither deserves nor ought to have. I wonder Shakespeare’s exquisite delicacy towards human nature could have permitted it. Nor

 Stopford A. Brooke, Purgation through Tragic Suffering in Richard II 457 is it the only stain on the scene. Shakespeare should have felt that Northumberland’s demand that the king, round whom the compassion of all gentle folk should gather, must read out, and sign the record of, all his crimes and follies, was a brutal demand. It is also needless for the dramatic action, and, if it be done to increase the pity for Richard which ought to preside over the scene, is a clumsy way of doing this. There is pity enough. It needs no false heightening. There is more of pathos in this short phrase of Richard’s than in all these tricks (from whatever source they were borrowed) to make it keener,  Bol. I thought you had been willing to resign.  K. Rich. My crown, I am; but still my griefs are mine.  You may my glories and my state depose,  But not my griefs; still am I king of those. [4.1.190-3] 

It is enough. The words with which afterwards Richard pours out his anger, his misery, are weaker than these. He is, throughout the scene, like a wild animal trapped in the wood, and crying in the night, while the free beasts pass him by and mock at his distress. The scene is piteous; yet we may wish it had been shorter, and less sensational.  The fifth act now begins, and closes all. The last stroke of fate falls on the King; and his death is the first stroke of a new fate which broods over Bolingbroke, and the work of which is wrought out through the two parts of Henry IV. The murder of Richard, the blood of every noble, slaughtered to clear the path of Bolingbroke to the throne, cry for vengeance. The dragon’s seed is sown. It springs up finally into the armed men of the Civil War, when father slew the son and son the father.[10] Richard, in the hour of his doom, sees the beginning of this and prophesies it to Northumberland. Again Shakespeare seems careful to prepare us for what is coming in Henry IV; seems as if he already looked forward to the large design of which we have spoken. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal  The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,  The time shall not be many hours of age  More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head  Shall break into corruption. . . .  [Quotes 5.1.55-68] 

Another preparation for Henry IV is also in this act (Sc. iii). It is the short talk between Percy and Bolingbroke about him who is the Prince of Wales in Henry IV. The dissolute, unthrifty, wanton boy who lives with Falstaff is sketched for us, and then his higher future in Henry V. ‘I see,’ says his father — ‘As dissolute as desperate; yet, through both, / I see some sparkles of a better hope, which elder days / May happily bring forth’ [5.3.20-2]. I wonder, when I read these preparation passages, whether Shakespeare, who was so careful in his art, did not insert them in this play after he had written Henry IV. One word must be said about the second and third scenes, in which York plays so curious a part. The second is, of course, remarkable for the fine and well-known

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description of Bolingbroke riding into London. It serves to lift the figure of Richard into even a higher realm of pity. But the third, where York begs the death of his own son from the King, offends the natural instinct of the heart, and is one of the few examples of this in Shakespeare; and though the scene, where Aumerle, York, and the Duchess rush one after another into the closet of the King, may be a good piece of stage effect, it is all the worse for that. It troubles with mere sensationalism the solemn atmosphere of fate which hangs over the death of Richard. We come now to the representation of Richard in his final act, which opens with his meeting the Queen on his way to the Tower. We read the scene, and are at first amazed. This is not the Richard whom we have known. He is all changed. Shakespeare, who has conceived Richard’s original character as of good and loving stuff underneath his native weakness, the Queen’s ‘fair rose and map of honour’ [5.1.8,12], the ‘beauteous inn where no hard-favoured grief should lodge’ [5.1.13-4]; who had then represented his weakness as rising, through irresponsible power and luxury, over the goodness and love into vanity, blindness, and insolence; who had then, by terrible misfortune’s siege, made him, while he retained his weakness, and indeed through his weakness, into the semblance of a fantastic poet, has now made a further change. He felt that Richard, since he was originally good, since he was betrayed by weakness of will but not by native viciousness into his faults, could not pass through so fierce a torrent of sorrow and misfortune without losing what was base and weak in him, and recovering whatever might be noble and strong. He is purged of his weakness. He is purged of his selfishness. He is purged of his blindness. He is purged of his insolentia. He speaks no longer with a flux of words. All he says is brief and clear. He sees with equal steadiness the past, the present, and the future. His love is no longer a feeble sentiment. The parting with his Queen is marked by strength and self-control deeply set in love, and with the wisdom of death in every word. He knows he is the victim of Fate, and he knows why —  Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,  To make my end too sudden: learn, good soul,  To think our former state a happy dream;  From which awak’d, the truth of what we are  Shows us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet,  To grim Necessity, and he and I  Will keep a league till death. [5.1.16-22]

Can any words, any temper, be more unlike his previous words and temper? He is quite clear as to what the Queen should do; and sets her in the way to do it, briefly and fully. When the Queen, seeing he is changed, and mistaking his brave acceptance of the inevitable, urges him to fierceness: What! is my Richard both in shape and mind  Transform’d and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke deposed  Thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?  The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw 

 Stopford A. Brooke, Purgation through Tragic Suffering in Richard II 459 And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage  To be o’erpowered; [5.1.26-31] 

he answers, out of the grave atmosphere of death which wraps him so closely, in quiet words, full of peace and beauty. All that was weak and foolish has passed away, but his lovingness is deepened by the change. His parting words are lovely with tenderness and sweet remembrance.  Nor does Shakespeare, in that last scene in the dungeon, where the murder is wrought, make him lower than this. His long soliloquy is not only descriptive of the place where he sits — Shakespeare never omits to paint for the intellectual eye his scenery — it is, in its gentle philosophy, its sensitive ear, its poetic symbolism, its love of music, and its kindly irony, not unworthy of a man, and of a man in the very shadow of death; and its close is beautiful with pathetic and lonely passion. The music which at first he loved, now maddens him; he bids it cease — yet — ‘Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me! / For ‘tis a sign of love, and love to Richard / Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world’ [5.5.64-6]. The tender, pathetic cry of this is deepened when, on a sudden, the groom enters and tells how his heart yearned when he saw Bolingbroke ride on roan Barbary, Richard’s favourite — ‘Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend, / How went he under him?’ [5.5.81-2]. It is only Shakespeare and Walter Scott who are capable of these divine things. At this, and while Richard is lost in recollection, the murderers break in, and all is over. Richard dies sword in hand, ‘As full of valour as of royal blood’ [5.5.113]. The work of justice is done; the punishment of ill government exacted; the fatal result of weakness, when strength was needed, reached; and pity alone remains, and the sorrowful tale to move the hearts of men. Richard himself bequeaths that legacy; and no better close can be given to all we have passed through than his own words, as lovely as they are sad and grave —  Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France,  Think I am dead, and that even here thou tak’st,  As from my death-bed, my 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 quit their grief,  Tell thou the lamentable tale of me, And send the hearers weeping to their beds:  For why the senseless brands will sympathise 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. [5.1.37-50] (75-99)

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Morton Luce, Richard II a disappointing failure 1905

From A Handbook to the Works of William Shakespeare (London, 1905); second edition revised (London, 1907). Morton Luce (1849–1943), literary critic, editor, and poet, was born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, the son of a clergyman, and for the most part was privately educated. He served for a time as Assistant Lecturer in Bristol University but was mainly an independent author. As a scholar he was particularly interested in Tennyson, on whom he published three books, and in the Elizabethans. He edited Shakespeare’s Tempest and Twelfth Night for the Arden series (both 1899; revised and enlarged 1918). Shakespeare, the Man and His Work (1913) grew out of his earlier Handbook, much of which consists of a play-byplay survey of the canon for students, providing essential historical information about each work in addition to brief critical assessments. Luce’s ‘Critical Remarks’ on Richard II, clearly influenced by Swinburne (Nos. 39 and 64), are notable for their generally unqualified negativity and show that even as late as 1905 (when more sympathetic views of the drama had already become current) this chronicle history continued to be regarded by some writers as being very low on the scale of the dramatist’s achievements. But no mere echo of Swinburne, Luce has insights of his own to contribute, as for instance his interesting observation that Aumerle serves as a preparatory foil for the character of Prince Hal. A section on the sources and artistic antecedents of Richard II argues, in significant departure from previous discussions, that the title figure of the Henry VI plays provided Shakespeare with a model for the weak monarch whom Bolingbroke deposes. The extracts given below are taken from the slightly revised second edition of the Handbook (1907).

[1] [From Chapter VI: ‘Introductions to the Works’; ‘(14) King Richard II, 1594’] Historical Particulars [After discussing the text, the publication history of the play, and the other dramas of the period on the same reign, Luce considers the style of the work and its artistic antecedents.]

 Morton Luce, Richard II a Disappointing Failure 461 . . . Altogether we may assign [Richard II] to the year 1593-94, a date which is in accordance with the general style of the drama. This general style has notable peculiarities; like the over subtle character of the leading figure of the play, it has contrasts too strongly marked to secure artistic unity, or perhaps our approbation. Richard III was a ‘plain devil’ [Richard III, 1.2.236] and consistently played his part in Marlowesque blank verse; but Richard II is something more than a reflection of that poet’s Edward II, and his speech is not always the speech of Marlowe; more often we hear the lyric language of Greene. In other words, the play opens with admirable and appropriate blank verse, but soon lapses into rhyme; it is a play of metrical and poetical experiments, not always successful, including couplet, quatrain, sestet, ‘stichomythia,’ but no prose; experiments in quibbles, hyperboles, conceits; in imagery exuberant and sometimes picturesque, but more often incongruous, over-fanciful, laboured, and tiresome. In many of these qualities the style comes nearest to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but there it is at least in keeping with the subject and the atmosphere. The same may be said of Love’s Labour’s Lost and Romeo and Juliet. In Richard II the poet casts about him for a style, and spoils his work; it becomes almost burlesque. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, on the other hand, though full of apologies, he secures a delightful effect without reminding us that his touch is at times unsure, and his taste not wholly formed. . . . [Luce points out Shakespeare’s reliance on Holinshed and possibly also on Stowe and Lord Berners’s translation of Froissart.] But for the most important antecedents of the play, especially the artistic, we look elsewhere; and, as far as I know, the fact has not hitherto been noticed. The outline sketch of Richard II as well as that of Richard III appears unmistakably in Henry VI. I will first call attention to passages in the earlier play . . . that recur in Richard II; but of course I attach the least importance to such parallels; it is the dramatic antecedents of the play that are profoundly interesting. First we have in Henry VI a far clearer outline sketch of the character of Richard II than is to be found even in Marlowe’s Edward II; I refer to ‘base, fearful, and despairing’ Henry himself (3 Henry VI, I.i.178). He is undoubtedly Shakespeare’s first essay in the curious and complex study that resulted in Richard II, of which character Mr. Swinburne (Harper, March, 1903 [see No. 64 above]) remarks, that a student may wonder Shakespeare had the patience to persist in its development. ‘Base, fearful, and despairing Henry’; more than once he is thus described in the threefold play, and if we look for the tragedy of both king and people, which was re-enacted in Richard II, we find it thus: ‘Come wife, let’s in, and learn to govern better; For yet may England curse my wretched reign’ (2 Henry VI, IV​.ix​.48​​-9; cf. with Richard II, V.i.24-5). But now for suggestions of incident, situation, manner; take the speeches of characteristic sentimentality, effusiveness, fine phrases, fantastic imagery, affectation, pose; the fifty-four lines of 3 Henry VI, II.v.1-541 are a perfect exemplar of Richard’s sixty-six lines in Richard II, V.v.1-66; the false sentiment of Henry, where he addresses the land he has done his best to ruin (3 Henry VI, III.i.12-21), is repeated almost to the letter by Richard in III​.ii​.4​​-26 of the later play; or again, the fantastic realism of the feather in 3 Henry VI, III.i.82-93 is the forerunner of the looking-glass episode in Richard II, IV.i.275-599; and these examples may be multiplied indefinitely. Taken singly they may not be striking, but in the mass they are quite convincing.

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I have spoken of Shakespeare’s indebtedness to Marlowe’s Edward II. The likeness extends beyond character and incident even to minor details. . . . As to the time of this play, fourteen days are represented on the stage with intervals. (146-8)  Critical Remarks I think that of all the works of Shakespeare, I like Richard II the least. This low estimate may be due to the unredeemed selfishness and weakness of the leading character, which seems to saturate the whole play. We have the weakest of scenes, situations, characters, incidents; and of the style I have spoken already. To descend to particulars; here is a couplet – perhaps the most unfortunate tag in all Shakespeare: Desolate, desolate, must I hence and die, The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye. [1.2.73-4]

It seems strange that Shakespeare at any stage of his career should write like this, even when he rhymes. The first line is bad; but in regard to bathos and inefficacy the second is worse. It is not surprising that Shakespeare should have mentally fashioned such a line; we all lapse in our rudimentary thought now and then; it is not surprising that he should have written it down; we often give a doubtful line the benefit of our pen; but that he did not cross it utterly out – that is surely hard to explain. Yet this is only one of many – far too many such in the play; and as to the conceits and quibbles, they sometimes threaten to choke the sickly stream of drama. Or take a whole speech, such as II​.ii​.34​​-40. The usual attempts made to defend this kind of language are examined in Chapter VIII, where I refer to another and totally different speech by the same character (V.i.26-34).[2] Shall we say that Shakespeare in this mood of experiment wished to show us how badly he could write, and then how excellently? But let us turn to another subject, the characterization; here are the same extremes. To begin with, Richard is over-idealized, and for this reason; Henry VI and Marlowe’s Edward II were founded on fact; the ideal complexities of their characters are kept in bounds by their relation to the reality. No such restrictions were placed upon Shakespeare when he was working at Richard II, unless we accept those of popular tradition . . . to which he was often subservient; and thus he merely re-creates the ideal personality of his own Henry VI and Marlowe’s king, and carries yet further the idealizing process, till we get something dangerously like a caricature. And among the curious phenomena to which this mode of treatment gives rise, not the least striking is the fact that Shakespeare’s Richard II is much more like the Edward II or even the Henry VI of actual history. Next, no commentator, I think, has noticed the serious flaw in the development of this second and over complex Richard; this is the more strange, because Shakespeare not only noticed it himself, but also tried hard to redeem it by elaborate apologies; in fact, as I hinted above, the experimental extremes that disfigure or ruin the style of the play are equally destructive to the characterization. A king comes on the

 Morton Luce, Richard II a Disappointing Failure 463 stage; he is selfish, crafty, weak, cruel (I.iv.64, 99), contemptible, frivolous, heartless, unscrupulous, impolitic; and many of these qualities, as is clear from overwhelming evidence, have belonged to him from his youth up. Richard III, we say, could win the love of woman. Few women resist strength; but this mean weakling could have the love of neither woman nor man.3 But now a queen enters; she must have had long and bitter knowledge of all these faults; for instance, she was present during II.i.69-223;4 yet she speaks of the king as ‘my sweet Richard’ [2.2.9]. This is revolting; seldom indeed does Shakespeare so grievously insult our sense of propriety. That he feels this himself is evident from his after attempts to explain that Richard both in shape and mind is ‘transformed’ (V.i.26, 27); he is a fair rose wither’d; he is the model where old Troy did stand; he is King Richard’s tomb, and not King Richard; and so on. Now, Shakespeare is rather fond of this expedient of ‘transforming’; he unwarrantably transforms (using the word) Hamlet, Henry V, and others. But, as I have said, these elaborate excuses serve merely to prove that Shakespeare recognized his own error, and that he made strenuous yet useless efforts to redeem it. Nothing, indeed, could be further from the truth than this theory of transformation. As a fact, if any change has come over Richard, it is for the better: ‘Our holy lives must win a new world’s crown, / Which our profane hours here have stricken down . . .’ (V.i.24, 25). Such are his words to the Queen after his deposition. Stript of the externals of majesty which he had disgraced, he is at least a man; and he grows greater towards the end, till in death he performs the first kingly act of his life – ‘Villain, thy own hand yields thy death’s instrument’ (V.v.106). One other reason for this overdrawn King of words and phrases, maudlin sentiments, inert actions, contradictions, is found in the fact that Shakespeare wished to effect the utmost possible contrast between him and Bolingbroke. Later the poet becomes more expert in this device of foil or moral antithesis, and his contrasts do no such violence to real or artistic truth.5 Another reason, but on this I lay no stress, may lie in the poet’s unconscious moral purpose, to show even the folly of Kings its own feature, and by idealizing the tragedy that underlies nine-tenths of history, to effect Aristotle’s purpose of purifying our emotions. With this and other intents he deviates at will from the strict historic paths. The queen should be a child of twelve; Gaunt, the aged patriot, should be a middle-aged schemer, and so forth; but for these details we have no space, nor is their enumeration important for our artistic purpose. So, too, with the historic events and their relation to the play. And now to continue with the characters. The Queen is another impossible personage, impossible because she was created to give scope and play to impossible attributes in her husband. ‘To be wise and love exceeds man’s might’ (Troilus and Cressida, 3.2.156-7),[6] is one of Shakespeare’s Baconian and distorted but variable and ultimately reformed views of the wisest of all passions . . . ; and naturally his king of false sentiments and futile phrases must make ridiculous parade of this emotion also. But equally, as I conjecture, the Queen was created to be an early example of another device of the dramatist . . . , for she plays the part assigned to a woman in several of the tragedies; she appears, that is, as the feminine counterpart of the leading male personage; she speaks her husband’s language, and like him (unless we except V.i.2634), fondles her emotions. This all-important characteristic of both Richard and the

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Queen is admirably expressed in King John, III​.iv​.​92: ‘You are as fond of grief as of your child.’ Of the other characters in the play I shall speak more briefly. Bolingbroke is powerfully sketched by the pencil of mere antithesis; he is the man of intellect, common sense, action, as opposed to the weakling of emotions, fancies, words; in fact, as so often in early Shakespeare, the antithesis is somewhat crude and forced; the poet is over-anxious to make his King of mere sentiment a foil to both Richard III and Bolingbroke. Hence partly, as I may repeat, the more grotesque features of the character of Richard II. Next in importance is Gaunt. Now, as I pointed out in Chapter IV, characters that deliver speeches which are sententious rather than literary, excrescent rather than a normal dramatic growth are, more or less, Shakespeare himself – the man within the artist, the poet within the dramatist; such a character is Gaunt in this play. Further, he stands for England; and he will appear again in King John as Faulconbridge, and in the later historical plays as Henry V. With regard to the minor dramatic figures, Norfolk, we may say, was necessary to the tournament scenes, and was favourably painted in order that Richard might seem yet more wantonly despotic: ‘A dearer merit, not so deep a maim . . . / Have I deserved at your Highness’ hands’ [1.3.156-8]. As to York, he seems to play many parts, none of them well defined; the poet had some purpose in making him, like Gaunt, old; both embody the tradition of a nobler past, and perhaps we miss Gaunt less since York remains. But further, these two, Gaunt with his ‘age and sullens’ [2.1.139], and his wise saws, and York in his feeble, fussy dotage, stand together for a character too popular on that early stage – a weak, moralizing old man; and their direct descendant is Polonius. ‘The worst scene of all,’ says Mr. Swinburne, [is that] ‘in which York pleads with Bolingbroke for the death of his son’ [No. 39 above]. But the fact is that Shakespeare is beginning to sketch his full-length portrait of Henry V, and he devotes this undue space to the treason of young Aumerle and its pardon, in order that by comparison the faults of Henry’s youth may seem not only trifling, but almost virtues: ‘As dissolute as desperate; yet through both / I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years / May happily bring forth’ [5.3.20-2]. Of Richard II as a tragedy some particulars will be given in Chapter VIII, as also some point of comparison with Marlowe. I may add that while Marlowe, in his play of Edward II, has sketched a more consistent character, Shakespeare in his Richard II has given to the world a greater drama. . . . (148-53) [2] [From Chapter VIII: ‘The Art of Shakespeare’] The Histories We shall lose nothing by stating at the very outset that the ground plan of Shakespeare’s historical dramas is patriotic almost as much as artistic; see, for example, the poet’s reflections at the end of the three plays that conclude respectively three periods of anarchy, viz., Richard III, King John, and Henry V.

 Morton Luce, Richard II a Disappointing Failure 465 Bound up with this is another which I may best call the didactic; ‘dramatic poesy,’ said Bacon, ‘is as history made visible . . . a kind of musician’s bow, by which men’s minds may be played upon’;[7] and Nashe writes, ‘They (historical dramas) show the ill-success of treason, the wretched end of usurpers, the misery of evil dissension’;[8] and that this purpose was set before Shakespeare may be seen in any careful comparison of his Richard II with Marlowe’s Edward II; for while Marlowe keeps silence with respect to his moral, the ethical lesson of Shakespeare’s play is proclaimed on every page of it; and the same is true of his other historical dramas. . . . (396-7) [Excluding Henry VIII, Luce divides Shakespeare’s English histories into three groups – (1) the three parts of Henry VI, which he regards as merely dramatized chronicle; (2) ‘three studies in kings and kingship, namely, the two Richards and John; and (3) ‘the “trilogy” . . . of Shakespeare’s ideal monarch,’ i.e. 1 and 2 Henry IV and Henry V (pp. 397-8). In the second group ‘Richard III is a study in unscrupulous strength, Richard II in unscrupulous weakness; King John . . . represents unscrupulous misrule and villainy . . .’ (p. 398). Luce goes on to note the prevalence of the patriotic theme in Richard II and King John, ‘and yet with a difference; for in Richard II patriotism is incidental to the drama; Gaunt leaves the stage early; but his successor, Faulconbridge, plays a leading part throughout King John’ (p. 401). A discussion of the chronology of Richard III, Richard II and King John follows.] . . . In 1903 Mr. Swinburne repeated his opinion of 1880 by pronouncing Richard II as ‘unmistakably the author’s first attempt at historic drama’ [Nos. 39 and 64 above]. He relied for his opinion chiefly on the lyrical style of the play; but this, as it appears to me, was determined in great part by the leading character, though we discover the same style in several later plays, Romeo and Juliet, for example, or A Midsummer Night’s Dream.9 But in this particular instance the suggestion probably came from Marlowe’s Edward II; ‘I must,’ says Gaveston, ‘have wanton poets, pleasant wits, Musicians that . . . May draw the pliant king which way I please’ [Edward II, 1.1.50-2]; the sentiment, moreover, is Greek; (Oukoun otan . . . epoiesen, Plato, Rep[ublic] III.410 E);[10] and Shakespeare with this, or at least Marlowe before him, tells us that the ear of Richard ‘is stopped with other flattering sounds, Lascivious metres to whose venom sound The open ear of youth doth always listen’ [2.1.17-20]; and thus he expressly announces something of the method and manner of his play, its wanton music, its false poetic, its effusive rhetoric. In fact, this crude experiment of making the mere speech betray the emotion or the man – or the woman, for the Queen adopts the unhappy subtilties and affectations of her husband – is carried to a destructive excess; for example, in II​.ii​ .98​-​122, where the poet intends that York’s disorderly language shall be the appropriate utterance of his disordered mind. Granting that the text can be relied on, and I think it may, we have as the result of the poet’s intention a mutually destructive mixture of prose and blank verse. Tennyson made trial of the same device in the mad scene of his Maud, but neither poet repeated his experiment; each was soon convinced that nothing can be gained by letting doubtful art in at one door while good art goes out at another. And it is amusing to notice that even in Richard II Shakespeare often forgets

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his experiments of metre and manner; as in V.i.26-34, where the Queen, though her anxieties have increased tenfold, abandons her grotesque manner of speech, and gives utterance to the most natural, the most inspired, and of course the most effective poetry in the play.11 Just for an unguarded moment the poet allowed art to drive out artifice. But Mr. Swinburne further regards some parts of Richard II as ‘pre-Marlowite,’ and he detects the earlier influence of Greene. Here again I venture to express the opposite opinion; the style of Richard III, the manner of the ‘deep tragedian’ (Richard III, III.v.5), befits the ‘naked villany’ (I.iii.336) of the ‘plain devil’ (I.ii.236) of a tragedy written respectfully under the direct influence of Marlowe, who had recently been joint worker, as it seems, with Shakespeare in the third part of Henry VI. Of that drama, moreover, Richard III is something more than a direct continuation; it is actually begun within the former play, for example, where Gloucester makes the announcement, I’Il blast his harvest,’ sqq. (3 Henry VI, V.vii.21-5; see also iv. 124-7, etc.); again, Richard II as naturally begins the Henry V cycle as Richard III concludes that of York and Lancaster. I have already shown . . . how in Richard III Shakespeare repeats the earlier Marlowe, and I pointed out that Gloucester is merely Tamburlaine and Barabas rolled into one character, and he often speaks their very speech; whereas the play of Richard II, though perhaps suggested by later work of Marlowe, seems to avoid any direct imitation of that writer; indeed, except for their main motive, Marlowe’s Edward II and Shakespeare’s Richard II have little in common, and every reader must be surprised that Shakespeare should be so slightly indebted to his original. Next, in Richard II, Marlowe is supplanted certainly by Greene, perhaps also by Peele, Lyly, and Sidney; in spite of the poet’s caution, their influence is often distinctly felt. And we may say finally that Richard II is the natural reaction from Richard III, from plain blank verse and a plain –far too plain –villain, to over-subtle melodies12 and a character so over-subtilized that he becomes a caricature. At this point we make a reservation; the chief chronological fact to be established is that King John is maturer and later work than the two Richards; these, it might be, were contemporaneous; Shakespeare generally had two or three plays in hand at the same time; but it is not so likely that King John . . . was begun before the other two plays were finished. And lastly, for dates, let us conjecture, Richard III, 1593, Richard II, 1594, King John, 1596. . . .  The chronological data already obtained will be strengthened as we trace more exactly the artistic development of these historical plays along the line of characterization. We pass lightly over the three parts of Henry VI, where the dominant dramatic interest centres in incident, and we come to the one-character play of Richard III. Now, a play of one personage, surrounded by puppets, is easier to write, and often marks the beginner; for in drama of the highest type, all the characters are equally dramatic, and the action of each on the others is constant, and is directed to subserve the dramatic issues. And in Richard II, although the poet’s chief art is exercised on the central figure, we may take into account Bolingbroke and York, and perhaps also the Queen. In King John we find a clearer example of multiple characterization, for besides the King, and Arthur, and Constance, we have Faulconbridge, who stands to his predecessors in the relation I have indicated between the language of the later and the earlier histories; the relation, namely, of art to artifice; he is the first character drawn from the life.

 Morton Luce, Richard II a Disappointing Failure 467 Another aspect of Richard III which clearly marks the beginner has been noticed [earlier] . . . where I point out that we have in Gloucester not only Tamburlaine and Barabas, but also the villain of an earlier stage who gratuitously proclaims his ‘naked villainy’ [Richard III, 1.3.335]; such characters are easy to draw, and easy to act; but apart from Aristotle’s objections. . . they are essentially undramatic, being incapabale of idealization. Richard II, on the other hand, as we also noticed, displays the extreme of reaction, being highly complex, if not over-idealized. A few general remarks on the remaining characters will close this division of my subject. We have seen in the play of Richard II a faint outline of Henry V, and the first foil thereto in the figure of Aumerle; but the presence of the ideal monarch pervades these plays. . . . (402-6)

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George Pierce Baker, Richard II and the weaknesses and strengths of the chronicle play 1907

From The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist (New York, 1907). George Pierce Baker (1866–1935), teacher of playwriting and writer on drama and rhetoric, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, attended Harvard College, and after graduation in 1887 stayed on to teach oral debating. His two early books on argumentation (1893, 1895), plus his study of Shakespeare’s development (1907) together with editions of various Elizabethan plays, helped to earn him promotion in 1910 to the title of professor of dramatic literature; his real notoriety, however, derived from his immensely popular ‘English 47’, an innovative course in practical play-construction (with a workshop for trial performances) that he established at Harvard-Radcliffe in 1905 and that attracted, in addition to talented undergraduates, such important literary and theatrical students as Eugene O’Neill, Philip Barry, Sidney Howard, John Mason Brown, and Thomas Wolfe, the last of whom made him a character in Of Time and the River. Out of this experience came a series of Lowell Institute lectures delivered in 1919, the published version of which, entitled Dramatic Technique, became the recognized textbook on the subject for aspiring American playwrights. All of Baker’s writings on the drama, despite their concern with the practicalities of actual performance, are scholarly and analytic in method, committed to an aesthetic of psychological realism, and promote the concept of artistic unity as the preёminent ingredient of great plays. Viewing the development of Shakespeare’s career historically – and with a somewhat flawed sense of the dramatic chronology – Baker saw the English histories as fundamentally transitional, as only partly successful experiments in the dramatist’s search for the more viable forms of comedy, tragedy, and romance. His comments on Richard II, necessarily bound up with his discussion of the histories as a group, nevertheless embody valuable observations, not least of which is his approval of the much maligned handling of Aumerle’s conspiracy in Act V.

[From Chapter IV: ‘The Chronicle Plays’]

 George Pierce Baker, Richard II and the Chronicle Play 469 . . . The first principle of all is that a play must have unity, not because the rhetorics call for that in composition, but because the great public does not permanently care for story-telling which leaves no clear, final impression. It may be helpful to remember that these historical plays are the Elizabethan prototype of our plays of the Civil War. We, too, not long since, were satisfied with a succession of ununified scenes so long as they thrilled us with camp-fire scenes, the marching and counter-marching of mimic forces, or the horrors of Libby Prison.[1] But those plays we are considering have gone into the oblivion where even these Elizabethan plays would have dropped if characterization of distinct power and much rich if irregularly appearing poetry had not been present in these nine chronicle histories.[2] The fact is, the three parts of Henry VI, Richard II, and even to some extent King John, fail as plays in two fundamental respects. In the first place, in spite of characterization and poetry, occasional or frequent, these plays leave us in the theatre far less clear, and therefore less satisfied, than does Richard III, in which every scene is but one more light thrown on the facets of Richard’s character. . . . Now in every one of the plays I have in mind, except Richard III and Henry V, there is not the unification of material which carries on a reader or hearer with increasing interest from stage to stage, leaving him clear at the end as to the meaning of the whole play. Nor is there in any other play than these two a unification so complete, even if crude, by means of a central figure. . . . (148-50) [Baker discusses the absence of a unifying character or idea and the diffusion of interest in the Henry VI plays.] . . . A second dramatic flaw in Henry VI, King John, and Richard II is best illustrated by the third play. There are many who much admire what they feel to be the reserve and the artistic restraint of Richard II, and with those who talk of it as poetry or a narrative there can be no quarrel; but as drama the play has a fatal fault. Notice how little the actors care for this play. It is easy enough to say scoffingly that they see no star part in it, but there is no one star part in Julius Caesar, yet the actors seem reasonably fond of that play. The truth is, here in Richard II is a play without a hero. Richard is constantly represented in an unfavorable light – as weak, dilatory, and selfish. The character with elements of popularity, who might easily have been made the central figure of the play, is Bolingbroke, yet, only lightly sketched in as compared with Richard, he is evidently deliberately subordinated to the latter. Once more we face a curious situation: like the child, an audience, loving story-telling for its own sake, craves some compelling central figure whom it can follow sympathetically or even with fascinated abhorrence. The least experienced story-teller for children knows that mere incident with no central figure can never compete with Jack the Giant-killer or the Ugly Duckling. Nor does the childish listener, no matter what his years, care for a weakling as the central figure. When he finds a weakling in that position, he falls back on either the incidents of the story itself or on some secondary person in the play. Iago and Macbeth compel attention quite as much as Othello or Lear, but Hamlet and Coriolanus as central figures do not command the unwavering attention of the uncritical. How much has the great public cared for attempts like Mr. G.B. Shaw’s to interest them in the temperament of such a figure as the hero of Arms and the Man? On the other hand, to fall back on a secondary

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character is to shift interest midway, something which Marlowe, with his sure theatrical instinct, worked hard to prevent in Edward II. To-day, all these warring factions about Richard have for us no special interest in themselves. Worst of all, from the side of the actor, the great cause of disaster in the play – the vacillation and dilatoriness of Richard – are merely talked of or illustrated in their results rather than strikingly presented in action. That is, the actor’s instinct tells him there is no good acting part in the play either in the sense that he can carry the sympathy of the house with him in everincreasing attention from start to finish or that he can hold it fascinated, even with disgust or horror, as in Richard III. What tells in Richard II to-day is what relates it to Love’s Labour’s Lost, the fertility of its poetic imagination, and its verse. Listen to Richard giving up his crown in these beautiful but exceedingly self-conscious lines: – ‘Now is this golden crown like a deep well; / It owes two buckets, filling one another . . .’ [Quotes 4.1.184-9]. Remembering that a few years later Shakespeare had learned that in the great crises in our lives a gesture, a glance, a monosyllable, are far more probable than any long speech, however fine, one is disposed to quote James Shirley’s words, ‘Sir, your phrase has too much landscape.’[3] . . . (152-4) [After discussing the strengths and weaknesses of King John and 1 and 2 Henry IV, Baker illustrates the dramatist’s failure to break free of the restraints inherent in his historical material – his lack of dramatic freedom – as revealed in the episode between Talbot and the Countess of Auvergne (1 Henry VI, 3.2). He then instances the scene in which York discovers Aumerle’s treason (Richard II, 5.2) as showing a technical advance in dramaturgy over the scene from the earlier play.] . . . Contrast with the dramatic ineptitude of this [i.e., 1 Henry VI, 3.2] the scene in the last act of Richard II, when the young Aumerle, returning home to his father, the Duke of York, is found by the latter to be really involved in a conspiracy against Bolingbroke. Here is the original of the scene in Holinshed and also Shakespeare’s development of it. ‘For this earle of Rutland departing before from Westminster to see his father the duke of York, as he sat at dinner, had his counterpane of the indenture of the confederacie [made at Oxford][4] in his bosome. ‘The father, espieing it, would needs see what it was: and, though the sonne humblie denied to show it, the father, being more earnest to see it, by force broke it out of his bosome: and percieuing the contents therof, in a great rage caused his horses to be saddled out of hand, and spitefullie reproouing his sonne of treason, for whome he was become suretie and mainpernour for his good abearing in open parlement, he incontinentlie mounted on horseback to ride towards Windsore to the king to declare vnto him the malicious intent of his complices.’[5] In Shakespeare’s version the Duke and the Duchess have been talking of the triumphal entry of Bolingbroke into London and the contemptuous feeling of the people for Richard, when the Duchess cries: Duchess. Here comes my son Aumerle. York. Aumerle that was; But that is lost for being Richard’s friend,

 George Pierce Baker, Richard II and the Chronicle Play 471 And, madam, you must call him Rutland now: I am in parliament pledge for his truth And lasting fealty to the new-made king. Enter Aumerle. Duchess. Welcome, my son: who are the violets now That strew the green lap of the new-come spring? . . . . [Quotes the remainder of the scene, 5.2.41-117] 

There can be no doubt of the dramatic power of that, for it portrays character by means of dialogue. It shows, too, the way in which training an imagination originally sympathetic may develop almost intuitive powers. Shakespeare metamorphoses the dry lines of the history into human documents, quickens them into human figures. The scene shows, also, theatrical as contrasted with mere dramatic skill. Note the sure feeling for the emotional possibilities of the two incidents, the discovery of the indenture and the departure, which leads Shakespeare to ‘hold’ them, as the technical phrase runs, by looking at them through the eyes and feelings of each participator. It shows, too, in the swift contrasting of the doting mother and the outraged, sternly loyal father. It is specially evident in the climax gained by having York so long hold back the exact nature of what he has read in the indenture, and in the frenzied cry of the Duchess to Aumerle as the servant enters to receive the orders of the infuriated Duke: ‘Strike him, Aumerle!’ [5.2.85]. But in this scene, as elsewhere in these chronicle plays, when Shakespeare is at his best, he is absorbed in the emotional content of the scene rather than in portraying some figure so well known that his sense of fact steadily restricts him. Nearly always one finds him at his best when freest from the shackles of historical fact. This extract from Richard II proves, then, that by 1592 or 1593 Shakespeare had gained the power, within a scene, of getting from his material that ‘peculiar emotional effect which is the chief end of the theatre.’[6] That is, within the scene, even in the historical play, he was theatrically competent. The lines just quoted show also what marks even these early plays in contrast with similar work of his contemporaries, – Shakespeare’s marvellous understanding of the inmost feelings, not merely of a single figure but of a group. Yet Richard II shares with the three parts of Henry VI and Richard III a decidedly undesirable characteristic, in that in them action is merely represented rather than explained in the representation. Many, many things happen, but the actions are related one to another rather because historically they did happen in that order or because they happen to the same person or group of persons, than casually. . . . It is undoubtedly true that in the group, namely, King John, the revision of Henry V made in 1598, and the two parts of Henry IV, there is a persistent effort to motivate action; and that is just why all those plays are more convincing than the earlier group. But with the exception of the two parts of Henry IV, Shakespeare is ever ready to let his characters explain themselves in long speeches rather than by significant and connotative action. Recall the opening soliloquy of Richard III: – ‘Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York’ [Richard III, 1.1.1-2]. Recall Richard II resigning his crown to Bolingbroke, or the many splendid

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declamatory speeches of Henry V. Shakespeare begins in Henry VI with mere action, unrelated and discursive; moves to illustrative action, too often subordinated to speech, in Richard II and Henry V;7 to illustrative action that is not sufficiently motivated in Richard III; and then through King John and the two parts of Henry IV to a point where his motivation makes his characters at the moment thoroughly human, but is not searching enough to make us understand, instead of the single scene itself, the tragedy of their lives. Action resulting from character he grasps first in Richard III, but action resulting from an initial event of far-reaching significance he seems to understand less well. That there are such things as laws of human conduct whose puppets human beings are, apparently in these chronicle histories he either does not even suspect or does not care to illustrate. The fact is, these chronicle plays before King John may easily be grouped as follows: strictly experimental, three parts of Henry VI; experimental with literary feeling dominant, Richard II and Henry V; experimental with a growing sense of theatrical effectiveness, Richard III. I have already spoken of the resemblance between Love’s Labour’s Lost and Richard II, in the fact that each sacrifices the dramatic moment to ephemeral and essentially false standards of literary expression. . . . . . . Does not all this analysis make clear Shakespeare’s weakness up to 1595-1596, the date of King John? He could characterize perfectly within the scene; he could develop from the merest historical suggestion characters which fitted perfectly into the chief historical incidents of the play, he could even subordinate his literary instinct to his dramatic, but he could not bind, or did not care to bind, all this crowding incident together except through some one central figure like Richard III or Henry V; nor did he apparently as yet discern behind the historical events the great laws and forces for which these kings, queens, and nobles were but the puppets. That is, till King John he is, after all, producing from historical fact only a kind of sublimated melodrama. Even King John and the two parts of Henry IV bear out what has just been said, for though both show great gain in general characterization, in technical skill, and even in the creation of figures so real that they pass unchallenged side by side with the historical, neither play is as well unified as The Comedy of Errors or Titus Andronicus. This singular contrast in unifying power resulted, as I have said, from two causes. To Shakespeare and his contemporaries of 1590-1600, except Marlowe, the chronicle play probably seemed as distinctly a form as comedy or tragedy. As yet all the forms as forms were little understood. Comedy meant dramatic story-telling for a pleasant ending; tragedy was story-telling with a grim conclusion. The developed chronicle play meant not story-telling, but characterization by means of illustrative scenes. As a rule, the characterization was not general, but confined to the central figure or a few of the dramatis personae. As has just been stated, it was in the pervasive quality of good characterization that Shakespeare began to pass beyond his fellows. The other dramatists, except Marlowe, in their historical plays were at best satisfied with such unity as they could get from a central figure passing through most of the scenes. Marlowe, especially in his Edward II, had begun to lay the foundations of sound dramatic technique, but his untimely death checked its development. The second cause for the contrast in Shakespeare’s unifying power is his restricting sense of historical fact, which kept him from seeing that till he could stand apart from the historical

 George Pierce Baker, Richard II and the Chronicle Play 473 material and regard it with the same freedom with which he used other sources, he could not produce from it plays of so high an order as his own from non-historical material. . . . (166-75) [Baker discusses the mixture of fictional and historical material in the two Henry IV plays, arguing that gradually the comic and invented elements dominate those elements derived from Holinshed, and attempting to show that such forms as ‘comedy of manners’ and ‘the play of romantic story’ (p. 177) are implicit in the chronicle play.] . . . But why not a development of the chronicle play into a form by itself? We have just seen what its material becomes when manners or story in it are specially emphasized. Look now at what happens if we continue the emphasis of the contemporaries of Shakespeare, – on character. First we find scattered uncorrelated incident in Henry VI, for instance, then correlation of it by one central figure, as in Richard III; next we see an attempt to characterize more figures than the central one and to portray the results of a ruling passion, as in Edward II, or of a vacillating nature, as in Richard II. But the dramatist felt what his audience must have felt, that somehow this last development is for acting purposes less effective than unity by means of a central figure. What could he do? He could study character till he came to see that behind the individual lie greater forces of which the individual is but the sport or servant. Then he must recognize that any of these reigns he has been considering as merely illustrative of the weakness or the strength, the courage or the vacillation of a particular king, was but the history of a conflict within the individual, between the individual and his environment, or of the futile beating by the individual against the irresistible progress of some great force at work long before he took the reins of government. If the dramatist sees these facts, tragedy will be born, for the discovery will correlate his illustrative tragic incidents. Is it not clear, then, that by 1596, in the two parts of Henry IV, Shakespeare had gone as far as he could go and not have that so-called form change under his very fingers into something quite different? . . . (178-9)

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Sir Walter Raleigh, weakness and the philosophic strain in the character of Richard II  1907

From Shakespeare. English Men of Letters (London, 1907).  Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh (1861-1922), critic and essayist, was the son of a Congregationalist clergyman; born in London, he attended the Edinburgh Academy, then returned to his native city to finish his schooling and take his B.A. at University College, London University, in 1881. He earned a second degree (in history) from King’s College, Cambridge, in 1885. Raleigh held chairs at Liverpool and Glasgow between 1889 and 1904, when he was appointed to a newly established professorship of English literature at Oxford. The volume on Shakespeare for the ‘English Men of Letters’ series was written shortly afterwards, followed by his Johnson on Shakespeare (1908) and his Six Essays on Johnson (1910). He planned and wrote the introduction to Shakespeare’s England (1916), a collection of essays by different hands on Elizabethan life and habits, and delivered the British Academy lecture on Shakespeare and England (1918). Raleigh’s interpretation of Richard II is attractively lucid, unpretentious, and popular in the best sense – a distillation of the title character for the intelligent common reader which, for purposes of contrast, draws perceptively upon the neighbouring plays of the historical sequence. 

[From Chapter V: ‘Story and Character’]  . . . In Shakespeare’s earlier historical work a certain formality and timidity of imagination make themselves felt. His bad kings, Richard the Third and John, are not wholly unlike the villains of melodrama. King Richard is an explanatory sinner: ‘Therefore . . . I am determined to prove a villain’ [Richard III, 1.1.28-30]. . . . But these kings of the earlier plays are seen distantly, through a veil of popular superstition; the full irony of the position is not yet realised; as if it were so easy to be a good king that nothing but a double dose of original sin can explain the failure. It was a great advance in method when Shakespeare, in Richard II, brought the king to the ordinary human level, and set himself to conceive the position from within.

 Sir Walter Raleigh, the Character of Richard II 475 Richard II is among the Histories what Romeo and Juliet is among the Tragedies, an almost purely lyrical drama, swift and simple. Richard is possessed by the sentiment of royalty, moved by a poet’s delight in its glitter and pomp, and quick to recognise the pathos of its insecurity. There is nothing that we feel in contemplating his tragic fall which is not taught us by himself. Our pity for him, our sense of the cruelty of fate, are but a reflection of his own moving and subtle poetry. Weakness there is in him, but it hardly endears him the less; it is akin to the weakness of Hamlet and of Falstaff, who cannot long concentrate their minds on a narrow practical problem; cannot refuse themselves that sudden appeal to universal considerations which is called philosophy or humour. Like them, Richard juggles with thought and action: he is a creature of impulse, but when his impulse is foiled, he lightly discounts it at once by considering it in relation to the stars and the great scheme of things. What is failure, in a world where all men are mortal? Sometimes the beating of his own heart rouses him to fitful activity: ‘Proud Bolingbroke, I come / To change blows with thee for our day of doom’ [3.2.188-9]. Then again he relapses into the fatalistic mood of thought, which he beautifies with humility:  Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?  Greater he shall not be: if he serve God,  We’ll serve him too, and be his fellow so. [3.2.97-9]

The language of resignation is natural to him; his weakness finds refuge in the same philosophic creed which is uttered defiantly, on the scaffold, by the hero of Chapman’s tragedy: If I rise, to heaven I rise; if fall,  I likewise fall to heaven: what stronger faith  Hath any of your souls?  [Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron, 5.4.47-9]

It is difficult to condemn Richard without taking sides against poetry. He has a delicate and prolific fancy, which flowers into many dream-shapes in the prison; a wide and true imagination, which expresses itself in his great speech on the monarchy of Death; and a deep discernment of tragic issues, which gives thrilling effect to his bitterest outcry: Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,  Showing an outward pity, yet you Pilates  Have here deliver’d me to my sour cross,  And water cannot wash away your sin. [4.1.239-42]

The mirror-scene at the deposition – which, like the sleep-walking scene in Macbeth, seems to have been wholly of Shakespeare’s invention – is a wonderful summary and parable of the action of the play. The mirror is broken against the ground, and the armed attendants stand silent, waiting to take Richard to the Tower. 

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King Richard II

For all the intimacy and sympathy of the portraiture, we are not permitted to lose sight of Richard’s essential weakness. The greater part of the Third Act is devoted to showing, with much emphasis and repetition, how helpless and unstable he is at a crisis. If Richard was Shakespeare, as some critics have held,[1] he was not the whole of Shakespeare. Even while the play was writing, the design for a sequel and contrast was beginning to take shape. The matter of the plays that were to follow is foreshadowed in the Queen’s lamenting address to Richard: ‘Thou most beauteous inn, / Why should hard-favour’d Grief be lodg’d in thee, / When Triumph is become an ale-house guest?’ [5.1.13-5]. Over against Richard it was Shakespeare’s plan to set, not the crafty and reserved Bolingbroke, but his son, King Henry V, the darling of the people, a lusty hero, open of heart and hand, unthrifty and dissolute in his youth, in his riper age the support and glory of the nation. The academy where the hero was to graduate was to be Shakespeare’s own school, the life of the tavern and the street. It was a contrast of brilliant promise, and, if a choice must be made, it is not hard to determine on which side Shakespeare’s fuller sympathies lay. The king who was equal to circumstance was the king for him. Yet Henry V, it may be confessed, is not so inwardly conceived as Richard II. His qualities are more popular and commonplace. Shakespeare plainly admires him, and feels towards him none of that resentment which the spectacle of robust energy and easy success produces in weaker tempers. If Henry V, as Prince and King, seems to fall short in some respects of the well-knit perfection that was intended, it is the price that he pays for incautiously admitting to his companionship a greater than himself who robs him of his virtue, and makes him a satellite in a larger orbit. Less tragic than Richard, less comic than Falstaff, the poor Prince is hampered on both sides, and confined to the narrower domain of practical success. . . . (183-7) 

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George Saintsbury, Richard II as an imperfect but rhetorically unique drama 1907

From The Complete Works of William Shakespeare With Annotations and a General Introduction By Sidney Lee. . . ., 20 vols. Volume XI (Boston and New York, 1907); University Press Shakespeare. Renaissance edition. 40 vols. Volume XXI (London, 1907). George Edward Bateman Saintsbury (1845–1933), historian and literary critic, was born in Southampton and educated at King’s College School, London, and at Merton College, Oxford. Leaving the university in 1868, he took up schoolmastering, but abandoned it in 1876, settling in London to support himself by writing. His output and range were prodigious, including books on Dryden (1881), on English prose style (1885), and a History of Elizabethan Literature (1887). In 1895 Saintsbury became Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English literature at Edinburgh University at which point his most important works began to flow from the press: A Short History of English Literature (1898), A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day (3 vols., 1900–04), A History of English Prosody from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day (3 vols., 1906–10); and A History of English Prose Rhythm (1912). As is clear from his ‘Introduction’ to Richard II, Saintsbury tended to value the style and texture of a given work over its form and substance (he calls the play Shakespeare’s ‘most carefully written’ [p. xii]) and to view it in the broad context of its historical antecedents and successors. Although he elevated Richard II by somewhat unfairly depreciating Marlowe’s Edward II, his essay represents one of the more original and individual appreciations of Shakespeare’s play in the Edwardian age.

[‘Introduction’ to Richard II]  The literary interest of this play, separated as it can be according to the wise ordinance of this edition from non-literary considerations, may be fairly considered from three points of view, — two of them necessary and proper, the third accidental, after a fashion, but almost appertaining to that class of accident which logicians call inseparable. Placing this between the other two, their order will be: First, the position, according to literary considerations only, of the play in Shakespeare’s work; secondly, its relation to

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Marlowe’s Edward II; thirdly, its intrinsic and absolute value for us. All three, as in all such cases, have to do with each other; but in this order of treatment we can subsume, and if necessary repeat, the results of the earlier examinations in the later. To begin with Richard II as a ‘stage’ of Shakespeare. That it is an early one, external and so to speak non-literary testimony establishes with a certainty not always at our service, in the fact of the date of the earliest quarto (1597), and the mention by [Francis] Meres (1598); but without these, internal evidence – not of the fantastically minute, but of the general and convincing kind – would assure us that these dates are not only not too early, but in all probability not quite early enough. The whole ordonnance and handling of the play, whether we look at plot, character, diction, or versification, speak a period at which the poet has already learned a great deal, but has not learned everything. He has already — we shall dwell more on this later —acquired the full disposition of the chronicle-play after a fashion which nobody but himself had yet shown; but he has not discovered the full secret of diversifying and adorning it. The historic page is translated into a dramatic one with the indefinable mastery — in adjusting to the theatre the ‘many actions of many men’ at many places and times — which perhaps no other dramatist has ever fully shown. But, to mention nothing else, there is a want of tragi-comic relief; the history, interesting as it is, is still too much of a mere history. So, in the second respect, the poet has left his predecessors, and even to some extent himself, far behind in the art of breathing a soul into the figures of the historic tapestry; but he has not yet made it, as he was to make it later, a wholly complete and individual soul. Of the central figure we shall speak anon; but it is almost more important that the accessories, though never mere ‘supers,’ still lack that full Shakespearian individuality ‘in the round’ of which the poet is so prodigal later. The Queen is a gracious sketch; it requires the enthusiasm of the commentator to detect much that is very distinct even in Bolingbroke. Aumerle, a character of which Shakespeare later would at least probably have made a very striking and subtle portrait, remains enigmatic; or rather not so much enigmatic as with no enigmas or problems posed. They have, many of them, the rudiments of the great Shakespearian quality of ‘setting the principal character going’; but as that character itself is not fully worked out, so their powers are not fully called into action. They help to show us further developments of Richard’s incurable ‘redelessness,’ as one great contemporary of his had called it; they give occasion to the feeble flashes and the constant breakdowns of the lepus non leopardus, as he had been called by another contemporary, ingenious if not so great.[1] But in their case, as in his, the last vivifying touch has not quite been put. The same interesting character of transition is over the diction, in the wider sense, and the verse. The latter is far advanced beyond the chaos of the earliest plays, where rhyme and blank verse, ‘fourteeners’ and sheer doggerel, lyrical measures and prose, jostle each other as Shakespeare successively and impartially experiments with the imperfect implements of his predecessors. The blank verse itself has made great strides; it is one of the most noticeable points of that contrast with Marlowe, to which we shall come presently, that Shakespeare has improved upon the stately staccato of the ‘dead shepherd’[2] almost as much as Marlowe himself had improved in his normal passages on the not even stately stump of Gorboduc. But it is still not perfectly flexible and cursive; it has not completely mastered the secrets of the pause, and the varied

 George Saintsbury, Richard II as an Imperfect but Rhetorically Unique Drama 479 trisyllabic and disyllabic foot, and the consequent verse paragraph. There is more rhyme than there need be; there is even the quatrain, which hardly even Dryden, in his first flush of passion for rhyme on the stage, would have ventured to endorse. And on the other hand, there is no (or next to no) prose — that remarkable provider of relief, appetite, and many other good things in the intervals of tragic verse. The longer speeches still possess something, nay much, of that tirade character — that rhetorical rather than poetical ordonnance — which disappears so marvellously in the tragedies of the greatest time even where rhetoric was almost excusable. The diction of the play, from the present point of view, is a subject almost more interesting, but much more delicate and uncertain. Speaking from many years’ reading, I should say that Richard II is the most carefully written of all Shakespeare’s plays. A certain constraint is over almost all of it — over all of it perhaps, except some of those passages which, for any evidence that we have, may be of much later date than the bulk of the piece. There is nothing of the almost riotous variety and license of the earliest dramas. There is marked abstinence, as a rule — of course with exceptions — from that play on words which, as some would have it, was the very breath of Shakespeare’s nostrils. The Marlowesque magniloquence appears; but it is almost always studiously toned, adjusted, clarified. In short, in this, as in other matters, the poet is between his two periods of freedom, and in one, as it were, almost of pupilage. He is afraid, perhaps he does not even wish, to ‘let himself go.’ He breaks away and soars sometimes, but not very often, in the direction of sublimity; he scarcely ever breaks away in the other direction of homeliness. He is, on the lines which he is following, almost ‘correct.’ And the worst that can be said of the play is that this approach to correctness brings with it the inevitable concomitant of a certain loss of colour. It is probable that this correctness — not less relatively certain because it is not according to the Three Unities — has done the piece harm with some critics in the inevitable comparison with Marlowe’s Edward II. Shakespeare has despised, as he always did despise, the illegitimate attractions; and there is nothing answering to Edward’s fatal passion for Gaveston to excuse — if it can be called excuse — the misdoings of Edward’s great-grandson. And Shakespeare was already discarding, though he had not yet quite discarded the incomprehensibleness of Marlowe. That mighty but incomplete and far from universal genius always, as his continuer in the next generation said, ‘threw himself headlong into clouds’[3] and abode in them, with the profit as with the disadvantage of his dwelling-place. Lamb [No. 10 above] may be right in taking the pathos of Edward’s ghastly and degrading end as greater than that of the final moment, which becomes Richard better than any passage of his happier life. But the decision is at least open to argument. Lamb, exquisite critic as he was, was always a little liable to the exquisite critics’ sin of preferring what the vulgar do not know to what they do, and in his time Marlowe was all but utterly unknown. In almost every other respect Richard II seems to me to have the advantage. Any disjointedness in it — and there is not so very much — sinks out of sight beside the absolute patchwork of Marlowe’s play, both in plot and character. In the former respect the earlier dramatist has hardly even come near the secret of the chronicle-play, which in our text Shakespeare has nearly, if not quite, mastered. In character the failure to join the flats’ is more obvious still. Richard, as we have admitted, is rather more an assemblage of traits or studies,

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admirably drawn for the composition of a type of the frivolous and irresolute, but aesthetically capable, king, than an individual. But Edward is three gentlemen (and three rather incompatible gentlemen) at once or in succession, — a contemptible indulger in an unworthy affection, a haughty and despotic Plantagenet, and a meek and persecuted victim. Isabel is worse. For half the play and more she is a true and loving wife, suffering, but proof against, the coldness, and worse, of her despicable husband. Then, without a word to mark the transition, she becomes a murderous adulteress. Her lover, Mortimer, is more characterless than even the least characterful person of any consequence in our play; and the same may be said of Gaveston, while the rest pretend to nothing and achieve what they pretend to. There are splendid speeches; but the best is not superior to several that are found here. And the play as a whole — immense as is its advance upon anything that we have certainly or probably anterior to it — is, after all, mainly interesting, not like Tamburlaine and Faustus and the Jew of Malta, for itself, but because of its position in turn as a stepping-stone of vantage to Shakespeare.4 We may therefore turn with a clear conscience to the principal object of this paper, the appreciation of Richard II in and for itself. Only a careful and continuous reading of its remarkable kind from Kyng Johan to Perkin Warbeck will show clearly how far Shakespeare has in it got towards the perfection of Henry V, or even of the highest example of the style — an example not usually reckoned of it and undoubtedly crossed with the romantic drama — Antony and Cleopatra. He was something of a novice even as compared with himself in Henry V; much more as compared with himself when he wrote ‘I am dying, Egypt, dying’ [Antony and Cleopatra, 4.15.18], and ‘Peace, peace! / Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, / That sucks the nurse alseep?’ [5.2.30810]. He was denied that patriotic interest of the first play and the intensely human interest of the second. He denied himself, as has been said, the artful aid of tragicomic by-plot and by-character. He had no hero in the old sense; Bolingbroke, though wronged undoubtedly, is as undoubtedly an usurper, and does and says nothing to conciliate the readers’ or spectators’ interest. He was not yet able — or he did not yet attempt — to make of Richard, in his inferior way, what he has made of Hamlet and Lear and Othello; what he has almost made of Leontes and quite of Prospero. Yet he has done wonders. In the first place, as said above, the story runs. It is not mere tapestry; it is tapestry — so to speak — cinematographed. The scenes are not disjointed; the personages are not dead; they do not appear merely promiscuous. Already the minor incidents — the fruitless appeal of the Duchess of Gloucester to York, which breaks her heart and deprives him of her support at the pinch;[5] the quarrel of Fitzwater and Aumerle — have something, if not quite enough, of that almost demoniacal expertness of interweaving which makes the smallest by-play of the later dramas conducive somehow to the end. The purple patches of poetry are not merely scattered anyhow; they serve to fix the wandering and revive the sated attention; to hand the reader on from act to act and scene to scene until the end. For a play so destitute of comic attraction — even Richard III is not its parallel here, for the mighty scene of the seduction of Anne puts in sufficient security, in a kind saturnine and tragi-comic indeed, but still comic enough — the hold which it has on the reader is extraordinary. We are not impatient even of ‘Bushy, Bagot here, and Green’ [1.4.23], though they are surely either the most audaciously

 George Saintsbury, Richard II as an Imperfect but Rhetorically Unique Drama 481 insignificant villains, or the best good men with a total absence of attractiveness and an undeserved fate, that poet or dramatist or novelist ever drew. They produce the effect of being, what they very probably were, quite respectable under-secretaries; and yet we can read them with patience, such as the under-secretary of real life rarely wins. The bickerings of Bolingbroke and Mowbray, the minor bickerings of Fitzwater and Aumerle, the ineffectual honesty of old York, the half-diplomatic, half-hypocritical meekness of Bolingbroke when he appears on his promotion, — all these things have very little interest in themselves. Yet in some strange way they are readable without the least effort, whereas the minor drama of this kind and time requires direct and sometimes enormous effort to screw oneself to its perusal. And of the other parts, and some speeches even of these parts, something very different has to be said. It is probable that, if any explanation is to be sought of this beyond the simplest and perhaps wisest one, this interest after all depends on the projection of the title-character, imperfect as that character may seem beside Hamlet or Lear. The modern historian, I believe, is apt to doubt whether this projection is entirely fair; a doubt which, it will be remembered, was anticipated generally by a much more agreeable person than the modern historian, Miss Diana Vernon, in her complaint of Shakespeare’s ‘Lancastrian partialities.’[6] Richard, they say now, was not so much a mere petulant weakling as a statesman before his time, who tried to break the power of the feudal nobles and to govern by a ‘government.’ But this, even if it had been likely to enter Shakespeare’s head — and it would be rash indeed to say that anything was not likely to enter that head — would have been very unlikely indeed to enter the head of any of his historical authorities, and would besides have been a very doubtfully dramatisable conception. The question is how far Shakespeare, taking Richard as a type of royal impotentia — of the alternate excesses and defects of a weak and luxurious nature — has given a satisfactory portraiture. I venture to think that the dissatisfaction which is sometimes expressed is rather a case of those ‘second’ thoughts which, as the wisest have decided, are not ‘best’ at all; though the third, which are corrected firsts, often are. It is the essence of Richard that he has no essence, no ruling passion, no predominant vice, no character at all. The moods chase each other over his temperament as ‘waves of shadow go over the wheat,’[7] and with as little connection or permanent record. He is irresolute, but his irresolution, when he is irresolute, is not, like that of Hamlet, an inability to decide on and adopt means while quite clearly perceiving the end, but an entire want of certainty of purpose, of perception of an end, altogether. He is impotens — impulsively petulant and ungovernable. But this other vice of his is again not, like that of Lear, an everpresent curse, excusable almost as a natural infirmity; for he can, for instance, devise and sustain a course of deliberate and elaborate diplomacy, not to say hypocrisy in the Bolingbroke-Mowbray case. He is thus really a King of shreds and patches.[8] The only continuity possible is given to him by the insinuation into our minds — really a very great triumph of art for all it be so hidden — of a willingness to believe him one and whole and possible. The ‘suspension of disbelief ’[9] is complete. At first, despite the ugly glimpses of treachery and tyranny which are needed to warn us of the future and justify it, he is a dignified and intelligent monarch enough. It would be difficult to prescribe a course of outward conduct in the circumstances more respectable. The deathbed scene with John of Gaunt brings out the hints that have been given of the worse side of his

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character: but he recovers some respect for enterprise, if not exactly for wisdom, by undertaking so unpleasant and ungrateful a task as an Irish expedition was already well known to be. The collapse — the revolution from headstrong tyrant to self-pitying and impotent sentimentalist — is accounted for with a sufficiency of circumstance which is, as a rule, wanting entirely in the earlier and too often in the later Elizabethan drama. He has no root; and he withers away under the repeated sunstrokes of the invasion of Bolingbroke, the defection of the lords, the melting away of Salisbury’s forces, the submission of York to the enemy, and the execution of his friends. Henceforward he does nothing till his last too late outburst of despairing bravery. He only talks, but he does this with surprising versatility and extraordinary effect. It may be very much doubted whether Shakespeare knew much or anything of the direct and enthusiastic interest in literature which Chaucer and Gower and Froissart had all experienced from Richard; but he has given Richard himself what is kindly called ‘the literary temperament’ with a vengeance. The King only loses the right to say Qualis artifex pereo[10] because, luckily for him, at the moment when he perishes he ceases to be an artist and becomes once more a man. From the moment when he lands at Barkloughly Castle the histrionic mood, accompanied by a wonderful gusto and self-identification, is upon him. He begins by a beautiful ‘Address of a Monarch returning to his Realm and Beset by Traitors,’ follows it up by another one — one of the finest things if not quite the finest class in Shakespeare — on the divinity of monarchy itself; and that by an exquisite act of humiliation and self-abandonment, — the poetical quality of these tirades rising as the moral thermometer of the speaker falls, till the weak wing drops suddenly in the merely splenetic and at last truly personal outburst, ‘By heaven, I’ll hate him everlastingly, / That bids me be of comfort evermore!’ [3.2.207-8]. [11] Here the last of the Plantagenets becomes a mere Sir Francis Clavering, — who, indeed, was of an excellent family and doubtless had, like others, Plantagenet blood in him.[12] He recovers his rhetoric and almost his poetry at the parley on the walls of Flint, and becomes, in the famous speech accepting his deposition, again quite exquisitely pathetic; so much so that we think he can no further go. But Shakespeare can; and the actual deposition scene, rising ever and ever to the ‘mockery king of snow’ [4.1.260] passage that crowns it, would be as intolerably agonising as Lear itself if we did not know the very different facts. The parting with the Queen, much more subdued, is in the same style; and the key is kept with a skill almost diabolic or almost divine in York’s description — the most famous passage of the many famous ones in the play — of the entry into London. Only the chill of Pontefract frees him from his histrionica passio.[13] Some may see traces of it in the long soliloquy, full of fantastic conceits, which opens the murder scene. I cannot agree with them. In the shadow of death he is at last undazzled; and if he gropes a little at first in thought one may pardon him. Nothing, I think, can be more hopelessly uncritical than to despise the bitter jests to the faithful groom, ‘Thanks, noble peer!’ [5.5.67] and the malediction on the ingratitude of roan Barbary, as trivial. These things are natural; there is no rhetoric about them; and they bring with them the sting of reflection on his own lameness which rouses him to die like his father’s son and like a King of England. Is it paradoxical to hold that for the better hooking together of patches so purple a ‘King of patches’ was required? That if Richard had had greater unity some sacrifice of

 George Saintsbury, Richard II as an Imperfect but Rhetorically Unique Drama 483 show-passages must have resulted? And is it presumptuous to suggest that Shakespeare was probably at this time young enough not to care to sacrifice his purple patches on the one hand, and on the other too young quite to know how to bring them in, as he brings them in later, so that they are not patches at all? I should be quite content to abide his own judgment on the point. The subordination of the other characters to this uncentral centre has been glanced at; but it is noteworthy enough for a further glance. The almost suppression — important as is his part and frequently as he figures — of Bolingbroke is very curious. Except in the scenes with Norfolk, where he is playing a part in two senses, and in the parting with his father, where both are allowed more than patches of the purple so freely displayed elsewhere, his outline seems to be left colourless, not so much by accident as of design. Miss Diana Vernon[14] might have said that Shakespeare could find no attractive way of presenting him distinctly, and so exercises his Lancastrian partiality in leaving him indistinct. His father, a masterly fragment, is a fragment only; and the amiable imbecility of Edmund of York is faithfully and almost daringly photographed. One scene — the family squabble between himself and his Duchess over the rather passive body of their son Aumerle — is one of the few in Shakespeare which rather perilously approach the ridiculous that is not meant to be so — another sign of immaturity. But there is hardly any such in the sketch of the little Queen Isabel, whom Shakespeare has skilfully abstained from representing as the mere child she was, while indicating her youthfulness and at the same time indirectly rebutting the scandal introduced by Bolingbroke in his sentence on Green and Bushy.[15] Of the minor characters the hopeless, faded figure of the Duchess of Gloucester — faithful unto death but uselessly — and the steady loyalty of the Bishop of Carlyle attract most attention. But it is practically evident that the poet took very little trouble to attract much upon them. With such a main figure and such accessories it is clear that the drama cannot be expected to affect us as do some others, even some probably earlier than itself. It is, as has been said, the purest history of them all. Even the enigmatical and disputed Henry VI has episodes and characters which approach nearer to pure tragedy, while, as has been said also, Richard II never approaches pure comedy or any comedy at all. It can then affect us only in two ways; first, by its story, its actual historic tale, and we need not repeat that it does that most satisfactorily. Its other possible appeal is the appeal of sheer poetry — of rememberable and delectable lines and passages. Hardly anybody can need to be told that it answers this test triumphantly. There is scarcely a play of the canonical seven and thirty that is more open to the reproach of being ‘made up of quotations.’[16] From the very first line onwards, but especially from the patting colloquy of Gaunt and Bolingbroke with the speech, ‘All places that the eye of heaven visits’ [1.3.275], and the still more famous retort about ‘the frosty Caucasus’ [1.3.295]; Richard’s invidious but most effective sketch of Bolingbroke’s popularity-hunting; the magnificent eulogium-invective of Gaunt on England and against Richard; the King’s sarcastic inquiry, one of the numerous passages where Shakespeare shows how he, like all wise men, was perfectly aware of what fools call faults in them, ‘Can sick men play no nicely with their names?’ [2.1.84] — all these things came before the end of the first scene of the second act. Later, all the passages enumerated above as characteristic of Richard’s presentment contain ‘beauties’ as do many others; and I do not know that the

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famous first line of Richard’s last scene and subscene, ‘The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!’ [5.5.102], is not, for all its lameness and deviousness, one of Shakespeare’s lesser triumphs. For if it be a fond and vain heresy to maintain that poetry must always use the language of common life, there can be no doubt that there are times when the language of common life is the highest poetry; and this unreverend colloquialism is, as it were, the final explosion of the King’s rhetoric, the tearing off of his mask, the appearance of his real and virile speech and personage. The ‘preceptists’ of criticism, as the Spaniards call them, may complain, if they like, that a play of such construction and such appeals lacks alike the true classical and the true romantic virtue — that it is a nondescript and therefore not to be approved. Let us not balk our enjoyment with any such fantastic niceness. One would indeed have been sorry had Shakespeare seen fit not to outgo the scheme and scale of Richard II. Among the plays that come nearest to it, it is certainly inferior to King John; and its merits, though more even, do not approach the highest of those of the more irregular, more chaotic, and very much more stagey Richard III. The entire absence of the proper attraction of feminine character would in any case tell heavily against it even in comparison with these plays themselves — with Constance and with Margaret and with Anne. Of the still higher romantic interest of still greater dramas it has absolutely nothing; and one must again and again return to the curious way in which Shakespeare has here, and here alone, said, as it were, to the fanatics against tragi-comedy: ‘Well, take your tragedy without your comedy for once, and see how you like it!’ But to those who can be contented with what a thing is, instead of wishing it to be something it is not, Richard II has no small attractions; and these are very greatly heightened to those perhaps sophisticated tastes which like to take ‘what it is’ to pieces and see the origin of their pleasure if they can. (ix-xxv)

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Ashley H. Thorndike, structure, style, and characterization in Richard II 1908

From Tragedy (Boston and New York, 1908). Ashley Horace Thorndike (1871–1933), American literary scholar, was born in Maine and educated at Wesleyan and Harvard Universities. Upon receiving his doctorate in 1898, he taught at Western Reserve University (1898–1902), then at Northwestern University (1902–06), and finally at Columbia University, where he remained until his death. As his doctoral dissertation, The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakespeare (published 1901), reveals, Thorndike was a pioneer in the study of Shakespeare as a user and developer of the techniques and conventions of his contemporaries – a perspective that he continued to employ with considerable judgement and tact in the volume represented by the extract reprinted below – a book that ‘attempts to trace the course of English tragedy from its beginnings to the middle of the nineteenth century’ (p. v). His edition of the so-called Tudor Shakespeare in collaboration with William A. Neilson (40 vols., 1913–15) concluded with a volume devoted to The Facts about Shakespeare, and in 1916 he published Shakespeare’s Theatre, a judicious compendium of the then available information on the physical aspects of theatrical production in Renaissance London. Thorndike’s account of Richard II is notable, among other things, not only for attempting to show how the play represents an artistic advance over its Marlovian model as well as a precursor of Shakespeare’s greater tragedies, but also for being among the first to emphasize the play’s indebtedness to the medieval tradition of de casibus tragedy.

[From Chapter IV: ‘Marlowe and His Contemporaries’] … Richard III and Richard II, though possibly earlier than King John, show the imitator and adapter rather than the reviser, and represent independent efforts to give tragic unity to the material of the English chronicles … [An extended discussion of Richard III intervenes at this point.] In Richard II, written at about the time of Richard III, Shakespeare was also writing under the influence of Marlowe, but now in direct imitation and rivalry of

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Edward II. The first part of the reign of Richard II had already received treatment in Jack Straw and Woodstock, and the theme of a weak king forced to abdicate had been presented in Henry VI as well as Edward II. Shakespeare followed, as always hitherto, his source, Holinshed, very closely, and the historical material determined the plot and characterization, but Marlowe’s example led him to an interpretation of the fifteen years’ history as the tragedy of the reversal of fortune of a king whose temperament made him contemptible in prosperity but pitiable in adversity. Along with the story of the rise and progress of the conflict between Richard and the barons under Bolingbroke, there runs the story of ‘the reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty,’[1] which give a new pathos to that favorite theme of medieval tragedy and Elizabethan history, the vanguishment of a prince by scornful Fortune. The struggle within Richard’s own heart, even more than in the case of Edward II, absorbs the interest and points the moral, the hollowness and uncertainty of earthly grandeur. Structurally there is no advance on Edward II in exposition, integration of action, or catastrophe. Adherence to the chronicle results in a long drawn out and iterative first act, a virtual repetition of Richard’s struggle over the relinquishment of the crown in iii, 3, and iv, 1, and a slight and melodramatic treatment of the catastrophe. On the other hand, there are some changes from Marlowe’s method of interest in connection with later tragedy. Elegiac scenes with their lamenting women, also conspicuous in Richard III, are an addition to the historical source and an important factor in the structure; their distribution through the play indicating that they were employed to supply a relief from the scenes of much action and high tension, more suitable to tragedy than the relief of comic scenes, and also to take, as in Richard III, the place of a chorus through their lyrical reinforcement of the tragic emotions excited by the action. Again, as the theme is Richard’s reversal of fortune rather than his death, so the emotional crisis receives a structural prominence not unlike that given to Hamlet’s, and the catastrophe of death is relegated to a postscript. The passage from crisis to catastrophe is managed, as in Hamlet, Lear, and Macbeth, by the introduction of incidents extraneous to the main action, here the episode of Aumerle’s conspiracy. The main departures from Marlowe, however, are to be found in those elements of dramatic composition to which in this period the genius of Shakespeare as well as the talent of his contemporaries most readily responded, the characterization and the style. Not only the king himself but many other persons in the play, and notably Bolingbroke, are presented with consistency and subtlety. The historical narrative is transformed into a gallery of full-length historical portraits that lead us to forget history and drama in our study of their personalities. The euphuistic and sentimental Richard gives a fair field for the stylist, but his example is infectious, and the Queen, Gaunt, York, Bolingbroke, the gardener, and in fact all the persons of the drama, employ word-play, periphrasis, and the various flourishes of Elizabethan rhetorical style. If one accepts the theory that tragedy is a game for rhetorical display, and further accepts the conventionalities of Elizabethan style, there must be unmeasured admiration for the extraordinary verbal skill displayed. Shakespeare employs the current artificialities of diction with abounding facility and zest, and often suits them skillfully to the delineation of character; while his constant attention to expression results in a sustained eloquence, which, if it blurs the outlines of reality, substitutes a

 Ashley H. Thorndike, Structure, Style, and Characterization in Richard II 487 haze of fancy, and sometimes the glory of magnificent beauty. The miserable years of Richard’s downfall are forever associated in our minds with the picturesqueness of the two entries into London and with the splendor of the apostrophe to England and the recital of Norfolk’s death. In the three chronicle histories just considered [i.e. King John, Richard III, and Richard II], although the historical material largely determines structure, tragic conception, and characterization, and although all these are obviously under Marlowe’s influence, yet Shakespeare had reached a stage far more advanced than that of mere imitator and adapter. In Richard III he had added his own impress to the Marlowean type of tragedy, and in Richard II he had introduced innovations foreshadowing his later conceptions. As a playwright he had equaled any of his contemporaries in immediate popularity and outdone them in permanent theatrical effectiveness. He had acquired a complete mastery over the conditions and conventions of the stage, and had frequently, if not always, outdone the best of his rivals in dramatic ingenuity and power. Like his contemporaries, however, he was hampered by theatrical conditions and intractable historical material; and his chief interest was in the opportunities furnished by the chronicles for the delineation of character and the exercise of his gift of tongues. In range and verisimilitude his characters already far surpassed Marlowe’s; and as a poet, whether in lyric, descriptive, or purely dramatic passages, whether in sustained treatment of situation or in splendid purple patches, he had shown himself the peer of his master. . . . (117-26)

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A. C. Bradley, further comments on Richard II 1909

From Oxford Lectures on Poetry (London, 1909). Bradley’s lectures, delivered between 1901 and 1905 while Professor of Poetry at Oxford, range over a number of topics from ‘Poetry for Poetry’s Sake’, ‘The Sublime’, and ‘Hegel’s Theory of Tragedy’ to discussions of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats. Several (in unrevised versions) had already appeared in periodicals. The final four lectures in the volume all concern themselves with Shakespeare: ‘The Rejection of Falstaff ’ (prompted by Maurice Morgann’s Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff, 1777, in defence of the fat knight), ‘Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra’. ‘Shakespeare the Man’, and ‘Shakespeare’s Theatre and Audience’. As in his earlier volume, Shakespearian Tragedy (No. 65 above), Bradley offers no sustained critique of Richard II, but two of his passing comments on the play have become part of the critical history of the drama and therefore deserve to be excerpted and considered along with Bradley’s earlier remarks. For biographical information, see the headnote to No. 65 above.

[1] [From ‘The Rejection of Falstaff ’ (pp. 245–75); on Shakespeare’s impartiality in Richard II] . . . [Shakespeare’s] readers expect him to mark in some distinct way his approval or disapproval of that which he represents; and hence where they disapprove and he says nothing, they fancy that he does not disapprove, and they blame his indifference, like Dr. Johnson,[1] or at the least are puzzled. But the truth is that he shows the fact and leaves the judgment to them. And again, when he makes us like a character we expect the character to have no faults that are not expressly pointed out, and when other faults appear we either ignore them or try to explain them away. This is one of our methods of conventionalising Shakespeare. We want the world’s population to be neatly divided into sheep and goats, and we want an angel by us to say, ‘Look, that is a goat and this is a sheep,’ and we try to turn Shakespeare into this angel. His impartiality makes us uncomfortable: we cannot bear to see him, like the sun, lighting up everything and judging nothing. And this is perhaps especially the case in his historical plays, where

 A. C. Bradley, Further Comments on Richard II 489 we are always trying to turn him into a partisan. He shows us that Richard II was unworthy to be king, and we at once conclude that he thought Bolingbroke’s usurpation justified; whereas he shows merely, what under the conditions was bound to exist, an inextricable tangle of right and unright. Or, Bolingbroke being evidently wronged, we suppose Bolingbroke’s statements to be true, and are quite surprised when, after attaining his end through them, he mentions casually on his death-bed that they were lies. … (255) [2] [From ‘Shakespeare the Man’ (pp. 309–57); on an uncharacteristic allusion to twilight in Richard II] … The lark, as several other collocations show, was to [Shakespeare] the bird of joy that welcomes the sun; and it can hardly be doubted that dawn and early morning was the time of day that most appealed to him. That he felt the beauty of night and of moonlight is obvious; but we find very little to match the lines in Richard II, ‘The setting sun, and music at the close, / As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last’ [2.1.12-3]; and still less to prove that he felt the magic of the evening twilight, the ‘heavenliest hour’ of a famous passage in Don Juan.[2] There is a wonderful line in Sonnet 132, ‘And that full star that ushers in the even’ [1. 7], but I remember little else of the same kind. Shakespeare, as it happens, uses the word ‘twilight’ only once, and in an unforgetable passage: In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west: Which by and by black night doth take away, Death’s second self that seals up all in rest. 

[Sonnet 73, II. 5-8]

And this feeling, though not often so solemn, is on the whole the prevailing sentiment in the references to sunset and evening twilight. It corresponds with the analogy between the times of the day and the periods of human life. The sun sets from the weariness of age; but he rises in the strength and freshness of youth [cf. Troilus and Cressida, 2.2.78-9], firing the proud tops of the eastern pines [cf. Richard II, 3.2.42], and turning the hills and the sea into burnished gold [cf. Venus and Adonis, II. 8568], while jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops [cf. Romeo and Juliet, 3.5.9-10], and the lark sings at the gate of heaven [cf. Sonnet 29,1. 12]. In almost all the familiar lines about dawn one seems to catch that ‘indescribable gusto’ which Keats heard in Kean’s delivery of the words: ‘Stir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk’ [Richard III, 5.3.5][3] … (338-9)

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G.S. Gordon, patriotism and the absence of moral order in Richard II 1909

From Shakespeare’s ‘Richard II,’ ‘Julius Caesar,’ and ‘Macbeth’ Edited with Introductions and Notes (Oxford, 1909). George Stuart Gordon (1881–1942) was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and educated at Glasgow University and Oriel College, Oxford. In 1907 he won a prize fellowship in English literature at Magdalen College although his previous studies had been principally in classics and history. While at Magdalen, Gordon served as an advisor to the Clarendon Press, publishing various school editions of Shakespeare of which the volume represented in the following extract is an example. In 1913 he became a professor at Leeds, and in 1922 was elected to the Merton professorship of English at Oxford, succeeding his former mentor, Walter Raleigh (see No. 69 above). He subsequently became President of Magdalen College, Professor of Poetry, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. The lofty standards of scholarship which Gordon set for himself as well as his stylistic fastidiousness made him reluctant to publish. His most notable works appeared after his death, often edited from manuscripts that required considerable revision. Among these are Anglo-American Literary Relations (1942), Shakespearian Comedy (edited by E.K. Chambers [see No. 51 above], 1944), and Lives of Authors (1950).

[From Gordon’s ‘Introduction’ to Richard II] Construction and Design The historical play was considered by Shakespeare and his public to be a distinct species of drama, with laws of its own. The traditional division of his dramatic work into Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies illustrates the prevalence of this view. There is much to be said for it. The construction of an historical play is naturally looser and less regular than that of the other forms of drama. Its plot is determined by history, and the order of its action must imitate the order of events as they occurred in time. All that we are entitled to ask of the dramatist in this matter is that he should so select his subject

 G.S. Gordon, Patriotism and the Absence of Moral Order 491 and conduct his episodes as to secure, if not unity of action, at any rate some unity of interest. The play should have some leading motive which inspires the general action; it should deal, on the whole, with the fortunes of some person worthy of our attention; and it should exhibit such events and circumstances as seem to converge naturally on the chief person, and to lead inevitably to the issue of his fortunes. All this Shakespeare has done in his history play of Richard II. The whole time occupied is a little more than two years – the last two years of Richard’s life; and the scene changes frequently and at times confusedly. But there is one leading person, who engages all interests – Richard himself; and one main fact, to which everything conduces – his deposition and death. There is, besides, one leading motive or political idea which pervades the general action, and helps to produce that unity of impression so seldom found in historical plays: the insufficiency and failure of the sentiment of patriotism in a selfish and disordered State. For it is foolish to shut our eyes to the political moral of such a play as Richard II, because Coleridge happened to make an unfortunate generalization on the subject. ‘His own country’s history,’ he says, speaking of one of Shakespeare’s Roman plays, ‘furnished him with no matter, but what was too recent to be devoted to patriotism.’[1] This sentence has nothing but emphasis to recommend it. Some of the best passages in Richard II have the very breath of English patriotism in them: Gaunt’s dying speech, Mowbray’s lament, Bolingbroke’s farewell to ‘England’s ground’ [1.3.306], Richard’s passionate sentiment of his native earth. There is none of the characters of the play who is not a patriot and a royalist, from the king to his gardener; and the tragedy lies there. For patriotism where there is no moral order means civil strife; and royalism where the king is unworthy means civil strife again, with usurpation and death. Prophecies of terrible evil to England hang over the play. We see the gathering tragedy not only in the painful psychology of Richard, but in the ominous wrangling scenes between Bolingbroke and Mowbray, and their exultation at the prospect of battle; in Gaunt’s reproaches and the secret conversations of the nobles; in the queen’s nameless woe and the misery and confusion of poor old fumbling York; in the Welsh captain’s omens, and Salisbury’s comment; in the disorderly scene in Westminster Hall with which the Fourth Act opens, and the ineffectual protests of Carlisle. Even at the end, we know that the tragedy has only begun. Bolingbroke has mounted the throne; and we recognize, like York, the justice and the inevitableness of his exaltation, as the representative of order. The feelings of pity and shame with which we regard the deposed king do not touch the dignity of the crown which he has lost. Shakespeare has given him in his fall a character remote from monarchical contentions – ‘the virtue of a confessor rather than of a king’;[2] and is everywhere careful to impress his audience with dislike of a deposal which seems to break the continuous succession of God’s deputies-elect upon earth. But the passions of disorder remain in the agents and accomplices of the new king; murder calls for retribution, and curses and prophecies for fulfilment. The issue of it all was made the matter of other plays, in which we meet for some time the same persons. For the history of its characters does not end with Richard II. Shakespeare had designed a regular connexion of dramatic histories from Richard II to Henry V. The story of Bolingbroke the usurper is continued without a break in the history of Henry

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IV. The play opens with a speech reiterating the declaration of his purpose to visit the Holy Land, which he had made at the end of Richard II. His complaint in the earlier play (V.iii.1 ff.) of the wildness of his son prepares us, as Johnson pointed out, for the frolics to be recounted in the later piece,[3] and Richard II’s prophecy to the disloyal Northumberland (V.i.55 ff.) of the inevitable estrangement of the new king from his too powerful assistants in usurpation is pointedly fulfilled in the early scenes of Henry IV. They had conferred, and Bolingbroke had received, obligations too great to be satisfied. (vi-viii)

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Charlotte Porter, the subtle artistry of Act I 1910

From The Life and Death of King Richard the Second By William Shakespeare, Edited, with Notes, Introduction, Glossary, List of Variorum Readings, and Selected Criticisms (New York, 1910). Charlotte Endymion Porter (1857–1942), American scholar, translator, and magazine editor, was born in Pennsylvania and studied at Wells College, Aurora, N.Y., and at the Sorbonne. Settling in Philadelphia in 1883, and encouraged by Horace Howard Furness (who produced the famous Shakespeare ‘Variorum’ volumes), she became the editor of Shakespeariana, a new periodical founded by the Shakespeare Society of New York. In connection with this enterprise she formed a lifelong companionship and professional relationship with Helen A. Clarke, with whom she edited (from 1889 to 1903) Poet Lore, a periodical originally dedicated to Shakespeare, Browning, and the comparative study of literature but that eventually broadened out to discuss and publish contemporary authors from over the world. Thereafter Porter turned to literary scholarship, notably the ambitious First Folio Edition of Shakespeare (40 vols., 1903–13), of which the edition of Richard II represented by the following extract is a part. With Clarke’s assistance Porter had already edited the play in 1903, but she enlarged and rewrote the introduction for the independent edition of 1910 quoted here. Her new essay was original in three respects – first, in its emphasis on the opening of the play as the key to its meaning; second, in its almost protofeminist insistence on the significance of the female characters; and, third, in its correction of Grant White’s widely accepted but mistaken conclusion that Samuel Daniel in his Civil Wars (1595) was influenced by Shakespeare’s tragedy rather than the reverse.

[From Porter’s ‘Introduction’] . . . An atmosphere of friction and electrical over-charge hangs about the opening scene. A sense of rankling discord long suppressed is in the air. Without any words about it, a feeling is imparted of an outburst of the royal prerogative, long inculcated yet long held under by the dominating fists of Richard’s truculent uncles, Thomas, and John; and for that reason tending now to become all the more headstrong and selfdestructive in asserting itself.

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Richard’s long-provoked, stealthy violence against one of these uncles, before the Play begins, has already dictated the action. The ghost of the Duke of Glouster haunts the plot. His champion, the son of the other masterful but more dutiful uncle, the Duke of Lancaster, forecasts the tragic conclusion. Between the two Richard stands, as Brutus stood between the ghost of Caesar and Mark Anthony, bound to handicap himself, to deserve blame and to allure sympathy. A consciousness of his increasing isolation is gained. His native superiority in all that pertains to sensitive perception, the artistic valuation of life, and to grace and ardor in its personal expression brings into higher relief his instinctive impolicies. Qualities of the most unusual kind are rendered impotent by his own peculiar belief in the superstition of the royal prerogative. Under its shelter his gifts have not ripened. Immature, they count for nothing more than helpless inability, like that of rare porcelain, unsuited to sustain the impending shock of rude encounter with such serviceable earthenware as every day civic efficiency was bound to require and find in Bullingbrooke.[1] All this comes out, one scarcely knows how, without explanation, by the subtlest dramatic innuendo, through the situation and character interplay, before the Second Act begins its rapid and more obvious unfolding of royal presumption, long-nurtured ineffectiveness, and tragedy. It is perhaps the easiest of any Play of Shakespeare to undervalue as to its dramatic quality. But this is not because its poetic beauty is so great. Poetic beauty is not, necessarily, in inverse proportion to the degree of dramatic power. Neither is poetic beauty lacking in other plays of Shakespeare whose dramatic power is more easily obvious than in Richard II. The real obstacle to ready comprehension is the perfect preparation of the action beforehand. An argument of earlier happenings might conveniently precede it, to show in detail, to those who like or need narrative, how freighted with the meaning of the struggle between the King and all the forces of the future that are pitted against him is the trial by combat of the dispute pending between Mowbray and Bullingbrooke. But that means that the obstacle to the easy comprehension of the action is a merit. This beginning in the middle of things, at the richly picturesque and psychological moment, is the essence of choice dramatic skill. The long narrative of the main events is spared us, because they are summed up here. Dramatic enjoyment requires dramatic susceptibility to such selective art. The first requisite to full appreciation of the subtle dramatic innuendo characteristic of the first four scenes of Richard II is an alert sense. The mind that is ready to take the artful hints will wish not to be bothered with any argument. Rather will it prefer to busy itself with the thronging suggestions involved in every speech, and word, and tone. It will but attract the more awakened attention that these suggestions unfold quietly beneath the brilliant spectacle of the lists at Coventry and the lamentations of the Duchess before the bare walls of dismantled Plashy. As quietly as life itself unfolds below the surface of events, so they unfold. If they are to be valued they need heeding. Richard, sensitive of perception and tremulous of will, winces and shys like a thoroughbred let loose. He can only cover his aberrations of impulse by an overcontrol of kingly grace and self-sufficient irresponsibleness. Bullingbrooke, both bold and wary, keeps the road, in harness, as it were, aware that he is steadily becoming able to count on the power behind him of the populace as well as the nobles of England.

 Charlotte Porter, the Subtle Artistry of Act I 495 Mowbray, meanwhile, is more alive even than Aumerle to the dangerous possibilities threatening the King beneath the confident temper of Bullingbrooke’s attitude. Richard’s one openly strong and loyal knight is the more chagrined to see how shifty in mettle his liege lord is, now little he can be depended upon to risk standing by his servant. So Mowbray is already marked for sacrifice. Before it is accomplished he shrinks with a nervous fear of it, that half incapacitates him from the first to meet Bullingbrooke. And yet his will is good. It catches infection from the King’s hesitancy. As Mowbray is leaving the lists, a banished and broken man, Bullingbrooke tentatively addresses him (see I. iii. 195-209). He tries him aside, ostensibly as his enemy, yet furtively, if perchance he may prove amenable to the overture, – now that the King has failed to back him, – as an ally. His interest may now lie with his own against the King. Mowbray, at least then, if not before, apprehends that his own sacrifice has been enforced as a means to stave off evil from the King. It is then seen by him to be a sacrifice predestined to be ineffective. His spirited reply makes this clear: ‘… what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know, And all too soone (I feare) the King shall rue’ [1.3.204-5]. The sacrifice proved, indeed, as ineffective as the enforced sacrifice of Stafford by Charles I, some three centuries later, to stave off the fate foretold by it.[2] No wonder, then, that old John of Gaunt, ‘time-honored Lancaster’ [1.1.1], so near to the heart of the trouble between his nephew and his son, trembles under the pressure of loyalty to the King and condemnation of his course. What a part for a competent actor! Here, and in the preceding scene with his sister-in-law, as well as in the famous opening scene of the Second Act, it is the noblest of character parts. The grim old nobleman is torn with affection for his son and desolation over his exile. Yet he is solemnized and uplifted to his utmost potency by Death’s charge within his conscience to do out his duty to throne and country by warning the King of the wicked impolicy of a course it was to the future worldly interest of the house of Lancaster to let him follow. As clearly as lawlessness in high places can ever admit a dramatist to show it upon the censored stage of a settled government, the preceding scene at Plashy has brought out the occult relation of Glouster’s secret death to the dispute between Mowbray and Bullingbrooke. Glouster’s ancient plotting against the authority of the King; the King’s retort of revenge upon him, safely taken in an alien country; these together constituted that root of ‘ancient malice’ [1.1.9] concerning which the King owned to a true misgiving at the start of the Play (I.i.13). Of course it was denied. Could the truth of the King’s misgiving fail to be fended off under such circumstances? Yet it was disclaimed by Gaunt with a significant reservation. In so far as he could sift his guarded son upon it, it was no ‘inveterate malice’ [1.1.14]. Another ground of trouble was, of course, assigned by this discreet son and heir of his. But at Plashy, when Gaunt, restrained by an old patriot’s tradition of loyalty to his King at almost any cost, refused to bear an open part against him and is content to leave vengeance for Glouster’s death to Heaven’s justice in the future, then the Duchess speaks. She is expressly introduced in order to speak plainly. Her woman’s intuition of what is laboring beneath the surface of the trial by combat is needed for the exposition of the opening action. She is made

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by Shakespeare the dramatic instrument to point Bullingbrooke out to us as the highly conscious champion of the revenge against the King by her desired. Shakespeare has not forgotten so soon his skilful expedient with the inner Nemesis of Richard III. It was made clear and impressive by means of the women who were half bystanders in the action and altogether absent from the Chronicles. Old Queen Margaret, especially, supreme and distinct as Richard himself in Shakespeare’s History, is absent in Hall and Holinshed. Here, in Richard II likewise, the Duchess of Glouster finds her place in order to unveil the genesis of the action, denied and hidden and even legislated against as it was; also especially to disclose the adroit part Bullingbrooke plays in taking it upon himself to wipe out old scores and new. The Duchess of Glouster, like the other women of the Play, Richard’s passion-pure Bride, Queen Isabel, and the humorous, hot-hearted, quick-witted old Duchess of Yorke, belong to no Chronicle. Shakespeare is their creator for purposes peculiarly his own. This scene of his special invention, the scene of Gaunt and his sister-in-law, is intercalated between the two scenes relating to the trial by combat. By this intercalation Shakespeare has arranged that we shall pass on with Gaunt toward the pomp of the royal lists at Coventry with a dismal wailing and clamor for revenge in our ears. In the brilliantly contrasted scene at Coventry the onset of Bullingbrooke is so swift and fierce that it only too apparently promises to be irresistible against the nervous Mowbray, made so conscious of the hesitancy of the King’s support of him that to the superficial eyes of the public it may seem like a betrayal of guilt. While we watch the instant alarm thereat of the King comes the fall of his warder. It is electrifying. The sudden outcry of the heralds, as he throws it down, spreads the thrill of meaning. The long pause for the hastily summoned Council that we see without hearing, as the group for debate forms around the youthful King, is rich in dramatic suspense. Not less rich is it in provision for dramatic business. The silence in dialogue is covered over with the flourishing of trumpets, the clang of helmets and spears which the contestants are ordered to put by, as they return to abide the King’s will and sit in their gorgeous chairs of State. The air buzzes with surmise and conflicting conjectures. What does the King mean? That is the wonder, when the decision is made known, darkly prefaced as it is by his vague poetic reference to the fear of civil war, of ‘neighbors swords’ [1.3.128] and ‘kindreds blood’ [1.3.138]. Does he dream of repeating with Bullingbrooke, after a convenient interval, the secret putting away found effective with the unmanageable Glouster? Does he dare to risk the ‘ancient malice’ to the taming and erasing processes of time? Is he unwise enough to act merely as his impetuous instinct of fright prompted him when exiling the troublesome combatants? Is he putting off a difficulty he may forget to settle, while, on the other hand, Bullingbrooke is keen to turn the penalty into a prize? Of this we may be sure: however dully the Chronicle passes over the surface of the event, the Play truly recreates the remote spectacular situation. This is put before the eye and mind in poignantly vivid and mysterious action, now, whenever the alert sense fastens with insight upon the dramatic intimations of the First Act. This first Act is the key to the whole Play. But certainly it would need equally revivifying ability in the actors of each character-part to present it on any modern stage with corresponding piquancy

 Charlotte Porter, the Subtle Artistry of Act I 497 and force. Sheer stage carpentry, however superior to Shakespeare’s; mechanical scenesetting, however scientifically spectacular; archaeological properties and costuming, however artistic and elaborate, would make the whole situation as wooden as a block without the inner pulse of psychological characterization poised over a critical and somewhat occult moment in English history. The undertow of the action proves to be as tremendously powerful as it is delicately subtle, to the dramatic susceptibilities of auditors and the potencies of actors. If it is a fault in a Play to demand each susceptibilities in its readers and its audiences and such interpretative genius in its actors, then Richard II is one of the most faulty of Plays. Blame is to be added unto it, moreover, that it makes no concessions to the groundling’s love of the comic. The pitch is reiteratedly exalted throughout as well as peculiarly subtle in the opening Act. Yet upon that subtlety hangs the life of the whole story; upon that exaltation depends its peculiar poetic appeal to its lovers. Relief of a lighter sort arrives only with the scenes of the last Act where Shakespeare’s invention of the part of the Duchess of Yorke pleading against the Duke for their son’s safety comes into whimsically human play. The scenes wherein Isabel appears are similarly relief scenes. They are sad instead of humorous, pensive rather than whimsical. Yet they also are like little bays of quieter water circling aside from the precipitous main current. Daniel alone matches Shakespeare, against the Chronicle, in the portrayal of Isabel as a gracefully precocious girl. Her budding love for Richard, the comeliest of kings, is full of the white fragrance of a sorrowing and fervent young heart. But this also is of a shy and subtle quality, escaping many to be of a few the more especially appreciated. It is not easy to say on the internal evidence of Shakespeare’s Play and Daniel’s Poem which preceded the other, and the external evidence does not make it clear. Editors have repeated, one after the other, of late, in England, the statement of Richard Grant White (1859)[3] that Daniel’s Civile Wars appeared in 1595 in two editions, the second revealing changes influenced by Shakespeare, and fixing the date of Richard II. Yet an examination of the facts fails to show this. [Charles] Knight[4] was first to point out, twenty years earlier, several kindred passages in Daniel as having proved suggestive to Shakespeare and indicative of the earlier limit of the date of the Play. White had access to a copy of the original Quarto of 1595 of the First Fowre Bookes of the Civil Wars in the Barton Collection, the same since used by the present writer. He noticed in this Quarto certain differences brought by Knight’s corresponding extracts into closer verbal touch with Shakespeare. An extra stanza (‘The First Booke,’ Stanza 60), not in the Quarto, with changes in the preceding stanza, and again at a later point (Bk. iii.78, 79), seemed to him significant. They were first printed, however, in Daniel’s third edition, the Folio of 1601, the final one not until 1609. White inferred that Knight had cited a different version of 1595, and argued, therefrom, a revision by Daniel, influenced by Shakespeare and an absolute date for the Play. But Knight’s passages were given in a modernized form, quoted, as is too customary, from some unidentified later text. He of course assigned the original chronology to Daniel’s work, without suspecting such variants as only such invaluable editions as [Alexander B.] Grosart’s show, because such modern editions refrain from ‘editing,’ in the usual bad sense of that arbitrary process, and are content to reprint originals faithfully. White, carried

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away by the ‘discovery’ his one original Quarto enabled him to make, seems thus to have led himself and others by a false light.5 At least no evidence or other explanation of his claim appears. … White ignored the circumstance that other passages cited by Knight were unchanged from the earliest form and are as convincing as any that were changed. The verbal similarity in the changed passages is magnified by isolation from the context. The inner construction by Daniel and by Shakespeare of what was lurking behind the trial by combat differs sufficiently to render the verbal resemblance trifling. Daniel explains in a plausible way, what Shakespeare prefers to leave to the guess as much deeper-rooted. Shakespeare carries his characterization of Queen Isabel also much farther than Daniel, and to much subtler effects. Character even more than pathos of incident, dramatic mood and color more than moralizing, are influenced by his treatment of her; and she appears thrice in the Play and but once in the Poem. If Daniel borrowed from Shakespeare here, it was stupid in him not to borrow more, and equivocal moreover, to apologize for introducing Isabel, as he did, in his Preface, without any admission of his indebtedness. It would seem more likely that Shakespeare’s picture of her is the elaboration; it goes so much deeper that there is no need of apology. She is made dramatically useful in foreshadowing evil to Richard, vaguely to begin with (II. i); then with a shrewd and bitter particularity (III. iv); finally, the Poet influences through her an increasing sympathy for Richard (V. i), as one altered by the discipline of disillusionment in every vanity of deportment, but not in innate sweetness. That keeps him lovable and marks him royal-natured in his weakness beyond the scope of a Bullingbrooke in his strength. Shakespeare, who has been accused of sycophancy, has ironically put in the mouth of ‘that adulterate Beast,’ Hamlet’s Uncle [Hamlet, 1.5.42], and in that of the deposed Richard II, the two passages most often quoted as expressions of the idea of royal prerogative. The ‘Divinity’ that doth so ‘hedge a King That Treason can but peepe to what it would’ [Hamlet, 4.5.124] was made the tool of active evil by Hamlet’s Uncle. The faith that ‘Not all the Water in the rough rude Sea Can wash the Balme from an anoynted King’ [3.2.54-5], that ‘The breath of worldly men cannot depose The Deputie elected by the Lord’ [3.2.56-7] was for Richard, the victim of it, the sword of retribution and of spiritual chastening. (vii-xvii)

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C.F. Tucker Brooke, miscellaneous comments on Richard II 1911

From The Tudor Drama: A History of English National Drama to the Retirement of Shakespeare (Boston, 1911). Charles Frederick Tucker Brooke (1883–1946), Shakespearian scholar, was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, and was educated at the University of West Virginia (where his father taught in the law faculty), at the University of Chicago, and at St. John’s College, Oxford. Originally a student of botany, and then of German, he changed his field of interest to English literature at Oxford, having been led into the study of Elizabethan drama by Sir Walter Raleigh (see No. 69 above). His valuable edition of The Shakespeare Apocryphra appeared in 1908. Returning to America, he taught briefly at Cornell University (1910), then in 1911 moved to Yale, where he spent the remainder of his career. In 1910 he published a painstaking edition of Marlowe (with textual collations), which established him as an authority on the poet. His critical history, The Tudor Drama, broadened his reputation as an expert on the period as a whole, and thereafter a steady stream of publications flowed from him. At New Haven he served as the general editor of the Yale edition of Shakespeare, editing several of the plays himself; and in 1948 his contributions to the Yale Review were collected in Essays on Shakespeare and Other Elizabethans. Embedded in his overview of sixteenth-century drama, Tucker Brooke’s remarks on Richard II are significant not only for their aesthetic assessment of the play itself (suprisingly negative in important respects) but also for their placement of it in historical context, particularly in relation to Marlowe’s Edward II and the anonymous Woodstock.

[1] [From Chapter VII: ‘The Heroic Play’] . . . Shakespeare’s Richard II is an obvious derivative from [Marlowe’s] Edward II, and represents an advance chiefly in the answer which it gives to the problem merely evaded in the other play. Here, for perhaps the first time, plot interest and character interest are combined by the treatment of a conflict arising from the opposition of contrasted mental types. The impractical and unreliable, though emotionally rich, nature of

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Richard is set forth with the broad full delineation accorded to Marlowe’s Tamburlaine and Faustus and to Shakespeare’s earlier figure of Richard III; but by outlining against this poetic hero the complementary personality of the political hero, Bolingbroke, and by attributing the misfortunes of Richard to his lack of qualities possessed by his successful rival, the author at once motivates the action of the piece, and brings his careful portrayal of each of the main figures into direct relation both with the incidents of the plot and with a definite theory of life. The device thus inaugurated of evolving plot out of the conflict of antagonistic types of character became the means by which Shakespeare attained some of his greatest triumphs. The contrast between Brutus and Cassius, Antony and Octavius, Othello and Iago, gave him opportunity not only for the most brilliant revelations of character, but also for the most thrilling scenes of intrigue and action. Thus the heroic play, having inculcated the study of the human personality, gave place to the more accurate reflection of life which it had made possible. In the time of Shakespeare’s maturity the only plays of heroic type really holding the public ear were, with a few exceptions, the chronicle histories, which detailed in loosely cohering scenes the most notable events in the lives of familiar national characters. … (251-2) [2] [From Chapter IX: ‘The History Play’] . . . The term ‘history play’ is difficult of precise theoretic limitation; and, in practice, the differentiation of the strict members of this new type from those plays on historical subjects which follow the more conservative rules of comedy or tragedy is a task approaching impossibility. Works such as the two parts of Henry IV and the Henry V of Shakespeare prove sufficiently the right of the history play to consideration as an independent literary form. Yet it is quite impossible to exclude from such consideration other plays which accord wholly, like Richard III, or almost wholly, like Richard II, with the strictest rules of tragedy. . . . (297) . . . The three parts [of Henry VI] form in their revised state[1] a single drama, proceeding coherently from the exposition of the discord and incapacity of Henry VI’s early reign to the final bloody death with which that weak sovereign pays the penalty of his incompetence. The trilogy must be viewed as a whole to perceive the central principle that glimmeringly informs it; but when so viewed that principle becomes evident beneath the vast tangle of miscellaneous scenes. It is the doctrine – inherent in Elizabethan patriotism, and far more strongly enunciated in the Richard II-Bolingbroke plays, in Julius Caesar, and even in Marlowe’s Edward II – of the essential inconvertibility of the politic and moral virtues, and the futility of attempting to pay off the great debt which the governor owes the governed with the small coin of personal piety or occasional generosity. . . . The earliest English play to treat the material of history with conscious reverence for the established rules of dramatic composition is Marlowe’s Edward II.2 In this work, which introduced, if it did not create, the third type of history drama, considerations of temporary popular appeal are for the first time subordinated to the austerer principles of permanent art. The forethought with which Marlowe selected, altered, and condensed

 C.F. Tucker Brooke, Miscellaneous Comments on Richard II 501 the chronicle narratives, till he formed from their various blurred outlines the single consistent picture he desired, was a new thing in dramatized history, and it gives to his play, when contrasted with the motley unreasoned patchwork that surrounded it, the lucidity and restraint of a classic. It may be that a certain inconsequence in the presentation of character conflict, and a tendency to juggle with the springs of emotion, which always disqualifies Marlowe for the judicial impartiality of Shakespeare, cause Edward II to fall somewhat short of the highest form of tragedy, – the tragedy of characterization. Yet it is one of the purest instances of the tragedy of circumstance, and it raised the history play to the dignity of permanent literature, inaugurating a new species and creating a public for the great histories of Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s first independent history plays, Richard III and Richard II, are composed in marked imitation of the work of Marlowe. . . . King Richard II, composed probably a year later than Richard III, differs very greatly from that play, and though it marks an advance in dramatic capability, must be reckoned individually a less powerful tragedy. Richard III ends a tetralogy dealing with selfish ambition and civil strife; Richard II begins another series of four plays in which Shakespeare treats primarily questions of good government and national patriotism. The latter work was most unmistakably suggested by Edward II, although perhaps not properly an imitation; and the decision concerning the respective merits of the two plays is a matter of some delicacy. Edward II is far more mature, and, on the whole, doubtless a finer drama. Much of Richard II is lacking in vigor. The two challenge scenes (I, i; IV, i, 1-106) and that which deals with the interrupted tournament (I, iii) read almost like flashy imitations of Sir Walter Scott: they have no dignity and they do not discriminate character. The introduction of Aumerle’s conspiracy is an otiose offence against the laws of tragic compression, and some of Richard’s long speeches exceed in vapidity what the spectator will patiently endure from even a confessedly weak hero. These are the defects of youth, embarrassed in the handling of a new style, and they find no parallel in the careful restraint of Edward II. The special merit of Shakespeare’s play consists, as has been pointed out,3 in the substitution of a single well-defined conflict between the king and Bolingbroke instead of the constantly changing bickerings of Edward II, and in the clear demonstration of the poet’s theory of royal responsibility. These features both make for structural unity and argue the existence of tragic capacity considerably in excess of the actual performance of the play. The most interesting thing about Richard II is the character of Richard. The poetic irresolution and tendency to masquerade like a player king in his royal dignity were not peculiarities of the true Richard as Holinshed portrays him; and the stress upon these qualities so far obscures the tyranny, improvidence, and violence of the historical personage that the wild energy of the death scene appears positively out of keeping. Of all Shakespeare’s monarchs, Richard II is the only one whose kingship seems painted and artificial. From the first scene he speaks and thinks less like the born sovereign than the enthroned parvenu, making garish show of the supremacy which he should take for granted; and it sometimes looks almost as if Shakespeare were unjustly travestying Marlowe’s treatment of the weak but always royal Edward. The truth probably is that both Richard and Bolingbroke are rather sketches of the two mental types which Shakespeare recognized within himself than serious portraits

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of historic figures. If we except Hamlet, as we should do, Richard is Shakespeare’s last example, not wholly unfavorable, of that type of intellectual trifler who loses sight of truth and justice in the cult of felicitous novelty; and his ‘Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, / Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, / Figures pedantical’ [Love’s Labour’s Lost, 5.2.406-08], have an identical nature and origin with those which the young Shakespeare was continually renouncing through the mouth of Biron and others, and continually yielding to again. It is this turn of mind, strikingly illustrated in the ridiculous conceits of the abdication scene and the king’s last soliloquy, to which the poet unhistorically ascribes Richard’s fall; while in the successful Bolingbroke he emphasizes the corresponding virtues of prompt practical decision and freedrom from whimsicality. The story of Shakespeare’s life may perhaps testify to the ultimate preponderance of the latter attitude, and his work, I believe, shows his final leaning toward the type of Bolingbroke.4 A roughly contemporary example of tragedy constructed from historical material is preserved in an untitled British Museum manuscript, which has been twice printed and which is often referred to as The Tragedy of Woodstock. This play deals with the reign of Richard II, and offers an interesting contrast to Shakespeare’s treatment of the same theme. The principal figure is the king’s uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester; and the tragedy ends with the circumstances immediately consequent upon the murder of that personage in 1397, – precisely the point at which Shakespeare’s play begins. The events of fifteen years are boldly and skillfully shifted with a view to the dramatic presentation of the struggle which the humorous and patriotic old hero wages against the rash extravagance of the king and the destructive rapacity of his favorites. The picture of Richard’s wild, improvident self-indulgence is very much truer to the real character than is that of the poetic royal dilettante whom Shakespeare paints. Moreover, the unknown author of this play has strongly portrayed in the elevation of Tresillian, Bushy, Bagot, and Greene, in the crushing tyranny of the blank charters, the farming out of England, and the murder of Gloucester, real causes of the king’s overthrow which it has pleased Shakespeare in his largely imaginary treatment to pass lightly over. The parallels between Woodstock and the plays of Edward II and 2 Henry VI, which [Wolfgang] Keller cites,5 seem to me to have very little pertinence; but it cannot well be doubted that the former work was influenced by Marlowe’s example in its handling of the relation between Richard and his sycophants, the death of Woodstock, and the controversy between the peers and king. The author of Woodstock seems, however, to have been a practiced and independent dramatist. His skill in the use of prose and of humorous relief contrasts strikingly with the notable absence of both these elements in Edward II and Richard II; while his hero, Woodstock, though he never speaks more than passable verse, is in the convincingness and comprehensiveness of his character a more promising tragic figure, probably, than either Marlowe’s Edward or Shakespeare’s Richard. . . . (313, 322-9) . . . The moral of the three Henry V plays [i.e. 1 and 2 Henry IV and Henry V] is that which Shakespeare has strongly expressed elsewhere: the responsibility of the ruler both to his subjects and to higher power. This feeling inspires everywhere Shakespeare’s repugnance to anything amateurish in government, whether expressed

 C.F. Tucker Brooke, Miscellaneous Comments on Richard II 503 in the mob-rule of Jack Cade and the Roman rabble or in the anointed incapacity of Richard II. But though he shows clearly that Richard II deserved to fall, he emphasizes no less strongly, in the prophecies of the Bishop of Carlisle and Richard himself, and in the continual misery of the crowned Bolingbroke, that an equal scourge afflicts him who by any indirection seizes the royal burden with him who seeks to escape it. Henry IV paints the gradual development in the young prince of the ideals of kingly service, capacity, justice, and patriotic fervor which Shakespeare demanded of the monarch; and Henry V is a triumphant finale, to be considered, not separately, but in closest connection with the study in character building which it immediately followed and completed. As Richard II and Henry IV both demonstrate the punishment of those who trifle with royalty, so this play pictures the enormous possibilities of personal glory and national service within the reach of that ruler who performs unshrinkingly and thoroughly the full duties of justly assumed dominion. . . . (335-6) [3] [From Chapter XI: ‘Realistic Comedy’] . . . The social democracy of the time is constantly exemplified, to a degree often perplexing to the modern reader, in the dramas of Shakespeare and his contemporaries: in the motley society of the Henry IV plays and The Merchant of Venice; in the frank independence of the gardener in Richard II, the grave-digger in Hamlet, the sergeant in Macbeth; and in the freedom everywhere accorded to the clown. The nobleman, the shepherd, and the merchant might meet on terms of at least temporary equality, not only on the stage, but in actual life as well. . . . (392)

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John Masefield, Richard II as a tragedy of double treachery 1911

From William Shakespeare. Home University Library of Modern Knowledge, no. 2 (London, 1911); revised edition (London, 1954). John Edward Masefield (1878–1967), poet laureate, was born in Herefordshire, orphaned at an early age, brought up by relatives, educated at the King’s School, Warwick, and at the Conway (the school for seamanship), and spent his later teenage years doing odd jobs in America. In 1897 he returned to England and by 1902 had begun publishing poems, many of which reflected his sea-going experiences as well as the influence of Rudyard Kipling. Settling in London, Masefield contributed to various periodicals and in 1907 joined the staff of the Manchester Guardian. Appointed poet laureate in 1930 under the prime ministership of Ramsay MacDonald and awarded the Order of Merit in 1935, Masefield continued to produce verse, much of it occasional, for his remaining thirty-seven years. He was also active as a novelist, playwright, and writer of children’s books. His short but pithy book on Shakespeare, written in 1911 and totally rewritten in 1954, was considered by many to be the best general introduction to Shakespeare yet produced; a reviewer for the Boston Transcript judged the 1911 version to be ‘one of the very few indispensable adjuncts to a Shakespearian Library.’ Because it seemed to get inside the imaginative skin and sympathetic creativity of the dramatist, it appealed to a wide diversity of readers from seasoned professionals to beginners. Since the 1954 revision is really a new book, the excerpt reprinted below is taken from the original 1911 edition.

[From ‘Chapter III: The Plays’, ‘King Richard II’; although Masefield leaves the date of the play an open question, he places it in chronological sequence, unlike most critics of his time, before rather than after Richard III.] . . . Treachery in some form is at the root of all Shakespearian tragedy. In this play it takes many forms, among which two are principal, the treachery of a king to his duty as a king, and the treachery of a subject to his duty as a subject. As usual in Shakespearian tragedy, the play is filled full by the abundant mind of the author with illustrations of

 John Masefield, Richard II as a Tragedy of Double Treachery 505 his idea. The apricocks at Langley [3.4] are like King Richard, the sprays of the trees like Bolingbroke, the weeds like the King’s friends. Everybody in the play (even the horse in the last act) is in passionate relation to the central idea. King Richard is of a type very interesting to Shakespeare. He is wilful, complex, passionate, with a beauty almost childish and a love of pleasure that makes him greedy of all gay, light, glittering things. He loves the music that does not trouble with passion and the thought not touched with the world. He loves that kind of false, delicate beauty which is made in societies where life is too easy. There is much that is beautiful in him. He has all the charm of those whom the world calls the worthless. His love is a woman, as beautiful and unreal as himself. He fails because, like other rare things, he is not common. The world cares little for the rare and the interesting. The world calls for the rough and common virtue that guides a plough in a furrow, and sergeantly chaffs by the camp fires. The soul that suffers more than other souls is little regarded here. The tragedy of the sensitive soul, always acute, becomes terrible when that soul is made king here by one of the accidents of life. As a king, Richard neglects his duties with that kind of wilfulness which the world never fails to punish. The wilfulness takes the form of a shutting of the eyes to all that is truly kingly. He rebukes devotion to duty by banishing Bolingbroke, who tries to rid him of a traitor. He rebukes old age and wisdom in the truly great person of old John of Gaunt. Worst, and most unkingly of all, he is incapable of seeing and rewarding the large generosity of mind that makes sacrifices for an idea. Richard, who likes beautiful things, cannot see the beauty of old, rough, dying Gaunt, who condemns his own son to exile rather than betray his idea of justice. Bolingbroke, who cares intensely for nothing but justice (and could not give even that caring a name, if questioned), is deeply and nobly generous to York, who would condemn his own son, and to the Bishop of Carlisle, who would die rather than not speak his mind. Men who sacrifice themselves are a king’s only props. Richard allies himself with men who prefer to sacrifice the country. It is a proof of the greatness of Shakespeare’s vision, that Richard is presented to us both as the traitor and the betrayed. He is the anointed king false to his coronation oaths; he is the anointed king deposed by traitors. He is not fitted for kingship, but life has made him a king. Life, quite as much as temperament, is to blame for his tragedy. When life and temperament have thrust him from kingship, this wilful, passionate man, so greedy and heady in his hurry to be unjust, is unlike the monster that office made him. He is no monster then, but a man, not even a man like ourselves, but a man of singular delicacy of mind, sensitive, strangely winning, who wrings our hearts with pity by his sense of his tragedy – And here have I the daintiness of ear To check time broke in a disorder’d string; But for the concord of my state and time Had not an ear to hear my true time broke. [5.5.45-8]

Part of his tragedy is due to his being too late. Had he landed from Ireland one day earlier he would have found a force of Welshmen ready to fight for him. At the end of

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the play he discovers, too late, that he is weary of patience. He strikes out like a man, when he has no longer a friend to strike with him. He is killed by a man who finds, too late, that the murder was not Bolingbroke’s intention. As in all the tragedies, there is much noble poetry. John of Gaunt’s speech about England is often quoted. Shakespeare’s mind is our triumph, not a dozen lines of rhetoric. Less well known are the couplets – ‘My inch of taper will be burnt and done, / And blindfold death not let me see my son’ [1.3.223-4], and ‘. . . let him not come there, / To seek out sorrow that dwells everywhere’ [1.2.71-2]. Those scenes in the last acts which display the mind of the deposed king are all exquisite, though their beauty is not obvious to the many. There is a kind of intensity of the soul, so intense that it is obscure to the many till it is interpreted. Writers of plays know well how tamely words intensely felt may read. They know, too, how like fire upon many souls those words will be when the voice and the action give them their interpretation. Richard II, like other plays of spiritual tragedy, needs interpretation. When he wrote it, Shakespeare had not wholly the power that afterwards he achieved, of himself interpreting his vision by many-coloured images. It is not one of the beloved plays. Bolingbroke has been praised as a manly Englishman, who is not ‘weak’ like Richard, but ‘strong’ and a man of deeds. In Act IV he shows his English kindness of mind and love of justice by a temperate wisdom in the trying of a cause and by saying that he will call back from exile his old enemy Norfolk. The Bishop of Carlisle tells him that that cannot be. Norfolk having worn himself out in the wars in Palestine has retired himself to Italy, and there, at Venice, given ‘His body to that pleasant country’s earth, / And his pure soul unto his captain Christ, / Under whose colours he had fought so long’ [4.1.98-100]. It is instructive to note how Bolingbroke takes the news – Bol. Why, bishop, is Norfolk dead? Carl. As surely as I live, my lord. Bol. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom Of good old Abraham. Lords appellants, Your differences, etc. [4.1.101-05]

The feeling that the poet’s mind saw the clash as the clash between the common and the uncommon man is strengthened by the Queen’s speech to Richard as he is led to prison – ‘thou most beauteous inn, / Why should hard-favour’d grief be lodged in thee, / When triumph is become an alehouse guest?’ [5.1.13-5]. (87-93)

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Hardin Craig, from an introduction to Richard II 1912

From The Tragedy of Richard the Second. The Tudor Shakespeare (New York, 1912). Hardin Craig (1875–1968), literary scholar and specialist in Renaissance and medieval studies, was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, and educated at Centre College in his native state and at Princeton University (where in 1901 he received his doctorate). His distinguished teaching career included posts at Princeton, Minnesota, Iowa, Stanford, and North Carolina. An indefatigable critic, literary historian, and editor (especially of Shakespeare), Craig produced many books, most of which centred on Renaissance literature and the English drama. Among the most important of these are Shakespeare (1931), The Enchanted Glass: the Elizabethan Mind in Literature (1936), An Interpretation of Shakespeare (1948), English Religious Drama of the Middle Ages (1955), and A New Look at Shakespeare’s Quartos (1961). As an editor, Craig was also prolific; apart from editing the Philological Quarterly (1922–28), he produced The Complete Works of Shakespeare (1951), a standard text widely used in American colleges and universities. Craig’s brief introduction to his separate edition of Richard II mainly summarizes known facts and received opinions from previous scholarship, providing short sections on the early editions, the date, the supposed use of the drama by the Essex conspirators, the stage history, and the like; it nevertheless contains interesting and in some cases original comments on Shakespeare’s use of his sources, on differences of style within the play, and on the characterization.

[From the ‘Introduction’ to The Tragedy of Richard the Second] [1] [On Shakespeare’s probable indebtedness to Daniel’s Civil Wars (1595) and on the date of the play] … Richard II bears the same relationship to the Civil Wars that 1 and 2 Henry IV do; the resemblances are of precisely the same sort, and they are quite as close and as numerous. There are a number of points on which the series of plays and Daniel’s poem differ from any known source and resemble each other. In general they cover

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the same ground, and both give prominence to the idea of Nemesis which followed the usurpation of Bolingbroke. The principal cases are: in Richard II, the Queen, who was a child of eleven, is introduced as a grown woman; Bolingbroke engages in a courtship of the common people; Bolingbroke and Richard ride into London together, the former in triumph, the latter in humiliation; the Queen has an interview with Richard after his return to London; the manner in which Exton received his hint to murder Richard; the strain in which the King soliloquizes just before he is murdered. In 1 and 2 Henry IV, Hotspur is represented as a young man pitted against the Prince, who is apparently of the same age (this is also the case in Richard II); he engages in combat with the Prince at Shrewsbury; the Prince rescues his father from the Douglas; Glendower is absent from the battle; in the last interview between the Prince and his father, Henry laments his inability to make a crusade and the manner in which he has achieved the crown; he advises the Prince to busy the minds of his subjects with a great enterprise. Daniel and Shakespeare may both have been following some source as yet unknown; but, in at least one instance, Daniel apologizes for the liberty he has taken (see Epistle Dedicatorie in 1609 edn.) in making the young Queen older than she was, an addition characteristic of Daniel. There are comparatively few close verbal resemblances: but it looks as if Shakespeare had a general knowledge of Daniel’s Civil Wars; and if so, that Richard II, as well as 1 and 2 Henry IV, is later than 1595. It should also be said in this connection that Richard II points strongly forward in many of its scenes to the later plays of the series, and is in perfect harmony with them in its underlying ideas. Richard II, like Twelfth Night, has a disproportionately large amount of rhyme for the time at which it is usually dated, and this would be still greater if we assigned the play to 1595-1596; but rhyme is a conscious element in composition; it may have been due to reaction or to some passing literary influence. The other metrical tests offer no obstacles to so late an assignment; but are, in fact, confirmatory. It is to be noted that rhyme militates against the speech-ending test, and that, though Richard II is not high in feminine endings (11 per cent), it has a full number of feminine mid-line syllables. It is also true that Richard II has a great many verbal conceits, puns, epigrams, and rhetorical figures, things characteristic of Shakespeare’s early work. This kind of language is, however, put mainly into the mouths of Richard and of Gaunt, as if with the conscious purpose of characterization. … (ix-x) [2] [Craig’s section entitled ‘Source’] Shakespeare’s principal source for Richard II is Holinshed’s Chronicles, which he often follows with surprising fidelity. A few small details may be derived from Hall’s Chronicle. The account of Mowbray’s death may come from Stow’s Annals. Matters for which there is no known source, besides the things mentioned above in connection with Daniel’s Civil Wars, are the women characters; the deathbed scene of Gaunt (III. i); the parts of the gardener and his servant (III. iv), and the groom (V. v). The principal divergences from Holinshed in the main story are changes in time and place. Thus, in the third act, all of the events attending the capture of Richard are made to take place at Flint Castle, the surrender of which is retarded; and, in the fourth act, the events of three different meetings of Parliament are combined into one. The character of Richard

 Hardin Craig, from an Introduction to Richard II 509 Shakespeare has built up from the events of that monarch’s lavish, corrupt reign and from his deeds. He has transformed Gaunt from a turbulent, selfish politician into the type and pattern of ancient and venerable patriotism. Aumerle has been aligned with the party of Richard. Shakespeare has made Mowbray a sympathetic figure by the story of his later career. In York he has developed, from Holinshed’s ‘verelie a man of gentle nature,’[1] a character of considerable complexity and interest. He has shielded Bolingbroke, and made the manner of his usurpation less hateful; partly, by making him a man of impersonal and patriotic ends, and, partly, by ignoring his trickery and softening his treatment of Richard and others of his enemies. (x-xi) [3] [Craig’s section entitled ‘Style’] There are two styles in the blank verse of Richard II, a plain style and a rhetorical style; and the two are used to offset each other. Richard, Gaunt, Mowbray, and the Queen almost always speak on the higher level; the other characters, when they are under stress of great emotion, as when York and his Duchess discuss the fall of Richard, or are under the immediate influence of Richard or Gaunt, occasionally rise to a level of declamation. Bolingbroke, Northumberland, and others of their party are made to speak more directly and simply, with the manifest purpose of contrasting them as practical men with the more sentimental and less practical Gaunt, Richard, and Richard’s party. Not only are the styles contrasted as between the two sets of speakers, but also in the speeches of the King himself; for the normal level of prosaic life is marked off by his lapses into the plain style; as when he says, ‘Now mark me, how I will undo myself ’ (IV.i.203), or ‘I had forgot myself; am I not a king?’ (III​.ii​​.83), and then launches forth into rhapsodical utterance. The styles are related to each other almost as poetry and prose are in the later plays. The use of the plainer, more conversational style is significant. It is comparatively new in Shakespeare; whereas, the rhetorical style of blank verse is like the style of Marlowe and is the prevailing though not the only form in Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI. The new style shows already a tendency to absorb the action, and is not improbably to be regarded as the beginning of the free blank verse of the later plays, in which Shakespearian dialogue approximates the language of real life. The more ornate style, however, is not to be entirely identified with Marlowesque rhetoric. In the speeches of Richard especially it is marked by an elaborateness, even delicacy, of fancy, which tends to run into wire-drawn conceits rather than into bombast and rant. We have here not merely a stage in the development towards realism of Shakespeare’s verse and diction, but a use of style in the service of characterization; for the peculiar appeal made to our sympathy by the figure of this helpless King depends to no small extent on the impression we receive of an imagination constantly beguiling its possessor into picturesque bypaths, when the necessity of the situation calls for a prosaic recognition of actual conditions. (xiv-xv) [4] [Craig’s section entitled ‘Interpretation’] Richard II lacks the objective qualities which have made Richard III popular; and it contains no realistic depictions of common life, such as form one of the principal charms

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of Henry IV and Henry V. It was evidently written as a tragedy, and not as a chronicle play; and comic matter is, probably intentionally, excluded from it. The theme of the play is embodied in the character of Richard. His enjoyment of his own emotions, his refusal to see any world but a world of ideas, his increasing intellectual activity and constantly decreasing power of action make him a remarkably interesting example of the sentimentalist. His idea of what is real, and not reality itself, defeats him; he rejects, with characteristic manifestations of cruelty, all attempts to make him live in the world of fact; and yet, in spite of all, he is so eloquent, so sincere, so personally attractive, so spiritually courageous in his adherence to his failing doctrine of divine vicarship, so surely possessed of a nobler nature, though it manifests itself only in the last moment of his life, that his character is deeply tragic. Coleridge has found in York an admirably drawn character [see Nos. 11 and 20 above]; and the picture of Bolingbroke, with his keen, impersonal intellectuality, has never received the recognition that it deserves as a masterpiece of character portrayal. Bolingbroke is as efficient as Richard is inefficient. With his feet soldily planted on fact, he advances towards his object with remorseless steadiness and patience, quietly sarcastic, a good judge of men, subtly playing upon the feelings of others to achieve his purpose, a treasonous purpose; and yet, withal, he is the man of the time, just and masterful, needed by his country in the crisis where she stood. Shakespeare does not pronounce judgment upon the moral issue between Bolingbroke and his King. Richard’s fall was inevitable, England demanded it; and yet Shakespeare does not exculpate Bolingbroke from treason and regicide. (xvi-xvii)

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Ivor B. John, from an introduction to Richard II 1912

From The Tragedy of King Richard II. The Arden Shakespeare (London, 1912); revised edition (London, 1925). Ivor Bertram John (1875–c. 1925), editor, is today a somewhat obscure scholar best known to Shakespearians for the two volumes he contributed to the first Arden Shakespeare edition under the general supervision of W.J. Craig and R.H. Case. He preceded his edition of Richard II (represented in the extracts reprinted below) with The Life and Death of King John (1907), each containing a substantial introduction. John, who was an M.A. (1900) and a fellow of the University of Wales at Cardiff, published several works on Welsh and Celtic topics. His detailed analysis of Richard II breaks determinedly from conventional wisdom in two major respects, (1) by attempting to refute the assumption that Shakespeare’s play was the one enlisted in aid of the Essex conspirators, and (2) by arguing that the conception of Bolingbroke’s character underwent a pejorative change when the dramatist continued his story in the two parts of Henry IV – from a figure of ‘self-control, quiet strength, and the power of quickly meeting a situation and profiting from it’ (p. xxxiii) to that of an unscrupulous and ambitious usurper. The text quoted below is from the slightly revised edition.

[From the ‘Introduction’ to Richard II] [1] [Shakespeare’s Richard II not the play performed in furtherance of the Essex conspiracy] . . . The play which Sir Gilly Meyrick arranged for at the Globe in 1601 was in all probability a play other than Shakespeare’s on the same subject. [Augustine] Phillips, the ‘manager’ of the performance, said that the play was ‘so old and so long out of use that they should have small or no company at it;’[1] and the sum of forty shillings extra was paid to the actors for their services. Shakespeare’s play, which was certainly not written before 1593, could hardly be described as ‘so old’ in 1601, even if it had been still-born; still less can we believe that it was ‘so old and so long out of use’ when editions of it were published in 1597 and 1598, and when it was still worth publishing

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again in quarto (with the ‘new additions,’ we grant) in 1608. Besides, although we may say that Shakepseare’s Richard II deals with a successful and perhaps justifiable deposition of a king, we feel that Shakespeare throws our sympathies largely on to the side of Richard — especially towards the close of the tragedy. Does not Carlisle — the Carlisle, be it noted, for whom Bolingbroke shows such respect — expressly forbid deposition (IV.i.114-149), ‘What subject can give sentence on a king?’ Again, the conspirators themselves disclaimed any attempt upon Elizabeth’s life, and would therefore hardly countenance a play in which the monarch was murdered. It seems more than likely from the nature of the title of Sir Gilly’s play that it did not deal with the death of Richard; had it done so, there surely would have been some mention of its more spicy contents in the title; it would have been the Life and Death of King Richard II or The True Tragedie of King Richard II rather than, apparently, the mere mention of the deposition.[2] Reviewing Shakespeare’s play as a whole, too, we find that its general effect is much the same as that of Carlisle’s definite dicta, — hardly one to hearten an audience exercised over the ethics and the practical results of violently deposing a monarch, but one much more likely to give them pause. Sir Gilly’s play, therefore, whatever it may have been, was not Shakespeare’s Richard II as we now know it... . (ix) [2] [On the possibility of Shakespeare’s having relied on an earlier play about the same reign] . . . On comparing King John with the Troublesome Raigne and with the Chronicles, we find that Shakespeare leaves at least two minor points obscure — the reason for Faulconbridge’s hatred of the Dauphin, and the lack of motive for the poisoning of the king by the monk of Swinstead. In the Troublesome Raigne these points are made perfectly clear... . In Richard II there is at least one exactly parallel case. In Act II.i.167, York alludes to the ‘prevention of poor Bolingbroke about his marriage.’ There is no explanation of this in the play nor any other reference to it, and it is just possible that Shakespeare has made here exactly the same kind of slip as he did in working over King John from the Troublesome Raigne; in other words, this slip in Richard II looks remarkably like evidence that Shakespeare was working over an older play as he did in the case of the contemporary King John. There are two passages in which Shakespeare was evidently not drawing from the Chronicles. The first is that in which Richard formally hands over the crown to Bolingbroke3 (IV.i.204 et seq., ‘I give this heavy weight from off my head,’ etc.). The second commits Carlisle to the custody of the Abbot of Westminster, whereas, according to the Chronicles, Carlisle was sent to St. Albans. These discrepancies may well be explained in the same way as the reference to Bolingbroke’s marriage. When we remember that King John and Richard II were written probably within a year of one another, it becomes still more likely that Shakespeare should have produced the two similar plays by similar methods; and the likelihood is strengthened by the amount of evidence we possess of the existence of a previous play or plays which may have stood in the same relationship to Richard II as the Troublesome Raigne did to King John4 ... (xi-xii)

 Ivor B. John, from an Introduction to Richard II 513 [3] [On the aesthetic value of Richard II, which follows a summary of the play’s action] . . . This deliberately bald summary of the incidents of the play shows distinctly that it possesses a coherence and unity of structure apart from the unfolding of character. Obviously it is only when incident and development of character are taken together that we can fully estimate and appreciate Shakespeare’s artistic intention and his success in carrying it out; but the point to be noted is that the incidents arrange themselves into a ‘plot’ with a definite beginning, middle, and end; and these incidents, as we have seen, are only slightly modified from the historical material of the Chronicles. The organic unity of the incidents is best seen from the point of view of Bolingbroke’s opposition to Richard: — Among other deeds of misgovernment, detailed in Gaunt’s dying words, Richard had been guilty of bringing about Gloucester’s death. Bolingbroke had sought some kind of redress by attacking Mowbray. Richard banished both and still further increased Bolingbroke’s enmity by the seizure of Gaunt’s estates. On Bolingbroke’s landing Richard found himself almost friendless, for his weak, capricious and oppressive methods of government had turned all his possible supporters against him. Bolingbroke triumphs easily, and Exton, catching at a natural exclamation of the new King’s, rounds off the tragedy. But Shakespearian tragedy is something far more subtle and complex than what we may term the superficial tragedy of incident — ‘Terrible Tragedy’ in the newspaper sense which merely connotes some sort of bloody happening (and may even be ‘double’ or ‘triple’); and although our sweet Richard has not the baffling, intricate mysteriousness of soul and intellect that we find in Hamlet, nor the gigantic passions and simplicities of Othello, or King Lear, still is it true that he is more of their fellowship than he is akin to King John or Richard III. As in the central figures of the greater Shakespearian tragedies, the possibility of tragedy is inherent in the build and material of Richard’s character; the ‘Soul’s Tragedy’ is there along with the outward tragedy of incident. Bound up with the possibility of tragedy is also the possibility of salvation; indeed it is not too much to say that the dangling of both possibilities before us during the whole course of the play is a crude summary of the essence of tragic drama. Nor does this war with that other canon of dramatic art which demands the inevitability of the tragic climax. Given the circumstances, this inevitability must strike us or the drama becomes forced, artificial, unreal. The fact that we are not given the circumstances until after we have read or seen the play explains how the inevitability of the catastrophe may coexist along with the alternate raisings of hope and fear in our breasts by the vicissitudes of the play. While following the play we are content to believe in the possibilities of each moment, and are swayed this way and that; we arrive afterwards at the sense of inevitability by a process of retrospective analysis. It would be folly to claim that these elements of tragic tension are handled with such sublime skill in Richard II as they are in the great tragedies. In Hamlet and King Lear they are raised to their highest power; in Richard they are, however, positively present. In each case we are watching a limed soul struggling to be free, although the struggling of Richard differs in more ways than one from that of the Danish Prince and the British King. It is to these differences that we must look for the explanation of the dislike which Richard II has inspired in so many critics;5 and the explanation is this. Hamlet, Macbeth,

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Othello, King Lear have to contend against forces (whether outward circumstance or their own passions) far greater than those which are arrayed against Richard. Cast as they are in the grand heroic mould of the later tragedies, we feel that even these great protagonists are not strong enough to triumph. Richard, we feel, has only to exercise a little common sense, to exhibit those more everyday virtues which the meanest of us possess, in order to conquer his difficulties. The forces that contend against him are not powerful; any ordinary person might have withstood them successfully. Not only has he no heroic strength, but — and this is worse — he has no heroic weaknesses; he attracts strongly neither our admiration nor our sympathy. We feel that any unheroic, plain, straightforward person — ourself for instance — would have done better than Richard if put in his place; we dare not think the same for an instant in connection with the central figures of the later tragedies. Hence, in spite of Shakespeare’s deliberate attempts towards the end of the play to enlist our sympathies on Richard’s side, on the whole we despise him. And now let us attempt to pluck the heart out of Richard’s mystery. It is a commonplace of Shakespearian criticism to point out that the creator of Richard was evidently in 1593-5 on the way to becoming the creator of Hamlet. The same methods of character delineation are common to both plays in different degrees. While the respective dramas are being unfolded before us, we are steadily learning more and more about Richard and Hamlet until they have uttered their last syllables; their characters are built up by a slow process of synthesis which is only completed with their dying words. In the first scene of Richard II the King has hardly spoken a dozen lines before one of his chief characteristics is indicated; — ‘face to face, And frowning brow to brow’ will he hear ‘The accuser and the accused freely speak’ [1.1.15-17]. His imagination has already pictured the scene in detail; he enjoys it by anticipation; it is a ‘striking situation’ than which nothing is dearer to the heart of Richard. Fraught as it may be with the most serious possibilities of danger to him and his realm, he still has the child’s, or at best the artist’s, delight in a ‘striking situation’ for its own sake. At Coventry he must have drunk his most intoxicating draught of this delight when, amid the pomp and circumstance of the lists, while every eye watched Bolingbroke and Mowbray at that tense moment of the first career, he threw his warder down and swung the concentrated interest of the whole assembly in a second upon himself and his own power. He mistook his warder for an enchanter’s wand. This sensitiveness to the possibilities of a ‘situation’ and his instant response to the demand for its utmost realisation is found again in the reduction of Bolingbroke’s sentence. Gaunt’s grief suggests another pose to Richard — that of the magnanimous King lightening the punishment of the unworthy son for the sake of the worthy father. The shallowness of the impulse is indicated when, a little later, news comes of Gaunt’s illness at the moment when Richard is beating his brains for expedients to raise money. Like a flash the possibility of seizing upon Gaunt’s estates and revenues in case of his decease comes to him: ‘Pray God we may make haste and come too late!’ [1.4.64]. At Gaunt’s bedside he cannot bear to be told of his faults; but what is it that really stings? Not Gaunt’s bitter accusations, which he does not attempt to refute, but the fact that he, the King, is being sternly admonished by a subject, and that the King does not

 Ivor B. John, from an Introduction to Richard II 515 look dignified during the process. He looks at himself and sees the ‘frozen admonition’ make pale his cheek, ‘chasing the royal blood With fury from his native residence’ [2.1.117-9]. Gaunt’s impeachment of his conduct may be justified or not. That is not the point for Richard; Gaunt is ‘unreverent’ [2.1.123], a much more serious thing; and when he has passed away Richard has no scruple in seizing upon his lands and goods. On his return from Ireland Richard enters with zest into his new part. This time it is that of a king returning to his own land on hearing of rebellion. He weeps for joy to stand upon his kingdom; the very earth he salutes with his hand. In return let the earth annoy his enemies with spiders, toads, nettles, and adders! His nobles naturally dislike these extravagances; they prefer bows and bills to toads and nettles. Now a mind such as Richard’s, concerning itself so much with pose and dramatic effect, has a set of continually extended antennae keeping it in sensitive contact with its audience, and a hint — maybe a strong one — flows along them that Carlisle and Aumerle are irritated by this particular series of poses. So the king prays of them not to mock his conjuration of senseless things, giving Carlisle an opportunity of gently urging the immediate preparation of the more usual means of offence and defence. Aumerle more impatiently and outspokenly drives home the suggestion. Richard’s answer is to paint for himself and them a picture of a king, who, by the mere brightness and terror and God-given qualities of his holy office, will fright Bolingbroke and rebellion into surrender; where Bolingbroke has men to fight for him Richard will have heavensent angels. Then follows a pitiful and — as Shakespeare has chosen to present it — a somewhat too mechanical see-saw of alternate dejection and exaltation as the various items of news come in. Finally, Richard refuses to be comforted and hastens to Flint Castle, contrasting, with his last words, Richard’s night with Bolingbroke’s fair day. Already he sees himself in a new rôle — that of the rightful king overpowered by the superior force of treason and rebellion — and is prepared to play it even before its necessity becomes fully apparent. Northumberland approaches to parley. The king concerns himself at once with a matter of pose — a matter, admittedly however, indicative at this juncture of deeper things — Northumberland’s lack of ceremony in addressing him. But leaving this for a moment he goes back to a previous idea; God is mustering armies of pestilence to make up for Richard’s lack of soldiers — a lack which he weakly admits; but the speech ends with a flash of spirit in which Richard implies resistance to Bolingbroke by substantial men-at-arms. Northumberland protests that Bolingbroke is but coming for his own; Richard immediately promises to accede to Bolingbroke’s fair demands, and at the same instant swings round to ask Aumerle — again in a phrase having more direct reference to his pose than anything else: ‘We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not, To look so poorly and to speak so fair’ [3.3.127-8] — whether he would not have done better to defy the traitor? Aumerle counsels the king to ‘ca’ canny’ for a while. Again Richard revels in the situation.6 When Northumberland is seen returning, he draws up an elaborate list of exchanges that he will make of his kingly possessions for an almsman’s furniture, of his kingdom for a grave. Aumerle weeps, probably in hopeless exasperation against Richard’s impotent maunderings. The King for the moment mistakes it all for pity, and reaches the lowest depths of puerility in his suggestions for a weeping-match. These

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are broken off for an obvious reason, ‘Well, well, I see I talk but idly and you laugh at me’ [3.3.170-1]. As soon as Northumberland announces that Bolingbroke is in the base court, Richard has his eye on his own pose once more: ‘Down, down, I come, like glistering Phaeton’ [3.3.178]. Even Northumberland cannot properly realise that Richard can be such a fool, so he finds an excuse for him. ‘Sorrow and grief of heart,’ he reports to Bolingbroke, ‘Makes him speak fondly like a frantic man’ [3.3.184-5]. In the short interview with Bolingbroke there is no new pose. Richard weakly submits; he is playing the part for which he has already cast himself. His next appearance is in the famous ‘Deposition Sceane.’ His first words refer to the way in which he plays this new part: He has not yet shaken off the regal thoughts wherewith he reigned; he has not yet learned how to bow and bend the knee. Seeing the familiar faces around him now looking towards Bolingbroke as their King, his imagination leaps to a comparison of himself with Christ; of the two he is the worse off! ‘God save the King,’ he cries, and as none of the bystanders seem to catch his drift, he adds ‘Amen’ for them, playing both priest and clerk [4.1.172-3]. He is asked to resign the crown, and he sees a magnificent chance for the most dramatic pose he has yet achieved. He forces7 the unwilling Bolingbroke to hold one side of the crown and proceeds to work out the simile of a well and two buckets. Bolingbroke soon tires of Richard’s phrase-mongering, and asks point-blank, ‘Are you contented to resign the crown?’ [4.1.200]. This only gives Richard another cue. His obtrusive self-consciousness is nowhere more clearly indicated than in the phrase, ‘Now mark me, how I will undo myself ’ [4.1.201], and he proceeds with just such a catalogue of renunciations as might have been prepared by a council for use at the Public Deposition of Kings. This done, he is evidently at the end of his carefully prepared impromptus, and the cruel demand of Northumberland that he should read a list of his past misdeeds finds him unprepared with any part to play, and he resents this last degradation in a manner more dignified and natural than he has hitherto used. But as his resentment exhausts itself and his self-commiseration gains once more the upper hand, dignity is thrown to the winds, and he calls for a looking-glass to see what his face looks like now that it is bankrupt of majesty. He sees a face showing insufficient traces of his troubles; he smashes the glass. Bolingbroke’s icy and magnificently acute comment, ‘The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed the shadow of your face’ [4.1.292-3], merely gives him a chance to explore the metaphor without seizing its true application. With a pun on his lips, a fitting peroration under the circumstances, he leaves the presence chamber. The tragedy in the artistic sense, the soul-tragedy, is now over. Richard has been tried in the crucible, and where gold should have emerged we find but flashy dross. From this point to the end of the play we seem to be concerned with the good qualities of Richard’s defects. The delight in pose and situation, in artistry of word and elegance of fancy, although sadly, or ludicrously, or even criminally, out of place in the councilchamber and on the battle-field, may be a pleasing quality and a source of potent charm in the lighter moments of life. Richard’s incompetence, while attempting to face the sterner issues of life in the world of men, need not reflect itself in any way in the world of women and dependents. To his Queen, therefore, Richard is her ‘fair rose; the map of honour’ [5.1.8, 12]. But even she would wish some more manly resistance to

 Ivor B. John, from an Introduction to Richard II 517 Bolingbroke; she upbraids Richard for taking his correction so mildly. His answer is to imagine the Queen telling the ‘winter’s tale’[8] of his deposition — a tale to make the very fire mourn. Northumberland, to whom seems to fall the task of goading Richard almost beyond endurance, interrupts the farewell between the deposed King and his Queen, bringing new orders that Richard is to go to Pomfret and the Queen to France. As we saw once before, so again does Richard’s indignation rouse him to a flash of naturalness, and in the sanest, most straightforward and farsighted speech that he makes in the whole course of the play, he warns Northumberland of the fate of a kingmaker. The farewell to the Queen is said, Richard’s self-consciousness appearing again in his appreciation of the fact that ‘we make woe wanton with this fond delay’ [5.1.101]. Richard had been undoubtedly beloved of his Queen, and Shakespeare would not have introduced later the little episode of the groom’s visit to the prison had he not wished to show that Richard was also capable of inspiring love in dependents. When in the last scene we find the deposed King alone in prison with no consolation beyond that afforded by playing with his own thoughts, his wayward imaginativeness no longer irritates us; it rather lends an added pathos to the situation. It is fitting therefore, that here, in the forced quiet of the prison, he should take the longest and most fantastic of his imaginative flights. He deliberately states that he is going to compare his prison with the world — first finding a metaphorical statement of the way in which he is setting to work. His comparison made, strains of music break upon his ear. Some error evidently occurs in the time; he notices this, and as usual, notices himself noticing it, introducing at the same time a wonderful touch of confession: — Here have I the daintiness of ear To check time broke in a disordered string; But for the concord of my state and time Had not an ear to hear my true time broke. I wasted time and time doth now waste me. [5.5.45-9]

Time suggests the idea of a clock; he works out an elaborate comparison between himself and a clock, an imaginative tour de force to be placed beside the most involved and far-fetched conceits of the ‘Metaphysical’ poets of a later generation. The music seems to have been made by some friend of Richard’s, probably by some dependent, who, without needing to realise the impotence of the King, could be fond of the fanciful and lovable man. The groom who now enters emphasises the same motif as the music suggests, and the pathetic touch of Roan Barbary’s defection is still another device for attracting our sympathy towards the fallen King. Galled by his imprisonment, emotionally roused by his soliloquy and by the little incidents that follow, Richard is easily stung into exasperation by the new order concerning his food. In a flash he understands Exton’s purpose, and, with a last exhibition of the fearless personal bravery attributed to the Richard of history in face of the mob at Blackheath,[9] he sells his life as dearly as possible. Like Cawdor ‘Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it’ [Macbeth, 1.4.7-8]. Bolingbroke’s character as revealed in Richard II taken alone, differs from that which may be evolved from a study of our play along with the Two Parts of Henry IV

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and with Henry V. It is customary to consider that the three Henry plays complement, explain, and amplify the indications given in Richard II. Accordingly, Bolingbroke is a deep, farseeing, crafty usurper whose every move from the attack upon the King’s Pawn, Mowbray, to the checkmating of the King, is as carefully planned as that of a master chess-player. There need be little hesitation in saying that a careful perusal of Richard II alone gives insufficient warrant for this reading of Bolingbroke’s character; and since the spectators of this play could not explain Bolingbroke’s character by the aid of plays then unwritten, we have no right to read into the Bolingbroke of Richard II the Bolingbroke of Henry IV. We have long ago admitted that the Falstaff of The Merry Wives of Windsor is not the Falstaff of the Henry plays; it is no more difficult to admit that the later Bolingbroke differs from the earlier. Now, if we grant that Shakespeare had in his mind when Richard II was written, a complete and clear conception of Bolingbroke’s character as he intended developing it in the Henry plays, then we must own that, all through this play, the writer has deliberately hoodwinked us. A dramatist may be justified in making his characters completely hoodwink their enemies; but he must, at first or at last, let his audience into the secret. If the key to Bolingbroke’s character is crafty designing, then Shakespeare has in the play of Richard II kept the secret better from us than he kept it from Mowbray or King Richard. Nowhere in any speech or action of Bolingbroke’s do we find any hint of a deliberate plan to wrest the throne from Richard. The two clues in the play which are generally supposed to point that way will be dealt with in their places as we now trace Bolingbroke’s actions in detail. In the challenge scene and at Coventry Bolingbroke is but the usual braggart champion; when banished no word of resentment escapes him; he bows to the will of the King without protest and accepts the shortening of his period of exile with the same calm as he receives the original sentence. Mowbray’s famous utterance: — ‘But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know; / And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue’ [1.3.204-5], is the first of the two clues referred to above, and is taken by those who believe in the intriguing character of Bolingbroke to be a deliberate indication of his deep-laid purpose. If this be granted, then it is a pity from an artistic point of view that Shakespeare let Mowbray into a secret which he kept from his audience. It is more probable that this is a natural ‘last word’ of Mowbray’s tinged by Shakespeare with a hint of prophecy.10 Richard’s speech in Scene iv, in which he speaks of Bolingbroke’s courtship to the common people, is the second piece of evidence upon which the usual reading of Bolingbroke’s character is based; and it is only fair to point out that, since Holinshed does not mention this conduct of Bolingbroke’s, Shakespeare must have had some deliberate intention when he inserted it in the play. His conduct here is supposed to be part and parcel of the subtle game he is playing. But this patient underbearing of his fortune is not necessarily anything of the kind; it is a characteristic of his in every situation in which he is placed with the exception of his dealings with the caterpillars of the commonwealth. Here, indeed, he assumes royal powers before the crown has been given him. Let us note, however, that these powers he does not use in his own interest. Bushy and Green are Richard’s worst enemies, not Bolingbroke’s. Their execution is in the interests of the realm. Bolingbroke’s action at the quarrel centring round Bagot in Act IV, Sc. i, is exactly parallel to that in the case of Bushy and Green. True, he deals

 Ivor B. John, from an Introduction to Richard II 519 with the quarrelling nobles as if he were already King, but even as the mere head of a revolting faction he could hardly have acted otherwise. Richard’s famous phrase in describing Bolingbroke’s journey on his way to banishment — ‘As were our England in reversion his, / And he our subjects’ next degree in hope’ [1.4.35-6], obtains its whole point from the fact that Richard is wholly unaware of the prophetic nature of his remark. We next meet Bolingbroke upon his march to Berkeley, chatting courteously, but not in the least fawningly with his supporters. With the Lord of Berkeley he firmly insists upon his right to be called Lancaster. To York he asserts temperately that he is but returning for his rights and eventually wins over his invertebrate uncle; Northumberland meanwhile strengthens Bolingbroke’s persuasions by pointing out to York that the banished man has sworn that he is only returning for his own; on that condition only are the nobles supporting him.11 Before Flint Castle, when Bolingbroke knows that Richard is utterly in his power, we find no hint of any claim beyond that already put forward: — ‘Take not, good cousin, further than you should, / Lest you mistake the heavens are o’er our heads’ [3.3.16-17], says York. ‘I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself/ Against their will’ [3.3.18-19], is the reply, in keeping with the message sent to Richard; Bolingbroke sends allegiance to King Richard, and lays his arms and his power at the king’s feet if his banishment be repealed and his lands and rights be restored to him. If not, Bolingbroke will use the advantage of his power. Methinks King Richard and myself should meet With no less terror than the elements Of fire and water, . . . . Be he the fire, I’ll be the yielding water: The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain My waters; on the earth and not on him. [3.3.54-6, 58-60]

After the embassage, when Bolingbroke and Richard do at length meet, Bolingbroke commands all round him to show fair duty to his majesty, and himself kneels. Richard, however, has, with his usual lack of judgment, jumped to a conclusion quite unwarranted as yet. He yields abjectly, and suggests to Bolingbroke that he is ready to give up everything. After the quarrel between Aumerle and the other nobles, York enters with the news that Richard of his own free will adopts Bolingbroke as his heir. Bolingbroke now suddenly makes up his mind to seize the glory thrust upon him. ‘In God’s name,’ he cries, ‘I’ll ascend the regal throne’ [4.1.113]. Carlisle protests, but cannot wring a word from Bolingbroke, who tacitly consents to the Bishop’s arrest by the officious Northumberland. Richard is ordered in to surrender his crown in the common view; ‘so shall we proceed without suspicion’ [4.1.156-7]. There is nothing to indicate here or anywhere else that any pressure has been brought to bear upon Richard, and the only reading of the whole situation justified by the play is that Bolingbroke returned to claim his own, found Richard friendless and helpless owing to his previous misgovernment and almost eager to play the part of a deposed king, whereupon he decided to accept the crown thrust upon him. Nowhere is there to be found the slightest trace of Bolingbroke’s controlling power behind the decisive events.

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It was not Bolingbroke’s policy or strength that dispersed Richard’s Welshmen; nor can we, so far as the play goes, put down the defection of Richard’s nobles to anything but disgust with Richard’s misdeeds. York, who brings the message to Bolingbroke that Richard wishes to resign the crown, could hardly have lent himself to bringing pressure of any kind to bear upon his king. To imagine therefore that Bolingbroke was, without the knowledge of his own partisans — for even Northumberland lays stress on Bolingbroke’s oath regarding his intentions — deliberately and unerringly ‘compassing the crown’ [Henry V, 4.1.294] by the aid of events which he had no power to bring about, is to invest him with a god-like omniscience far beyond the bounds of dramatic reasonableness. We repeat therefore that Shakespeare’s conception of Bolingbroke’s character changed between Richard II and Henry IV. The self-control of Bolingbroke during the resignation scene is in marked contrast to Richard’s unrestrained volubility. He checks Northumberland’s pitiless aggravation of Richard’s woe, while at the same time he is perfectly aware that the Tower (or, later Pomfret) will be the safest place for the focus of inevitable disaffection. He can afford to be magnanimous in the case of Aumerle’s treason, because he can strike at the really dangerous conspirators; Carlisle he seems to appreciate at his proper value, and forgives him too. When Exton enters with the corpse of Richard, the new King fully accepts responsibility for the hasty words which sent Exton on his ugly mission; he makes no paltering excuses for himself, but deals out poetic justice to Richard’s murderer. To sum up, the salient points of Bolingbroke’s character as revealed by the play of Richard II alone, are self-control, quiet strength, and the power of quickly meeting a situation and profiting from it. The Bolingbroke of history may have intrigued subtly and cleverly, and by the time the Henry plays were written Shakespeare was prepared to accept him for the dramatic purposes of those plays as a man who had by indirection compassed the crown. In Richard II, at any rate, Shakespeare has most carefully hidden any trace of deliberate intrigue. One more point which makes against the traditional reading of Bolingbroke’s character is this: that it presents us with the edifying spectacle of a weak, extravagant, shallow King overthrown, not by a natural revolt on the side of justice, patriotism, and sanity, but by the most consummate piece of hypocrisy ever portrayed in drama, and portrayed, moreover, in such a way that even the audience cannot seize upon any adequate indication of its existence. It is impossible to fit into our conception of Shakespeare’s dramatic methods a play which is the exhibition of one frailty being exposed and overcome by traits of character still more repulsive. The other characters require but brief mention. The woeful Queen whose real age has been added to by Shakespeare; the equally woeful wife of the murdered Gloucester; and the brave old Duchess of York, whose strength is in sharp contrast with her husband’s weakness, make up the almost negligible total of feminine interest admitted into the play. The interest in Gaunt centres round his famous patriotic harangue. York’s character is more fully developed. Aged and incompetent, he is all at six and seven when any real strength of purpose and action is required; but with the usual irresponsibility of such weak creatures he unexpectedly develops a surprising activity and stubbornness in the persecution of his own son. Mowbray is somewhat of a puzzle. Although perhaps

 Ivor B. John, from an Introduction to Richard II 521 more of a real friend to Richard than Bolingbroke, his longer term of banishment was due to Richard’s desire to get out of the way an incriminating tool in the matter of Gloucester’s death. The officious Northumberland is engrossed in doing the best for himself in the new world by fetching and carrying for Bolingbroke; he is probably the most objectionable character in the play. Another unlovable person is Aumerle, whose doings and sayings occupy a considerable space without impressing upon us very clearly any sense of personality. The other characters, whom we have already grouped according to their sympathies, with either Richard or Bolingbroke, need no further discussion. No schoolboy ‘getting up’ Richard II has failed to write an essay on the ‘comparison and contrast’ of this play with Marlowe’s Edward II. The theme is so trite and the ‘comparison and contrast’ so straightforward between the two studies of royal weakness that there is no need to elaborate it here. Suffice it to say that Richard II breaks away from the influence of Marlowe along those lines upon which Shakespeare’s genius in his later plays transcended that of his early contemporary. Marlowe’s trade was the moving accident. In Edward II the mere incident, as we have shown, is becoming subordinate to characterisation; the ‘Tragedy’ in the newspaper sense is less important than the Soul’s Tragedy. On the other hand the horrible ‘strength’ of Edward’s death scene is probably a greater imaginative achievement than that of Richard. Critical estimates of this play have varied between wide extremes. Coleridge had ‘no hesitation in placing it as the first and most admirable of all Shakespeare’s purely historical plays’ [see No. 20 above]. Kreyssig speaks of ‘this masterpiece of political poetry’.[12] Swinburne spoke of ‘the crudities and incongruities of dramatic conception and poetic execution which signalise the play as unmistakably the author’s first attempt at historic drama’ [No. 64 above]. Of all the works of Shakespeare Mr. Morton Luce likes Richard II the least [No. 67 above]. Impartial criticism must admit that the play has its weaknesses. In the first place, there are structural defects: the whole episode concerned with York’s impeachment of his son is not properly woven into the fabric of the play, nor has it any beauty or humour which might justify its intrusion. The broil between Aumerle, Fitzwater, and the other lords has little to justify the number of lines given to it unless Shakespeare had the notion of contrasting Richard’s with Bolingbroke’s method of dealing with such a quarrel. Possibly we may say that too much is made of Gaunt’s character at the beginning of the play when we remember that he dies so soon. Nor can we deny that the number of developed characters in the play is a small one and the proportion of mere puppets is correspondingly large. In the second place, there are defects of style. Like Romeo and Juliet the whole play is heavily loaded with rhetorical tricks, conceits, and clenches which good taste cannot away with, even after allowing full value to the fact that in Richard’s case this over-weighting of the style is bound up with the exposition of his character. There is an inordinate use of rhyme (see for instance the scolding match between Bolingbroke and Mowbray, where it is absurdly out of place); and not only is the rhyme in the usual couplet form, which is found more or less in all Shakespeare’s plays except the very last, but we have the more artificial forms — from the dramatic point of view — of stichomythia, quatrain, and sestet. For the sake of rhyme two horrible couplets appear in the play: — ‘Desolate, desolate, must I

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hence and die: / The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye’ (I.ii.73-4), and ‘Where’er I wander, boast of this I can, / Though banish’d, yet a true-born Englishman’ (I.iv.3089). Let us hope, however, that these are but fifth-rate curtain gags, preserved by some strange mischance. The structural defects and the over-ornamented style may justly be regarded as due to the’prentice hand of Shakespeare; but since the proportion of rhyme is so great as to throw Richard II entirely out of any reasonable place in the rhyme-test series (see Introduction to King John in this edition),[13] some further explanation of the stylistic exuberance seems possible. All critics are agreed that this explanation is twofold: in the first place, Shakespeare, having explored the possibilities of Marlowe’s methods in Richard III, deliberately sought others in Richard II, finding them in a more luscious and sentimental style which substituted sweetness for vigour; in the second place, the very conception of Richard’s character is, as we have seen, bound up with luxury of fancy, and could not fail to augment Shakespeare’s natural tendency at this period of his career towards displays of imaginative and fanciful richness. Finally, there is no trace of genuine humour from the first line to the last. But for all its shortcomings, and in spite of the dislike which it creates in some minds — a dislike for which we have partly accounted in our discussion of Richard’s character — the play has much beauty and some claims to greatness. We must not allow any personal dislike of Richard to affect our estimate of the artistic value of his portrayal. Richard’s poetical flights are indeed out of place from the point of view of his own and his kingdom’s welfare; they are none the less wondrous poetry for poetry’s sake. The whole conception of his character — that of a poet who has unfortunately had kingship thrust upon him — is thoroughly worthy of the creator of Hamlet and Lear. The strength of the poetic element in the play is not to be found solely in Richard’s speeches. Gaunt’s patriotic outburst is none the less fine because to most of us it is hackneyed since our early schooldays. The scenes in which the Queen appears are also full of charm. Transcending all is the usual Shakespearian achievement, the everastounding miracle of the creation of living and moving human beings whom we know — in the true sense of the word — far better than we know our everyday friends, out of the pale ghosts of the Chronicles and the galvanised mummies of earlier plays... . (xxi-xxxvi)

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Brander Matthews, dramaturgical weakness and psychological strength in Richard II 1913

From Shakespeare as a Playwright (New York, 1913). James Brander Matthews (1852–1929), university professor and man of letters, attended Columbia University where he earned both an A.B. and an LL.B. Having married the English actress Ada Harland in 1873, he became increasingly interested in the theatre and began contributing literary and theatrical pieces to various periodicals. Pursuing an active club life in both New York and London, Matthews developed friendships with many of the prominent writers and artists of the day; such men as William Dean Howells, Austin Dobson, Edmund Gosse, Thomas Hardy, William Ernest Henley, and Rudyard Kipling were among his intimates. In 1891–92 Matthews replaced Thomas R. Price as a lecturer at Columbia while the latter was in Europe; he was so successful that he was immediately offered a permanent professorship which by 1900 had turned into the first chair of dramatic literature to be held by any academic in America. A steady stream of publications then began to flow from Matthews’s pen as a by-product of his university courses – such books as Studies of the Stage (1894), Aspects of Fiction (1896), The Development of the Drama (1903), A Study of the Drama (1910), Molière: His Life and His Works (1910), Shakespeare as a Playwright (1913), and A Book about the Theater (1916). In addition he was the guiding impulse behind Shakespearian Studies (1916), a collection of essays by members of the English department at Columbia in honour of the tercentenary of Shakespeare’s death. Matthews was perhaps the chief American champion of the ‘well-made’ play as exemplified in England by the school of Arthur Wing Pinero – an attitude which is visible in his Shakespearian criticism generally, as well as in the comments on Richard II excerpted below. These remarks also reflect Matthews’s knowledge of French drama.

[From ‘Chapter V: His Earliest Chronicle-Plays’] [1] [On Shakespeare’s early chronicle plays as a group] … In Richard III, Richard II and King John, the three earlier chronicle-plays composed not long after the four earlier comedies,[1] Shakespeare accepts the method of the living

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picture-book. He is content to utilize the insecure framework of a historical novel cut into dialogue. In preparing these plays he apparently accepts no obligation to relate the straggling episodes to a central action and to mold the whole story into a harmonious whole. The most that he strives for, or at least, the most that he attains, is the arbitrary unity due to a coercive central character; and in doing this he is abiding by the example of Marlowe, whose influence upon him is more obvious in Richard III and in Richard II than in King John or in any other of his later plays. Perhaps the comparative absence of humor from these pieces is also a result of Marlowe’s example. The chronicle-play inherited from the mystery the habit of commingling comic scenes with serious episodes; Shakespeare had just made four ventures into comedy, but in these three historical pieces he is sparing of humor. He was later to make up for this reserve in the two parts of Henry IV which are dominated by the exuberant personality of Falstaff. … (85-6) [2] [On Richard II] … In Richard III the action is mainly external; it scarcely even hints at the true tragedy which lies hidden in the soul of man. It is a rushing tumult of incessant assassinations, dominated by a monster of iniquity, and we sit silent as he wades through blood to the throne. In Richard II the spirit of the scene changes, although we are made again to follow the rise of a usurper. Richard II is defective in the very qualities in which Richard III abounds; and it is endowed with the very qualities which Richard III is without. That is to say, Richard II is rich in truthful characterdelineation and it is poor not only in theatrical effect, but in essential dramatic force. Richard III is energetic and strong-willed and Richard II is yielding and weak-willed; and as a result the former is a fit figure for a play, while the latter is an impossible hero for the drama which can interest only when it sets before us the contention of wilful personalities. Richard II lacks action; it is barren in striking situations; events merely happen and are not brought about by deliberate intent. The movement is sluggish, and it is epic or even elegiac rather than dramatic. Richard lets his crown slip from his head without making a good fight for it; and Bolingbroke, who puts himself upon the throne, is permitted to become king rather because of the feebleness of Richard than because of his own strength. The usurper succeeds not so much by his own stern resolve as by the accident of circumstance. In other words, the play as a play is weakened by a dearth of dramatic motive, of that naked assertion of the human will which is ever the most potent force in the theater. [William C.] Macready, judging the play from the actor’s standpoint (which is always valuable when we seek to weigh purely theatric merit), points out that the piece has not been able to keep the stage although often applauded in the acting. He notes that no one of the characters does anything to cause a result; all seem floated along the tides of circumstance and ‘nothing has its source in premeditation.’ And he adds that ‘in all the greater plays of Shakespeare purpose and will, the general foundations of character, are the engines which set action at work. In Richard II we look for these in vain. Macbeth, Othello, Iago, Hamlet, Richard III, both think and do; but Richard II, Bolingbroke, York and the rest, though they talk so well,

 Brander Matthews, Dramaturgical Weakness and Psychological Strength 525 do little else than talk, nor can all the charm of composition redeem, in a dramatic point of view, the weakness resulting from this accident in the play’s construction.’[2] There is cause for wonder that immediately after composing a play of compact theatricality like Richard III Shakespeare should be so neglectful of dramatic force in Richard II, repeating the mistake he had made in the ineffective Two Gentlemen of Verona immediately after the artfully constructed Comedy of Errors. Possibly the explanation of the dramaturgic weakness of Richard II is to be found in the fact that he did not have the support of any previous play to supply suggestions for improvement.[3] Shakespeare seems to have been sluggish of invention – or at least to have exerted his ingenuity most easily when he had an old piece to better as best he could. Possibly it may be that his artistic interest was so centered in the character of Richard himself that he failed to perceive the need of a bold action to display the figure of the pliant king. If this is the case, he was then doing what Molière did later, when the French dramatist allowed his overmastering interest in the Misanthrope himself to blind him to the insufficiency of the dramatic story in which Alceste was the central character. Yet the Misanthrope might have been supplied with a dramatic structure as powerful as that of Tartuffe, since Alceste himself is a strong-willed character, whereas the task of finding a truly dramatic framework to set off the slack-minded Richard II is almost hopeless. And thus we are led to the conclusion that Shakespeare’s initial error was in choosing a theme incapable of truly dramatic treatment. This is added evidence of the truth of Voltaire’s remark that the success of a tragedy depends, first of all, upon the choice of its subject.[4] While it cannot be denied that the central figure of this tragic history is fundamentally undramatic, and that the story of his fall is but sparsely supplied with stirring situations, Shakespeare is ever Shakespeare; and there is no play of his which has not its superb moments. Quite in keeping with the king’s irresolute character is the sudden rage which fires him to slay with his own hand two of the men who have come to murder him. And in the earlier episode of his yielding up the crown, there is both psychologic truth and theatrical effect when he sends for a mirror to see ‘the face that like the sun did make beholders wink’ [4.1.284], only to dash the glass to the ground, thereby showing Bolingbroke that his glory is as brittle as the face reflected in the mirror. Perhaps it may be worth recalling that, in a poetic drama by M. [Edmond] Rostand, L’Aiglon, another royal weakling, too infirm of purpose for the burden that is laid upon his shoulders, also looks at his face in a mirror, only to shatter the glass in disgust.[5] When the weakness of Richard II as a play is once admitted, only praise can be bestowed upon the character-delineation, especially upon the wonderful felicity with which the peculiar personality of Richard is portrayed. Shakespeare here discloses a psychologic insight of which he had given little evidence in any earlier piece. The truthfulness with which Richard II is depicted is in marked contrast with the lack of truth in the painting of Richard III. Shakespeare seems to have been attracted by the problem of presenting a king who should be kingly and yet devoid of the attributes of a real ruler. Richard II is an unusual character drawn with unusual art. He is a specialist in self-pity, a dilettant in self-torture, reveling in the luxury of woe and seeking his happiness in being unhappy. He is unceasing in dissecting his own sad plight and in

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moralizing upon his own misery. At bottom he is a contemptible creature, delineated with a perfect understanding of his morbid individuality. He is cruel and grasping and heartless; and yet he is exuberant in sympathy for himself. He is the embodiment of pathetic helplessness, a masterpiece of psychologic veracity. And it is in the play in which he appears that it is possible to perceive, for the first time, that wonderful understanding of human nature which was to make Shakespeare the greatest of dramatists. … (92-5)

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Lacy Collison-Morley, Alessandro Manzoni’s anti-classical perspective on Richard II 1916

From Shakespeare in Italy (Stratford-Upon-Avon, 1916). Lacy Collison-Morley (b. 1875), British journalist and author of books on Italian civilization, was born in Croydon and educated at St. Paul’s School and St. John’s College, Oxford. During World War I he served as a geographer for the British navy. Apart from his contributions to several periodicals, Collison-Morley published numerous books on Italian literature and history. Shakespeare in Italy is significant for being one of the earliest books to illustrate historically the impact of Shakespeare on Italian culture; and among its most important contributions is Collison-Morley’s emphasis on the great Romantic Italian poet and novelist, Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873), for whom Shakespeare and Virgil were the supreme models of excellence in European poetry. By calling attention to Manzoni’s critical remarks on Richard II in his letter to Victor Chauvet concerning the unities of time and place (1820), Collison-Morley introduced Manzoni’s acute analysis of the play into the English critical tradition, even though Manzoni’s actual words would have to wait until 1984 for a full translation. (Oswald Le Winter’s collection, Shakespeare in Europe [Cleveland, 1963], had contained a partial translation.) Manzoni praised the naturalness and originality, not only of the plotting, but also of the way characters such as York and Richard develop in response to changing political realities. Therefore, in addition to Collison-Morley’s paragraph about Manzoni’s admiration for Richard II, I also reprint below Laurence P. Senelick’s translation of the relevant section of Manzoni’s Lettre à M. Chauvet sur I’Unité de Temps et de Lieu dam la Tragédie from ‘Richard II’: Critical Essays, ed. Jeanne T. Newlin (New York, 1984), pp. 233–8. I am indebted to Professor Senelick of Tufts University for permission to reprint.

[1] [From Chapter VII: ‘Shakespeare in Italy During the Romantic Movement (1815– 30)’] . . . There are numerous references to Shakespeare in Manzoni’s prose writings. In his important Lettre à M. Chauvet sur I’Unité de Temps et de Lieu dans la Tragédie,

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he contrasts Othello with [Voltaire’s] Zaïre as an argument against the unity of time, showing that the former is probable because Shakespeare has taken all the time necessary for the gradual development of Othello’s jealousy under Iago’s diabolical influence, whereas Zaïre is not, because Voltaire is obliged to trust to chance owing to the action being compressed into twenty-four hours. Like Coleridge he had a profound admiration for Richard II. He is well aware that it is not one of the best of the historical plays; but, like Coleridge, he sympathized instinctively with the weaknesses of the unhappy king, since he felt that they were to a great extent his own. Richard’s ‘intellectual feminineness’ [No. 20], of which Coleridge talks when discussing the play, is a characteristic common to both poets. Manzoni examines the play carefully to show how it would have been spoilt by being constructed on classic lines. ‘Marvellous Shakespeare’, he exclaims. ‘If only these beauties of your god-like intellect remained, what rare things would they not be considered! But your brain was able to plumb the depths of the human heart so profoundly that such beauties are common in your works.’1 … (112-3) [2] [From Manzoni’s ‘Letter to Mr. Chauvet concerning the unities of time and place in Tragedy’ (1820), translated from the French by Laurence P. Senelick. Victor Chauvet, a French literary critic, had attacked the tendency of modern continental dramatists to disregard the classical unities entirely or to treat them too loosely; Manzoni’s thoughtful reply, which rejected theatrical literalism of time and place (even though it mistakenly assumed that Shakespeare’s characterization of Richard II was truer to history than it is), constituted one of the most influential and aesthetically probing defences of artistic freedom in a heated debate that occupied the attention of many French and Italian writers of the Romantic period.] … This, then, is what art and philosophy gain by accepting arbitrary rules: forcing great men to concoct subterfuges in order to avoid improprieties and to come up with subtle arguments to evade the thing by adopting the word! But if, in choosing as the subject of dramatic action those illustrious events worthy of tragedy, that Corneille mentions, we wish to avoid the error of heaping them up in an implausible manner, we fall perforce into another blunder; we must then abandon a part of those events, sometimes the most interesting one; we must give up all thought of providing the rest with a natural development: in other words tragedy has to be made less poetic than history. The shortest way to convince you that this is indeed the case is to examine one of the tragedies conceived on the historical plan, a tragedy whose action is unified, lofty and interesting; and to see if its most dramatic qualities can be preserved by squeezing it into the framework of the unities. As our example, let us consider Shakespeare’s Richard II, which is by no means the finest of the plays he drew from English history. The action of this tragedy is the deposition of Richard from the English throne and the elevation of Bolingbroke in his stead. The play begins at the moment when schemes of these two characters are found to be openly opposed, when the king, truly disquieted by his cousin’s ambitious projects, rashly attempts to thwart them by measures which eventually lead Bolingbroke to carry out his plans. Richard banishes Bolingbroke; once

 Lacy Collison-Morley, Alessandro Manzoni’s Anti-Classical Perspective 529 the latter’s father, the Duke of Lancaster, is dead, the king confiscates his property and leaves for Ireland. Bolingbroke violates the order of his expulsion and returns to England, on pretext of claiming the inheritance which has been seized from him by an illegal act. His followers flock to him in droves: as their number increases, he changes his tune, shifts gradually from claims to threats; and soon the subject who came to demand justice is a powerful rebel laying down the law. The King’s uncle and lieutenant, the Duke of York, who goes to meet Bolingbroke intending to fight him, ends up coming to terms with him. The personality of this character unfolds along with the action he is involved in: the Duke speaks in a series of stages, first to the rebellious subject, then to the leader of a sizeable faction, finally to the new king; and this progression is so natural, so exactly parallel to events that the spectator is not surprised to find, by the play’s end, a loyal servant of Henry IV in the same character who had learned of Bolingbroke’s landing with the greatest indignation. Once Bolingbroke’s early successes are known, our interest and curiosity naturally turn to Richard. We are eager to see the effect of so great a coup on the soul of this petulant and haughty king. Thus, Richard is called on stage both by the spectator’s expectations and by the course of the action. He has been informed of Bolingbroke’s disobedience and his venture; he hurriedly quits Ireland and lands in England just when his adversary is occupying Gloucestershire: but of course the king should not march directly on the audacious aggressor until he has been properly equipped to resist him. Here plausibility, as deliberately as history itself, repudiated unity of place, and Shakespeare has not followed either of them to any extent. He shows us Richard in Wales: he could have easily arranged his action so as to display the two rivals on the same territory in succession; but think of the things he would have had to sacrifice for that! And what would this tragedy have gained by it? Unity of action? Certainly not. For where could one find a tragedy with a more unified action than this one? Richard deliberates with his remaining friends on what he is to do, and here it is that the king’s character begins to assume so natural and so unforeseen a development. The spectator has already met this remarkable person, and flattered himself that he had scanned him through and through; but he has in him something secret and profound which made no appearance during his prosperity and that misfortune alone can cause to burst forth. The basis of his character remains the same: it is still pride, it is still the loftiest notion of his dignity; but this same pride, when it went hand-in-hand with power, was manifested as frivolity, impatience with any obstacle, a recklessness that prevented him from even suspecting that all human might has its judges and its limitations; this pride, once stripped of force, has become grave and earnest, solemn and moderate. What upholds Richard is an unalterable awareness of his greatness, the assurance that no human event has been able to destroy him, since nothing could undo his birth and his kingship. He has lost the gratifications of power; but the notion of his calling to the highest rank remains: in what he is, he persists in honoring what he was; and this stubborn respect for a title that no one continues to acknowledge removes from the sense of his misfortune anything that might humiliate or discourage him. The ideas and emotions through which this revolution in Richard’s character occurs in Shakespeare’s tragedy are of great originality, the most exalted poetry, and are even quite touching.

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But this historical depiction of Richard’s soul and the events that modify it necessarily encompasses more than twenty hours, as is the case with the progress of the other deeds, passions and characters that develop over the course of the action. The clash of the two factions, the ardor and growing activity of the king’s enemies, the tergiversations of those who await a victory so as to find out precisely which cause decent people ought to espouse; the courageous loyalty of one lone man, a loyalty the poet has described just as history has sanctioned, with all the ideas, true and false, that decided this man to pay homage to adversity in despite of force; all this is admirably portrayed in this tragedy. A few improprieties which might be deleted without altering the arrangement should not delude us about the greatness and beauty of the whole. I am almost ashamed to provide so barebones a sketch of so majestic a painting; but I flatter myself that I’ve said enough to show at least that the most characteristic features of the subject demand more latitude than the rule of two unities grants it. Let’s suppose now that Shakespeare, having written his Richard II, had submitted it to a critic who was convinced of the necessity of that rule. He probably would have said: ‘There are some lovely situations in your play, and some admirable sentiments in particular; but plausibility is deplorably shocked by it. You transport your audience from London to Coventry, from Gloucestershire to Wales, from Parliament to Flint Castle; the spectator cannot possibly manage the suspension of disbelief needed to follow you. There is a contradiciton between the various situations you wish to put him in, and the actual situation in which he exists. He is too sure that he has not moved to be able to imagine he has done all the travelling you demand of him.’ I don’t know for sure, but I think Shakespeare would have been rather surprised by such objections. ‘For Heaven’s sake!’ he might have replied, ‘what’s all this talk of moving about and travelling! There’s none of that here; I never dreamt of such a thing, nor did my audience. I laid before their eyes an action that unfolds by degrees and is composed of events, each of which is begotten by the previous one and takes place somewhere else; it is the audience member’s mind that follows them, he doesn’t have to travel or pretend he’s travelling. Do you imagine he came to the theatre to see actual events? And did I ever have it in mind to produce such an illusion on him? to make him believe that what he knows to have already occurred some centuries ago is happening again today? that these actors are men actually involved in the passions and concerns they are talking about, and talking about in verse?’ But, sir, I have lost sight of the fact that you do not base your support of the rules on an objection derived from plausibility, but in fact on the impossibility of preserving unity of action and soundness of characters without them. Then let us see if this objection can be applied to the tragedy of Richard II. So! How – I ask this out of genuine curiosity – how would one go about proving that its action is not unified, that the characters are not consistent, and that this results from the poet staying within the places and times supplied by history, instead of enclosing himself in the space and duration that the critics have meted out of their authority as proper for all tragedies? What would Shakespeare have replied to a critic who came and countered him with this law of twenty-four hours? ‘Twenty-four hours!’ he would have said, ‘What for? Reading Holinshed’s chronicles furnished my mind with the notion of a great and simple action, unified and varied, full of interest and homilies; and I was supposed

 Lacy Collison-Morley, Alessandro Manzoni’s Anti-Classical Perspective 531 to disfigure and truncate this action on a mere whim! I was not to seek to render the impression a chronicler made on me, in my own manner, for spectators who ask nothing better! I would have been less a poet than my source is! I see an event whose every incident relates to every other and serves to motivate them; I see stable characters develop over a period of time and in specific places; and to present an idea of that event and portray those characters, I would have absolutely had to mutilate one and the other just so that a twenty-four hour span and the precints of a palace would suffice for their development?’ I confess, sir, you do have in your system one other reply to make to Shakespeare: you might tell him that the attention he paid to reproducing deeds in their natural order and with the best-documented principal circumstances likens him rather to an historian than to a poet. You might add that the rule of two unities would have made him a poet by forcing him to create an action, a tangled skein, sudden reversals; for ‘thus it is,’ you say, ‘that the limits of art give wings to an artist’s imagination, and compel him to become creative.’ That, indeed, I agree, is the true consequence of that rule; and the slightest acquaintance with plays that have followed it proves moreover that it has not failed of its effect. In your opinion, it is a great advantage: I dare to be of a different mind, and, on the contrary, I regard the effect in question to be the most serious drawback to the rules that cause it. Yes, this need for creating, arbitrarily imposed on art, makes it stray from truth, and impairs it both in its results and in its techniques. I don’t know if what I’m about to say runs counter to commonly approved notions; but I believe I’m merely speaking a very plain truth when I declare that the essence of poetry does not consist in inventing deeds: such invention is the easiest, commonest thing in the workings of the mind, and takes the least thought and even the least imagination. Then too, there is nothing more profuse than creations of this kind; whereas all the great monuments of poetry are based on events provided by history or, what comes to the same thing, by what was once taken to be history. As for dramatic poets in particular, the greatest ones of every nation have avoided, in proportion to their genius, the insertion into drama of deeds of their creation; and on every occasion when they were told they had substituted invention for history at essential points, far from accepting this judgment as praise, they dismissed it as blame. Did I not know the temerity that lurks in over-generalized historical assertions, I should venture to state that in what has come down to us of Greek drama and even Greek poetry, there is not a single example of this kind of creativity, which consists in substituting wantonly invented causes for known principal causes. The Greek poets took their plots, with all their major circumstances, from national traditions. They did not make up events: they accepted them just as their contemporaries transmitted them: they included, they respected history for what individuals, peoples and eras had made it. … (233-8)

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Wilhelm Creizenach, miscellaneous comments on Richard II 1916

From The English Drama in the Age of Shakespeare (London, 1916). Wilhelm Michael Anton Creizenach (1851–1919), German literary historian, was born in Frankfurt to a distinguished intellectual Jewish family of liberal outlook; he took his doctoral degree at the University of Halle in 1875, writing his thesis on the legend of Judas Iscariot in medieval literature. Works on early dramatizations of the Doctor Faustus story and on the origins and rise of popular comedy, also published at Halle, followed in 1878 and 1879. Although he had converted from his inherited religion to Lutheranism and despite his recognised erudition, Creizenach found it impossible in the antisemitic climate of the day to secure a university chair in Germany; and in 1883 he became professor of German literature at the University of Cracow, Poland (then under Austrian control), a post which he continued to hold until 1912. Creizenach developed a special expertise in the history of English drama, contributing, for instance, a chapter on the religious plays of the Middle Ages to Volume V (1910) of the Cambridge History of English Literature. His magnum opus, from which the following extracts are drawn, is Geschichte des neueren Dramas, a massive five-volume history of medieval and Renaissance drama (Halle, 1893–1916), of which books I–VIII of the fourth volume (originally published in 1909) are devoted to the age of Shakespeare. This latter section, which in effect comprises a self-contained unit, was translated into English by Cécile Hugon and edited by Alfred F. Schuster, although Professor Creizenach himself in the light of fresh scholarship made certain additions and corrections as the volume was going through the press. Seeking to provide a descriptive rather than evaluative overview of Elizabethan drama, Creizenach’s book contains no sustained or independent discussion of Richard II; not infrequently, however, the play figures interestingly in the service of illustrating some larger historical generalization.

[1] [From ‘Book III: The Moral and Social Ideas of the Dramatists: Religion and Polities’; on political orthodoxy and Shakespeare’s attitude toward commoners in Richard II] … It goes without saying that [in Elizabethan plays] the downtrodden multitude is never allowed the right to revolt against bad government; the poet condemns rebellion in the

 Wilhelm Creizenach, Miscellaneous Comments on Richard II 533 sternest manner, even when it has been brought about, as in the anonymous play of Jack Straw, by the pressure of unendurable tyranny. Even the usurper in Hamlet seeks to quell the uproar against himself by taking refuge in the doctrine of the Divine right of Kings. However, there are occasions when the logic of circumstances brings the principle of legitimacy into very considerable difficulties. In Richard II and Henry IV, the apparent contradiction intensifies the poet’s marvellous unity of purpose; he here means to show that it is the competent and energetic man of action who is alone called to rule; but that the ruler who obtains his crown unlawfully is never suffered to enjoy it, and sinks under its heavy weight of cares. But when Shakespeare goes on to paint the glorious rule of his favourite hero Henry V, who poses throughout as a rightful ruler, he cannot quite avoid the implication that here, as often elsewhere, legitimate right is nothing more than longestablished usurpation. In the prayer before Agincourt … the king beseeches God not on that day to ‘think upon the fault’ his father ‘made in compassing the crown’ [Henry V, 4.1.293-4], adding that he himself gave Richard’s body new burial with many tears and paid for masses for his soul. Not a word, however, as to Mortimer, the rightful heir to the throne, who, by Shakespeare’s own showing, languished as a prisoner in the Tower.1 … … Shakespeare … has never a friendly word for the inhabitants of the town in which he lived and produced his works, although historical plays offered him the same opportunities for a sympathetic treatment of the burgher classes as they offered to [Thomas] Heywood [in The Four ’Prentices of London]. For instance, in the Second Part of Henry VI, he borrows a number of details from Holinshed’s Chronicle for his description of Jack Cade’s rebellion, but says nothing of the heroic part played by the London citizens in their defence of the bridge, which might so well have been included in the play.2 This may partly be due to the fact that he scorned such easily-won applause, but there can hardly be any doubt that he had little love for the whole class, and he is unable to repress occasional outbreaks of his antipathy. He was probably driven into this attitude by the constant pettifogging with which the city authorities sought to hinder the actors in the exercise of their calling. The poet certainly shared the opinion expressed by Bagot, the favourite of Richard II, when he says of the citizens that ‘their love lies in their purses, and whoso empties them By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate’ [Richard II, 2.2.129-31] … (131-8) [2] [From ‘Book IV: The Dramatic Materials’; on the uniqueness of representing Parliament in Richard II] … The most frequent charge is that these historical plays contain absolutely no mention of the most glorious aspect of national history – that is to say, the constitutional struggle which culminated in the establishment of parliamentary government. Shakespeare comes in for an especial share of censure for having omitted all mention of Magna Carta in his King John. We shall, however, see later that in this case Shakespeare was remodelling an older piece, and that the omission was founded upon well-considered artistic reasons. Nevertheless it is undeniably strange how small a part Parliament plays in the historical dramas now extant. As far as I remember, its solitary appearance on the stage is in the deposition scene in Shakespeare’s Richard II, although as a general rule the dramatists show a decided predilection for such scenes in which great affairs of

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state are transacted. Perhaps the reluctant recognition of parliamentary privilege on the part of both Elizabeth and James may have had some influence on the matter. … (177) [3] [From ‘Book V: Arrangement and Construction’; on the absence of comedy in Richard II] … Instances of the converse – the entire absence of the comic element in a tragedy – are, if possible, even more uncommon. … Shakespeare’s Richard II occupies a curiously isolated position in the history of the poet’s artistic development, for the reason, among others, that it is the only play in which he allows his ‘jocular genius’ no opportunity of asserting itself. And, as in this piece of tragic character-study he has departed from the brilliant boldness of treatment which marks his other early works in order to achieve effects far more subtle and intimate, he was no doubt well advised to make a firm stand against the encroachments of the clown. … (246-7) [4] [From the same; on the garden scene in Richard II] … Between the scenes in which the restless forward movement of the plot unfolds itself in a series of unexpected and startling developments, we often find inserted other scenes where the action is at a standstill, and the feelings aroused by the previous course of events have thus time for expansion. … In Richard II this pause is achieved in the scene between the queen and the gardener, which with its melancholy reflections serves to interrupt for a moment the inexorable and tragic march of Fate in the play. Other playwrights, too, were well aware of how effective such a resting-place may be, with its atmosphere of intimacy and lyrical sentiment, in the midst of a sequence of thrilling and exciting episodes. … (266) [5] [From ‘Book VII: Versification and Style’: on the high percentage of rhyme in Richard II] … Of the early tragedies Titus Andronicus has a percentage of 3.7 rhymed pentameters; Romeo and Juliet, 17.2. Of the histories, Henry VIII is late in date and occupies an isolated position; the rest average roughly 3.4 per cent, but the First Part of Henry VI has 10 per cent, and Richard II has 18.6. In the latter the unusually large number of rhymes is partly accounted for by the king’s tendency both to lose himself in mournful meditations, and to indulge in trenchant utterances. But the percentage is also brought up by the scene between Bolingbroke and the York family (V.iii), which is almost entirely in rhyme, and clearly shows that the introduction of rhyme is not by any means necessarily bound up with an increase of poetic vigour. It would be difficult to find any fundamental reason for the use of rhyme in this long-drawn-out and lifeless scene.3 … (320) [6] [From the same; on wordplay in Richard II] … While critics have always been prepared to tolerate the play upon words in comedy, a number of early objections were made to its introduction in tragic or pathetic

 Wilhelm Creizenach, Miscellaneous Comments on Richard II 535 stituations, where it was repeatedly used by dramatists of this period, and above all by Shakespeare. Samuel Johnson in his famous preface to the poet’s works very emphatically condemns this unfortunate leaning, which, he says, like Atalanta’s apple, caused him to ‘turn aside from his career,’ and ruined him as Cleopatra ruined Antony.4 [Christoph Martin] Wieland made much the same crtiticism when he introduced the works of Shakespeare to the German public. The classicist critics forgot that puns on the names of the heroes of tragedy had been sanctioned by the practice of Sophocles and Euripides. A.W. Schlegel was the first to consider and defend these plays upon words from a higher and more liberal standpoint.5 And, indeed, Shakespeare’s tragic plays upon words are even more intimately bound up with the character and situation of the speaker than his comic ones. Richard II is especially well provided with such passages; and although this play certainly bears the marks of that period of Shakespeare’s manner to which the phrase sufflaminandus est[6] is applicable, no one would wish away the touching words with which old Gaunt on his deathbead puns upon his name. All will further admit that the picture of the king’s character is intensified by his trick of seizing on some chance word uttered in his presence and then proceeding to play with it, turning it this way and that in his painful and melancholy broodings.7 Hamlet, who shows many traits of kinship with Richard II, also resembles him in this habit of catching up single words and fastening his reflection on to them. … (347-8)

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J.A.R. Marriott, historical context and Richard II as a tragedy of political amateurism 1918

From English History in Shakespeare (London, 1918); reprinted (New York, 1971). Sir John Arthur Ransome Marriott (1859–1945), historian and politician, was born at Bowdon, Cheshire, and educated at Repton and New College, Oxford. He became a lecturer at his own college and then at Worcester College, being elected a fellow of the latter in 1914. Elected to Parliament in 1917 as a Tory, he represented successively the cities of Oxford and York in the House of Commons until 1929, and in 1921 figured importantly in helping to prevent the general strike threatened by the triple alliance of miners, railway men, and transport workers. He was knighted in 1924. A man of prodigious energy, he wrote many books and articles on a variety of historical, biographical, and political subjects, contributing to the quarterly reviews as well as to newspapers. Marriott’s book on Shakespeare, like most of his others, is frankly popular in nature and makes no claim to break new scholarly ground; it is based on lectures and reprints some material that had earlier appeared in the Fortnightly Review. His principal discussion of Richard II, which occupies the third chapter, sets the play in the context of the historical personalities, issues, and politics of the entire reign and attempts to show that in spite of some notable deviations Shakespeare is remarkably true to history. The somewhat prolix method adopted is to paraphrase seriatim (with numerous illustrative quotations) the most important scenes of the drama, interspersing critical comments at significant points in the action and dialogue. But Marriott’s conclusion, which extends a point about Richard’s character originally made in 1862 by Friedrich A.T. Kreyssig, relates the play interestingly to twentieth-century British politics.

[From ‘Chapter I: Introductory. The Spirit of England as Revealed in the Chronicle Plays’] [1] [On Shakespeare’s attitude toward monarchy] … [There has been lively controversy] in regard to the poet’s attitude towards problems of government and politics. According to one view, Shakespeare was entirely free from

 J.A.R. Marriott, Historical Context and Richard II 537 any semblance of partizanship in politics as in religion, and gives no indication of his personal opinions on matters of high policy. Other critics claim him as an advanced democrat, and others again as ‘a sound Tory.’ If by the latter term is meant a believer in the indefeasible, hereditary, divine right of Kings, Shakespeare would plainly fail to pass the test. He is not a Tory of the school of Sir Robert Filmer,[1] or even of Dr. Johnson. It will not escape notice, in this connection, that the most extravagant monarchical sentiments are put into the mouth of one of the weakest types of crowned rulers: ‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea / Can wash the balm from an anointed King’ [3.2.54-5]. But such high doctrine does not avail to preserve the Crown to a ‘redeless’[2] ruler like Richard of Bordeaux. Not that rebellion can ever be justified. If Richard II, indisputably a legitimate Sovereign, must pay the penalty of personal unfitness for high place, Henry IV must be made to suffer for lawless usurpation. Such was Shakespeare’s theory of monarchy. In true Kingship, crowned or uncrowned, he was plainly a believer. Who that had the fortune to be a subject of Queen Elizabeth could be otherwise? But it was personal character, not the anointing balm, which conferred the Divine Right to claim obedience, as we see clearly enough in Coriolanus no less than in Henry V. (26-7) [From ‘Chapter III: Richard the “Redeless” – The Amateur in Polities’] [2] [On the problematic character of the historical Richard II] … Richard II brings us near the heart of Shakespeare’s presentation of English history. King John supplies the prologue, though a somewhat detached one. In Richard II we plunge into the thick of the drama which pivots round the fortunes of the Houses of Lancaster and York. … But great as is King John, Richard II is greater. In Shakespeare’s Richard, as in the history of the reign, there is an air of mystery which is absent from the reign and person of King John. Much laborious research has been expended upon the reign of Richard the redeless, but in spite of it the reign still baffles historical curiosity. Most of all, perhaps, in reference to the character of the King himself. Among the long list of English Kings there is none whose real personality it is more difficult to discern. To his contemporaries Richard of Bordeaux was a baffling enigma; after five hundred years his character still remains an unsolved problem. Only as to his personal beauty and his power of fascination is there complete agreement. He was the ‘sweet lovely rose’ [1 Henry IV, 1.3.175] that blossomed early and untimely died. But alike in face and character, he lacked virility. His beauty was of the softer kind, not fashioned for the rough times in which his lot was cast. Not that he lacked flashes of manliness and vigour. … (59-60) [3] [On the historical events leading up to the action in Shakespeare; Marriott outlines the opposition between the baronial party or ‘Lords Appellant’ (of whom Gloucester was the leader) and Richard’s friends (including Bushy, Green, and Bagot) which culminated in Gloucester’s murder and the king’s victory over Parliamentary restraints in 1397.] … The King’s victory was complete. It had been attained by a series of measures, contrived with a deliberation and a minute attention to details; executed with a

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precision, boldness, and skill which seem strangely at variance with the weakness and vacillation displayed by Richard in the remaining months of his unhappy life. With these months – from September, 1398, to February, 1400 –Shakespeare’s play is exclusively concerned. Yet the play itself … is unintelligible without a knowledge of the preceding events. In particular, Richard II affords … one of the best examples in literature of the ‘invisible supernatural.’ [3] The earlier part of it is dominated by the ghost of Gloucester, whose murder at Calais is the real starting point of Shakespeare’s drama. Why Shakespeare chose to start from this point is a question to which I shall return. A word must be added here as to the significance of what the greatest of modern historians [i.e. William Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford] has described as Richard’s ‘grand stroke of policy.’ That policy constituted ‘a resolute attempt not to evade but to destroy the limitations which for nearly two centuries the nation, first through the baronage alone, and later through the united parliament had been labouring to impose upon the King. … He [i.e. Richard] condescended to no petty illegalities, but struck at once at the root of constitutional government … No King urged so strongly the right of the hereditary succession; no King maintained so openly the extreme theory of prerogative.4 Nevertheless, as Bishop Stubbs himself confesses, Richard’s personal character remains a problem. … (65-6) [4] [On the garden scene] … Before the great scene in Westminster Hall (Act IV, Scene 1), Shakespeare interposes what has been well called ‘the exquisite and symbolic idyll’[5] of the gardeners. The kingdom is likened to a neglected garden which ‘Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers chok’d up ...’ [Quotes 3.4.44-7]. Nor do these philosophic peasants forbear to point the moral, and to enforce the responsibility of the head-gardener: Oh, what a pity is it That he had not so trimm’d and dress’d his land As we this garde​n! ………​……………​… Ha​d he done so, himself had borne the crown​, Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down. [3.4.55-7, 65-6]

I like to think that from this beautiful scene Mr. [Rudyard] Kipling may have drawn inspiration for one of the finest of his poems: Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made By singing: ‘O how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade, While better men than we go out and start their working lives, At grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner knives.6

From the gardeners the Queen learns for the first time the fate which has befallen her lord. The scene as a whole, alike in its simplicity and its symbolism, is a perfect prelude to the splendid pageantry and the superb eloquence which fitly adorn the formal act of deposition. (84-6)

 J.A.R. Marriott, Historical Context and Richard II 539 [5] [Final comments] The climax of the play had been already reached in Act IV. The discovery of Aumerle’s plot against the new King; the revelation of it by his father, Edmund of York,7 the passionate pleading of the Duchess for the life of her son; even the murder of King Richard by Sir Pierce Exton in Pomfret Castle are felt to be an anti-climax. The final scene of Richard’s murder is preceded by a long soliloquy and by a touching incident supplied by the visit of a groom to his deposed master. But the interest weakens. The drama ends with the deposition of the redeless Richard. For this and many other reasons, sufficiently obvious, Richard II has never had a real hold upon the stage. Abounding in the most exquisite poetry it is not a well constructed drama, and except the name-part, and that of Gaunt, there is not one which an actor, still less an actress, would care to play. The explanation is, perhaps, furnished in an illuminating passage by Swinburne. All tragic poets, he says, ‘have been poets before they were tragedians; their lips have had power to sing before their feet had strength to tread the stage, before their hands had skill to paint or carve figures from the life. With Shakespeare it was so as certainly as with Shelley, as evidently as with Hugo.’8 Critical opinion on the play is more than usually divided. … [At this point Marriott quotes conflicting judgments by Johnson, Coleridge, and Pater.] None of these judgments would appear, however, to indicate with precision the peculiar interest of a play which to me seems to take rank among the very greatest of Shakespearian tragedies. That interest is partly political and partly psychological. King John inculcated the supreme necessity of internal unity in the face of menacing danger from without. ‘Naught shall make us rue, if England to itself do rest but true’ [King John, 5.7.117-8]. The moral which Richard II is intended to enforce would seem to be the extreme peril likely to accrue to a State from being ruled by men who are neither irreproachable in personal character, nor carefully trained in the difficult art of statesmanship. High character and an adequate apprenticeship are equally indispensable attributes in a ruler, and equally essential to sound government. As a King, Richard of Bordeaux is an irreparable failure; and his ruin is plainly ascribed to his own mental and moral degeneration. That degeneration was due to an orphan’s upbringing; to the lack of real home influence; to a riotous ill-spent youth; to continued extravagance and perpetual self-indulgence; to an ill-regulated temper and an unbridled tongue; in fine, to complete lack of self-control. Witness the rapid changes of his moods: his ill-grounded confidence; his gushing sentimentality; his abject and contemptible despair. He is not devoid of energy, as we see from the successful coup d’etat of 1397;[9] but it is fitfully manifested; never sustained. No one is more quick to appreciate the dramatic situations of kingship; nor does he ever lack becoming words, or fail to strike the appropriate attitude. At moments he comes near to real dignity; but almost invariably everything is spoilt by the intrusion of a touch of theatricality when we look for simplicity; by an obvious pose when we demand above all else, sincerity. This is indeed his most conspicuous and consistent attribute; he is essentially a poseur, he is no true man. Richard is not only a poseur but a sensualist. Not necessarily in its coarsest form; but he revels in the things of sense. He luxuriates in feeling. He is gluttonous of emotions.

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He is enamoured of prosperity; but hardly less does he enjoy adversity. Joy and sorrow alike minister to his passion for introspection. He finds food in pleasure and food in grief. He satisfies his own aesthetic criterion. He fascinates himself as he fascinates others. A poseur; a sensualist; an aesthete; he is also a dilettante. He is master of no craft. He has had no real discipline; no systematic training in the profession of arms, in the arts of peace, in the mysteries of statecraft. In no school has he graduated. He is by no means wanting in wits; he has picked up the jargon of politics; he can reel off effectively enough the ordinary tags. The King is ‘the Lord’s anointed,’ the ‘deputy of Heaven’ [cf. 1.2.38]; ‘we were not born to sue but to command’ [1.1.196], and so forth. But though born to command, Richard has never studied, much less mastered, the high and difficult art of ruling. From first to last he is a political amateur. Is that to be imputed to him for unrighteousness in English eyes? Is that a characteristic with which his own subjects could reasonably reproach him? Has there not always been, among Englishmen, a curious mistrust of the expert and the professional? More particularly in the art of Politics? It has been generally assumed that such is the case; and the disposition of high offices of State has certainly afforded some ground for the assumption. That, however, is not precisely the conclusion of one of the most discerning critics of English Political Institutions. President Lowell [of Harvard University] believes that he has discovered the secret of the success of English government in the invariable association of the expert and of the layman; the permanent official and the ‘man of the world.’10 Is Dr Lowell right? Is the success of English administration due to the association of amateur and professional? Are we wise in conferring at least a semblance of power upon the amateur? Is it safe to trust – as we largely do – to brilliant improvisation? These are large and difficult questions which cannot be answered here and now. All the great critics, from Coleridge downwards, have extolled Richard II for its political wisdom. It well deserves their eulogies. But it is not without significance that it should have been left to a German critic (Kreyssig) to drop the hint which I have attempted to develop.[11] The Germans have no use for the amateur – in peace or war. They trust exclusively to the trained and disciplined expert. Our way is different. Whether, in a world dominated more and more by exact science, it is wise to adhere to it, is too large a question upon which to embark. Most people, however, will read and re-read Richard II less for the political moral it enshrines than for the supreme subtlety and skill with which Shakespeare has drawn the character of the unhappy King. The reputation of the redeless Richard has suffered at the hands alike of contemporary chroniclers and of the modern school of scientific historians. The former had nothing to gain by eulogising a fallen monarch; the latter are apt to judge harshly a King who stood for a discredited principle of government. The champion of autocracy is as little likely to get credit from the historian of successful democracy as was the last of the Plantagenets from a Lancastrian chronicler. But in truth no one has judged Richard of Bordeaux so severely, so inexorably as he judged himself: ‘Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself, / I find myself a traitor like the rest’ [4.1.247-8].[12] It is the essence of Shakespearian tragedy that the citadel should be

 J.A.R. Marriott, Historical Context and Richard II 541 betrayed from within. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune may rain upon the outer battlements; external assault may issue in catastrophe; but a catastrophe becomes a tragedy only when the external assailant can count upon a traitor within the walls. Richard II does not lack this essential element of tragedy: the hapless King was his own worst enemy. He confesses it frankly. Nurtured in the habit of introspection; pitilessly precise in self-analysis, Richard II did not shrink from exposing his own weakness. His nature, indeed, demanded an audience. The world must be admitted to his confidence. His life had been played on an ample stage. Whatever the cost, the final exit must be effective. (89-94)

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Notes 1.  EDWARD CAPELL [1] In The School of Shakespeare (volume III of Notes and Various Readings), where he reprints relevant excerpts from Holinshed, Capell points out that according to the chronicler it was Thomas Holland, Duke of Surrey, who ‘has the ordering of the combat’, not the Lord Marshal. He goes on to suggest that since Surrey appears as a speaking character at the beginning of 4.1, he ‘might be put in possession of all those speeches which are given to the Marshal [in 1.3] and that character expung’d out of the Dramatis Personae’ (III, 306). [2] Johnson’s note at the end of 1.3 in his edition of 1765 reads: ‘Here the first act ought to end, that between the first and second acts there may be time for John of Gaunt to accompany his son, return and fall sick. Then the first scene of the second act begins with a natural conversation, interrupted by a message from John of Gaunt, by which the king is called to visit him, which visit is paid in the following scene. As the play is now divided, more time passes between the two last scenes of the first act, than between the first act and the second.’ See Johnson on Shakespeare, ed. Arthur Sherbo (New Haven, 1968), I, 432. [3] What Capell refers to as the ‘fourth quarto’ is actually the fifth (1615), since in Capell’s day it was not known that two quartos (the second and third) were both printed in 1598. The anonymous Lord’s speech was omitted from the Folio text (1623) and from Q6 (1634).

4.  EDMOND MALONE [1] Augustine Phillips, one of the shareholders in the Globe, who answered on behalf of the company at the official inquiry; see E.K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage (Oxford, 1923), II, 204-5, 333-4. 2 Bacon’s Works [ed. Mallet], Vol. IV, 412. St[ate] Trials, Vol. VIII, p. 60. [3] I.e. Henry Cuffe, one of the Essex conspirators. [4] Actually Thomas Hanmer (edn. 1743) should be credited with this emendation.

5.  JOSEPH RITSON [1] The Latin means ‘O, if all cases were thus!’

7.  GEORGE CHALMERS 1 [William] Camden in [White] Ken[nett, A Complete History of England (London, 1706)], vol. ii, 581 – 587 – 589. [Kennett’s work contains The History of Queen Elizabeth, written by William Cambden, newly done into English.]

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2 3 4 5

Ib[id]., 587. Steev[ens], Shak[espeare], 1778, vol. i, p. 296. Steev[ens], 1790, vol. i, p. 533. I quote from ‘The Declaration of the Practises and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert late Earl of Essex and his Complices against her Majesty and her Kingdoms, &c.’ which was printed by Barker, the Queen’s Printer, in 1601: and which is supposed to have been drawn by Sir Francis Bacon. 6 See Nicols’s curious Collection of Queen Elizabeth’s Progresses, vol. ii. ‘That which passed from the Excellent Majestic of Queen Elizabeth, in her Privie Chamber at East Greenwich, 4 Augusti, 1601, 43 reg. sui, towards William Lambarde.’ – Whether the Pandecta Rotulorum of Lambard were ever printed, as I formerly supposed, I now doubt. [7] Queen Elizabeth ‘asked Mr. Bacon, being then of her learned counsel; Whether there were no treason contained in it [i.e. Hayward’s book]? Mr. Bacon intending to do him a pleasure, and to take off the Queen’s bitterness with a jest, answered; No, madam, for treason I cannot deliver opinion that there is any, but very much felony. The Queen, apprehending it gladly, asked; How, and wherein? Mr. Bacon answered; Because he had stolen many of his sentences and conceits out of Cornelius Tacitus’ See Apothegmes New and Old in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. James Spedding et al. (London, 1857-74), VII, 133. [8] Alluding to the legal controversy (which Lord Ellesmere settled affirmatively in 1609 in his most famous judgement) as to whether Scots born after the accession of James I to the English throne were entitled to hold land in England. The test case involved Robert Colvill, born in Edinburgh in 1605, on whose behalf English land was purchased in 1607 and whom Ellesmere declared a naturalized subject of the king. 9 The speech of the Lord Chancellor of England, in the Exchequer Chamber, touching the Post nati, Printed 1609, p. 18.

8.  CHARLES DIBDIN [1] Brian Vickers discusses Theobald’s adaptation of Richard II in Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage (II, 14-15), also reprinting excerpts (II, 352-65).

11.  SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE [1] Coleridge follows Schlegel here, who in Lecture 3 says that inner freedom and external necessity are the two poles of the tragic world, whereas in Homer the intervention of the gods is arbitrary; see Über dramatische Kunst und Literatur, I, 107-8; trans. John Black, A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature [1815], I, 73-4. [2] This story probably derives, as Raysor notes, from Ferdinando Warner, Remarks on the History of Fingal (1762), p. 26. The duke is said to have remarked to Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, that he had read no history other than that in Shakespeare’s plays. Coleridge’s immediate source, however, is unknown. [3] Coleridge commented disparagingly on the Kembles, i.e., John Philip Kemble (17571823) and his sister Sarah Siddons (1755-1831), in Lecture 4 of the 1811-12 series; see Foakes, (ed.), Lectures 1808-1819: On Literature, I, 254, and note.

 Notes 545 [4] Coleridge refers here not to the theatres of Shakespeare’s time but to the two disastrously enlarged and monopolistic theatres of his own age – Covent Garden (reconstructed in 1792) and Drury Lane (rebuilt in 1794). The new conditions encouraged crude acting and resulted in the decline of Shakespearian productions, which is the import of Coleridge’s following clause, ‘drove Shakespeare from the stage, to find his proper place, in the heart and in the closet’. For further details and contemporary complaints, see Vickers, Critical Heritage, VI, 63, 85-6. See also No. 20 below, in which H.N. Coleridge makes the point less confusingly by referring to ‘our present large theatres’ (p. 128). [5] This defence of punning is a repeated theme in Coleridge’s Shakespeare criticism. Foakes notes that Coleridge seems here to be echoing A.W. von Schlegel, who defends Shakespeare’s punning not only generally but specifically in this scene; the German critic mentions ‘the affecting play of -words of the dying Gaunt’ in Lecture 12 of his Vorlesungen tiber dramatische Kunst und Litteratur (3 vols., 1809-11), II, 11, 64-6; trans. John Black, A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (2 vols., London, 1815), II, 134-6. See also Foakes (ed.), Lectures 1808-1819: On Literature, I, 564 n. 23. [6] Coleridge employs a critical term borrowed from painting and signifying, according to the OED, ‘the maintenance of harmony of composition.’ See Foakes’s note on Coleridge’s use of the term in his Lectures 1808-1819: On Literature (London, 1987), I, 86 n. 40. [7] One of Coleridge’s favourite quotations – or (as here) misquotations; from Pope, Imitations of Horace, ‘First Epistle of the Second Book’: ‘Shakespeare . . . For gain, not glory, wing’d his roving flight, / And grew Immortal in his own despight’ (11. 69-72). [8] As Foakes points out, Coleridge ‘seems to have been filling out and dramatizing from his memory a story told in Plutarch’s Life of Caius Marius (Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, trans. John Dryden [New York, n.d.], p. 502). Here Marius in a false show of modesty declines the offer of the consulship in 102 B.C. when he is secretly eager to be elected for the fourth time; but Plutarch quotes no words of Marius on this occasion.

12.  WILLIAM HAZLITT [1] A misquotation from Horace, Ars Poetica: ‘Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem, / Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quae / Ipse sibi tradit spectator’ (11. 180-3); ‘the mind is stirred less vividly by what enters through the ears than by what is shown to the faithful eyes and what the spectator can see for himself.’ [2] I.e. Sarah Kemble Siddons (1755-1831), the sister of John Philip Kemble. [3] Eliza O’Neill (1791-1872), a popular leading lady of the day often compared to Mrs Siddons, played Mrs Beverley in Edward Moore’s popular domestic tragedy, The Gamester, at Covent Garden (1814-15). Garrick had originally played the part of Mr Beverley. Later Mrs Beverley was one of Mrs Siddons’s successful roles. [4] Among Mrs Siddons’s famous roles as a tragedienne (apart from Mrs Beverley in Moore’s Gamester) were the title character in Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage (Garrick’s alteration of a play by Thomas Southerne), Lady Macbeth, and Queen Katherine (in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII).

546

Notes

[5] Hazlitt’s objections here, although he may have been unconscious of the fact, were partly conditioned by the altered nature of Richard Wroughton’s acting text; see No. 13 below. [6] Hazlitt’s memory seems to betray him here; he apparently is thinking of Richard’s lines to Bolingbroke: ‘Up, cousin, up, your heart is up, I know, / Thus high at least [touching his crown], although your knee be low’ (3.3.194-5). [7] ‘Oh that I were a mockery king of snow, / Standing before the sun of Bullingbrook, / To melt myself away in water-drops!’ (4.1.260-2) [8] Leigh Hunt, editor of The Examiner. [9] Although given to a kind of nervous intensity of movement, Kean was neither handsome nor prepossessing as a stage presence. [10] The cast members referred to here, all of them established actors, are Alexander Pope (1762-1835), Charles Holland (1768-1849), and Robert William Elliston (1774-1831). [11] Hazlitt’s statement is misleading. Kean played Wroughton’s radical alteration of Shakespeare’s text; for details see No. 13 below.

14.  A.W. VON SCHLEGEL [1] A rhapsody (in Schlegel’s sense) is the section or part of an epic poem suitable for recitation, such as a book of Homer’s Iliad or Virgil’s Aeneid; see the OED.

15. NATHAN DRAKE 1 [Chalmers,] Supplemental Apology, p. 308. 2 ‘This prince,’ observes Mr. [William] Godwin, ‘is universally described to us as one of the most beautiful youths that was ever beheld; and from the portrait of him still existing in Westminster Abbey, however imperfect was the art of painting in that age, connoisseurs have inferred that his person was admirably formed, and his features cast in a mould of the most perfect symmetry. His appearance and manner were highly pleasing, and it was difficult for any one to approach him without being prepossessed in his favour.’ – Life of Chaucer [1804], vol. iii. p. 170. 8vo. edit. 3 Reed’s Shakespeare, vol. xi, p. 108. Act iii, sc. 3. 4 Ibid., vol. xi, p. 98. Act iii, sc. 2. 5 Reed’s Shakespeare, vol. xi, pp. 145, 146. Act v, sc. 2. 6 [Speed,] Historie of Great Britaine, folio, pp. 766, 777. 2d edit. 1623.

16.  WILLIAM HAZLITT [1] From Wordsworth’s sonnet, ‘It Is Not To Be Thought Of That The Flood’ (1802): ‘In our halls is hung / Armoury of the invincible Knights of old . . . ‘ (11. 9-10). [2] A garbled quotation of 4.1.260-2. [3] A misremembered rendering of 5.5.76-8.

 Notes 547 [4] Apparently from Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), despite the very different context. Lamenting the demise of chivalry, Burke writes, ‘The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone!’ (ed. AJ. Grieve [London, 1960], p. 73).

17.  JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS [1] By ‘poetry wandering on the London road,’ Reynolds apparently means poetry in the service of too mundane or pedestrian an undertaking; cf. his earlier reference to ‘the high road’ as opposed to ‘leafy and winding lanes’.

18.  AUGUSTINE SKOTTOWE 1 Holinshed, [1587 edn., Ill, 501]. 2 Ibid., [Ill, 500]. [3] See No. 53, note [1], below. [4] Holinshed, III, 502.

19.  GEORGE DANIEL [1] Johnson writes in his 1765 edition of Shakespeare: ‘This play is one of those which Shakespeare has apparently revised; but as success in works of invention is not always proportionate to labour, it is not finished at last with the happy force of some other of his tragedies, nor can be said much to affect the passions, or enlarge the understanding’ (IV, 105); see also Arthur Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare (New Haven, 1968), I, 452. [2] Joseph Warton, one of the so-called pre-Romantics, gradually softened his initial strictures on Pope. In his dedication of the first volume of his Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (1756), Warton, while ‘rever[ing]’ his ‘memory’ and ‘honour[ing] his abilities,’ nevertheless qualified his praise: ‘I do not think him at the head of his profession . . . [His] species of poetry is not the most excellent one of the art. We do not . . . sufficiently attend to the difference . . . betwixt a Man of Wit, a Man of Sense, and a True Poet .. . A clear head, and acute understanding are not sufficient, alone, to make a poet; the most solid observations on human life, expressed with the utmost elegance and brevity, are Morality, and not Poetry . . .’ (1782 edn., I, iv). A quarter of a century later, however, by the time he published volume II of the Essay (1782), Warton had become more enthusiastic: ‘considering the correctness, elegance, and utility of his works, the weight of sentiment, and the knowledge of man they contain, we may venture to assign [Pope] a place, next to Milton, and just above Dryden’ (1782 edn., II, 411). [3] Daniel is here paraphrasing a note by Farmer incorporated into the prefatory matter of Steevens’s text of Richard II in The Plays of William Shakespeare (No. 6), VIII, 188. [4] Johnson says that Shakespeare’s Richard is endowed with ‘passive fortitude, the virtue of a confessor rather than of a king. In his prosperity we saw him imperious and oppressive, but in his distress he is wise, patient, and pious.’ See Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 440.

Notes

548

[5] See John Dryden, Preface to Troilus and Cressida (1679): ‘I cannot leave this Subject [i.e., the imaginative expression of passion] before I do justice to that Divine Poet, by giving you one of his passionate descriptions: ‘t is of Richard the Second when he was depos’d, and led in Triumph through the Streets of London by Henry of Bullingbrook: the painting of it is so lively, and the words so moving, that I have scarce read any thing comparable to it, in any other language’ (sigs. b4-b4v). See also the reprint in Vickers, Critical Heritage, I, 265. [6] Pisgah in the Bible was the mountain in Moab, northeast of the Dead Sea, from which God showed Moses the promised land (Deuteronomy 34:1).

20.  HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE [1] See No. 11 n. [1] above. [2] I.e. ‘the glory of the world has passed away’. [3] The poet Richard Corbett (1582-1635), who was Bishop of Oxford, then of Norwich. See J.A.W. Bennett and H.R. Trevor-Roper (eds.), The Poems of Richard Corbett (Oxford, 1955), p. 43. [4] See No. 11 n. [2] above. [5] I.e. ‘even in things that at first appearance seem very alike’. [6] Coleridge’s meaning here is obscure, both in H.N. Coleridge’s version and in the original manuscript. Terence Hawkes notes that the passage in Literary Remains ‘seems to advocate a “pause-foot” as the first foot in each line, thus making them regularly iambic; the “strong” stress on the first syllable of each line thereby becomes the second element in an iambic foot of a special type. This may be so, but it bears little relationship to Coleridge’s statement’ (Coleridge on Shakespeare, 2nd edn. [Harmondsworth, 1969], p. 246). [7] The Greek phrase means ‘what is fitting and august’; I have transliterated Coleridge’s Greek. [8] I.e. ‘alarming, pregnant-with-meaning force’; the Greek has been transliterated. [9] I.e. ‘the eloquence of the noble vernacular’ (see Dante, Il Convivio, I.v.12, ed. Maria Simonelli [Bologna, 1966], p. 11); Dante wrote a Latin treatise, De vulgari eloquentia, championing Italian rather than Latin as the best language for his native poetry and discussing its principles. [10] I.e. ‘unknown regions’.

22.  THOMAS CAMPBELL [1] Campbell errs on this point. As Courtenay (No. 23 below) points out, Queen Isabella did come to England and lived in Wallingford Castle but, by the time King Richard returned from Ireland, had already gone back to France. Knight (No. 24 below) places her residence in Windsor.

23.  THOMAS PEREGRINE COURTENAY 1

According to Malone, the historical plays were written in the following order: — Henry the Sixth, Richard the Second, Richard the Third, Henry the Fourth, Henry

 Notes 549

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24

the Fifth, Henry the Eighth; [King] John is not in the list, but must have been contemporaneous with the first part of Henry the Fourth. [Richard] Farmer, in Boswell [James Boswell’s edn. of Shakespeare, 1821], xvi, 4. Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham and Duke of Norfolk; so created as the grandson of Thomas Brotherton, Duke of Norfolk. The Howards are descended from one of his daughters. It is doubted whether he had this appellation at this time. — Boswell, 9. [1807 edn. here and throughout], ii, 844. Sixth son of Edward the Third. Richard Fitz Alan, sixth Earl. Mowbray married his daughter. The present Duke of Norfolk is the representative of both in the female line. [John] Lingard [History of England, 5th edn. (Paris, 1840)], iv, 208. [Courtenay probably used an earlier edition with the same pagination.] This Michael De la Pole had risen to some eminence in the preceding reign, and was created Earl of Suffolk in the ninth year of this reign. He fled and was outlawed in the twelfth year. Robert de Vere, ninth Earl of Oxford, created Marquis of Dublin and Duke of Ireland by this king, whose favourite he was. Holinshed, 837. See Lingard, [History of England, iv], 242; and [Sharon] Turner, [History of England During the Middle Ages, (London, 1830)], ii, 305, from Froissart and others. See Lingard, [History of England], iv, 248. [William Cobbett], Parliamentary History [of England From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 (London, 1806-20), I], 236. [Henry Hallam, View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages (Paris, 1840)], ii, 118. [Courtenay probably used an earlier edition of this work with the same pagination.] It was subsequently one of the charges against Richard that he had banished Bolingbroke, although he had preferred the charge by the king’s command, and was ready to prosecute it. — Article xi, [Cobbett], Parliamentary History, I, 258. P. 847; see Lingard, [History of England], 253. Walsingham [in Camden, 1602] (558) does not mention the council. [Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1836)], ii, 269. Holinshed, 848. Coleridge, [Literary Remains], p. 165 [see No. 20 above]. Holinshed, 838. In the account of this time [Jean Créon’s Histoire du Roy d’Angleterre Richard, ed. and trans. John Webb], in Archaeologia xx [1824], 43, it is said that the king’s face, on one occasion, ‘grew pale with anger;’ and Mr. [John] Webb observes, that Shakespeare ‘has taken advantage of this peculiarity,’ where he makes Richard reproach Gaunt for ‘making pale his cheek’ [2.1.118]. But I know not how Shakespeare became acquainted with the peculiarity, if it existed. Malone observes that ‘Old John of Gaunt, time-honour’d Lancaster’ [1.1.1], died at the age of 59. Boswell, 7. So created in this reign. He was a younger son of the noble house of Scrope. See Archaeologia, xx, 46. Speaker of the House of Commons. Holinshed, 849. This Bagot, I have no doubt, was one of the Bagots then and now of Blithfield, in Staffordshire. [Arthur] Collins ([Collins’s Peerage of England, 1812], vii. 523) mentions a Ralph Bagot, who flourished in the time of Edward

550

25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34

35 36

37 38 39 40

Notes the Third, and Sir John Bagot, who was a Privy Counsellor to Henry the Fourth, and died in 1437. But the name of Richard’s Bagot (though Holinshed sometimes calls him John) was certainly William, as a writ was directed to him, with Bushy and Green, by the Duke of York, as Regent, for the custody of Wallingford Castle, in which Queen Isabella then lay. July 12, 1399. [Thomas] Rymer, [Foedera, Conventiones, Literae . . . (London, 1704-32)], viii, 83. This William died about 1406. Archaeologia, xx, 278. This was probably William Lord Roose, of Hamlake, ancestor in the female line of the present Lord de Roos. [Thomas Christopher] Banks, [The Dormant and Extinct Baronage of England (London, 1807-37), ii, 445]. William Lord Willoughby, ancestor in the female line of the present Lord Willoughby of Eresby. Banks, [Dormant and Extinct Baronage], ii, 593. Henry Lord Percy, first Earl of Northumberland of that name, ancestor in the female line of the Duke of Northumberland. Collins, [Peerage], ii, 253. Turner, [History of England], ii, 317; Collins, [Peerage], ii, 257. Act ii, Sc.l. [John] Hardyng, a contemporary, ([The Chronicle of J. H., ed. Henry Ellis, 1812] p. 347) says – ‘Great tax aye the king took through all the land, / For which commons him hated free and bold.’ And [John] Stow ([Annales, 1631] p. 319), ‘he compelled all the religious gentlemen and commons to set their seals to blanks, to the end he might, as it pleased him, oppress them severally, or all at once.’ Richard had said . . . ‘Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters, / Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich, / They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold’ [1.4.48-50]. Some of the commons paid 1000 marks, some 1000l., and see Holinshed, ii, 849. Benevolences, I suspect, acquired that name at a later period — voluntary contributions were so called in the time of Henry the Seventh; but Richard made many persons, who were under accusation on account of the former proceedings against his favourites (ancient quarrels), compound for pardon, and pay large sums pro benevolentiâ suâ recuperandâ. Turner, [History of England], ii, 317. The taxes with which Richard is reproached were all imposed by Act of Parliament: but they nevertheless formed part of the charge against him. See [David] Hume, [History of England, 1818], iii, 41. Act ii, Sc. 3. Act iii, Sc. 1. Cobbett, Parliamentary History, I, 221. Holinshed. Holinshed, 853. I know not on what authority. Lingard says that Sir Peter Courtenay, Governor of Bristol, gave it up to the Duke of York as Regent, but he gives no authority but Walsingham, who does not bear him out; nor do any of the Chronicles which I have searched. That Sir Peter was Governor of Calais appears in Rymer, [Foedera], viii, 83. Walsingham [in Camden, 1602], 554. Boswell, 53. She is correctly placed with Bushy and Green, but her residence was not in the king’s palace, but at Wallingford Castle. Another anachronism consists in mentioning now the death of the widowed Duchess of Gloucester, who died after the accession of Henry. Plashy was Gloucester’s seat in Essex. Hardyng, p. 340. At Flint, in Act iii, Sc. 3. Boswell, 86. [See also Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 438.] John de Montacute, third Earl of that family. Collins says, but Sir Egerton Brydges denies, that the present Montagus are descended from his brother. If so, there must

 Notes 551 be a legal claim to the old earldom; but it was given to the Nevilles, descendants in the female line. Salisbury was certainly an adherent of Richard. [41] I.e. George Canning (1770-1827), British statesman and prime minister. 42 July 11, 1817. [Speeches of the Right Honourable George Canning (London, 1828)], iv, 24. 43 Holinshed, 853. 44 Walsingham says they were ‘statim ad clamorem communium decapitati’ [i.e. ‘immediately beheaded in response to popular demand’], p. 38. Scroop, Earl of Wiltshire, is mentioned as beheaded with the other two; and Shakespeare afterwards alludes to him, as in the same predicament, though he has omitted him in this place. 45 Eldest son of the Duke of York, Earl of Rutland and Duke of Albemarle. 46 And see in Archaeologia, xx, 70, the French metrical history of the deposition of Richard II, written by a contemporary [i.e. Jean Crétan], with the valuable notes of the Rev. John Webb; this may probably be deemed the best authority for the events of this time. [47] See Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 439. 48 Holinshed, 855. 49 Archaeologia, xx, 97, and Turner, [History of England], ii, 325. 50 He says that he joined him at Conway. 51 Archaeologia, xx, 55, 64. 52 Archaeologia, xx, 158. 53 Holinshed, 857. 54 John Holland, who married the king’s sister. 55 Thomas Holland, his brother. 56 Holinshed, 856. The fullest account is in Turner, [History of England], ii, 329-30, chiefly from the contemporary MS. Hardyng, a servant of the Percies (p. 351), represents Northumberland as himself deceived by Henry. See Archaeologia, xx, 240. 57 Archaeologia, xx, 167; and Stow [Annales], 322. 58 See Boswell, 112. 59 Act iii, Sc. 4. 60 Holinshed, iii, 4; and Cobbett, Parliamentary History, i, 283. 61 For an analysis of these articles, with a very ingenious comment, very much in favour of Richard, see [David] Hume, [History of England (London, 1818)], iii, 41. 62 Holinshed, 861. 63 Holinshed, 863. 64 Archaeologia, xx, 150, 367. Turner, [History of England], ii, 333. 65 Lingard, [History of England], iv, 234. Turner, [History of England], ii, 308, from Froissart. Holinshed, 775. 66 See Boswell, 131-2. 67 Archaeologia, xx, 117-8. 68 I have not ascertained the date of Richard’s removal to Pomfret. [69] See Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 449; the quoted phrase is Johnson’s. 70 Isabel of Castile died in 1394. Boswell, 146. [Francis] Sandford, [A Genealogical History of the Kings of England (London, 1707)], 378. I know not at what period he married his second wife. 71 [Annales], p. 322. 72 Stow, [Annales], p. 322. 73 See the Controversy, Archaeologia, xx, 198.

552

Notes

74 75 76 77

Boswell, 129. Malone’s note in Boswell, 128. [Holinshed], iii, 10. [Gabriel Henri] Gaillard’s Narrative in Extracts from French MSS. [Account and Extracts of the Manuscripts in the Library of the King of France (1789)], ii, 228 [-29]. [This is one of the many versions of the anonymous Chronique de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux Roy Dengleterre; see the edition and translation by Benjamin Williams, English Historical Society Publications (London, 1846).] 78 See Gentleman’s Magazine, xciii [1823], II, 196, 314, 589; xciv [1824], I, 220. See also Privy Council Records [Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas (ed.), Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England (London, 1834-37)], I, iii [see Nicolas’s ‘Preface,’ pp. xxvi-xxxii]; and the Controversy in Archaeologia, xx, 424; xxiii, 277; xxv, 394. 79 [Patrick Fraser Tytler], History of Scotland [Edinburgh, 1828-43], vol. iii, p. 325. 80 Holinshed, iii, 13. According to one account Salisbury was slain in battle. Huntingdon (late Exeter) was put to death by the tenants of the late Duke of Gloucester. 81 Malone doubts this. [82] See Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 452. 83 Literary Remains, ii, 164. [See also No. 20 above.] 84 See Coleridge [Literary Remains, II], p. 173. [See also Nos. 11 and 20 above.] 85 The murder of Gloucester (for the secret execution, however merited, of that prince, certainly deserves this appellation) was a private deed, formed not any precedent, and implied not any usurped or arbitrary power of the crown, which could justly give umbrage to the people. It really proceeded from a defect of power in the king rather than from his ambition, and proves that, instead of being dangerous to the constitution, he possessed not even the authority necessary for the execution of the laws.’ Hume, [History of England], iii, 42.

24.  CHARLES KNIGHT [1] At a previous point in his edition Knight had discussed the play dealing with certain earlier events of Richard’s reign (including the Wat Tyler-Jack Straw insurrection) seen by Dr Simon Forman at the Globe in 1611 (see No. 25 below); Knight appears to have been ignorant of the anonymous Life and Death of Jack Straw, first published in 1593, again in 1604, and edited in a modernized version by W.C. Hazlitt in Dodsley’s Old English Plays (1874), V, 375-414. [2] This phrase appears in Martin Farquhar Tupper’s sonnet, ‘Unholy Alliance’ (1. 5), printed as sonnet 213 in Tupper, Three Hundred Sonnets (London, 1860). The poem is part of a series of anti-Catholic sonnets composed by Tupper around 1837-39 when Protestant hostility to Rome was running high in the wake of the Catholic Emancipation bill of 1829, a foreign policy more friendly to the Vatican, and the increasing influence of the Oxford tractarians such as Newman, Keble, Pusey, and Hurrell Froude, who were often perceived as crypto-Catholics pushing the established church in the direction of reunion with ‘the whore of Babylon’. At the time of their composition Tupper appears to have published these sonnets individually in newspapers and periodicals. In book form they were first collected in Tupper, Ballads for the Times . . . and Other Poems (London, 1851).

 Notes 553 [3] In the revised edition of Daniel’s poem (1609), the phrase reads ‘the young afflicted Queene’ (II, 66, 1); see Laurence Michel (ed.), The Civil Wars (New Haven, 1958), p. 117. 4 [Dr] Johnson. [See Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 452.] [5] From Milton, ‘II Penseroso’: ‘Som time let Gorgeous Tragedy / In Scepter’d Pall come sweeping by . . . ‘ (II. 97-98). [6] From Dryden, ‘Tenth Satire of Juvenal’: ‘Go climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool, / To please the boys, and be a theme at school’ (II. 271-2). [7] Wordsworth; see No. 16 n. [1] above. [8] Shortly before the revival of Richard II at Covent Garden, Parliament passed Walpole’s so-called Playhouse Bill, which set up an ‘excise office’ for the censorship of plays considered politically subversive. In negative reponse to the new climate of repressiveness, The Country Journal, or, The Craftsman for 2 July 1737 (No. 574) carried an ironical letter purporting to be by the poet laureate Colley Cibber, which attacked the government by suggesting that old plays as well as new ones might be dangerous, and by implication applying passages from Richard II critical of Richard’s weaknesses and corruption to the eighteenth-century regime. Other dramas, Shakespearian and non-Shakespearian, were also invoked in the same satirical fashion. The printer of the Craftsman was arrested for sedition, but Nicholas Amhurst, the editor, surrendered himself and was taken into custody in his stead, obtaining his release with considerable difficulty and only after a legal process before judges. [9] See Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 439. [10] Ibid., I, 446. [11] George Steevens (ed.), The Plays of William Shakespeare (1793), VIII, 308-9. [12] From Milton, Paradise Lost: ‘Others apart sat on a Hill retir’d / In thoughts more elevate . . . ‘ (II, 557-8). [13] Knight here paraphrases an idea of Hazlitt’s; see No. 16 above. [14] See Discourse V in Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Art (1769-90), ed. Robert R. Wark (San Marino, Cal., 1959), p. 79. [15] Reynolds, Discourse VIII; Ibid., pp. 149-50. [16] See Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 440. [17] Ibid., I, 443. [18] Ibid., I, 449. [19] See Steevens (ed.), Plays of William Shakspeare, VIII, 321. [20] See W.P. Ker (ed.), The Chronicle of Froissart Translated . . . by Sir John Bourchier Lord Berners, Chapters 219, 224 (London, 1903), VI, 273, 306. [21] See No. 23 n. 21 above. The two passages quoted here appear in Archaeologia, xx (1824), pp. 43 and 55. 22 Coleridge. [See No. 20 above.] 23 Shakespeare’s Historical Plays Historically Considered [see No. 23 above]. [24] This statement is a trifle confusing, for Knight might at first appear to be referring to an ‘additional scene’ in Goodhall’s alteration of Richard II, which dramatizes Northumberland’s entrapment of the king. In Holinshed, as Courtenay points out, Northumberland treacherously lures Richard into an ambush near Conway and then conveys him as a virtual prisoner to Flint. No such scene exists, however, in either Goodhall’s or Shakespeare’s play. The ‘additional scene’ refers only to the episode that Courtenay suggests Shakespeare should have composed. The quoted phrase appears on the title page of Goodhall’s play (Manchester, 1772).

554

Notes

[25] See Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 443. [26] Ibid., I, 452. [27] From the final line (204) of Wordsworth, ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’. 28 Skottowe’s Life of Shakespeare, vol. i, p. 141. [See No. 18 above.] [29] See Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 449. [30] Knight’s meaning here is somewhat opaque, but ‘self-consciousness . . . in a German sense’ appears to refer to the concept of Richard’s embarrassment or confusion, occasioned by his unhealthy preoccupation with his own personality, identity, and role as these might be perceived by others, a morbid obsession with the self (Befangenheit). This sense of the word ‘self-consciousness’ was somewhat new in the English of Knight’s day. The earliest instances cited by the OED come from John Stuart Mill (1834) and Thomas Carlyle (1837), both of whom (but especially Carlyle) reflect German intellectual influences. [31] See The Chronicle of Froissart Translated . . . by . . . Lord Berners, ed. W. P. Ker (London, 1903), VI, 369. [32] See Isaac Reed (ed.), Plays of Shakespeare (1813), XI, 166. [33] From Chronicque de la Traïson et Mart de Richart Deux Roy Dengleterre. See the edition by Benjamin Williams (London, 1846), pp. 217-8. [34] From Byron’s letter to John Murray (14 July 1821); see Byron’s Letters and Journals, ed. Leslie A. Marchand (1973-82), VIII, 152. [35] Perhaps an allusion (with loose translation) to a famous passage in the Annals of Tacitus: ‘Neque mal vel bona, quae vulgus putet: multos, qui conflictari adversis videantur, beatos, at plerosque quamquam magnas per opes miserrimos, si illi gravem fortunam constanter tolerent, hi prospers inconsulte utantur’ (VI, xxii). A. J. Church and W.J. Brodribb translate as follows: ‘Good and evil, again, are not what vulgar opinion accounts them; many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable, if only the first bear their hard lot with patience, and the latter make a foolish use of their prosperity’; see Church and Brodribb, trans., The Complete Works of Tacitus (New York, 1942), p. 207. But see also Aristotle’s Poetics (Chap. 13, 1452b28-1453a35), where virtue struggling with hardship is given as one of the conditions of tragedy at its best. [36] From Milton, Sonnet 22 (to Cyriack Skinner), II. 6-9.

25.  JOHN PAYNE COLLIER 1 There is another circumstance belonging to the title-page of the Duke of Devonshire’s copy which deserves notice: it states that the play was printed ‘as it hath been publikely acted by the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlaine, his seruantes.’ The company to which Shakespeare belonged were not called the servants of the Lord Chamberlain after James I came to the throne, but ‘the King’s Majesty’s servants,’ as in the title-page of the other copy of 1608. This fact might give rise to the supposition, that it had been intended to reprint an edition of Richard II, including ‘the Parliament scene,’ but not mentioning it, before the death of Elizabeth; but that for some reason it was postponed for about five years. 2 There might be many reasons why the exhibition of the deposing of Richard II would be objectionable to Elizabeth, especially after the insurrection of Lords Essex and Southampton. [John] Thorpe’s Custumale Roffense [London, 1788], p. 89, contains an

 Notes 555 account of an interview between [William] Lambarde (when he presented his pandect of the records in the Tower) and Elizabeth, shortly subsequent to that event, in which she observed, ‘I am Richard the Second, know you not that?’ Lambarde replied, ‘Such a wicked imagination was determined and attempted by a most unkind gentleman, the most adorned creature that ever your Majestic made.’ ‘He (said the Queen) that will forgett God will alsoe forgett his benefactors.’ The publication of the edition of 1608, without the mention on the title-page of ‘the Parliament Scene, and the deposing of King Richard,’ might have been contemplated about this date. [3] Simon Forman (1552-1611), astrologer and quack-doctor, was a genuine Elizabethan eccentric, who claimed occult powers and miraculous cures, and whose sexual life seems to have been unusually promiscuous. Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, and her accomplice Mrs Turner both consulted him in connection with the notorious Overbury affair. He was enough of a celebrity to be referred to in Ben Jonson’s Silent Woman (4.1.150). Among his manuscripts at the Bodleian is a valuable Book of Plays and Notes Thereof, which records observations on his visits to the theatre; see E.K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems (Oxford, 1930), II, 337-41. The DNB contains a useful account of Forman. A.L. Rowse’s Sex and Society in Shakespeare’s Age: Simon Forman, the Astrologer (New York, 1974), a somewhat tendentious and sensationalistic treatment, is the only full-scale biography. 4 It may perhaps be inferred that there was an intention to publish the ‘history,’ with these ‘new additions,’ in 1603: at all events, in that year the right in Richard II, Richard III, and Henry IV, part i, was transferred to Matthew Law, in whose name the plays came out when the next editions of them appeared. The entry relating to them in the books of the Stationers’ Company runs thus: — ‘27 June 1603 Matth. Lawe] in full Courte, iij Enterludes or playes. The first of Richard the 3d. The second of Richard the 2d. The third of Henry the 4, the first pte. all Kings.’

5 ‘Ich unternehme darzuthun, dass Shakespeare’s Anachronismen mehrentheils geflissent lich und mit grossem Bedacht angebracht sind.’ — Ueber dramatische Kunst und Litteratur [1809-11], vol. ii, 43. [See also No. 14 above.]

26.  HERMANN ULRICI [1] See Friederich Alexander Theodor Kreyssig, Vorlesungen über Shakespeare, seine Zeit und seine Werke, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1862), I, 156-88. [2] Holinshed refers here to part of an English translation of the Chronicque de la Traïson et Mart de Richart Deux that belonged to John Stow. For Holinshed’s use of French materials on the reign of Richard II, see Peter Ure, ‘Shakespeare’s Play and the French Sources of Holinshed’s and Stow’s Account of Richard II,’ Notes and Queries, 198 (October 1953), 426-9. [3] See Holinshed, Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (London, 1807-8), II, 837. 4 See also A. Schmidt, Einleitung zu Richard II [c. 1867-71], in the translation of Shakespeare’s works by Schlegel and Tieck, published by the German Shakespeare Society. See the edition of 1876-7 (12 vols., Berlin), I, 251-68. 5 Cambridge Edition of Shakespeare’s Works [1863-6]), vol iv, p. 8.

556

Notes

27.  GIULIAN C. VERPLANCK [1] Verplanck appears to lift this quotation from Knight (No. 24 above), who is quoting from a version of the Chronicque de la Traïson et Mart de Richart Deux Roy Dengleterre, not from Froissart. See No. 24 n. [33]. [2] Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de Sully (1560-1641), was Henry IV’s minister of finance and wrote extensive memoirs of his sovereign’s reign. [3] Ulrici, Shakespeare’s Dramatic Art, trans. J.W. Morrison (London, 1846), p. 368. See No. 26 above. [4] See Nos. 4.1 and 7 above. [5] From Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes: ‘He left the name at which the world grew pale, / To point a moral or adorn a tale’ (II. 221-2).

29. FRANÇOIS P. G. GUIZOT [1] See David Hume, The History of England (Boston, 1850), II, 315. [2] The phrasing here suggests misleadingly that Guizot believed King Lear to be earlier than Richard II; in fact, in his chapter on Lear Guizot dates that play 1605.

31.  HENRY REED 1 [Frederick William] Faber, Sights and Thoughts [in Foreign Churches Among Foreign Peoples (London, 1842)], p. 288. [2] See Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 439. [3] Gray’s Poetical Works [i.e. The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray, ed. H. Reed (Philadelphia, 1851)], p. 172. [The quotation is taken from ‘The Bard,’ II. 80-82.] 4 [Jean] Froissart. Johnes’s Translation [Sir John Froissart’s Chronicles of England, France, Spain, and the Adjoining Countries . . . , trans. Thomas Johnes, 2nd edn., 12 vols. (London, 1805-06)], vol. xii, p. 193. [See also W.P. Ker (ed.), The Chronicle of Froissart Translated Out of French by Sir John Bourchier Lord Berners (London, 1903), VI, 399.]

32.  WILLIAM WATKISS LLOYD [1] In the play on Richard II Forman describes having seen, Gloucester is apparently decapitated, whereas in Holinshed he is either smothered or strangled. [2] See the translation of the ‘Metrical History’ in Archaeologia, xx (1824), 96. [3] Ibid., pp. 160-1. [4] See W. P. Ker (ed.), The Chronicles of Froissart Translated Out of French by Sir John Bourchier Lord Berners (London, 1903), VI, 367. [5] See Edward Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrate Famelies of Lancastre & Yorke (London, 1548), fol. viii. [6] Ibid., fol. ix.

 Notes 557 [7] Ibid., fol. ix. [8] Ibid., fol. ix. [9] Ibid., fol. xiii. [10] Ibid., fol. xv. [11] Ibid., fol. xv. [12] I.e. ‘a person in misery is a holy thing’.

33.  RICHARD GRANT WHITE 1 Mr. [Charles] Knight, in 1839, pointed out certain passages in the play and the poem the likeness between which could hardly be fortuitous [No. 24 above]; but the conclusion that he drew was, that Shakespeare ‘took up Daniel’s Civil Warres as he took up Hall’s, or Holinshed’s, or Froissart’s Chronicles, and transfused into his play, perhaps unconsciously, a few of the circumstances and images that belong to Daniel in his character of poet.’ Mr. [Henry Norman] Hudson [No. 30 above], in 1852, referring to the same passages, and to another, which will be particularly noticed hereafter, remarks: ‘The poem and the play in question have several passages so similar in thought and language as to argue that one of the authors must have drawn from the other; though this of itself will by no means conclude which way the obligation ran.’ [2] White confuses the relationship between Daniel and Shakespeare here by getting his facts wrong. There were not two editions of Daniel’s Civil Wars in 1595 but rather two different issues of the same edition in 1595 with differing tide pages but with virtually identical texts of books I-IV, the part of the poem relevant to the events of Richard II. Daniel did several times revise his poem, the changes appearing in the successive editions of 1601, 1609, and 1623. The most substantial alterations are those of the 1609 edition, which do indeed suggest that by then Daniel had become familiar with Shakespeare’s play. Earlier editions of the Civil Wars, however, provide no evidence of such borrowing, and indeed most modern editors of Richard II regard the 1595 edition of the Civil Wars as one of Shakespeare’s putative sources. For a full discussion of how White’s confusion probably came about and the mischief it caused in subsequent scholarship, see Laurence Michel (ed.), The Civil Wars by Samuel Daniel (New Haven, 1958), pp. 8-11. [3] See note [2] above. [4] There were in fact two separate quarto editions of 1598, the second of which (now designated Q3) was identified in 1913 by Henrietta C. Bartlett and is now in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.; see A.W. Pollard (ed.), ‘King Richard II’: A New Quarto With an Introduction by A. W. Pollard (London, 1916). [5] In the opening section of his ‘Introduction,’ White points out how dangerous and yet how popular were treatments of Richard II in Elizabeth’s reign, mentioning the queen’s remark to Lambarde, ‘I am Richard II, know ye not that?’ as well as Hayward’s troubles over the publication of his life of Henry IV in 1599, earlier plays on the same subject, and the connection of one of these with the Essex rebellion. 6 See the text of the play [i.e. White’s text] for the correct version of this line. [7] I.e. the other two plays on the reign of Richard II to which White had referred in the opening of his ‘Introduction.’ [8] I.e. the ‘Metrical History’ by Jean Créton; see Archaeologia, xx (1824).

558

Notes

34.  G.G. GERVINUS [1] See No. 24, note [8], above. [2] Gervinus loosely paraphrases Bacon’s commentary on the myth of Narcissus in The Wisdom of the Ancients (1609). A translation in the standard edition reads in part: ‘In this fable are represented the dispositions, and the fortunes too, of those persons who from consciousness either of beauty or some other gift with which nature unaided by any industry of their own has graced them, fall in love as it were with themselves. For with this state of mind there is commonly joined an indisposition to appear much in public or engage in business; because business would expose them to many neglects and scorns, by which their minds would be dejected and troubled. Therefore they commonly live a solitary, private, and shadowed life; with a small circle of chosen companions, all devoted admirers, who assent like an echo to everything they say, and entertain them with mouth-homage; till being by such habits gradually depraved and puffed up, and besotted at last -with self-admiration, they fall into such a sloth and listlessness that they grow utterly stupid, and lose all vigour and alacrity’; see The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. James Spedding et al. (London, 1857-74), VI, 705-6. [3] All the early quartos and the First Folio assign this speech to Bolingbroke, but Sir Thomas Hanmer (1843-44) and many later editors attributed it to York. [4] Milton published Pro populo anglicano defensio (the so-called ‘First Defence of the English People’) in 1651; this treatise was the poet’s reply to Salmasius’s defence of Charles I (1649). [5] Gervinus misquotes here; Northumberland’s line, of course, reads ‘My guilt be on my head. . . .’ [6] Gervinus refers here to the Duke of Surrey (Thomas Holland, 1374-1400), who verbally attacks and challenges Fitzwater, one of Aumerle’s accusers, at 4.1.65-71. But Shakespeare’s Surrey was the son of Richard II’s half-brother (Sir Thomas Holland, d. 1397), not, as Gervinus believed, the half-brother himself. [7] Gervinus apparently alludes to Richard’s supposed responsibility for the death of his uncle, Gloucester. [8] This statement is somewhat misleading, for Coleridge stresses the ‘parallel’ (as well as the contrast) between York’s ‘accidental and adventitious weakness’ and ‘Richard’s continually increasing energy of thought and as constantly diminishing power of acting’ (No. 20). See also Coleridge’s comments on York in No. 11 above.

36.  HENRY N. HUDSON [1] Hudson appropriates most of these phrases from two sonnets by Wordsworth included in ‘Poems Dedicated to National Independence and Liberty’: ‘Is it a reed that’s shaken by the wind’ (1802) and ‘I grieved for Buonaparté, with a vain / And an unthinking grief!’ (1801). See Thomas Hutchinson (ed.), The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth (Oxford, 1920), pp. 303-4. ‘What constitutes a State?’ is the first line of ‘An Ode in Imitation of Alcaeus’ (1781) by Sir William Jones (1746-94); see The Poetical Works of Sir William Jones (2 vols., London, 1807), II, 20.

 Notes 559

37.  RICHARD SIMPSON [1] Simpson apparently means that no earlier play on the reign of Richard II could have influenced Shakespeare’s treatment of the subject in the way that The Troublesome Reign supposedly influenced his composition of King John. Previous scholarship had long since pointed to the lost play on Richard II referred to by Simon Forman in 1611 (see Collier, No. 25 above) as well as the play on the same king, thought by many scholars not to be Shakespeare’s, revived in 1601 in connection with the Essex rebellion (see Nos. 4.1, 7, 23, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, and 34 above). The dates of both these dramas remain uncertain. Simpson, however, goes on at the end of the present discussion to identify the revival at the time of Essex’s treason with Shakespeare’s play. [2] Simpson quotes from a 1641 edition of an anonymous Roman Catholic attack on the Earl of Leicester printed on the continent and popularly known as Leicester’s Commonwealth (pp. 168-9) but originally entitled The Copy of a Letter Written by a Master of Art of Cambridge to his friend in London . . . about the present state and some proceedings of the Earl of Leicester (1584). Secretary Walsingham tentatively attributed the book to Thomas Morgan, Mary Queen of Scots’s agent in France; see D.C. Peck (ed.), Leicester’s Commonwealth (Athens, Ohio, 1985), pp. 6, 188. Robert Parsons, the Jesuit, has traditionally been credited with the writing, but see Peck’s discussion of the authorship (pp. 25-32). The documentation embedded in the text in square brackets is Simpson’s own. [3] Simpson quotes somewhat inaccurately from an attack on Lord Burghley entitled A Declaration of the True Causes of the Great Troubles, Presupposed to be Intended Against the Realme of England . . . (1592), p. 9, by Richard Verstegan (originally called Richard Rowlands), an ardent papist; see STC 10005. The pamphlet has sometimes been attributed to Robert Parsons, the Jesuit. [4] The book referred to here, another attack on Elizabeth’s chief ministers (especially William Cecil), is An Advertisement Written to a Secretarie of My L. Treasurers of Ingland (1592), which prints an abridged English version of a Latin response to the Queen’s 1591 proclamation concerning Jesuits and recusant priests by Robert Parsons (writing under the name of ‘John Philpatris’). The translated abridgement, often attributed to the Jesuit Joseph Creswell, is probably also by Verstegan. [5] Both Lord Burghley and Sir John Puckering, Lord Keeper, made speeches in Parliament in 1593, mentioning the new Spanish ships modelled on those of the English, as well as the Spanish conspiracy with treasonable Scottish nobles of Catholic persuasion; see John Strype, Annals of the Reformation (Oxford, 1924), IV, 149-56, 174-6. For the original of Burghley’s address to the House of Lords, see B.M. Landsdowne MS. 104, fols. 78-79); J.E. Neale paraphrases and quotes part of it in Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 1584-1601 (New York, 1958), pp. 301-2. [6] I.e. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Fourth Report Appendix (London, 1873, xxxv, C.857), p. 335. [7] On 25 September 1592 John Shakespeare was listed with a group of Stratford citizens ‘hearetofore presented for not comminge monethlie to the churche accordinge to hir Majesties lawes’; John was included in a subgroup who ‘coom not to churche for feare of process for debtte’. See State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, CCXLIII, 76. [8] [Verstegan], A Declaration of the True Causes, p. 60. [9] I.e. ‘It is the nature of the English people to be quick to rebel if they are oppressed with extraordinary burdens.’

Notes

560

[10] See State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, CCXLIV, 333-4. [11] John Penry (1559-93), a radical Puritan and major force behind the Martin MarPrelate pamphlets, was executed for sedition in 1593. Simpson has here abbreviated and loosely transcribed these opinions from a group of manuscript citations (taken originally from an unpublished treatise criticizing the Queen), apparently collected as evidence against Penry at the time of his trial in 1593. A full text of the trial with the citations has subsequently been published; see Champlin Burrage (ed.), John Penry, the So-Called Martyr of Congregationalism as Revealed in the Original Record of his Trial and in Documents Related Thereto (Oxford, 1913), pp. 26-34. A different version of the same sentiments was printed in Edward Coke, A Booke of Entries . . . (London, 1614), pp. 352-4. [12] Elizabeth’s naval policy against Spain, which involved the fitting out and supplying of many new ships and the plundering of Spanish treasure vessels on their return from the New World, was immensely expensive; as Lord Treasurer, Cecil administered the funds. See R.B. Wernham, After the Armada: Elizabethan England and the Struggle for Western Europe, 1588-1595 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 299- 301. [13] For Cecil’s role in the loss of Calais, see D.C. Peck (ed.), Leicester’s Commonwealth, p. 207 n. 121. [14] See Thomas Wright, Queen Elizabeth and Her Times (London, 1838), II, 75-6; also M.M. Reese, The Cease of Majesty (London, 1961), p. 160. [15] In a letter to Sir Robert Cecil (6 July 1597), Raleigh referred to Essex as having been ‘wondefull merry att your consait [i.e. conceit] of “Richard the Second”’; see Edward Edwards, The Life of Sir Walter Ralegh . . . Together With His Letters (London, 1868), II, 169. [16] See John Nichols, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1823), III, 552. [17] For the Queen’s dislike of Holinshed, see STC 13569 (London, 1986), I, 591. On 1 February 1587 the Archbishop of Canterbury was ordered to recall and reform the 1587 edition; on 3 November 1590, the Queen sent word to Burghley of her disapproval of a passage – probably the reason for the cancelling of pages 1328-31. [18] Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (London, 1807-8), II, 274. The sense of the Latin proverb is, ‘No woman has stability for long.’ [19] Cecil was accused of seeking to marry his grandson to Arabella, who -was of royal blood; see, for instance, [Verstegan], A Declaration, p. 70. [20] The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke (1595), sig. A3v.

38.  EDWARD DOWDEN 1 2

John Henry Newman, Idea of a University – Preface; [see the London edition of 1912, pp. xvi-xvii]. ‘Die guten Eigenschaften seiner Natur werden ihm unnütz, ja gefȧhrlich; er gewährt das erschütternde Schauspiel eines beispiellosen, geistigen und gemüthlichen nicht weniger als äusserlichen Bankerutts in Folge des einen Umstandes –dass die Natur ihn mit einem Dilettantencharacter auf eine Stelle berufen, die mehr als jede andere einen Künstler fordert.’ [‘The good qualities of his nature are of no avail to him – nay even dangerous. He offers the shattering spectacle of an unprecedented bankruptcy, intellectually and emotionally no less than externally evident, resulting from one

 Notes 561 circumstance only – that nature has called him, a dilettante, to a position which more than any other demands an artist.’] [F.A.T.] Kreyssig, Vorlesungen über Shakespeare (ed. 1874), vol i, p. 189. See what follows on Richard’s ‘Dilettantismus.’ 3 Kreyssig suggests that this piece of magnanimity was really a piece of fine hypocrisy; Bolingbroke was perhaps aware of Norfolk’s death at the time that he gave order for his repeal. 4 The skipping King, he ambled up and down With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state, Mingled his royalty with capering fools, ……………………… Grew a companion to the common streets. [1 Henry IV, 3.2.60-8] Thus Henry IV describes his predecessor as a lesson to Prince Henry, whose familiarity with his future subjects is neither in his father’s manner, nor in that of Richard II. [5] Dowden confuses his royal generations here, probably because of Shakespeare’s emphasis on John of Gaunt’s age; Richard is Gaunt’s nephew, not his ‘grand-nephew’. 6 Fr[iederich] Kreyssig, Vorlesungen über Shakespeare [edn. 1874], vol. i, p. 191. 7 Lectures upon Shakespeare (ed. 1849), vol. i, p. 178; [see also No. 20 above]. [8] Dowden slightly misquotes; the line referred to is presumably, ‘His noble cousin [i.e. Bolingbroke] is right welcome hither’. 9 John H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons [8 vols., London, 1868]; ‘Unreal Words,’ vol. v, p. 43. 10 Kreyssig, [edn. 1874,I, 194]. [11] See Johann Ludwig Ferdinand Flathe, König Richard II: Shakespeare in seiner Wirklichkeit, Supplement (Leipzig, 1865). [12] Shakespeare: His Life, Art and Characters [see No. 36 above], vol. ii, p. 55. 13 [A.J.F.] Mézières, Shakespeare ses Oeuvres et ses Critiques [Paris, 1860], p. 205. Kreyssig, Vorlesungen über Shakespeare, vol. i, p. 194 (ed. 1874). [14] I.e. John Holland, Duke of Exeter and Earl of Huntingdon, who had married Bolingbroke’s sister Elizabeth; Bolingbroke refers to his ‘trusty brother-in-law’ at 5.3.137. [15] Hudson, Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters (Boston, 1872), II, 71; see No. 36 above.

39.  A. C. SWINBURNE [Swinburne regards the Henry VI plays as of doubtful but mixed authorship, Marlowe being the major contributor; he sees Richard III as ‘the second historic play which can be wholly ascribed to Shakespeare’ (Study of Shakespeare, p. 43). [2] ‘Dryden’s genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion; his chariot wheels get hot by driving fast’ (Coleridge, Table Talk [1 November 1833]; see T.M. Raysor (ed.), Coleridge’s Miscellaneous Criticism [Cambridge, Mass., 1936], p. 431). [3] The Latin means ‘wonderfully pale likenesses’ (from Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, I, 123). [4] Swinburne alludes here, of course, to the Prologue of 1 Tamburlaine: ‘From jigging veins of rhyming mother-wits / And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay . . .’ (II. 1-2). 5 It is not the least of Lord Macaulay’s offences against art that he should have contributed the temporary weight of his influence as a critic to the support of so 1

Notes

562

ignorant and absurd a tradition of criticism as that which classes the great writer here mentioned with the dwarfish and filthy Wycherley – a classification only to be paralleled with that which in our own age has seen fit to couple together the names of Balzac and of Sue, and which might as rationally bracket the name of Mr. Tennyson with the name of the Poet Close [i.e. John Close, a writer of sentimental memorial verses]. Any competent critic will always recognise in the Way of the World one of the glories, in the Country Wife one of the disgraces, of dramatic and of English literature. The stains discernible on the masterpiece of Congreve are trivial and conventional; the mere conception of the other man’s work displays a mind so prurient and leprous, uncovers such an unfathomable and unimaginable beastliness of imagination, that in any other age he would probably have figured as a virtuous journalist and professional rebuker of poetic vice or artistic aberration. [Swinburne refers here to Macaulay’s famous essay on ‘The Comic Dramatists of the Restoration’, originally published in the Edinburgh Review (January, 1841) as a review of Leigh Hunt’s edition of The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar (London, 1840).]

40.  F.J. FURNIVALL 1 2

See A. Phillipps’s Examination, in Mrs. Green’s Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1598-1601, p. 578; and Mr. Hales’s letter of November 15, 1875, in The Academy for that month. ‘Still, I cannot help observing, though I know not how to account for it, that the dramatist here dwells upon popular grievances, which in the other play (King John) he treats with contempt, though history has certainly handed down John as, not less than Richard, the oppressor of his people.’ Courtenay’s Comment., i, 50 [No. 23 above]. Tho’ benevolences were not known till Henry VII’s time, yet Richard II made many accused persons compound for pardon, and pay large sums pro benevolentiâ suâ recuperandâ – [Sharon] Turner, [History of England During the Middle Ages (London, 1830)], ii, 317.

42.  P.A. DANIEL [1] The historical dates in square brackets are Daniel’s own insertions. 519 [2] I.e. 1.4, in which Aumerle reports to Richard on Bolingbroke’s courtship of the common people as he was preparing to leave England to begin his exile. [3] York, in listing Richard’s worst offences and oppressions, mentions ‘the prevention of poor Bullingbrook / About his marriage’ (2.1.167-8). The king had interfered to block the projected union of Bolingbroke with the daughter of the Duc de Berri, a cousin of the French king, Charles VI.

43.  OSCAR WILDE [1] Irving, who was knighted in 1895, was the manager of the Lyceum Theatre, London, from 1878 to 1903. Considered the outstanding actor of his day (Ellen Terry was

 Notes 563 his leading lady), he mounted productions that were famous – even notorious – for their spectacular scenic effects, visual details, and rich costuming. His production of Much Ado in 1882, himself playing Benedick to Ellen Terry’s Beatrice, was especially sumptuous. Wilson Barett played Hamlet as a teenager at the Princess’s Theatre, London, in 1884, introducing innovations in wording and in dress (he wore an unusually low-cut costume) and rearranging the scenes. The phrase ‘leather and prunella’ became a stock expression for something to which one is utterly indifferent; it derives from Pope’s Essay on Man: ‘Worth makes the man, the want of it, the fellow; / The rest is all but leather or prunella’ (IV, 203-4). Pope, of course, was distinguishing between an essential factor of a man’s makeup (‘worth’) and the moral inconsequence of his calling as signified by dress – the ‘leather’ of the cobler’s apron or the ‘prunella’ (a cloth of worsted or silk) of the parson’s gown. [2] See ‘Miss Anderson’s Juliet’ by Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, first Earl of Lytton (1831-91), in Nineteenth Century, 16 (1884), 886 n. [3] Hanmer’s attribution (see No. 34, note [3], above). [4] Wilde obviously means a play set in the sixteenth century, not one written then. He would seem to disregard evidence that Elizabethan plays on historical subjects were commonly costumed in a way that approximated contemporary, i.e. sixteenthcentury, dress.

44.  A.W. VERITY [1] Apparently an allusion to Horace’s ode to Drusus and the Claudian house (Odes, IV.iv) in which the poet compares the maturation of Drusus, stepson of the emperor Augustus and brilliant young general, to that of the eagle of Jupiter that snatched the beautiful youth Ganymede from earth to be the god’s cup-bearer and lover. Like Drusus learning to perfect his military talents, Jupiter’s eagle ‘is driven by youth and natural vigor / to leave the nest, knowing nothing of struggle, / and soon, for storms are over, the winds / of spring have frightened but taught him to use / his untried powers’ (The Odes and Epodes of Horace, trans. Joseph P. Clancy [Chicago, 1960], p. 164). Verity suggests that the Shakespeare of the first scene of Richard II (and also of 5.3), a dramatist who ‘falls back into rhyme’ and avoids the greater challenge of ‘Vigorous and varied blank verse’, is like the untried young eagle of Horace’s poem that has yet to gain its full strength and power to subdue. [2] See F.G. Fleay, Shakespeare Manual (London, 1876), pp. 135-6. [3] Evidently a slip for Parts I and II. 4 It is possible that Richard III may, as Mr. Fleay thinks [Shakespeare Manual, p. 30], represent Shakespeare’s revision of an older play by Peele, a suggestion made by Coleridge, Lectures, p. 27 [see R.A. Foakes (ed.), Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Lectures 1808-1819 On Literature (London, 1987), I, 117]. We are justified, however, in assuming that the character of Richard himself is absolutely the work of Shakespeare alone. [5] An apparent misprint: Swinburne’s phrase is ‘pitiful but not unpitiable’ (see No. 39 above). [6] ‘The reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty’ is Lamb’s phrase; see No. 10 above. [7] Verity seems to be loosely paraphrasing Wordsworth’s statement in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (1800): ‘I have at all times endeavoured to look

Notes

564

steadily at my subject, consequently I hope it will be found that there is in these Poems little falsehood of description . . . ‘; see Paul M. Zall (ed.), Literary Criticism of William Wordsworth (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1966), p. 22.

47.  FRANK A. MARSHALL [1] In an earlier section of his ‘Introduction’ (p. 394), Marshall states his belief that Shakespeare’s play was the one commissioned by Sir Gilly Merrick to be revived in 1601 on the eve of the Essex rebellion.

48.  WALTER PATER [1] In his enthusiasm for quoting, Pater occasionally seems to attribute to Richard II passages from other Shakespearian histories such as King John and 1 Henry IV. [2] See note [1] above. [3] Pater alludes here, apparently, to the report of the actor Augustine Phillips, who testified on 18 February 1601 that certain adherents of the Essex conspiracy had hired the Lord Chamberlain’s Men ‘to have the play of the deposyng and kyllyng of Kyng Rychard the second to be played’ (State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, CCLXXVIII, 78); see Matthew W. Black (ed.), The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, New Variorum Edition (Philadelphia, 1955), p. 581. [4] Pater quotes from Holinshed, Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (edn. 1807), II, 858. [5] See Charles Kean’s stage version of the play, first acted publicly on 12 March 1857, and published as Shakespeare’s Play of King Richard II Arranged for Representation at the Princess’s Theatre, With Historical and Explanatory Notes (London, 1857), with a preface by the actor explaining his archaeological approach to settings and costumes. Kean’s volume was reprinted with an informative introduction by David Rittenhouse (London, 1970). [6] Curiously, Pater applies Bolingbroke’s description of Gloucester’s murder to the death of Richard himself. [7] Cf. ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin’ (Troilus and Cressida, 3.3.175). [8] Holinshed gives Thomas Walsingham as authority for the tradition that Richard ‘was so beaten out of hart, that wilfullie he starved himselfe’; see Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (edn. 1807-08), III, 13. 9 Perhaps a double entendre: – of any ordinary grave, as comprising, in effect, the whole small earth now left to its occupant: or, of such a tomb as Richard’s in particular, with its actual model, or effigy, of the clay of him. Both senses are so characteristic that it would be a pity to lose either. [10] See Arthur Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare, I, 452. [11] Ben Jonson’s famous comment in Timber: or, Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter:‘I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, (whatsoever he penn’d) hee never blotted out line. My answer hath beene, would he had blotted a thousand’; see Works (2 vols., 1641), II, 97. 12 The Sonnet: the Aubade: the Epithalamium. [Pater refers here to a passage in G.G. Gervinus, Shakespeare Commentaries (London, 1877), pp. 205-8; see also No. 51, note 10, below.]

 Notes 565

49.  P. A. DANIEL [1] Daniel’s numbering of the quartos here was conventional for his time; he was unaware of the fact that two separate quartos, now designated Q2 and Q3, were both printed in 1598. The 1608 and 1615 quartos, therefore, are now designated Q4 and Q5 respectively. A. W. Pollard’s edition of Q3, A New Shakespeare Quarto, was not published until 1918. [2] Daniel quotes from the title page of the second (corrected?) state of Q4 (1608): ‘With new additions of the Parliament Sceane, and the deposing of King Richard . . . .’ [3] From W.G. Clark and W.A. Wright (eds.), The Tragedy of King Richard II (Oxford, 1876), p. iii; the square brackets designating the source are Daniel’s own. [4] See note [1] above. [5] The owner of the copyright of Q4 of Richard II; the copyright was transferred from Andrew Wise to Matthew Law on 25 June 1603.

50.  CYRIL RANSOME [1] Ransome paraphrases Bishop William Stubbs, who in his Constitutional History of England (Oxford, 1880) writes, ‘The blame of Gloucester’s death or murder was laid on the king. It is not clear that he was murdered; if he was, the guilt must be shared between Richard and the earl of Nottingham [elevated after Gloucester’s death to Duke of Norfolk]’ (II, 540 n. 4). [2] I.e. money is wanting. The phrase ‘sinews of war’, denoting money, is a classical commonplace found in such authors as Diogenes Laertius, Cicero, Plutarch, and Tacitus. Machiavelli writes: ‘Money is not the sinews of war, although it is generally so considered’ (Discourses, II, 10); Bacon seems to echo Machiavelli in his essay Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates: ‘Neither is money the sinews of war (as it is trivially said), where the sinews of men’s arms, in base and effeminate people, are failing.’ See Brian Vickers (ed.), Francis Bacon (Oxford, 1996), pp. 398, 749. [3] Isabella, Edward II’s queen (often called the ‘she-wolf of France’), united with Roger Mortimer, invaded England, and helped to depose and murder her husband – events dramatized in Marlowe’s Edward II; Henrietta Maria, Charles I’s French wife, inflamed the Puritans by practicing her Roman Catholicism openly, and is often credited with exacerbating the hostilities that led to the Civil War and with hastening her husband’s tragic downfall. [4] A paraphrase from Wordsworth, ‘Rob Roy’s Grave’ (1805-06): ‘because the good old rule / Sufficeth them, the simple plan / That they should take who have the power, / And they should keep who can’ (II. 37-40). [5] Piers Gaveston was Edward II’s favourite, seized and beheaded in 1312 by the king’s enemies during the civil turmoil that preceded Edward’s overthrow. Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford, and William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, were Charles I’s leading supporters during the Civil War; both -were condemned by the Long Parliament and beheaded in 1641 and 1645 respectively. [6] This cry does not appear in Shakespeare; Ransome merely describes the political situation with imaginative freedom.

566

Notes

[7] Joseph Addison, Notes Upon the Twelve Books of ‘Paradise Lost’ (London, 1719), originally published in the Spectator. ‘If we look into the Characters of Milton, we shall find that he has introduced all the Variety his Fable was capable of receiving. The whole Species of Mankind was in two Persons at the Time to which the Subject of his Poem is confined. We have, however, four distinct Characters in these two Persons. We see Man and Woman in the highest Innocence and Perfection, and in the most abject State of Guilt and Infirmity’ (Spectator, No. 273). See Milton: The Critical Heritage, ed. John T. Shawcross (London, 1970), p. 152. [8] Carlyle reports Louis XVI’s final words: ‘Frenchmen, I die innocent: it is from the Scaffold and near appearing before God that I tell you so . . . ’ (The French Revolution: A History, 1837); see the edition by K. J. Fielding and David Sorensen (Oxford, 1989), II, 235. The resemblance to Richard’s final words (5.5.108-12) is not particularly close. [9] I.e. Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and King Lear. [10] From Horace, Odes, Book III (6.1): ‘Although you yourself are without guilt, you shall atone for the sins of your forefathers.’ [11] Roger Mortimer, fourth Earl of March, was the father of Edmund Mortimer, the fifth Earl of March (designated Richard IFs heir). Edmund Mortimer’s sister Anne married Richard, Earl of Cambridge, who produced a son (Richard, third Duke of York), who in turn led the Yorkist rebellion against Henry VI, the last of the Lancastrian kings. York’s sons both became kings – Edward IV, who deposed Henry VI, and Richard III, who in Shakespeare’s play, murders him in the Tower of London. [12] Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond (who became Henry VII), was related to John of Gaunt, the progenitor of the Lancastrian party, only distantly through marriage. His mother was Margaret Beaufort, a descendant of John of Gaunt’s third wife, Katharine Swynford.

51.  E.K. CHAMBERS All Shakespeare’s historical plays belong to the first half of his literary life, i.e. to the period before 1600, with the exception of Henry VIII. He was born in April 1564. Henry VIII must not be ranked with the earlier group; it is a work of the poet’s closing days, probably the last he touched. He only wrote half a dozen scenes of it; the rest is by Fletcher. 2 Browning’s poem of Protus, in Dramatic Romances, might almost be an epitome of Richard II. The whole of this side of the matter has been worked out by Mr. [Walter] Pater [No. 48 above] in an essay on Shakespeare’s English Kings (reprinted in the volume called Appreciations), the most graceful bit of Shakespearian criticism since Coleridge. [3] The first quoted phrase seems to be a fragment, inaccurately remembered, from Wordsworth, ‘The Solitary Reaper’: ‘Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow / For old, unhappy, far-off things, / And battles long ago,’ (II. 18-20); the second phrase, ‘eternal possession,’ may be a variant of God’s promise to Moses, Genesis 17:8: ‘And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. . . .’ 4 See pp. xix-xxi. [Chambers here refers the reader to a later section of this introduction in which he describes the early editions, alludes to the putative 1

 Notes 567

5 [6] [7] 8

[9] 10 11

connection of the drama with the Essex rebellion, and points out the politically dangerous aspects of the deposition scene.] Cf. the Third Book of the Republic, 410 E, etc. [See also Morton Luce (No. 67, note [10], below)]. Cf. Ovid, ‘est deus in nobis’ (Fasti, 6.5). From Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship’ (1844; XLI.3-4). The ratio of rhyme to blank verse in Richard II, according to Mr. Fleay’s calculation, is 1 to 4. In only three plays is it greater: Love’s Labour’s Lost (5 to 3), Midsummer Night’s Dream (1 to 1), and Comedy of Errors (1 to 3). In Hamlet (1602), it is 1 to 30; in The Winter’s Tale (1611) there is no rhyme. [See F.G. Fleay, Shakespeare Manual (London, 1876), pp. 135-8.] I have transliterated this word, which Chambers gives in Greek. See Prof. [G.G.] Gervinus [Shakespeare Commentaries (London, 1877), pp. 205-8] on Romeo and Juliet: act i, sc. 5; act ii, sc. 2; act iii, sc 5. [See also No. 34 and No. 48, note 12, above.] Several passages from Euphues illustrating Richard II have been quoted in the Notes, including some from which the poet has evidently borrowed. See, e.g. i.3.275, n. and v.3.62, n., but they do not adequately represent the general resemblance in style between the two works. [Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) was so notorious for its artificially rhetorical style that ‘euphuism’ became the term for a mode of prosewriting involving self-conscious figuration and antithetical balance together with alliteration, exempla, rhetorical questions, sententiae, similes from natural history, and a display of recondite study – often carried to tedious extremes. Although popular at first, the style was short-lived and quickly parodied, as, for instance, in Falstaff ’s comic speech at the Boar’s Head Tavern in which Sir John pretends to be King Henry rebuking Prince Hal for keeping low company (1 Henry IV, 2.4.397-419). Chambers grossly exaggerates similarities between the style of Richard II and Lyly’s Euphues.]

52.  C.H. HERFORD 1 1 Henry IV, iii.2.60. [2] Herford seems to refer here to the lost play on the reign of Richard II described by Simon Forman, 30 April 1611, which included ‘Wat Tyler’s revolt and other scenes of bloodshed and violence not found in Shakespeare’s play’ (Herford, p. 9).  3 Prof. [John Wesley] Hales [1836-1914] suggests that these scenes may even contain portions of the old play. [Hales was a fellow editor and colleague in Shakespearian studies who made suggestions while reading the proof-sheets of Richard II; he was the general editor of Bell’s Handbooks of English Literature to which Herford later contributed the volume on Words-worth (1897).] 4 Cf. especially notes to act iv. [Herford notes several possible borrowings from Marlowe in the deposition scene: (1) ‘sunshine days’ (4.1.221) from Edward II, 5.1.27 (‘perfect shadows in a sunshine day’); (2) ‘To melt myself away in waterdrops’ (4.1.262) from Dr. Faustus, 5.2.118 (‘O soul, be changed into little waterdrops’); and (3) ‘Was this face the face / That every day under his household roof . . . ’ (4.1.283-4) from Dr. Faustus, 5.1.91 (‘Was this the face that launched a thousand ships . . . ?’).]

568

Notes

[5] In his running commentary (p. 151) Herford observes that ‘Holinshed mentions among other portents that "old baie trees withered", but only in the second edition (1586)’. 6 The most important divergences from history are, however, pointed out in the Notes to Dramatis Personae. The fullest treatment of them is in [Georg Ludwig] Riechelmann’s Abhandlung zu Richard II: Shakespeare und Holinshed, [Plauen,] 1860. 7 Shakespeare’s liberties with time (elsewhere far greater) have the highest critical approval. Cf. Goethe’s proverbial saying, ‘Den Poeten bindet keine Zeif’ (the poet is not fettered by time), Faust, part ii, act 2; and elsewhere, still more strongly: ‘all that survives of true poetry lives and breathes only in anachronisms’. [8] In his commentary, Herford notes that Shakespeare departs from Holinshed, ‘who represents the castle as already in the hands of Northumberland, who had thence proceeded to Conway, where Richard had found refuge, and induced him to accompany him back to Flint’ (p. 158). 9 [Gotthold Ephraim] Lessing: Hamburgische Dramaturgic [1767-69]. No. xxiii. [10] Forman describes a performance of this now lost play seen at the Globe on 30 April 1611; see No. 25 above. [11] In an earlier section of his introduction, Herford gives extracts from other notable critics including Pater. 12 [Walter] Pater: Appreciations [London, 1889], p. 201. [See No. 48 above.] 13 Ibid., p. 206. 14 [Friedrich Alexander Theodor] Kreyssig, Vorlesungen über Sh[akespeare, seine Zeit und seine Werke (Berlin, 1858)], p. 192. 15 [Edward Dowden], Shakespeare, [A Critical Study of His Mind and Art, 3rd ed. (London, 1880)], p. 195. [See No. 38 above.] 16 Cf. the striking passage in 1 Henry IV. . . where he schools the prince in the proper bearing of a king – By being seldom seen, I could not stir  But like a comet I was wonder’d at:  That men would tell their children, ‘This is he’;  Others would say, ‘Where? which is Bolingbroke?’ And then I stole all courtesy from Heaven,  And dress’d myself in such humility  That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts,  Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,  Even in the presence of a crowned king. [3.2.46-54]  The whole of this speech should be familiar to the student of Richard II. 17 Cf. Kreyssig, u. s. [i.e. Vorslesungen über Shakespeare] p. 200. [18] Wordsworth, The Prelude (1850 edn.), I, 63. [19] From Pater, Marius the Epicurean (1885), Chapter 25 (‘Sunt Lacrimae Rerum’): ‘But still the feeling returns to me, that no charity of ours can get at a certain natural unkindness which I find in things themselves’; see the American edition (New York, 1909), p. 317. 20 T[homas] H[ill] Green: An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times [Oxford, 1862], p. 9. I borrow this quotation from Mr. H[enry] C[harles] Beeching’s admirable edition of Julius Caesar [The Falcon Shakespeare, London, 1887] (p. vii), the more willingly, since Mr. Beeching’s view of Shakespearian tragedy is not precisely my own.

 Notes 569

53.  BEVERLEY E. WARNER [1] Isabel (1389-1409), daughter of Charles VI of France and second queen of Richard II, was a child of seven years at the time of her marriage in October or November, 1396, at Calais. She was nine years old in November, 1398, the year in which the quarrel between Bolingbroke and Mowbray came to a head at Coventry; she was almost eleven at the time of her husband’s murder in February, 1400. 2 [Charles] Knight’s [Popular] History of England, Vol. I, p. 584, quoted from a contemporary MS. [Actually Knight seems to be following both Froissart and Créton at this point in his account of Richard’s capture, but he is not quoting directly.] [3] Since it is Bolingbroke rather than Richard who kneels in the passage quoted here, Warner apparently implies that it is Richard who ironically kneels metaphorically, i.e. must submit himself to his rebel cousin. [4] Quoted from one of the several versions of J.P. Collier’s report of Coleridge’s Lecture 12 (1812); see T. M. Raysor (ed.), Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Shakespearian Criticism (London, 1960), II, 145. Cf. also No. 11 above: ‘Richard’s parade of resignation is consistent with the other parts of the Play. . . .’ [5] From ‘Hymn for All Saints Day in the Morning’ (I. 19) by Henry Alford, Dean of Canterbury; see Alford, The School of the Heart and Other Poems (Cambridge, 1875). [6] A somewhat exaggerated reference to Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, who was scheduled to be beheaded on a trumped up charge of treason the very morning Henry VIII died (28 January 1547) and who was spared at the last moment because of the king’s death. [7] These words were part of the official indictment brought against Richard II in Parliament at the time of his deposition; they are quoted by Knight, Popular History of England (1880 edn.), I, 586. [8] The Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, referred to here was born 6 November 1391. [9] A familiar proverb; cf. Ecclesiastes 10:16 and Richard III, 2.3.11.

54.  BARRETT WENDELL 1 2 3 4 [5]

I.iii.104-116.  II.i.73-83. IV.i.276-291. II.i.40-66. Wendell places King John chronologically between Richard II and 1 Henry IV.

55.  FREDERICK S. BOAS [1] Boas borrows this term from Edward Dowden; see No. 38 above. [2] Freiderich Alexander Theodor Kreyssig, Verlesungen über Shakespeare, seine Zeit und seine Werke (Berlin, 1862), I, 176. [3] From Richard Lovelace, ‘To Althea, From Prison’ (1. 25). [4] Bolingbroke’s sister Elizabeth had married John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon, who was the ringleader of the plot for which Aumerle is pardoned; see 5.3.137-42.

570

Notes

56.  GEORG BRANDES [1] From a letter dated 15 April 1581, written in Latin by the actor Thomas Baylye to Thomas Bawdewin from Sheffield, in which the request for Wilson to provide such a play is mentioned; Wilson was a playwright as well as an actor. See E.K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage (Oxford, 1923), II, 301-2. [2] Brandes, like many scholars of his day, regarded the Henry VI plays as collaborative; he also believed that Richard III and King John followed rather than preceded Richard II. [3] Brandes quotes the full title page of the 1608 quarto in a footnote. [4] The actor Augustine Phillips, a shareholder in Shakespeare’s company, testified that the players were reluctant to revive a play on the deposing and killing of Richard II on the day before the Essex rebellion (7 February 1601) because the drama in question was ‘so old and so long out of use’ that it would attract but a small audience. See Peter Ure (ed.), Richard II (London, 1956), pp. Ivii-lviii.

57.  C.E. MONTAGUE [1] Montague borrows the phrase ‘exquisite poet’ from Pater; see No. 48 above. [2] From Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, Part I, Book I, Chapter 2; see the edition by K. J. Fielding and David Sorensen (Oxford, 1989), I, 7. [3] From William Blake, ‘Proverbs of Hell’ (I1. 8). [4] A slightly garbled version of William Blake, ‘Auguries of Innocence’ (II. 1-2). [5] From William Wordsworth, ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’ (I. 5).  [6] From a letter by Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet (18 September 1846), apparently quoted in translation from Walter Pater’s essay, ‘Style’; see Appreciations with an Essay on Style (1889), Library Edition (London, 1910), p. 30. For the French original, see Oeuvres Completes de Gustave Flaubert (Paris, 1974), XII, 527. [7] A Blakeian concept rather than a direct quotation: cf. ‘Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses’ (‘The voice of the Devil’, a prose passage from The Marriage of Heaven and Helt). [8] From ‘New Year’s Eve’ (1821) in Essays of Elia: ‘It was better that our family should have missed that legacy, which old Dorrell cheated us of, than that I should have at this moment two thousand pounds in banco, and be without the idea of that specious old rogue’; see The Collected Essays of Charles Lamb, ed. Robert Lynd and William MacDonald (London, 1929), I, 33. [9] Cf. La Cousine Bette, Chapter 55 (‘Ce Qui Fait Les Grands Artistes’): ‘Si l’artiste ne se précipite pas dans son oeuvre, comme Curtius dans le gouffre, comme le soldat dans la redoute, sans réfléchir; et si, dans ce cratère, il ne travaille pas comme le mineur enfoui sous un éboulement; s’il contemple, enfin, les difficultés au lieu de les vaincre une à une . . . l’oeuvre reste inachevée, elle périt au fond de l’atelier, où la production devient impossible, et l’artiste assiste au suicide de son talent’ (ed. Maurice Allem [Paris, 1962], p. 197). ‘If the artist does not throw himself into his work as Curtius sprang into the gulf, as a soldier leads a forlorn hope without a moment’s thought, and if when he is in the crater he does not dig on as a miner does when the earth has fallen in on him; if he contemplates the difficulties before him instead of conquering them one by one . . . the work remains incomplete; it perishes in the studio where

 Notes 571 creativeness becomes impossible, and the artist looks on at the suicide of his own talent’ (trans. James Waring [New York, 1991], p. 230). [10] Translated from a letter by Flaubert to Alfred Le Poittevin (16 September 1845); see Oeuvres Complètes de Gustave Flaubert, (Paris, 1974), XII, 462.

58.  SIDNEY LEE [1] [2] [3] [4]

An echo of Pope, Essay on Criticism (1. 216). Frank Rodney (1859-1902). George R. Weir (1854-1909). Edward A. Warburton (b. 1867).

59.  W.B. YEATS [1] Francis (‘Frank’) R. Benson (1858-1939), English actor and director; see Nos. 57 and 58 above. [2] George R. Weir (1854-1909). [3] I.e. Oscar Asche (1872-1936). [4] Born Gertrude Constance Samwell, Mrs Benson often acted in her husband’s productions under the stage name of Constance Featherstonhaugh; she married in 1886. [5] Frank Rodney (1859-1902). [6] I.e. E. Lyall Swete (1865-1930). [7] Lewis Waller (1860-1915). [8] From The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (‘Proverbs of Hell’, 1. 27). Yeats had edited Blake in 1893. [9] Dowden was a friend of Yeats’s father, John Butler Yeats. [10] Presumably General Charles George Gordon (1833-85), who heroically defended Khartoum during the seige of 1884-85 and, abandoned by all supporters, was murdered there. Gordon’s own character and career fit the image presented: clearly he was an adventurer, and being quixotic, painfully shy, uncomfortable with women and in social situations, contemptuous of money, plagued by religious guilt, and obsessed with death, he could certainly be described as eccentric. Yeats mentions his ‘noble sacrifice’ in ‘Emmet the Apostle of Irish Liberty’ (see Frayne and Johnson (eds.), Uncollected Prose, II, 319). [11] Paul Verlaine (1844-96), the French symbolist poet, suffered from painful rheumatism of the leg, and spent much of his life in hospitals. Yeats knew Verlaine personally and after the latter’s death recorded his impressions of him in the Savoy (April, 1896) – an account he later revised in Autobiographies (1938). I have, however, been unable to document the source of Yeats’s attribution. [12] Solomon, King of the ancient Hebrews (reigned c. 972-32 B.C.), whose wisdom is proverbial; the biblical books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes were ascribed to him. [13] Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), English philosopher and political theorist, was the founder of utilitarianism. [14] Yeats says that he saw six chronicle plays (Part I, section I, above); the ‘five’ in this passage represents either a slip of memory or possibly a deliberate exclusion of King John, which is chronologically and dynastically separate from the others.

572

Notes

60.  FREDERICK S. BOAS [1] This was William Poel’s ‘recital’ of Richard II in 1894; see Robert Speaight, William Poel and the Elizabethan Revival (London, 1954), p. 101. Poel revived numerous Elizabethan plays in performances that sought within certain limits to reproduce the style and staging of sixteenth-century production. [2] See ‘Reginald Clarence’ [H.J. Eldredge] (ed.), ‘The Stage’ Cyclopaedia (London, 1909), p. 328; also an anonymous review of Benson’s Richard II at the Lyceum in the London Times (16 March 1900), p. 6. [3] Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s production opened on 10 September 1903; see John Parker (ed.), Who’s Who in the Theatre, 5th edn. revised (London, 1925), p. 1158. [4] From The Spectator, No. 329 (18 March 1712), by Joseph Addison; see O.M. Myers (ed.), The Coverley Papers (Oxford, 1917), p. 121. [5] For the statements by Phillips and Camden, see Matthew W. Black (ed.), The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, New Variorum Edition (Philadelphia, 1955), pp. 581-2. The Latin phrase means ‘faded tragedy’. 6 Since the above words were written Prof. [Felix E.] Schelling, of Pennsylvania University, has dealt appreciatively with some aspects of the piece in his recently published volume, The English Chronicle Play [New York, 1902, pp. 98-108]. [See No. 61 below.] [7] The references added in square brackets give the act, scene, and line numbers of A.P. Rossiter’s standard edition of Woodstock, A Moral History (London, 1946), which differ somewhat from those in Keller.

61.  FELIX E. SCHELLING 1

See the scene in which the king belabors and kills his keeper for refusing to taste his meat, and thus precipitates his own death. Richard II, V.5, 98-115. [2] See the headnote to No. 60 above. 3 See [Keller,] Jahrbuch, p. 39, and Richard II, I.I, 99.  4 See Richard II, 1.3, 294-303.

62.  H.F. PREVOST BATTERSBY [1] An apparent reference to Hamlet to which Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853-1917) regarded the character of Richard II as a precursor. [2] The Hippodrome had opened as a circus in 1900 and featured an aquatic pool for stunts and athletic effects; later it became a popular music hall. For another review of the same production, which describes Tree’s visual splendours in greater detail, see J.T. Grein, ‘His Majesty’s Theatre: King Richard II’, The Sunday Special (10 September 1903), reprinted in J.T. Grein, Dramatic Criticism, 1903-1904 (London, 1905), pp. 106-11. [3] Oscar Asche (1872-1936). [4] Lily Brayton, Mrs Oscar Asche (1876-1953).

64.  A. C. SWINBURNE [1] In Prodicus’s fable (recorded in Xenophon, Memorabilia, II.i.21–34), the youthful Hercules, confronted by a choice between two women who represented Vice (with ease) and Virtue (with hardship), chose the latter.

 Notes 573 [2] From Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, 4.2.194. [3] Selimus (1592) and Titus Andronicus (1590?) have both been attributed, at least in part, to Robert Greene; scholars, however, now reject the involvement of Greene in Titus. [4] Not traced; the French means ‘stupid monstrosities’. [5] See No. 20 above. [6] See Nos. 11 and 20 above. [7] The quotation is from Milton, ‘Of Education’ (1644), a passage in which the poet contrasts poetry with classical rhetoric ‘as being lesse suttle and fine, but more simple, sensuous and passionate’; see Complete Prose Works of John Milton, Yale edn. (New Haven, 1953-82), II, 403. [8] I.e. ‘his foolishness has turned to rage’. [9] In Greek mythology a Phrygian satyr who challenged Apollo, god of art, to a fluteplaying competition adjudicated by the Muses, lost the contest, and was flayed alive for his presumption. [10] With many of his generation, Swinburne doubted that the Henry VI plays were genuinely or wholly Shakespeare’s; he also seems to have believed that Richard III and King John were written later than Richard II. Coleridge, whom Swinburne quotes elsewhere in the essay, calls Richard II ‘the first and most admirable of all Shakespeare’s purely historical plays’ (No. 20). [11] I.e. Romeo and Juliet; Swinburne excluded Titus Andronicus from the canon (see note [3] above).

65.  A.C. BRADLEY 1 An account of Hegel’s view may be found in [my] Oxford Lectures on Poetry. [This note, not in the 1905 text, was added to later editions of Shakespearian Tragedy.] 2 The reader, however, will find considerable difficulty in placing some very important characters in these and other plays. I will give only two or three illustrations. Edgar is clearly not on the same side as Edmund, and yet it seems awkward to range him on Gloster’s side when Gloster wishes to put him to death. Ophelia is in love with Hamlet, but how can she be said to be of Hamlet’s party against the King and Polonius, or of their party against Hamlet? Desdemona worships Othello, yet it sounds odd to say that Othello is on the same side with a person whom he insults, strikes and murders. [3] For discussion of the anonymous play Woodstock, see Nos. 60 and 61.2 above (with headnotes). The standard modern edition of the play is Woodstock, A Moral History, ed. A.P. Rossiter (London, 1946), which contains an important introduction.

66.  STOPFORD A. BROOKE [1] 2 Samuel, 15-18, describes the rising ambitions of Absalom, King David’s handsome but treacherous son, and his deliberate campaign of ingratiation with the Jewish populace; his plot to usurp his father’s throne; his defeat in battle in the forest of Ephraim when he led his followers against David’s forces; and finally his tragic death when he was caught by the hair in an oak tree. King Richard’s account of Bolingbroke’s ‘courtship to the common people’, ‘How he did seem to dive into their hearts / With humble and familiar courtesy’ (1.4.24-6), probably reminded Brooke of the biblical verse in which King David is informed of his son’s dangerous popularity,

Notes

574

‘The hearts of the men of Israel have gone after Absalom’ (2 Samuel, 15:13), after which the alarmed monarch gives the order to flee to safety. [2] Brooke is paraphrasing here rather than quoting directly. [3] A paraphrase of 2.2.108-15. [4] Brooke refers here to Richard’s long speech on death (3.2.144-77) that he will quote later in the essay. [5] Another paraphrase; see 3.2.12-26. [6] A paraphrase of 1.3.175-80. 7 It is worth saying that Shakespeare makes the patriotism of the father descend to the son. Bolingbroke ends the scene in this way — ‘Then, England’s ground, farewell; sweet soil adieu; / My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!’ [1.3.306-7]. Nor is Richard less fond of his country. When he lands from Ireland he cries — ‘I weep for joy / To stand upon my kingdom once again; / Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand’ [3.2.4-6]. [8] A paraphrase of 3.3.35-41. 9 It would be well to compare this passage with the scene in Sir Walter Scott’s Abbot between Mary of Scotland and the gardener of Blinkhoolie, who has been, in old days, the Abbot of St. Mary’s. The one is as much a piece of genius as the other. [10] See 3 Henry VI, 2.5.55-122.

67.  MORTON LUCE 1

[2] 3 4 5 [6]

[7] [8]

It is important to notice that this soliloquy finds no place in The Second Part of the Contention; and this is true of many others among the similar utterances of the king (e.g. 3 Henry VI, IV​.viii​.37​​-50, That’s not . . . follow him’). [The Second Part of the Contention is Luce’s short-hand title for The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, and the Death of Good King Henry the Sixth, with the Whole Contention between the Two Houses of Lancaster and York (1595), the quarto version of 3 Henry VI.] Both these passages are speeches of the Queen. The groom episode (V.v.67-97) as I regard it, testifies rather to the beginner; it is surely an intrusive, a forced incident, and not a natural ‘set-off.’ It is something akin to the pity of Coriolanus that ended with a ‘By Jove, forgot!’ [Coriolanus, 1.9.90]. That is, while her husband is proved to have been a dispicable villain from the first, and while he spares no pains to prove himself such a villain still – worthy in no slight measure of Mr. Swinburne’s ‘contempt and hatred . . . loathing and abhorrence’ [No. 64 above]. Another reason is his deference to the tradition: ‘Richard, that sweet lovely rose’ (1 Hen. IV, I.iii.175, with which compare Richard II, V.i.8); and Shakespeare could not afford – or so he imagined – to omit so much of dramatic opportunity. Cf. Francis Bacon, Essays (‘Of Love’): ‘and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love and to be wise’; see Works, ed. James Spedding, VI, 398. The saying is proverbial (Tilley, L 558). Brian Vickers points out that the sentence is ‘first found in Publius Syrius and in Plutarch’s “Life” of Agesilaus, but given great currency by Erasmus’ Adagia (Francis Bacon, ed. Vickers [Oxford, 1996], p. 728). From Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarium, II, xiii; see Works, ed. James Spedding, IV, 316. From Nashe, Pierce Penniless; see R.B. McKerrow (ed.), Works of Thomas Nashe (London, 1958), I, 213.

 Notes 575 9 King John, though much less lyrical than Richard II, is more lyrical than Richard III. [10] Luce alludes to a famous passage from Plato’s Republic by giving only a few key words (‘Now when . . . made . . .’). Paul Shorey, the Loeb editor, translates the entire passage as follows: ‘Now when a man abandons himself to music to play upon him and pour into his soul as it were through the funnel of his ears those sweet, soft, and dirge-like airs of which we were just now speaking, and gives his entire time to the warblings and blandishments of song, the first result is that the principle of high spirit, if he had it, is softened like iron and is made useful instead of useless and brittle. But when he continues the practice without remission and is spellbound, the effect begins to be that he melts and liquefies till he completely dissolves away his spirit, cuts out as it were the very sinews of his soul and makes of himself a “feeble warrior”’ (Plato: The Republic [London, 1946], I, 290-1). I have transliterated Luce’s Greek into roman characters. Luce seems to be indebted for this allusion to E.K. Chambers’s mention of ‘Plato’s “musical man”’; see No. 51, note 5, above. 11 do not overlook the famous speech of Gaunt in II.i.31-68; but for its persistent confusion of metaphor (the verve is admirable) it might rank with the above. And let the reader compare those lines (V.i.26-34) with their probable suggestion in Marlowe’s Edward II [2.2.202-4], and he will be aware of a gulf fixed between the genius of the two poets. [12] Two lines seem to have dropped out from one of these melodies, viz., after (III​.ii​.​ 198) ‘I play the torturer by small and small, / To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken’ [3.2.198-9]; perhaps we may supply something like this: ‘Rather with one swift stroke let sorrow fall; / The grief is short for ill news shortly broken.’

68.  GEORGE PIERCE BAKER [1] Libby Prison, a Confederate lock-up in Richmond, Virginia, for Union soldiers captured during the American Civil War, was infamous for its poor sanitation and inhumane conditions; thousands died in confinement there. [2] Baker refers here to the English history plays of the Shakespeare First Folio excluding Henry VIII (because of its anomalous position chronologically and its supposed partauthorship by Fletcher). [3] From James Shirley, The Cardinal, 4.2.222. See the edition by Charles R. Forker (Bloomington, Ind., 1964) and note (pp. 79-80). [4] Baker’s interpolation. [5] R[aphael] Holinshed, Chronicles [1587 edn.], III, 514. [6] From Arthur Wing Pinero, Robert Louis Stevenson: The Dramatist (London, 1903), pp. 6-7. 7 I group these plays together in time because I believe that Henry V, though revised in 1598, was originally written before 1595.

69.  SIR WALTER RALEIGH [1] Raleigh may have been thinking of critics such as Walter Pater (see No. 48 above) and W.B. Yeats (see No. 59 above) who praise Richard’s artistic sensibility.

576

Notes

70.  GEORGE SAINTSBURY [1] Cf. Langland, Richard the Redeless (1399), I, 1; ‘redeless’ means ‘devoid of counsel’. The epithet lepus non leopardus means ‘a hare, not a leopard’; Saintsbury is quoting from John Gower, Tripartite Chronicle (‘Tunc rex Ricardus lepus est, et non leopardus’); see Thomas Wright (ed.), Political Poems and Songs (London, 1859), I, 443. [2] Cf. As You Like It, 3.5.81. [3] Presumably an allusion to George Chapman, who published his continuation of Marlowe’s Hero and Leander in 1598. I have not been able to locate the source of the quoted phrase. Henry Petowe, who also published a continuation of Marlowe’s poem in the same year, praises Marlowe effusively in his poem but not in the words Saintsbury quotes. 4 I have thought it better not to attempt examination of the problem — only recently posed, and with its documents not yet easily accessible to the ordinary reader — of the relation of our play to the piece [i.e. Woodstock] found in the Egerton MS. 1994, printed by Halliwell in a few copies, and by Herr Keller in the Jahrbuch of the German Shakespeare Society for 1899, and excellently handled by Professor Boas [see No. 60 above] in the Fortnightly Review for September, 1902. Without citation and expatiation, for which there is here no room, such examination would be unprofitable and almost unintelligible. Only the latter part of this piece overlaps our play, and the better opinion seems to be that Shakespeare did not so much use it as a canvas for his own work as presupposed knowledge of it on the part of his audience. [5] Saintsbury is confused here. In the only scene where she appears (1.2), the Duchess of Gloucester’s ‘fruitless appeal’ to avenge her husband’s death is to Gaunt, not York. [6] Saintsbury quotes the scholarly heroine of Sir Walter Scott’s novel Rob Roy (1817); in Chapter X she refers to ‘a sad fellow called Will Shakespeare, whose Lancastrian partialities, and a certain knack at embodying them, has turned history upside down, or rather inside out’ (see the Dryburgh edition [London and Edinburgh, 1893], p. 94). In Scott’s novel Diana Vernon is a descendant of Sir Richard Vernon, who appears in I Henry IV as an opponent of the Lancastrian king. [7] From Tennyson, ‘The Poet’s Song’: ‘A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, / And waves of shadow went over the wheat’ (II. 3-4). [8] Cf. Hamlet, 3.4.102. [9] Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria (1817), Chapter XIV, refers to ‘that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.’ [10] ‘What an artist the world is losing!’, words of the dying Nero according to Suetonius (The Lives of the Caesars, VI, xlix). [11] Saintsbury slightly misquotes; ‘evermore’ in line 208 is a mistake for ‘any more’. [12] An allusion to Sir Francis Clavering, Bart., the weak and irresponsible gambler of Thackeray’s novel, Pendennis (1850), who cannot face up to reality. [13] I.e. his passion for theatrics (probably with a play on ‘hysterica passio’ [King Lear, 2.4.57]). [14] See note [6] above. [15] Apparently an allusion to Bolingbroke’s implication, when he sentences the favourites to death, that they have been engaged in a homosexual relationship with Richard and so ‘Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him’ (3.1.12).

 Notes 577 [16] The comic story has long been current of an unsophisticated woman who, on one of her rare visits to the theatre, discovered to her disappointment at a performance of Hamlet that the play was ‘made up of quotations.’

71.  ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE [1] Lamb’s famous phrase; see No. 10 above.

72.  A. C. BRADLEY [1] Cf. Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare: ‘[Shakespeare] sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct that he seems to write without any moral purpose ... he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care and leaves their examples to operate by chance.’ See Arthur Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare (New Haven, 1968), I, 71. [2] ‘Ave Maria! O’er the earth and sea, / That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee!’ (Byron, Don Juan, Canto III, stanza 101). [3] Alluding to Keats’s essay on the actor Edmund Kean in The Champion (21 December 1817): ‘There is an indescribable gusto in his voice, by which we feel that the utterer is thinking of the past and the future, while speaking of the instant. ... In Richard [III], “Be stirring with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk!” comes from him as through the morning atmosphere, towards which he yearns.’ See H. Buxton Forman (ed.), The Poetical Works and Other Writings of John Keats (New York, 1939), V, 230.

73.  G.S. GORDON [1] The play in question is Coriolanus; Gordon quotes from Literary Remains, ed. H.N. Coleridge (London, 1836), II, 135. The sentence in T.M. Raysor, Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Shakespearian Criticism (London, 1960), is somewhat different: ‘His own country’s history had furnished him with no matter but what was too recent, and he [was] devoted to patriotism’ (I, 79). [2] The phrase is Dr Johnson’s; see Arthur Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare (New Haven, 1968), I, 440. [3] Ibid., p. 450.

74.  CHARLOTTE PORTER [1] Porter probably borrows the porcelain-earthenware contrast from W.B. Yeats; see No. 59 above. [2] Porter may borrow the Richard II-Mowbray/Charles I-Strafford analogy from either Cyril Ransome (No. 50 above) or E.K. Chambers (No. 51 above).

578

Notes

[3] See No. 33 above. [4] See No. 24 above. 5 It is well to note that the Daniel Quarto in the Barton Collection is one of the copies of the ‘First Fowre’ books to which a ‘Fift Booke’ is appended from the Poeticall Essayes of 1599. As Grosart points out, these sheets were ‘added to the remainder of the 1595 quarto prior to the publication of the 1599 quarto’ [see A.B. Grosart (ed.), Complete Works in Verse and Prose, (London, 1885), II, 2]. This is shown by the fact that the folios are identical with those of 1599 (A a – E e in fours). This eccentricity may have contributed to Grant White’s confusion of the facts. [For a modern scholar’s discussion of the several confusions that have bedevilled past scholarship on the relationship of Daniel’s poem to Shakespeare’s play, see Laurence Michel (ed.), The Civil Wars (New Haven, 1958), pp. 7-21.]

75.  C.F. TUCKER BROOKE [1] Tucker Brooke refers here to the Folio texts of 1, 2, and 3 Henry VI; until the work of Madeleine Doran and Peter Alexander in 1928-29, it was believed that the quartos of 2 and 3 Henry VI (The First Part of the Contention and The True Tragedy) were crude earlier versions of the dramas in question. See Doran, ‘Henry VI Parts II and III’: Their Relation to the ‘Contention’ and the ‘True Tragedy’ (University of Iowa Studies, 1928); also Alexander, Shakespeare’s ‘Henry VI’ and ‘Richard III’ (Cambridge, 1929). 2 It may be that this distinction should be shared by Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage, in which Thomas Nash had some vague concern. The subject of Dido, however, is far less seriously historic than that of Edward II; and much obscurity exists in regard to the precise date and origin of the former play. 3 See p. 251. [The passage referred to here is excerpted in section [1] above.] 4 See, however, in opposition to this view the admirably expressed argument of W.B. Yeats in Ideas of Good and Evil [London, 1903], 152 ff. [No. 59 above]. 5 See the preface to his edition of the play in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch, vol. xxxv (1899).

77.  HARDIN CRAIG [1] Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England (1587), III, 464.

78.  IVOR B. JOHN [1] See The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, ed. Matthew W. Black, New Variorum Edn. (Philadelphia, 1955), p. 581. [2] Unfortunately John overlooks one of the crucial documents in connection with the examination of Augustine Phillips which, in fact, specifically mentions ‘the play of the deposyng and kyllyng of Kyng Rychard the second’; see Black (ed.), Life and Death of King Richard II, p. 581. J.W. Hales had quoted this document many years earlier; see his ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II’, The Academy, 8 (20 November 1875), 529, and also the Introduction to the present volume, p. 23.

 Notes 579 3

Apparently taken from Froissart. ‘Then King Richard was brought into the hall, apparelled like a king in his robes of estate, his sceptre in his hand and his crown on his head. Then he stood up alone, not holden nor stayed by no man, and said aloud: “I have been king of England, duke of Acquitaine and lord of Ireland about twentytwo years, which seignory, royalty, sceptre, crown and heritage I clearly resign here to my cousin Henry of Lancaster; and I desire him here in this open presence, in entering of the same possession, to take this sceptre.” And so delivered it to the Duke, who took it. Then King Richard took the crown from his head with both his hands and set it before him, and said: “Fair cousin, Henry, duke of Lancaster, I give and deliver you this crown, wherewith I was crowned king of England, and therewith all the right thereto depending.” The Duke of Lancaster took it ... ’ (Froissart’s Chronicles, Berner’s trans., Globe Edition [ed. G.C. Macaulay, London, 1895], p. 469. 4 Since the above was written Prof. Saintsbury in the Cambridge History of English Literature enters a caveat against assuming too absolutely the originality of Shakespeare’s play (vol. iv, p. 184). [John’s documentation here is inaccurate; Saintsbury’s mention of the point about Richard II occurs in vol. V, Part I (1910), 207-8.] 5 As a typical example of what is meant, see Swinburne, Three Plays of Shakespeare, Harper [No. 64 above]. 6 The Collier MS. stage-direction of ‘Vnbutton’ at the line ‘Swell’st thou proud heart I’ll give thee scope to beat’ [3.3.140], is worth noting. [J.P. Collier made manuscript emendations in James Boswell’s edition of Shakespeare (21 vols., 1821), the manuscript here referred to, as well as in the so-called Perkins Folio (1632); the latter are forgeries in a supposed seventeenth-century hand. The annotated Boswell edition is in the Folger Library, Washington, D.C.; the Perkins folio (F2) is in the Huntingdon Library, San Marino, California.] 7 I say ‘forces’ because of the repetition in ‘Here, cousin, seize the crown; Here cousin’ [4.1.181-2]; as if Bolingbroke held off until asked a second time. [8] Cf. ‘In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire / With good old folks and let them tell thee tales ...’ (5.1.40-1). [9] An allusion to Richard’s courage during the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381 when the boy king faced Wat Tyler and the rebels in person. 10 It is also possible that the two lines quoted are an actor’s gag for which Shakespeare was not responsible. The execrable rhyme ‘know-rue’ tends to support this suggestion. 11 Holinshed (ed. Boswell-Stone [London, 1896], p. 96) declares that Bolingbroke was invited to England by the nobles in order to seize the crown. Shakespeare does not go so far. This fact curiously balances the difference between Shakespeare and Holinshed regarding the ‘courtship of the common people’ [1.4.24]. [12] See Friedrich A.T. Kreyssig, Vorlesungen über Shakespeare (Berlin, 1862), I, 158. [13] In his Arden edition of King John (London, 1907), p. xxx, John tabulates the percentage of rhyme in all the English history plays from 1 Henry VI up through Henry V to show that the figure for Richard II is anomalously much higher than for any of the histories either before or after it.

79.  BRANDER MATTHEWS [1] I.e. Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Comedy of Errors, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which Matthews discusses in the preceding chapter.

580

Notes

[2] Quoted from Macready’s Reminiscences and Selections from His Diaries and Letters, ed. Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart. (New York, 1875), p. 50. [3] Contrast this statement with that of Ivor John in No. 78.2 above. [4] A fairly common idea in Voltaire; see for instance ‘Parallèle d’Horace, de Boileau, et de Pope’, where creating a subject comes the first in a list of requirements for writing a successful tragedy (Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire, 52 vols. [Paris, 1877-85], XXIV, 226). [5] I.e. the protagonist of L’Aiglon (1900), Franz, Duke of Reichstadt, in Act III, Scene x.

80.  LACY COLLISON-MORLEY 1 Op[ere] Ined[ite o Rare, ed. Ruggero Bonghi (5 vols., Milan, 1883–98)], III, 176. [The passage quoted here comes not from the Lettre à M. Chauvet, translated below, but from some miscellaneous writings by Manzoni, published posthumously, which the editor of Opere Inedite o Rare collected in volume III under the title Materiali Estetici (pp. 173–6).]

81.  WILHELM CREIZENACH 1 Cf. 1 Henry VI, II. v, and [W.G.] Boswell-Stone, [Shakespeare’s Holinshed (London, 1896)], p. 219. 2 Two exceptions can at most be named: one is in the chorus of Henry V, V.25, in which the mayor and aldermen greeting the king are compared to the Roman Senate; another occurs in Henry VIII, V. v, in which the king thanks the mayor and aldermen for their presence at the baptism of Elizabeth. The mayor who silences the quarrelling uncles of the king in 1 Henry VI, I. iii, is, in his concluding words, made to appear ridiculous. 3 In the fifth act of this play (sc. vi.7-10) there occur four rhymed lines which may perhaps be described as the feeblest product of Shakespeare’s pen: The next news is, I have to London sent The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt and Kent. The manner of their taking may appear At large discovered in this paper here. 4 Variorum [The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare, ed. James Boswell, 21 vols. (London, 1821)], i, 75. [See also Arthur Sherbo (ed.), Johnson on Shakespeare (New Haven, 1968), I, 74.] 5 Cf. the 27th Lecture [actually the 23rd], in which allusion is also made to Sophocles’ play upon words (Ajax, 430); [see A.W. von Schlegel, A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (1808), trans. J. Black, rev. edn. (London, 1846), p. 367.] [6] Literally the Latin means ‘it needs slowing down’, but Creizenach is referring generally to Shakespeare’s early tendency to rhetorical cleverness and display; the quotation comes from Seneca who in his Controversiae ascribes to Augustus a comment about the orator Haterius, whose delivery was too rapid: ‘Haterius noster sufflaminandus est’ (Controversiae, IV, Preface 7). A source closer to home might be Ben Jonson’s tribute

 Notes 581 to Shakespeare in Timber: ‘hee flow’d with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stop’d: Sufflaminandus erat; as Augustus said of Haterius’ (Vickers (ed.), Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition, I, 26; Ben Jonson, ed. Herford and Simpson, VIII, 584, XI, 231). 7 Cf., for example, III​.iii​.1​78; IV.i.194, 317; cf. also the gardener’s remarks, III​.iv​.1​04.

82.  J.A.R. MARRIOTT [1] Filmer was the author of Patriarcha; or, the Natural Power of Kings (1680), a defence of the divine right of kings on the basis of the patriarchal theory of the origin of government. [2] See No. 70, note [1], above. [3] Apparently a reference to Thomas Hobbes, who in Chapter 12 of Leviathan (‘Of Religion’) speaks of ‘Powers invisible and supernaturall’; see Hobbes’s Leviathan ... With an Essay by ... W.G. Pogson Smith (Oxford, 1909), p. 90. 4 [William Stubbs, The] Constitutional History [of England in Its Origin and Development (Oxford, 1875)], II, 499-500. [5] Is Marriott quoting himself here? At an earlier point he has referred to ‘the exquisite idyll of the gardeners’ (p. 67) without using quotation marks, and I have discovered no alternative source for the phrase. But both instances may originate in some commentator whose words Marriott remembers inaccurately. Swinburne, whom Marriott goes on to quote, refers to the garden scene as ‘a very pretty eclogue’ (see No. 64 above). 6 The Glory of the Garden, [11. 17-20; see Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition (New York, 1940), p. 736]. 7 Swinburne [No. 39 above] is particularly severe in his comments on this scene. He would fain ascribe this ‘misconceived and mis-shapen scene’ to another bard. He declares it to be ‘below the weakest, the rudest, the nastiest [an error for ‘hastiest’] scene attributable to Marlowe’; to ‘be false, wrong, artificial, beyond the worst of his bad and boyish work’; but he too admits that it is Shakespeare’s, and must be regarded as ‘the last hysterical struggle of rhyme to maintain its place in tragedy’ (Op. cit. [i.e. A Study of Shakespeare, 1880], pp. 40-1). The scene is not a strong one, but the criticism seems to me to be exaggerated. 8 Op. cit. [i.e., A Study of Shakespeare], p. 42 [see No. 39 above]. [9] See section 3 above and the accompanying headnote. 10 The Government of England [New York, 1910], by A[bbott] L[awrence] Lowell, vol. I, ch. viii. [11] Marriott refers here to Friedrich A.T. Kreyssig’s characterization of Shakespeare’s Richard II as a dilettante in Vorlesungen über Shakespeare (Berlin, 1862), I, 171. [12] At an earlier point Marriott has emphasized Richard’s treason by calling attention to the fourth act of the anonymous Woodstock in which the king leases out crown lands to his favourites, Green, Bushy, Bagot, and Scroop, for a large sum of money.

A select bibliography (Page numbers are included for those works which treat Richard II specifically.)

(A) Histories of literary criticism and background studies Babcock, Robert Witbeck (1931) The Genesis of Shakespeare Idolatry, Chapel Hill, N.C. Bate, Jonathan (1986) Shakespeare and the English Romantic Imagination, Oxford; revised Oxford, 1989. Bate, Jonathan (ed.) (1992) The Romantics on Shakespeare, London. Bentley, Gerald Eades (1941–68) The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 7 vols, Oxford. Boswell-Stone, W.G. (1896) Shakespeare’s Holinshed: The Chronicle and the Historical Plays Compared, London, pp. 77–130. Bullough, Geoffrey (1957–75) ‘Richard II’, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, 8 vols, London, III, pp. 351–491. Burden, Dennis H. (1985) ‘Shakespeare’s History Plays: 1952–1983’, Shakespeare Survey, 38: 1–18. Chambers, E.K. (1930) William Shakespeare, 2 vols, Oxford, I, pp. 348–56. Courtenay, Thomas (1840) Commentaries on the Historical Plays of Shakespeare, 2 vols, London, I, pp. 34–74. Craig, Hardin (1936) The Enchanted Glass: The Elizabethan Mind in Literature, New York. Dibdin, Charles (1800) A Complete History of the English Stage, 5 vols, London, III, pp. 68–9. Dobson, Michael (1992) The Making of the National Poet, Oxford. Douce, Francis (1807) Illustrations of Shakespeare, and of Ancient Manners, 2 vols, London. Dutton, Richard (1990) ‘The Second Tetralogy’. In Stanley Wells (ed.) Shakespeare: A Bibliographical Guide, Oxford, pp. 337–80. Hall, Edward (1552) The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrious Families of York and Lancaster, London. Hart, Alfred (1934) Shakespeare and the Homilies, Melbourne. Hay, John (1890) ‘Life in the White House in the Time of Lincoln’. Century Magazine, 41 (November): 33–7. Comments on Lincoln’s love of Richard II. Holinshed, Raphael (1587) The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 2nd edn., 3 vols. in 2, London, III. Hume, David (1754–62) The History of England, 6 vols, London. Ingleby, C.M. et al. (eds.) (1909) The Shakespeare Allusion-Book: A Collection of Allusions to Shakespeare From 1591 to 1700, 2 vols, London. Jenkins, Harold (1953) ‘Shakespeare’s History Plays: 1900–1951’, Shakespeare Survey, 6: 1–15. Kantorowicz, Ernst H. (1957) The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology, Princeton, pp. 24–41.



A Select Bibliography

583

Kawachi, Yoshiko (1986) Calendar of English Renaissance Drama 1558–1642, New York. Lamb, Charles (ed.) (1808) Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, London. Langbaine, Gerard (1691) An Account of the English Dramatic Poets, Oxford. Lovejoy, Arthur O. (1936) The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea, Cambridge, Mass. Malone, Edmond (1821) ‘An Historical Account of the English Stage’. In James Boswell (ed.) Plays and Poems of Shakespeare, 21 vols, London, III. Nichols, John (ed.) (1817) Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, London. Nichols, John (1823) The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, 7 vols, London, III, p. 552. Nicoll, Allardyce (1952–59) A History of English Drama, 6 vols, Cambridge. Patterson, Annabel (1994) Reading Holinshed’s Chronicles, Chicago. Ralli, Augustus (ed.) (1932) A History of Shakespearean Criticism, 2 vols, London. Roberts, Josephine A. (comp.) (1988) ‘Richard II’: An Annotated Bibliography, 2 vols, New York. Schoenbaum, S. (1970) Shakespeare’s Lives, Oxford. Sherbo, Arthur (1986) The Birth of Shakespeare Studies, East Lansing, Mich. Skottowe, Augustine (1824) The Life of Shakespeare; Enquiries into the Originality of His Dramatic Plots and Characters, 2 vols, London. Spencer, Theodore (1942) Shakespeare and the Nature of Man, New York. Stavisky, Aron Y. (1969) Shakespeare and the Victorians, Norman, Ok. Tillyard, E.M.W. (1943) The Elizabethan World Picture, London. Trussell, John (1636) A Continuation of the Collection of the History of England, beginning where Samuel Daniell Esquire ended, London. Vickers, Brian (ed.) (1974–81) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, 1623–1801, 6 vols, London. Vickers, Brian (1993) Appropriating Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Quarrels, New Haven.

(B) Editions and playtexts Abel, W.J. (ed.) (1899) King Richard II, London. Ahn. F.H. (ed.) (1870) The Tragedy of King Richard II, Treves. Ainger, Alfred, (ed.) (1899–1900) The Life and Works of Charles Lamb, London, VI, 221. Contains Lamb’s epilogue (1824) to Richard II. Anon (ed.) (c. 1881) Shakespeare’s Tragedy of King Richard II, London. Barry, W. (ed.) (1894) Richard the Second, Boston. Bell, John (ed.) (1773–74) Bell’s Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays . . ., 9 vols, London, VII. Contains notes by Francis Gentleman. Black, Matthew W. (ed.) (1955) The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, New Variorum Edition, Philadelphia. Bodenham, John (1600) Belvedere, or the Garden of the Muses, London. Boswell, James (ed.) (1821) Plays and Poems of Shakespeare, 21 vols, London. Briggs, William Dinsmore (ed.) (1914) Marlowe, Edward II, London. Campbell, Lily B. (ed.) (1938) The Mirror for Magistrates, Edited from Original Texts in the Huntington Library, Cambridge.

584

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Campbell, Thomas (1838) The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare, London; 2nd edn, London, 1843. Capell, Edward (ed.) (1768) Mr. William Shakespeare his Comedies, Histories and Tragedies . . ., 10 vols, London. Chambers, E.K. (ed.) (1891) The Tragedy of King Richard the Second, London. Clark, W.G. and W.A. Wright (eds.) (1869) The Tragedy of King, Richard II, Oxford. Coleridge, Henry Nelson (ed.) (1836–39) The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 4 vols, London, II, pp. 164–79. Collier, John Payne (ed.) (1842–44) The Works of William Shakespeare, 8 vols, London, V, pp. 105–9. Collier, John Payne (ed.) (1844) Shakespeare’s Library, 2 vols, London. An addendum to Collier’s edition of Shakespeare’s Works, 8 vols, London, 1842–44. Cotgrave, John (1655) The English Treasury of Wit and Language, London. Craig, Hardin (ed.) (1912) The Tragedy of Richard the Second, New York. Crawford, Charles (ed.) (1913) England’s Parnassus, 1600, Oxford. Crook, C.W. (ed.) (1903) The Tragedy of King Richard II, London. Crossley, James (ed.) (1875) Belvedere, or the Garden of the Muses, London. D[aniel], G[eorge] (ed.) (c. 1831) King Richard II, A Tragedy, In Five Acts, by William Shakespeare, London; in Volume 29 of Cumberland’s British Theatre, London, 1823–31. Daniel, P.A. (ed.) (1890) King Richard the Second by William Shakespeare. The First Quarto, 1597. A Facsimile . . ., London. Darton, FJ. Harvey (ed.) (c. 1914) King Richard II, London. Deighton, K. (ed.) (1890) The Tragedy of King Richard II, London. Dennis, John (ed.) (1900) King Richard II, London. Donovan, Thomas (ed.) (1896) English Historical Plays by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Peele, Heywood, Fletcher, and Ford, 2 vols, London, I, pp. 231–98. Ellis, Havelock (ed.) (1887) Christopher Marlowe, London. Evans, G. Blakemore (ed.) (1974) The Riverside Shakespeare, Boston. Foakes, R.A. (ed.) (1987) The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Lectures 1808– 1819 On Literature, 2 vols, London and Princeton, I, pp. 377–91, 559–68; II, 283–87, 454–55, 529–37. Forker, Charles R. (ed.) (1994) Marlowe, Edward the Second, Manchester. Frayne, John P. and Colton Johnson (eds.) (1970–75) Uncollected Prose by W.B. Yeats, 2 vols, London, II, pp. 247–52. Contains Part I of Yeats’s ‘At Stratford-on-Avon’. Furnivall, F.J. (ed.) (1877) The Leopold Shakespeare, London. Gollancz, Israel (ed.) (1895) Shakespeare’s Tragedy of King Richard II, London. Goodhall, James (1772) King Richard II, A Tragedy Alter’d from Shakespeare, and the Stile Imitated, Manchester. Gordon, G.S. (ed.) (1909) Shakespeare’s ‘Richard II’, ‘Julius Caesar’, and ‘Macbeth’, Oxford. Grosart, A.B. (ed.) (1878) The Poems of George Daniel, 4 vols, Boston, Lincs. Gurr, Andrew (ed.) (1984) Richard II, Cambridge. Herford, C.H. (ed.) ([1893]) The Tragedy of King Richard II, London. Hudson, Henry N. (ed.) (1851–59) The Works of Shakespeare, 11 vols, Boston; revised edn, New York, 1881–87, V, pp. 5–19. Hudson, Henry N. (ed.) (c. 1910) King Richard II, London. Irving, Henry, Marshall, Frank A. et al (eds) (1888–90) The Works of William Shakespeare, 8 vols, London, II, pp. 389–400. Contains Marshall’s ‘Introduction’ to Richard II. John, Ivor B. (1912) The Tragedy of King Richard II, London; revised London, 1925.



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Johnson, Charles (1723) Love in a Forest, a Comedy, As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal . . ., London. An adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, which borrows from Richard II. Johnson, R. Brimley (ed.) (1898) The Tragedy of King Richard the Second, Edinburgh and London. Johnson, Samuel (1765) The Plays of William Shakespeare, 6 vols, London. Johnson, Samuel and Steevens, George (eds.) (1773) The Plays of William Shakespeare, 10 vols, London. Johnson, Samuel and Steevens, George (eds.) (1778) The Plays of William Shakespeare, 10 vols, London. Contains Malone’s chronology of Shakespeare’s works. Jones, Leonidas M. (1966) Selected Prose of John Hamilton Reynolds, Cambridge, Mass. Contains Reynolds’s review of Richard Duke of York; see also Reynolds (under CRITICISM). Kean, Charles (ed.) (1857) Shakespeare’s Play of King Richard II; Arranged for Representation at the Princess’s Theatre, with Historical and Explanatory Notes, London. Knight, Charles (ed.) (1838–43) The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakespeare, 8 vols, London, III; revised edn., 8 vols, London, n.d., I. Lee, Sidney (gen. ed.) (1907) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare With Annotations and a General Introduction by Sidney Lee, 20 vols, Vol. XI, Boston and New York; Renaissance edn., 40 vols, Vol. XXI, London. An edition of Richard II with George Saintsbury’s ‘Introduction’. Lloyd, William Watkis (1856) The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare, 2nd edn., 10 vols, London, IV, pp. 522–31. Lobban, J.H. (ed.) (1918) King Richard II, Cambridge. MacCracken, Henry Noble (ed.) (1914) Shakespeare’s Principal Plays, New York. Malone, Edmond (1790) The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare, 11 vols, London. Meiklejohn, J.M.D. (ed.) (1880) Shakespeare’s Richard II, London. Michel, Laurence (ed.) (1956) The Civil Wars by Samuel Daniel, New Haven. Moffatt, James Hugh (ed.) (1908) Shakespeare’s Tragedy of King Richard II, New York. Morris, David (ed.) (1873) Shakespeare’s Tragedy of King Richard II, London. Muir, Kenneth and Wilson, P.P. (eds.) (1957) The Life and Death of Jack Straw, 1594, Malone Society Reprints, Oxford. Neilson, William Allan (ed.) (1906) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Boston. Phillips, E.A. (ed.) (c. 1904) Shakespeare’s Richard II, London. Pollock, Sir Frederick, Bart. (ed.) (1875) Macready’s Reminiscences and Selections from His Diaries and Letters, New York. Pope, Alexander (ed.) (1723–25) The Works of Mr William Shakespeare, Collated and Corrected, 6 vols, London. Porter, Charlotte (ed.) (1910) The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, New York. Ritson, Joseph (1793) The Plays of William Shakespeare, 15 vols, London. Contains notes by George Steevens and Samuel Johnson. Robinson, H.G. (ed.) (1867) King Richard the Second, Edinburgh. Rolfe, William J. (ed.) (1876) Shakespeare’s Tragedy of King Richard the Second, New York. Rossiter, A.P. (ed.) (1946) Anon., Woodstock: A Moral History, London. Rowe, Nicholas (ed.) (1709) The Works of Mr. William Shakespeare, 6 vols, London; the spurious ‘seventh’ volume of this edition (1710) contains Charles Gildon‘s Remarks on the Plays of Shakespeare, which include his observations on Richard II (pp. 341–2). Sherbo, Arthur (ed.) (1968) Johnson on Shakespeare, 2 vols, New Haven, I, pp. 429–52. Smith, William (trans.) (1739) Dionysius Longinus, ‘On the Sublime’: Translated from the Greek, with Notes and Observations, London; revised, London, 1743.

586

A Select Bibliography

Tate, Nahum (1691) The History of King Richard the Second Acted at the Theatre Royal Under the Name of the Sicilian Usurper, London. Theobald, Lewis (1720) The Tragedy of King Richard the II; As it is Acted at the Theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, London. Theobald, Lewis (ed.) (1733) The Works of Shakespeare, 7 vols, London. Ure, Peter (ed.) (1956) Richard II, London; revised, London, 1966. Verity, A.W. (ed.) (1896) Marlowe, Edward the Second, London. Verity, A.W. (ed.) (1899) King Richard II, Cambridge. Verplanck, Gulian C. (1847) Shakespeare’s Plays: With His Life. Illustrated with Many Hundred Woodcuts, 3 vols, New York, I, pp. 5–7. Waites, Alfred (ed.) (1892) The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, New York. Warburton, William (ed.) (1747) The Works of Shakespeare, 8 vols, London. Watt, A.F. (ed.) (c. 1907) Shakespeare: King Richard the Second, London. White, Richard Grant (ed.) (1857–66) The Works of William Shakespeare, 12 vols, Boston, VI, pp. 138–45. Wilson, John Dover (ed.) (1939) King Richard II, Cambridge. Wilson, Richard (ed.) (1920) Shakespeare’s Richard II, London. Winter, William (ed.) (1878) The Prompt Book . . . Shakespeare’s Tragedy of King Richard II as Presented by Edwin Booth, New York. Wordsworth, Charles (ed.) (1883) Shakespeare’s Historical Plays, Roman and English, 3 vols, London, II, pp. 1–110. Wroughton, Richard (1815) Shakespeare’s King Richard the Second; An Historical Play Adapted to the Stage, with Alterations and Additions, London.

(C) Criticism and other secondary works Albright, Evelyn M. (1927) ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II and the Essex Conspiracy’. PMLA, 42: 686–720. Albright, Evelyn M. (1931) ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, Hayward’s History of Henry IV, and the Essex Conspiracy’. PMLA, 46: 694–719. Altick, Richard D. (1947) ‘Symphonic Imagery in Richard II’. PMLA, 62: 339–65. Anon (1879) Unsigned review of Edwin Booth’s Richard II. New York Daily Tribune (30 November), p. 5. Anon (1882) ‘King Richard the Second’. All the Year Round, 30 (18 November): 389–95. A stage history of Richard II. Anon (1900) Unsigned review of F.R. Benson’s Richard II at the Lyceum Theatre. London Times (16 March), p. 6. Anon (1937) Notice of Maurice Evans’s Richard II (1937). New York Times (31 January), XI.3. Archer, William (1885) ‘The Stage of Greater Britain’. National Review, 6, no. 33 (November): 408–9; reprinted in Archer, W. (1886) About the Theatre: Essays and Studies, London, pp. 273–5. Baker, George Pierce (1907) The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist, New York. Bamber, Linda (1982) Comic Women, Tragic Men: A Study of Gender and Genre in Shakespeare, Stanford, Cal., pp. 135–67. Barker, Kathleen M.D. (1972) ‘Macready’s Early Productions of King Richard II’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 23: 95–100.



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Barroll, Leeds (1988) ‘A New History for Shakespeare and His Time’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 39: 441–64. Barton, Ann [Righter] (1962) ‘The Player King’. In Righter, Anne Shakespeare and the Idea of the Play, New York, pp. 122–7. Barton, Ann [Righter] (1971) ‘Shakespeare and the Limits of Language’. Shakespeare Survey, 24: 19–30. Battersby, H.F. Prevost (1903) ‘King Richard the Secondary’. The Saturday Review, 96 (19 September): 358–9. On Beerbohm Tree’s Richard II. Baxter, John (1980) Shakespeare’s Poetic Styles: Verse into Drama, London. [Becket, Andrew] (1787) A Concordance to Shakespeare: Suited to all the Editions, London. Belsey, Catherine (1991) ‘Making Histories Then and Now: Shakespeare from Richard II to Henry V’. In Barker, Francis, Hulme, Peter and Iversen, Margaret (eds) Uses of History: Marxism, Postmodernism and the Renaissance, Manchester, pp. 24–46. Bentley, Gerald Eades (1943) ‘John Cotgrave’s English Treasury of Wit and Language and the Elizabethan Drama’. Studies in Philology, 40: 186–203. Berger, Harry, Jr. (1985) ‘Psychoanalyzing the Shakespeare Text: The First Three Scenes of the Henriad’. In Parker, Patricia and Hartman, Geoffrey (eds) Shakespeare and the Question of Theory, New York, pp. 210–29. Berger, Harry, Jr. (1989) Imaginary Audition: Shakespeare on Stage and Page, Berkeley, Cal. Bergeron, David M. (1975) ‘The Deposition Scene in Richard II’. In Donovan, Dennis G. and DeNeef, A. Leigh (eds) Renaissance Papers 1974, Durham, N.C., pp. 31–7. Bevington, David (1968) Tudor Drama and Politics: A Critical Approach to Topical Meaning, Cambridge, Mass. Black, James (1985) ‘The Interlude of the Beggar and the King in Richard II’. In Bergeron, David M. Pageantry in the Shakespearean Theater, Athens, Ga., pp. 104–13. Blanpied, John W. (1983) ‘Sacrificial Energy in Richard II’. In Blanpied, John W. Time and the Artist in Shakespeare’s English Histories, Newark, Del., pp. 120–41. Bloom, Harold (1988) ‘Introduction’. In Bloom, Harold (ed.) Modern Critical Interpretations: William Shakespeare’s ‘Richard II’, New York, pp. 1–5. Boas, Frederick S. (1896) Shakespeare and His Predecessors, London. Boas, Frederick S. (1902) ‘A Pre-Shakespearean Richard II’. Fortnightly Review, 78 (September): 391–404. Revised as ‘Thomas of Woodstock: A Non-Shakespearean Richard II’, in Boas, Frederick S. (1903) Shakespeare & the Universities and Other Studies in Elizabethan Drama, New York, pp. 143–66. Bonnard, Georges A. (1852) The Actor in Richard II’. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, 87–88: 87–101. Booth, Stephen (1977) ‘Syntax as Rhetoric in Richard II’. Mosaic, 10: 87–103. Boris, Edna Zwick (1978) Shakespeare’s English Kings, the People, and the Law: A Study in the Relationship Between the Tudor Constitution and the English History Plays, Rutherford, NJ. Bradley, A.C. (1904) Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, London; revised London, 1905. Bradley, A.C. (1909) Oxford Lectures on Poetry, London. Brandes, Georg (1904) William Shakespeare: A Critical Study [trans. William Archer and Diana White], 2 vols, London, I, pp. 142–9. Brockbank, Philip (1983) ‘Richard II and the Music of Men’s Lives’. Leeds Studies in English, 14: 57–73. Brooke, C.F. Tucker (1911) The Tudor Drama: A History of English National Drama to the Retirement of Shakespeare, Boston.

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Brooke, Nicholas (1968) ‘Richard II’. In Brooke, Nicholas Shakespeare’s Early Tragedies, London, pp.107–37. Brooke, Stopford A. (1905) On Ten Plays of Shakespeare, London. Brown, A.D.J. (1992) ‘The Little Fellow Has Done Wonders: Pope as Shakespeare Editor’. Cambridge Quarterly, 21: 120–49. Brown, John Russell (1966) ‘Narrative and Focus: Richard II’. In Brown, John Russell Shakespeare’s Plays in Performance, London, pp. 117–30. Brownlow, Frank W. (1977) ‘The Tragedy of Richard II’. In Brownlow, Frank W. Two Shakespearean Sequences: ‘Henry VI’ to ‘Richard II’ and ‘Pericles’ to ‘Timon of Athens’, Pittsburgh, pp. 95–111. Bryan, George B. (1973) ‘Edwin Booth’s Richard II (1875)’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 24: 383–9. Bulloch, John (1878) Studies on the Text of Shakespeare: With Numerous Emendations and Appendices, London. Calderwood, James L. (1971) ‘Richard II: The Fall of Speech’. In Calderwood, James L. Shakespearean Metadrama: The Argument of the Play in ‘Titus Andronicus’, ‘Love Labour’s Lost’, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, and ‘Richard II’, Minneapolis, pp. 149–86. Calderwood, James L. (1979) ‘“Richard II” to “Henry V”: Variations on the Fall’ in Calderwood, James L. Metadrama in Shakespeare’s Henriad: Richard II to Henry V, Berkeley, Cal., pp. 10–29. Campbell, Lily B. (1947) Shakespeare’s ‘Histories’: Minors of Elizabethan Policy, San Marino, Cal. Canning, A.S.G. (1884) Thoughts on Shakespeare’s Historical Plays, London; reprinted as Shakespeare Studied in Six Plays, London, 1907. Capell, Edward (1779–83) Notes and Various Reaadings to Shakespeare, 3 vols, London. Cauthen, Irby B., Jr. (1955) ‘Richard II and the Image of the Betrayed Christ’. Renaissance Papers 1954, Durham, N.C., pp. 45–8. Chalmers, George (1799) A Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the ShakespearePapers, London. Clarke, Asia Booth (1882) The Elder and Younger Booth, London. Coleridge, Hartley (1851) Essays and Marginalia, 2 vols, London, II, 153–4. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor see Foakes (under EDITIONS). Collison-Morley, Lacy (1916) Shakespeare in Italy, Stratford-upon-Avon. Discusses Manzoni’s defence of Richard II against the Neoclassicists. Cran, Marion Dudley (1907) Herbert Beerbohm Tree, London. Crawford, Charles (1910–11) ‘Belvedere, or the Garden of the Muses’. Englische Studien, 43: 198–228. Creizenach, Wilhelm (1916) The English Drama in the Age of Shakespeare, [trans. Cécile Hugon], London. Daniel, P.A. (1877–79) ‘Time-Analysis of the Plots of Shakespeare’s Plays: Part III. The Histories’. Transactions of the New Shakespeare Society, Part II, pp. 264–70. Davies, Thomas (1783–84) Dramatic Miscellanies, 3 vols, London, I, pp. 169–70. Dean, Leonard P. (1967) ‘Richard II to Henry V: A Closer View’. In Harrison, Thomas P. et al (eds) Studies in Honor of De Witt T. Starnes, Austin, Tex., pp. 37–52. Dorius, RJ. (1960) ‘A Little More than a Little’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 11: 13–26. Dowden, Edward (1875) Shakespeare: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art, London; revised London, c. 1879. Drake, Nathan (1817) Shakespeare and His Times, 2 vols, London.



A Select Bibliography

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Dusinberre, Juliet (1975) Shakespeare and the Nature of Women, New York. Eaton, Thomas Ray (1858) Shakespeare and the Bible, London, pp. 75–90. Edwards, Philip (1970) ‘Person and Office in Shakespeare’s Plays’. Proceedings of the British Academy, 56: 93–109. Edwards, Thomas (1750) The Canons of Criticism, and Glossary, being a Supplement to Mr. Warburton’s Edition of Shakespeare, 2nd edn, London. Elliott, John R., Jr., (1966) ‘Richard II and the Medieval’. Renaissance Papers 1965, pp. 25–34. Elliott, John R., Jr. (1968) ‘History and Tragedy in Richard II’. Studies in English Literature, 8: 253–71. Fischer, Sandra K. (1989) ‘“He Means to Pay”: Value and Metaphor in the Lancastrian Tetralogy’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 40: 149–64. Fleay, F.G. (1881) ‘On the Actors’ Lists, 1578–1642’. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 9: 51–2. Folland, Harold F. (1973) ‘King Richard’s Pallid Victory’. Shakespeare Survey, 24: 390–9. Forker, Charles R. (1965) ‘Robert Baron’s Use of Webster, Shakespeare, and other Elizabethans’. Anglia, 83: 176–98. Forker, Charles R. (1965) ‘Shakespeare’s Chronicle Plays as Historical-Pastoral’, Shakespeare Studies, 1: 85–104; revised in Forker, Charles R. (1990) Fancy’s Images: Contexts, Settings, and Perspectives in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, Carbondale, III., pp. 79–95, 178–81. Forker, Charles R. (1965) ‘Shakespeare’s Histories and Heywood’s If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody’. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 66: 166–78. French, A.L. (1967) ‘Who Deposed Richard the Second?’. Essays in Criticism, 17: 411–33. Friedman, Donald M. (1976) ‘John of Gaunt and the Rhetoric of Frustration’. ELH, 43: 279–99. Frye, Northrop (1986) ‘The Bolingbroke Plays (Richard II, Henry IV)’. In Sandler, Robert (ed.) Northrop Frye on Shakespeare, New Haven, pp. 51–81. Frye, Roland M. (1963) Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine, Princeton. Gentleman, Francis see Bell (under EDITIONS). Gervinus, G.G. (1877) Shakespeare Commentaries, trans. F.E. Bunnètt, London, pp. 279–97. Gielgud, John (1963) ‘King Richard the Second’. In Gielgud, John Stage Directions, London, pp. 28–35. Gildon, Charles (1694) Miscellaneous Letters and Essays on Several Subjects in Prose and Verse, London. This contains ‘Some Reflections on Mr. Rymer’s Short View of Tragedy and an Attempt at a Vindication of Shakespeare’. Gildon, Charles (1710) Remarks on the Plays of Shakespeare, London. See Rowe (under EDITIONS). Gildon, Charles. (1721) The Laws of Poetry Explain’d and Illustrated, London, pp. 156–9. Gilman, Ernest B. (1976) ‘Richard II and the Perspectives of History’. Renaissance Drama, 7:85–115. Goddard, Harold C. (1951) ‘Richard II’ in Goddard, Harold C. The Meaning of Shakespeare, Chicago, pp. 148–60. Grein, J.T. (1903) ‘His Majesty’s Theatre: King Richard II’. The Sunday Special (10 September); reprinted in Grein, J.T. (1905) Dramatic Criticism, 1903–1904, London, pp. 106–11. On Beerbohm Tree’s Richard II. Guizot, François P.G. (1852) Shakespeare and His Times, London.

590

A Select Bibliography

Hales, John Wesley (1875) ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II’. The Academy, 8 (20 November): 529; reprinted in Hales, John Wesley Notes and Essays on Shakespeare, London, 1884, pp. 205–8. Hallam, Henry (1880) Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, 4 vols. in 2, New York, III, pp. 303–4. Halstead, William L. (1964) ‘Artifice and Artistry in Richard II and Othello’. In Lawrence, Natalie Grimes and Reynolds, J. A. Sweet Smoke of Rhetoric: A Collection of Renaissance Essays, Coral Gables, Fl., pp. 19–51. Hapgood, Robert (1963) ‘Shakespeare’s Delayed Reactions’. Essays in Criticism, 13: 9–16. Hapgood, Robert (1963) Three Eras in Richard II’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 14: 281–3. Hapgood, Robert (1965) ‘Falstaffs Vocation’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 16: 91–8. Harris, Kathryn Montgomery (1970) ‘Sun and Water Imagery in Richard II: Its Dramatic Function’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 21: 157–65. Hartwig, Joan (1983) ‘Parody in Richard II’. In Hartwig, Joan Shakespeare’s Analogical Scene: Parody as Structural Syntax, Lincoln, Neb., pp. 113–34. Hazlitt, William (1815) ‘Mr. Kean’s Richard II’. The Examiner (19 March); reprinted in Hazlitt, William (1818) A View of the English Stage; or a Series of Dramatic Criticisms, London, pp. 96–102. Hazlitt, William (1817) Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays, London. Heffner, Ray (1930) ‘Shakespeare, Hayward, and Essex’. PMLA, 45: 754–80. Heflher, Ray (1932) ‘Shakespeare, Hayward, and Essex Again’. PMLA, 47: 898–9. Heilman, Robert B. (1968) Tragedy and Melodrama: Versions of Experience, Seattle, Wash. Heninger, S.K., Jr., (1960) ‘The Sun-King Analogy in Richard II’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 11:319–27. Heraud, J.A. (1865) Shakespeare: His Inner Life as Intimated in His Works, London, pp. 118–26. Hexter, J.H. (1980) ‘Property, Monopoly, and Shakespeare’s Richard II’. In Zagorin, Perez (ed.) Culture and Politics from Puritanism to the Enlightenment, Berkeley, Cal., pp. 1–24. Hill, R.F. (1961) ‘Dramatic Techniques and Interpretation in Richard II’. In Brown, John Russell and Harris, Bernard (eds) Early Shakespeare, London, pp. 100–21. Hobson, Harold (1948) Theatre, London, pp. 140. Comments on the recent popularity of Richard II in the theatre. Holderness, Graham (1985) Shakespeare’s History, New York. Holderness, Graham (1991) ‘“A Woman’s War”: A Feminist Reading of Richard II’. In Kamps, Ivo (ed.) Shakespeare Left and Right, London, pp. 167–83. Holland, Norman (1966) Psychoanalysis in Shakespeare, New York, pp. 259–60. Home , Henry, Lord Kames (1785) Elements of Criticism (1762), 6th edn., 2 vols, Edinburgh, I, pp. 160–3. Hudson, Henry N. (1872) Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters, 2 vols, Boston, II, pp. 34–62. Humphreys, Arthur R. (1965) ‘Shakespeare’s Political Justice in Richard II and Henry IV’. Stratford Papers on Shakespeare 1964, ed. Jackson, Berners W. Toronto, pp. 30–50. Jameson, Anna Brownell (1832) Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, and Historical, 2 vols, London, II, p. 238. Jump, John (1975) ‘Shakespeare and History: The T.H. Searls Memorial Lecture, University of Hull, 1974’. Critical Quarterly, 17: 233–44. Kahn, Coppélia (1981) ‘The Shadow of the Male’: Masculine Identity in the History Plays’. In Kahn, Coppélia Man’s Estate: Masculine Identity in Shakespeare, Berkeley, Cal., pp. 47–81.



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Kames, Lord see Home (under CRITICISM). Kelly, H.A. (1970) Divine Providence in the England of Shakespeare’s Histories, Cambridge, Mass. Kenrick, William (1765) A Review of Doctor Johnson’s New Edition of Shakespeare, London. Kernan, Alvin (1969) ‘The Henriad: Shakespeare’s Major History Plays’. Yale Review, 49: 3–32; reprinted as ‘From Ritual to History: The English History Play’ in Leeds Barroll, J., Leggatt, Alexander, Hosley, Richard and Kernan, Alvin (1975) The Revels History of Drama in English: Volume III 1576–1613, London, pp. 262–99. Knight, G. Wilson. (1944) The Olive and the Sword: A Study of England’s Shakespeare, London; revised as ‘This Sceptred Isle: A Study of Shakespeare’s Kings’ in Knight, G. Wilson (1958) The Sovereign Flower: On Shakespeare as the Poet of Royalism, London, pp. 13–91. Kott, Jan (1964) Shakespeare Our Contemporary, trans. Boleslaw Taborski, London. Kreyssig, Friedrick. A.T. (1862) Vorlesungen über Shakespeare, 3 vols, Berlin. Lanham, Richard A. (1976) ‘The Dramatic Present: Shakespeare’s Henriad’. In Lanham, Richard A. The Motives of Eloquence: Literary Rhetoric in the Renaissance, New Haven, pp. 190–209. Law, Robert A. (1953) ‘Links between Shakespeare’s History Plays’. Studies in Philology, 50: 168–87. Lee, Sidney (1900) ‘Mr. Benson and Shakespearean Drama’. The Cornhill Magazine, N.S. VIII (May): 579–85; revised in Lee, Sidney (1906) Shakespeare and the Modern Stage With Other Essays, London, pp. 111–21. Lennox, Charlotte (1753–54) Shakespeare Illustrated: or the Novels and Histories, On Which the Plays of Shakespeare are Founded, Collected and Translated from the Original Authors, with Critical Remarks, 3 vols, London III, pp. 114–15. Liebler, Naomi Conn (1992) ‘The Mockery King of Snow: Richard II and the Sacrifice of Ritual’. In Woodbridge, Linda and Berry, Edward (eds) True Rites and Maimed Rites: Ritual and Anti-Ritual in Shakespeare and His Age, Chicago, pp. 220–39. Luce, Morton (1905) A Handbook to the Works of Shakespeare, London; revised London, 1907. Malone, Edmond (1789) Supplement to the Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays published in 1778 by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens, 2 vols, London. Contains Malone’s Supplemental Observations. Manzoni, Alessandro (1820) Lettre à M. Chauvet sur I’Unité de Temps et de Lieu dans la Tragédie. See Collison-Morley (under CRITICISM). Marriott, J.A.R. (1918) English History in Shakespeare, London; reprinted New York, 1971. Marshall, Francis A. see Irving (under EDITIONS). Masefield, John (1911) William Shakespeare, London; extensively revised, London, 1954. Matthews, Brander (1913) Shakespeare as a Playwright, New York. Maveety, Stanley R. (1973) ‘A Second Fall of Cursed Man: The Bold Metaphor in Richard II’ .Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 72: 175–93. McGuire, Philip C. (1979) ‘Choreography and Language in Richard II’. In McGuire, Philip C. and Samuelson, David A. (eds) The Theatrical Dimension, New York, pp. 61–84. McMillin, Scott (1984) ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II: Eyes of Sorrow, Eyes of Desire’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 15: 40–52. McNeir, Waldo F. (1972) ‘The Comic Scenes in Richard II, V.ii and iii’. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 73: 815–22. McPeek, James A.S. (1958) ‘Richard and His Shadow World’. American Imago, 15: 195–212.

592

A Select Bibliography

[Meehan, Francis Joseph Gallagher] (‘Brother Leo’) (1915) Contrast in Shakespeare’s Historical Plays, Washington, D.C,, pp. 59–67. Meres, Francis (1598) Palladis Tamia, London. Milward, Peter (1979) ‘Richard II and Divine Right’. In Milward, Peter Shakespeare‘s View of English History, Tokyo, pp. 32–50. Montague, C.E. (1899) ‘Mr. F.R. Benson in Richard II’. Manchester Guardian (4 December); partially reprinted in Anon, (ed.) The Manchester Stage 1880–1900: Criticisms Reprinted from ‘The Manchester Guardian’, Westminster, [1900], pp. 76–87; reprinted again in Ward, A.C. (ed.) (1945) Specimens of English Dramatic Criticism, XVII–XX Centuries, London, pp. 222–30. Montague, C.E. (1910) ‘On the Actual Spot’. In Montague, C.E. Dramatic Values, London, pp. 100–6. Describes a performance by F.R. Benson of part of Richard lI at Flint Castle. Moore, Jeannie Grant (1991) ‘Queen of Sorrow, King of Grief: Reflections and Perspectives in Richard II’. In Kehler, Dorothea and Baker, Susan (eds) In Another Country: Feminist Perspectives on Renaissance Drama, London, pp. 19–35. Morley, Henry (1866) The Journal of a London Playgoer from 1851 to 1866, London, pp. 141–4. Moulton, Richard G. (1903) The Moral System of Shakespeare: A Popular Illustration of Fiction as the Experimental Side of Philosophy, New York; reissued as Shakespeare as a Dramatic Thinker, New York, 1907. Nevo, Ruth (1972) ‘Richard II’. In Nevo, Ruth Tragic Form in Shakespeare, Princeton, pp. 59–95. Nicoll, Allardyce (1952) ‘Man and Society’. In Nicoll, Allardyce Shakespeare, London, pp. 100–32. Nuttall, A.D. (1988) ‘Ovid’s Narcissus and Shakespeare’s Richard II: The Reflected Self ’. In Martindale, Charles Ovid Renewed: Ovidian Influences on Literature and Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, pp. 137–50. Ornstein, Robert (1972) A Kingdom for a Stage: The Achievement of Shakespeare’s History Plays, Cambridge, Mass. Page, Malcolm (1987) ‘Richard II’: Text and Performance, Atlantic Highlands, NJ. Palmer, John (1945) ‘Richard of Bordeaux’. In Palmer, John Political Characters of Shakespeare, London, pp. 118–79. Pater, Walter (1889) ‘Shakespeare’s English Kings’. In Pater, Walter Appreciations: With an Essay on Style, London, pp. 192–212. Patterson, Annabel (1994) Reading Holinshed’s Chronicles, Chicago. Phialas, Peter G. (1961) ‘The Medieval in Richard II’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 12: 305–10. Porter, Joseph A. (1979) The Drama of Speech Acts: Shakespeare’s Lancastrian Tetralogy, Berkeley, Cal, pp. 11–51. Potter, Lois (1974) ‘The Antic Disposition of Richard II’. Shakespeare Survey, 27: 33–41. Prior, Moody E. (1973) The Drama of Power: Studies in Shakespeare’s History Plays, Evanston, III., pp. 156–82. Pye, Christopher (1990) The Regal Phantasm: Shakespeare and the Politics of Spectacle, London. Pyre, J.F.A. (1916) ‘Shakespeare’s Pathos‘ in Anon, (ed.) Shakespeare Studies by Members of the Department of English of the University of Wisconsin to Commemorate the ThreeHundreth Anniversary of the Death of William Shakespeare, Madison, Wis., pp. 66–9. Quinn, Michael (1959) ‘“The King is Not Himself ’’: The Personal Tragedy of Richard II’. Studies in Philology, 56: 169–86.



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Rabkin, Norman (1967) ‘The Polity’. In Rabkin, Norman Shakespeare and the Common Understanding, New York, pp. 80–98. Rackin, Phyllis (1985) ‘The Role of the Audience in Shakespeare’s Richard II’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 36: 262–81. Rackin, Phyllis (1990) Stages of History: Shakespeare’s English Chronicles, Ithaca, N.Y. Raleigh, Walter (1907) Shakespeare, London. Ranald, Margaret Loftus (1982) ‘Women and Political Power in Shakespeare’s English Histories’. Topic, 36: 54–65. Ransome, Cyril (1890) Short Studies of Shakespeare’s Plots, London. Reed, Henry Hope (1855) Lectures on English History and Tragic Poetry, as Illustrated by Shakespeare, Philadelphia. Reed, Robert R., Jr. (1978) ‘Richard II: Portrait of a Psychotic’. Journal of General EducationI, 30: 165–84. Reese, M.M. (1961) The Cease of Majesty: A Study of Shakespeare’s History Plays, London. [Reynolds, John Hamilton] (1817) Review of Richard Duke of York (at the Drury Lane Theatre). The Champion (28 December). See also Jones (under EDITIONS). Ribner, Irving (1957) The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare, Princeton; revised New York, 1965. Ribner, Irving (1960) ‘Historical Tragedy: King John, Richard II, Julius Caesar’. In Ribner, Irving Patterns in Shakespearean Tragedy, London, pp. 36–64. Richmond, H.M. (1967) ‘Richard II’ in Richmond, H.M. Shakespeare’s Political Plays, New York, pp. 123–40. Riddell, James A. (1979) ‘The Admirable Character of York’. Texas Studies in Language and Literature, 21: 492–502. Righter, Anne [Barton] see Barton (under CRITICISM). Ritson, Joseph (1783) Remarks, Critical and Illustrative, on the Text and Notes of the Last Edition of Shakespeare, London. Rossiter, A.P. (1961) Angel with Horns: Fifteen Lectures on Shakespeare, ed. Graham Storey, London, pp. 23–39, 40–64. ‘S., N.’ (1748) ‘Remarks on the Tragedy of the Orphan [by Otway]’. Gentleman’s Magazine, 18 (November): 502–6; (December): 551–3. Sacks, Elizabeth (1990) ‘Conceit’s Expositor: The Lyrical Plays’. In Sacks, Elizabeth Shakespeare’s Images of Pregnancy, London, pp. 17–41. Saintsbury, George (1907) ‘Introduction’ to Richard II. See Lee (under EDITIONS). Sanders, Wilbur (1968) The Dramatist and the Received Idea: Studies in the Plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare, Cambridge, pp. 158–93. Schell, Edgar (1990) ‘Richard II and Some Forms of Theatrical Time’. Comparative Drama, 24: 255–69. Schelling, Felix E. (1902) The English Chronicle Play: A Study in the Popular Historical Literature Environing Shakespeare, New York. Schlegel, August Wilhelm von (1815) A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, trans. John Black, 2 vols, London; revised in one volume by the Rev. A.J.W. Morrison, London, 1846. Schoenbaum, S. (1975) ‘Richard II and the Realities of Power’. Shakespeare Survey, 28: 1–13. Sen Gupta, S.C. (1964) Shakespeare’s Historical Plays, London. Shapiro, LA. (1958) ‘Richard II or Richard III or . . .?’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 9: 204–6. Siegel, Paul N. (1968) Shakespeare in His Time and Ours, Notre Dame.

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Simpson, Richard (1874) ‘The Politics of Shakespeare’s Historical Plays’. New Shakespeare Society’s Transactions, Series 1, no. 2: 396–411. Smart, Christopher (1756) ‘A Brief Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare’. Universal Visiter and Monthly Memorialist (January). Snider, Denton J. (1877) System of Shakespeare’s Dramas, 2 vols, St. Louis, I, pp. 317–43; reprinted in Snider, Denton J. (1889) The Shakespearean Drama: A Commentary. The Histories, St. Louis, pp. 311–44. Spurgeon, Caroline F.E. (1935) Shakespeare’s Imagery and What It Tells Us, Cambridge. Stirling, Brents (1951) ‘Bolingbroke’s “Decision”’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 2: 27–34. Stoker, Bram (1906) Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving, New York. Suzman, Arthur (1956) ‘Imagery and Symbolism in Richard II’. Shakespeare Quarterly, 7: 355–70. Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1875) ‘Three Stages of Shakespeare’. Fortnightly Review, N.S. 17 (1 May), 628–31; reprinted in Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1880) A Study of Shakespeare, London, pp. 37–43. Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1903) ‘King Richard II’. Harper’s Monthly Magazine, 106 (March): 504–11; reprinted in Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1909) Three Plays of Shakespeare, New York, pp. 59–85. Talbert, E.W. (1962) The Problem of Order: Elizabethan Political Commonplaces and an Example of Shakespeare’s Art, Chapel Hill, N.C. Tennenhouse, Leonard (1986) Power on Display: The Politics of Shakespeare’s Genres, New York, pp. 76–81. Thorndike, Ashley H. (1908) Tragedy, Boston and New York, pp. 117–26. Tillyard, E.M.W. (1944) Shakespeare’s History Plays, London. Toole, William B., III. (1978) ‘Psychological Action and Structure in Richard II’. Journal of General Education, 30: 165–84. Traubel, Horace L. (1908) With Walt Whitman in Camden (July 16, 1888–October 31, 1888) , New York, pp. 245–6. Records Whitman’s love of Richard II. Traversi, Derek A. (1957) Shakespeare From ‘Richard II’ to ‘Henry V’, Stanford, Cal. Trousdale, Marion (1982) Shakespeare and the Rhetoricians, London. Ulrici, Hermann (1846) Shakespeare’s Dramatic Art, [trans. J.W. Morrison], London; 3rd edn. trans. L. Dora Schmitz, 2 vols, London, 1876, II, pp. 223–31. Ure, Peter (1955) ‘The Looking-Glass of Richard II’. Philological Quarterly, 34: 219–24. Van Doren, Mark (1939) ‘Richard II’. In Van Doren, Mark Shakespeare, New York, pp. 84–95. Vaughan, H.H. (1878–86) New Readings and New Renderings of Shakespeare’s Tragedies, 3 vols, London, I, pp. 97–281. Verity, A.W. (1886) The Influence of Christopher Marlowe on Shakespeare’s Earlier Style, Cambridge. Ward, Sir Adolphus William (1919–20) ‘Shakespeare and the Makers of Virginia’. Proceedings of the British Academy, 9:172–3. Comments on Richard II as similar in political philosophy to that of Richard Hooker. Warner, Beverley E. (1894) English History in Shakespeare’s Plays, New York. Webber, Joan (1963) ‘The Renewal of the King’s Symbolic Role: From Richard II to Henry V’. Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 4: 530–8. Wells, Susan (1985) ‘The Typical Register in Shakespeare’s Richard II’. In Wells, Susan The Dialectics of Representation, Baltimore, pp. 36–44. Wendell, Barrett (1894) William Shakespeare: A Study in Elizabethan Literature, London. Whitaker, Virgil K. (1965) The Mirror up to Nature: The Technique of Shakespeare’s Tragedies, San Marino, Cal.

 A Select Bibliography 595 White, Richard Grant (1886) Studies in Shakespeare, Boston. Wilde, Oscar (1885) ‘Shakespeare and Stage Costume’. Nineteenth Century, 17 (May): 800–18; reprinted as ‘The Truth of Masks: A Note on Illusion’ in Wilde, Oscar (1891) Intentions, London, pp. 217–58. Winny, James (1968) ‘The Name of King’. In Winny, James The Player King: A Theme of Shakespeare’s Histories, New York, pp. 48–85. Winter, William (1893) Life and Art of Edwin Booth, New York and London, pp. 201–6. Yeats, W.B. (1901) ‘At Stratford-on-Avon’. The Speaker, The Liberal Review, IV (11 May, 18 May), 158–9, 185–7; partially reprinted in Yeats, W.B. (1903) Ideas of Good and Evil, London, pp. 142–67. See also Frayne (under EDITIONS). Zitner, Sheldon P. (1974) ‘Aumerle’s Conspiracy’. Studies in English Literature, 14: 239–57.

Index The Index is arranged in three parts: I. References to Richard II (including references to its characters as historical figures); II. References to Shakespeare’s other works (including references to their characters as historical figures); III. General Index. In part II references to individual characters that contain no specific mention of a play or plays are not repeated under the relevant works. I RICHARD II Abbot of Westminster (character), 10, 24, 201, 258, 344, 370, 373, 388, 512 Absolutism, 69, 70, 74, 78, 89; see also ‘Divine right of kings’ (I Richard II) Anglican Church, 20, 22, 32, 34–7, 48, 60n., 62nn., 157, 223, 288–9, 552n. Arden edition (Ivor B. John, 1912), 31, 53, 92 Arden edition (Peter Ure, 1956), 39, 570n., 586 Arden edition 3rd Series (Charles R. Forker, 2002), 79, 84, 86, 101n. Arundel, Thomas Fitzalan, 5th Earl of (mentioned in Richard II), 121, 130, 195; see also Arundel, Richard Fitzalan, 4th Earl of (III General Index) Aumerle (character), 1, 4, 5, 8, 10, 14, 18, 21, 27, 29, 40, 42, 45, 46, 53, 79, 81, 87, 92, 112, 114, 128, 160, 163, 178, 181, 190–2, 196, 208, 211, 244, 249, 254, 258, 261, 263, 264, 268, 269, 272, 273, 296, 297, 299, 303, 314, 317, 320, 327, 344, 350, 352, 355, 357, 358, 363, 364, 366, 369, 371, 373, 376, 377, 381, 389, 391, 399, 400, 405, 411, 434, 435, 438–41, 453, 458, 460, 464, 467, 468, 470, 471, 478, 480, 481, 483, 486, 495, 501, 509, 515, 519–21, 539, 558n., 562n., 569n., 595; see also York, Duke of (II Shakespeare’s Works)

Aumerle, i.e., Edward of York, Earl of Rutland, Duke of Aumerle (or Albemarle) (historical figure), 128, 167, 191, 194, 196, 201, 211, 212, 254, 366, 371, 470, 569n. Bagot (character), 6, 85, 113, 122, 144, 160, 161, 163, 171, 187, 192, 222, 242, 266, 272, 351, 352, 354, 355, 358, 373, 398, 439, 450, 451, 480, 518, 533 Bagot, Sir John (historical figure), 188, 549nn. Bagot, Sir William (historical figure), 6, 167, 502, 537, 549n., 581n. Bakhtinian analysis, see Theoretical approaches (select) (I Richard II) Barbary (horse mentioned in Richard II), 7, 19, 155, 162, 179, 195, 212, 228, 253, 296, 297, 401, 407, 459, 482, 505, 517 Berkeley, Thomas, Lord (character), 373, 519 Blunt (or Blount), Sir Thomas (mentioned in Richard II), 196, 580n. ‘Body politic/Body natural’, 68–71, 81, 88, 90, 92; see also Kantorowicz, Ernst H. and The King’s Two Bodies (III General Index) Bolingbroke (or Bullingbrooke; also Earl of Derby, Duke of Hereford, Duke of Lancaster; later Henry IV) (character), 2–4, 6–11, 13, 16–24, 27, 30–2, 35–52, 57n., 58n., 59n., 61n., 68–70, 72–6, 78, 79, 81, 82, 84–91, 93, 96–8, 112, 113, 114, 117, 121, 122, 127, 130, 131, 135, 138, 145, 146, 149, 150, 151, 154, 155,

 Index 597 157–63, 167, 169–71, 174, 175, 178, 179, 182, 183, 185–97, 199, 200, 202, 204–11, 213, 214, 217, 221–4, 227, 228, 230, 232, 236, 237, 240–5, 248, 249, 251, 252, 255, 257, 262, 264–6, 268–73, 276–80, 282, 287, 290, 292–7, 299, 302, 303, 306, 308–17, 319–20, 333, 334, 338, 341, 344–51, 354–9, 362, 363–5, 371–2, 374, 375–6, 377, 378, 380, 381, 382, 384–91, 393, 395, 397–402, 405, 406, 409, 414, 416, 419, 425, 428, 432, 435, 437, 438, 444, 449–60, 463, 464, 466, 469–71, 475, 476, 478, 480–3, 486, 489, 491, 500–3, 505, 506, 508–21, 524, 525, 528, 529, 534, 546nn., 549n., 558n., 562nn., 564n., 565n., 569nn., 573n., 574n., 576n., 579nn., 594 Bolingbroke (Henry of Lancaster) (historical figure), 65, 121, 130, 135, 157, 167, 170, 171, 186, 188, 189, 191–5, 199, 200, 206, 217, 218, 252, 253, 257, 287, 347, 381, 384, 387, 389, 390, 395, 423, 549nn., 561n., 569; see also Henry IV (historical figure) (II Shakespeare’s Works) Brocas, Sir Bernard (mentioned in Richard II), 196 Bushy (character), 4, 6, 43, 81, 84, 85, 113, 122, 134, 144, 161, 163, 171, 187, 189, 190, 207, 222, 242, 263, 266, 285, 296, 351, 352, 358, 373, 398, 425, 451, 480, 483, 518 Bushy, Sir John (historical figure), 6, 188, 217, 285, 354, 502, 537, 550nn., 589n. Cambridge edition (John Dover Wilson, 1939), 34 Captain (Welsh), see Welsh Captain (I Richard II) Carlisle, Bishop of (character), 3, 9, 10, 36, 41, 123, 128, 144, 167, 183, 190, 195, 203, 221, 250, 253, 258, 267, 268, 270–3, 277, 281, 287, 288, 314, 317, 356, 358, 364, 370, 371, 373, 383, 388, 393, 399, 400, 419, 438, 453, 456, 491, 503, 505, 506, 512, 515, 519, 520 Carlisle, Bishop of (Thomas Merke, or Merkes) (historical figure), 128, 167, 195, 371, 393

Censorship, 3, 24, 37, 38, 60n., 67, 68, 115, 119–20, 124, 203, 225, 261, 344, 407, 439, 495, 553n. Characterization, x, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13–27, 30, 32, 37, 39–40, 45, 82, 90, 141, 143, 159–63, 167, 168, 176, 200, 203–4, 206, 299–300, 346, 367, 379, 462–3, 466, 472, 485–7, 507, 509, 525 Chronology, see Date (I Richard II) Church of England, see Anglican Church (I Richard II) Colonialism (and political geography), 71–3, 80, 100, 102n. Comic elements, 3, 18, 25, 29, 42, 44, 49, 53, 61nn., 87, 91, 92, 182, 227, 233, 260, 272, 303, 332, 334–5, 365, 370, 378, 406, 424, 425, 440, 448, 461, 478, 480, 483, 484, 486, 497, 502, 510, 521, 522, 524, 534, 589, 591 Date, 11, 12, 15, 17, 22, 26, 28, 38, 56n., 111, 115, 116, 118–20, 124, 133, 135, 136, 156, 166, 182, 198, 199, 216, 217, 225, 229, 235, 256–8, 260, 365, 367, 369–70, 392, 396, 447, 460, 465, 466, 478, 497–8, 504, 507, 512, 548n., 569n., 573n. Deposition scene, 67–70, 74, 76, 77, 88–90, 92, 97–9, 101n. Derridian analysis, see Theoretical approaches (select) (I Richard II) Divine right of kings, 3, 9, 15, 17, 19, 21–2, 26, 32, 34, 36, 37, 39, 41, 48, 52, 60n., 69, 74, 88, 90, 101n., 128, 154, 157, 163, 167, 179, 185, 189–91, 196, 203, 221–3, 229, 232–4, 244, 247–51, 254, 266, 274, 275, 277, 281, 287, 304–5, 314, 315, 340, 361, 363, 377, 386, 399, 400, 406, 410, 412, 433, 434, 449, 452, 455, 456, 482, 491, 498, 510, 533, 537, 548n., 592; see also ‘Absolutism’ (I Richard II) Ecocriticism, see Theoretical approaches (select) (I Richard II) Emilia (character in Goodhall’s adaptation of Richard II), 10; see also Goodhall, James (III General Index)

598

Index

Epic elements, 13, 14, 15, 19, 21, 30, 32, 33, 40, 41, 53, 59n., 142–3, 153, 154, 156, 164, 172–3, 184, 228–9, 280–1, 307, 360, 427, 524, 546n. Essex rebellion (connection with Richard II), 3, 12, 15, 23, 31, 33, 38, 39, 52, 54nn., 60nn., 64–7, 69, 101n., 119–20, 134–5, 185, 217, 225, 232, 235, 247, 261, 286, 287, 289, 302, 332, 397, 407, 423, 507, 511, 543n., 544n., 554n., 557n., 564nn., 567n., 570n., 586, 590; see also Essex, 2nd Earl of (III General Index) Exeter, Duke of, i.e., Sir John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon (mentioned in Richard II), 121, 128, 130, 191, 296, 402, 552nn., 561n., 569n. Exton, Sir Pierce of (character), 2, 4, 10, 18, 43, 157, 163, 169, 183, 196, 245, 257, 303, 333, 342, 373, 389, 440, 508, 513, 517, 520, 539 Family Relations, 79, 81, 86, 87 Female characters, 14, 31–2, 47, 52, 62–3nn., 80–2, 92, 100, 222, 364, 380, 404, 441, 484, 493, 508, 520, 590 Feminism and Gender Theory, see Theoretical approaches (select) (I Richard II) Fitzwater (character), 160, 211, 272, 358, 364, 371, 373, 435, 439, 480, 481, 521, 558n. Fitzwater, Water, 5th Baron (historical character), 211, 371 Folio, First (1623 text of Richard II), 9, 12, 33, 111, 117, 120, 121, 123, 127, 199, 219, 225, 256, 258, 320, 413, 493, 543n., 558n., 575n.; see also Perkins Folio (II Shakespeare’s Works) Form, see Structure (I Richard II) Formalism, ‘New’ and ‘Historical’, see Theoretical approaches (select) (I Richard II) Garden scene, 78, 80, 85, 87, 99, 102n. Gardeners (characters), 7–10, 32, 36, 41, 72, 73, 80, 101n., 123, 146, 179, 192, 210, 232, 265, 272, 284, 303, 328, 334, 355, 372, 374, 414, 446, 455, 486, 491, 503, 508, 534, 538, 581nn.

Gaunt, John of (character), 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 17, 18, 22, 23, 27, 32, 36, 40, 41, 44, 48–50, 55n., 56n., 62n., 69, 72, 73, 78, 79, 81, 82, 86–8, 99, 100, 101n., 102n., 112, 113, 143, 144, 150, 155, 158, 161, 168, 171, 174, 175, 182, 183, 185–7, 192, 203, 205, 206, 221, 222, 224, 241, 242, 248–51, 264–6, 268, 269, 276, 277, 288, 292, 293, 299, 302, 303, 308–10, 313, 319, 323, 325, 329, 333, 347–52, 356, 359, 365, 366, 368, 372, 373, 375–7, 382, 383, 393, 394, 397, 398, 405, 406, 414, 423, 425, 431, 432, 434, 435, 437, 449, 450, 452, 453, 463–5, 481, 483, 486, 491, 495, 496, 505, 506, 508, 509, 513–15, 520, 521, 539, 543n., 545n., 549n., 561n., 575n., 576n., 589; ‘This Sceptred Isle’ (speech), 71, 72, 88, 99, 100, 101n. Gaunt, John of, Duke of Lancaster (historical figure), 158, 168, 185, 187, 188, 192, 205, 212, 217, 218, 221, 366, 423, 463, 566n. Genre, 4–5, 6, 8, 13, 15, 16, 18, 21, 23–29, 30, 32, 40–2, 53, 56n., 61nn., 63n., 77, 82, 83, 90, 91, 133, 141–3, 160, 173, 175, 182, 223, 227, 229, 236, 237, 239, 240, 246, 274, 376, 426, 440, 468, 472–3, 490–1, 500, 510, 594 Gloucester, Duchess of (character), 8, 9, 81, 82, 130, 221, 248, 309, 349, 358, 364, 371, 373, 382, 480, 483, 494–6, 520, 550n., 576n. Gloucester, Duke of (mentioned in Richard II), 2, 19, 27, 38, 78, 81, 130, 156, 163, 186, 192, 197, 211, 223, 224, 247, 249, 263–6, 272, 278, 292, 308–10, 312, 317, 329, 348, 349, 355, 363, 372–5, 378, 381, 382, 397, 400, 424, 425, 437, 449, 454, 494, 495, 502, 513, 520, 564n., 576n. Gloucester, Duke of (Thomas of Woodstock) (historical figure), 163, 185, 186, 188, 192, 195, 197, 211, 217, 223, 224, 240, 249, 347, 373, 381, 382, 387, 423, 424, 494, 502, 537, 538, 550n., 552n., 556n., 558n., 565n.; see also Woodstock (III General Index)

 Index 599 Green (character), 4, 84, 85, 113, 122, 134, 161, 171, 187, 190, 207, 222, 242, 296, 308, 313, 314, 351, 352, 354, 358, 373, 398, 450, 451, 480, 483, 518 Green, Sir Henry (historical figure), 188, 425, 502, 537, 550n., 581n. Groom (character), 19, 25, 154, 161, 179, 195, 212, 253, 296, 328, 357, 363, 372, 401, 407, 440, 459, 482, 508, 517, 539, 574n. Hal, Prince (mentioned in Richard II), see Prince Hal (I Richard II) Harry Percy, ‘Hotspur’ (character), 135, 160, 161, 188, 207, 255, 266, 271, 272, 312, 358, 367, 373, 384, 438, 454, 457; see also Hotspur (II Shakespeare’s Works) Henry IV (character), see Bolingbroke (I Richard II) Hereford, Duke of (Bolingbroke), see Bolingbroke (I Richard II) Historiography, 64, 65, 67, 68, 71, 75–8, 94, 95, 97, 100, 101n. History, see Politics (I Richard II) Isabelle (character), see Queen Isabel (I Richard II) Isabelle of Castile (historical figure), see York, Duchess of (I Richard II) Isabelle of Valois, second queen of Richard II (historical figure), 14, 80, 121, 167, 183, 190, 193, 194, 200–1, 228, 275, 366, 371, 380, 381, 388, 405, 463, 483, 508, 548n., 550n., 569n. Keeper (character), 163, 254, 572n. Kent, Earl of (mentioned in Richard II), see Holland, Thomas (III General Index) Lacanian analysis, see Theoretical approaches (select) (I Richard II) Lady Percy (character in Theobald’s adaptation of Richard II), 4 Lancaster, Duke of (Bolingbroke), see Bolingbroke (I Richard II) Lancaster, Duke of (John of Gaunt), see Gaunt, John of (I Richard II)

Language, see Style (I Richard II) Lord (anonymous character), 114, 272, 394, 543n. Lord Marshal (character), 112, 120, 373, 543n. Marshal (character), see Lord Marshal (I Richard II) Marxism, 35, 46, 47, 587 Masculinity, 73, 82, 84, 94 Medievalism, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 27, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 41, 42, 45, 47, 49, 50, 52, 59nn., 64, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 101n., 126, 132, 138–9, 198, 222, 227, 240, 241, 310, 380, 485, 486, 507, 532, 589, 592 Memory and Cognition, see Theoretical approaches (select) (I Richard II) Mowbray (character), 6, 8, 16, 19, 89, 96, 98, 120, 127, 160, 174–6, 185, 187, 206, 209, 221, 223, 224, 230, 236, 239–41, 247, 248, 257, 264, 265, 269, 272, 276, 278–80, 292, 299, 303, 308, 309, 311, 327, 329, 346, 347–50, 364, 370, 371, 373, 374, 375, 381–4, 393, 394, 397, 400, 405, 422, 427, 435, 437, 449, 454, 481, 483, 487, 491, 494–6, 506, 508, 509, 513, 514, 518, 520, 561n., 565n., 569n., 577n. Mowbray, Thomas, Earl of Nottingham, Duke of Norfolk (historical figure), 186, 223–4, 236, 257, 347, 371, 381, 382, 549nn., 565n., 569n. New Arden edition (Peter Ure, 1956), 39, 570n., 586 New Cambridge Edition (Andrew Gurr, 2003), 86 New Variorum edition (Matthew W. Black, 1955), 33, 53n., 583 Norfolk, Duke of (character), see Mowbray (I Richard II) Northumberland, 1st Earl of (Henry Percy) (historical figure), 166–7, 188, 192, 193, 197, 386, 550n., 551n., 553n., 568n. Northumberland, Earl of (character), 4, 18, 36, 69, 89, 97, 163, 188, 189, 191–4, 197, 207, 209–11, 228, 253, 254, 266, 269–71, 282, 287, 296, 302, 303, 312,

600

Index

313, 315, 317, 319, 345, 353, 355, 357, 358, 371, 373, 384–7, 389, 399, 401, 407, 451, 452, 454, 457, 492, 509, 515–17, 519–21, 553n., 558n. Parliamentary power, 68, 69, 74, 79; ‘Parliament Sceane’, 68 Pastoral elements, 31, 42–3, 53, 61n., 178, 210, 266, 438, 537, 581 Percy, Harry (character), see Harry Percy (I Richard II) Percy, Lady (character in Theobald’s adaptation of Richard II), 4 Performances, x, 1, 2, 14, 33, 53n., 59n., 62n., 70, 90, 93, 94, 116–18, 252, 259, 332, 586, 590, 592; before Essex’s rising (1601), 54n., 64–7, 101n.; Tate’s adaptation (1680–81), 3, 54n., 586; Theobald’s adaptation (1719, 1721), 3–4, 55n., 586; at Covent Garden (1738), 6; at Bath (1755), 10; Goodhall’s alteration (1772), 10, 209; W. C. Macready (1813–15, 1829, 1850), 17, 56n., 586; Edmund Kean (1815, 1820, 1826), 13, 147–50, 586, 589; Junius Brutus Booth (1831–32), 26; Charles Kean (1857), 17, 57n., 240, 564n., 585; Edwin Booth (1878–79), 25, 586, 587, 595; William Poel (1894), 422, 572n.; F. R. Benson (1900–01), 22, 57nn., 408–16, 422, 572n., 586, 591; Beerbohm Tree (1903), 28, 422, 429–32, 572n., 587–9; John Gielgud (1929), 33, 62n.; Maurice Evans (1937), 26; Royal Shakespeare (1973–74), 58, 70, 93n.; Zoe Caldwell (1979), 59n.; Terry Hands (1980–81), 59n.; Ariane Mnouchkine (1982–84), 59n.; Carlos Avilez (Lisbon, Portugal, 1995), 94; Fiona Shaw (1995–96), 33, 70, 93, 94; Sam West (2000), 93, 94; Nuno Cardoso, (Porto, Portugal, 2007), 94 Phenomenology, 93 Politics, xiii, 7, 12, 13, 15, 19, 23, 32, 35, 37, 41, 49, 50, 52, 62n., 63n., 64–75, 79–81, 83, 84, 88, 89, 94, 99, 100, 159, 198, 203, 204, 231, 283–9, 302, 364, 376, 383, 536, 537, 540, 587, 590, 592, 594

Prince Hal (historical figure), see Henry V (II Shakespeare’s Works) Prince Hal (mentioned in Richard II), 40, 46, 124, 135, 170, 218–19, 229, 254, 261, 271, 282, 320, 359, 371, 391, 402, 407, 458, 460, 464, 476, 492; see also Henry V (character) (II Shakespeare’s Works) Prison scene (soliloquy), 75, 78, 80, 87, 88, 92–4, 96–9 Quartos, 1, 6, 9, 12, 24, 38, 46, 59n., 67, 68, 111, 114, 115, 120, 121, 129, 199, 219, 225, 257, 258, 302, 319, 344–5, 396, 397, 407, 423, 478, 497, 498, 512, 543n., 557n., 558n., 565n., 570n., 574n., 578n., 584 Queen Isabel (historical figure), see Isabelle of Valois (I Richard II) Queen Isabel, or Isabelle (character), x, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 14, 17, 30, 45–7, 63n., 79–81, 84, 87, 91, 97, 114, 115, 120, 121, 123, 124, 130, 144, 146, 151, 167, 177, 178, 183, 190, 192–4, 200, 205, 212, 222, 225, 228, 236, 263, 275, 303, 313, 316, 320, 328, 333, 341, 342, 352, 355–8, 361, 363–5, 369, 371, 374, 376, 380, 388, 394, 401, 404, 405, 430–2, 438, 450–3, 455, 458, 459, 463, 465, 466, 476, 478, 482, 483, 486, 491, 496, 498, 506, 508, 509, 516, 517, 522, 534, 537, 538, 574n. Queer Theory, see Theoretical approaches (select) (I Richard II) Ramston, John (mentioned in Richard II), 121 Ramston, Sir Thomas (mentioned in Richard II), 121 Religious elements, 65, 70, 87–90, 97–9, 102n. Richard II (character), x, xi, xvii, 2–24, 26–33, 35–52, 54n., 55nn., 57n., 58n., 59n., 60nn., 61n., 62nn., 63n., 68–82, 84–101, 112–15, 118–20, 122, 126, 127, 134, 138, 143, 144, 146, 148, 150, 152, 154, 156, 157, 159, 160–3, 166–71, 173–8, 183–5, 187–93, 197–8, 199–214, 216–18, 220, 222–5, 228, 229, 231, 233,

 Index 601 234, 238–54, 257, 261–73, 276–82, 283, 285, 287, 288–97, 299, 300, 302, 303, 305, 308–16, 319–22, 325–8, 333, 338–42, 344–65, 367–8, 371–8, 380–3, 385–8, 390, 393–4, 396–402, 404–12, 415–20, 423, 424, 428, 429–32, 434, 435, 437–9, 440, 442–5, 447–62, 465, 466, 469–71, 474–6, 479–87, 491, 494, 495, 506, 508–22, 524–30, 532, 535–7, 539–41, 546n., 547n., 550n., 553n., 557n., 561nn., 562n., 563nn., 564n., 566n., 569n., 572nn., 573n., 574n., 575n., 576n., 577n., 578n., 581nn., 589, 591, 592, 594 Richard II (historical figure), 4, 13, 15, 21, 23, 32, 34, 38, 55n., 60n., 67, 69, 71, 76, 77, 80, 101nn., 120, 127, 135, 157, 166–7, 168, 170, 183, 185, 188, 189, 191–4, 197, 199, 205–6, 211, 212, 215, 217, 218, 224, 227, 229, 239, 246, 252–4, 256, 261, 269, 276, 286, 287, 290, 302, 322, 323, 336, 337, 347, 360, 366, 370, 371, 373, 381, 382, 384–8, 405, 407, 422–4, 427, 485, 501, 502, 528, 537–8, 539–40, 548n., 549nn., 550nn., 551nn., 552nn., 553n., 554n., 555n., 557nn., 558n., 559n., 561nn., 565n., 569nn., 570nn., 578n., 579n., 581n., 589 Richard II, ix, x, xvi, xvii, xviii, 1, 2, 4–50, 52, 53, 54, 54n., 55n., 56nn., 57nn., 58nn., 59nn., 60nn., 61nn., 62nn., 63nn., 64–101, 101n., 102n., 111, 116–19, 123, 125–27, 129, 133–6, 138, 140–3, 147, 149–54, 156, 159, 160, 163–6, 169, 172, 173, 175, 180–3, 185, 197–200, 202, 207, 209, 212, 216–20, 225, 227–33, 235, 237, 238, 240, 241, 245, 247, 252, 255, 256–61, 265, 268, 271, 273, 275, 278, 280, 281, 283, 284, 286, 287, 288, 290, 296, 298, 301–5, 319, 321, 324–7, 329–40, 342, 344, 346, 347, 354, 358, 360–2, 364, 367–71, 374, 376, 378–87, 403, 404, 407, 408, 413–17, 422–7, 429–31, 433–6, 442–9, 452, 460–2, 464–74, 477, 478–80, 483–5, 487–94, 497, 499–504, 506–9, 511–14, 517, 519–23, 527, 531, 533–8, 539–41, 547nn., 548n., 553nn., 554n., 555nn., 556nn., 557nn., 559n., 561n., 563n., 564nn., 565n., 566n., 567nn., 568nn.,

569nn., 570n., 572n., 573nn., 574nn., 575n., 578nn., 579nn., 580nn., 582–94 Ross (character), 188, 320, 352, 353, 358, 373, 451 Ross (William Lord Roose) (historical figure), 188, 550n. Salisbury, 3rd Earl of (John de Montacute, or Montague) (historical figure), 128, 195, 252–3, 551n., 552n. Salisbury, Earl of (character), 9, 10, 73, 190, 196, 208, 210, 268, 294, 354, 358, 373, 399, 453, 482, 491, 580n. Scroop, Sir Stephen (character), 188, 208, 373, 399, 453, 580n. Second tetralogy, xviii, 9, 12–14, 21, 22, 26, 28, 32–7, 42, 45–9, 59n., 62n., 63n., 135, 154, 156, 160, 164, 228–9, 239, 261–2, 289, 306, 307, 310, 317, 358–9, 361, 376, 390, 393, 396, 433, 448, 466, 491, 501, 582, 587, 589, 592 Seely (or Cilie), Sir Bennet (mentioned in Richard II), 196 Sexual elements, 80, 82, 84–6, 94, 101n, 102n. Sources, xii, xiii, xvii, 7, 14, 15, 17, 18, 24, 25, 27, 29, 32–6, 48, 52, 65, 67, 72, 74–7, 81–5, 88, 91, 92, 98, 101n., 102n., 142, 156, 166, 184, 198, 199, 202, 215, 228, 236, 283, 307, 312, 351, 367, 370, 373, 376, 389, 390, 392, 397, 398, 419, 427, 456, 457, 460, 473, 486, 507, 508, 516, 524, 531, 544n., 555n., 557n., 565n., 571n., 576n., 580n., 581n., 582 Spencer, Hugh (or Thomas), Lord Spencer (mentioned in Richard II), 580n. Structure, x, xiii, xiv, xv, 13, 20, 26, 41, 43, 44, 50, 62n., 73, 75, 77, 83, 84, 86, 91, 95, 97, 100, 106, 111, 276, 304, 331, 343, 346, 360, 365, 427, 442, 485–7, 513, 525, 594 Style, x, xvi, 1–16, 18, 19, 21, 24–7, 29, 32–4, 37, 38, 43, 44, 53, 62n., 76, 81, 90, 91, 99, 101n., 140, 149, 164, 181, 204, 209, 225, 228, 229, 234, 257, 258, 260, 274, 298, 299, 309, 321, 324–6, 329, 330, 336, 345, 360, 365, 367–8, 370, 392, 396, 403, 406, 436, 438–41, 446, 460–2, 465, 466, 477, 480, 482, 485–7,

Index

602

501, 507, 509, 521, 522, 534, 567n., 570n., 572n., 587, 592, 594 Surrey (character), 120, 160, 371, 373, 439, 558n. Surrey (historical figure), see Holland, Thomas, Duke of Surrey (III General Index) Textuality/Intertextuality, see Theoretical approaches (select) (I Richard II) Theoretical approaches (select), 64; Bakhtinian, 95, 96; Derridian, 95, 96, 99, 100, 102n.; Ecocriticism, 99, 100, 102n.; Feminism, Gender, Queer Theory, 80–6, 94, 102n; Formalism, 95, 98, 99; Lacanian, 95, 96, 99, 102n.; Memory and Cognition, 96–8, 102n.; Textuality/ Intertextuality, 83, 90, 96, 98, 99 Topicality, 5, 12, 22, 24, 25, 33, 38, 39, 48, 52, 65–70, 72–4, 78, 84, 87, 91, 97, 99, 100, 101n., 133, 203, 254, 301–3, 332, 553n., 567n., 587, 593; see also Essex rebellion (I Richard II) Tragedy, 4, 5, 8, 11, 14, 16, 19, 26, 27, 30–2, 35, 36, 38, 40, 42, 43, 48, 49, 51, 53, 61nn., 62n., 77, 78, 83, 84, 86, 87, 91–4, 98, 142–3, 210, 223, 230, 243, 245, 256, 298–300, 313, 316, 321, 357, 361, 365, 367, 393, 419, 442–5, 473, 485, 487, 491, 501, 504–6, 510, 513, 521, 540, 554n., 587, 589, 590, 592, 593 Visual or pictorial elements, 90, 91 Welsh Captain (character), 9, 10, 73, 190, 491 Westminster, Abbot of (character), see Abbot of Westminster (I Richard II) Willoughby (character), 188, 189, 320, 352, 353, 358, 373 Willoughby (William Lord Willoughby, or Willoby) (historical figure), 188, 550n.

Wiltshire, Earl of (Sir William Scrope) (historical figure), 186, 188, 581n. Wiltshire, Earl of (Sir William Scrope) (mentioned in Richard II), 113, 186, 222, 551n. Woodstock, Thomas of, see Gloucester, Duke of (I Richard II) Worcester, Earl of (Thomas Percy) (mentioned in Richard II), 188, 271, 312, 384 York, Duchess of (character), 9, 14, 42, 47, 81, 82, 92, 157, 181, 196, 224, 249, 261, 273–4, 297, 299, 317, 320, 335, 357, 366, 373, 381, 388, 399, 457, 470, 483, 496, 509, 520, 539 York, Duchess of (Isabelle of Castile, first wife of Edmund of Langley, mother of Aumerle) (historical figure), 194, 366, 381, 551n. York, Duchess of (Joan Holland, second wife of Edmund of Langley) (historical figure), 366 York, Duke of (character), 1–4, 7, 9, 10, 13, 16–18, 21, 25, 27, 29, 36, 41, 42, 45, 46, 48, 53, 55n., 56n., 58n., 60n., 69, 78, 79, 87, 89, 92, 113, 114, 124, 127, 130, 144, 145, 150, 157, 161, 170, 177, 181, 186, 188–91, 193–7, 206–10, 221, 224, 230, 233, 243, 245, 247, 249–51, 254, 266, 267, 269, 273, 287, 293, 297, 299, 303, 311–14, 317, 320, 323, 325, 327, 333–5, 339, 345, 350–8, 364, 371, 373, 374, 377–8, 384, 387, 388, 393, 398–400, 405, 435, 438, 440, 441, 446, 449, 451–3, 455, 457, 464–6, 470, 471, 480–3, 486, 491, 497, 505, 509, 510, 512, 519–21, 524, 527, 529, 534, 539, 558nn., 559n., 562n., 576n., 593 York, Duke of (Edmund of Langley) (historical figure), 186, 188, 190, 194, 196, 205, 212, 228, 254, 263, 384, 470, 550n.

II SHAKESPEARE’S WORKS (EXCLUDING RICHARD II) All’s Well That Ends Well, 125 Anne, Lady (Richard III), see Lady Anne (II Shakespeare’s Works)

Antonio (The Merchant of Venice), 151 Antony (Antony and Cleopatra), 228, 299, 443, 444, 500

 Index 603 Antony (historical figure), 535 Antony and Cleopatra, 111, 151, 227, 299, 443, 444, 480, 488 Arden edition of Shakespeare (1899–1924), 31, 460, 511 Arthur, Prince (King John), 32, 199, 287, 389, 466 Arthur, Prince of Brittany (historical figure), 389 As You Like It, 5, 257, 295, 414, 576n., 584; see also Love in a Forest (Charles Johnson) (III General Index) Aufidius (Coriolanus), 417 Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), 563n. Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing), 563n. Biron (Love’s Labour’s Lost), 502 Brutus (Julius Caesar), 378, 443, 444, 494, 500 Cade, Jack (2 Henry VI), 3, 417, 503, 533 Cambridge edition of Shakespeare (1863–66), 23, 555n. Capulet (Romeo and Juliet), 441 Cassius (Julius Caesar), 444, 500 Cawdor, Thane of (Macbeth), 517 Charles (As You Like It), 5; see also Johnson, Charles, Love in a Forest, A Comedy (III General Index) Claudius, King (Hamlet), 40, 128, 444, 498, 573n. Cleopatra (historical figure), 535 Comedy of Errors, The, 30, 127, 216, 330, 368, 472, 525, 567n., 579n. Constance (historical figure), 287 Constance (King John), 32, 228, 334, 397, 466, 484 Contention, The (2 Henry VI), 59n., 324, 578n. Cordelia (King Lear), 151, 245 Coriolanus (Coriolanus), 417, 443, 469, 537, 574n. Coriolanus, 121, 346, 443, 444, 452, 574n. 577n. Countess of Auvergne (1 Henry VI), 470 Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury (Henry VIII), 288 Cymbeline, 23, 165, 173, 324

Dauphin (King John), 512 Desdemona (Othello), 573n. Doll Tearsheet (2 Henry IV), 417 Douglas (1 Henry IV), 508 Duncan, King (Macbeth), 444 Edgar (King Lear), 395, 573n. Edmund (King Lear), 395, 573n. Edward III (Shakespeare?), see Edward III (III General Index) Edward IV, see Edward, Duke of York (II Shakespeare’s Works) Edward, Duke of York, also Edward IV (3 Henry VI, Richard III), 163, 262, 359, 566n. Edward, Prince of Wales (3 Henry VI), 288, 289 Elinor, Queen (King John), 287 Elinor of Aquitaine (historical figure), 287 Elizabeth, Princess, later Elizabeth I (Henry VIII), 580n. Falstaff, Sir John (1 and 2 Henry IV), 61n., 92, 146, 236, 359, 368, 414, 417, 448, 457, 475, 488, 518, 525, 567n. Falstaff, Sir John (The Merry Wives of Windsor), 518 Faulconbridge (King John), 236, 240, 334, 372, 377, 396, 417, 464–6, 512 Feste (Twelfth Night), 414 Fortinbras (Hamlet), 417, 420 First tetralogy, 13, 14, 32, 34, 35, 37, 42, 45–6, 49, 53, 80, 81, 83, 154, 156, 164, 228, 239, 261–2, 281, 289, 306, 310, 347, 376, 390, 433, 448, 466, 501 Friar Laurence (Romeo and Juliet), 303 Glendower, Owen (1 Henry IV), 508 Globe edition of Shakespeare (1864), vii Gloucester, Humphrey, Duke of (1 and 2 Henry VI), 359 Gloucester (King Lear), 573n. Gloucester, Richard, Duke of (3 Henry VI, Richard III), 145, 154, 156, 163, 179, 466, 566n.; see also Richard III (character) (II Shakespeare’s Works) Grave-diggers (Hamlet), 503 Grumio (The Taming of the Shrew), 414

604

Index

Hal, Prince (1 and 2 Henry IV), see Henry V (II Shakespeare’s Works); see also Prince Hal (character) (I Richard II) Hamlet (Hamlet), 12, 28, 92, 151, 209, 274, 332, 346, 357, 373, 375, 377, 406, 417, 420, 427, 444, 463, 469, 475, 480, 481, 486, 502, 513, 522, 524, 535, 563n., 572n., 573n., 576n. Hamlet, 9, 16, 31, 40, 86, 93, 128, 148, 149, 165, 171, 173, 209, 227, 230, 257, 302, 321, 346, 357, 375, 377, 420, 442, 444, 486, 498, 513, 533, 566n., 567n., 576n. Helena (All’s Well That Ends Well), 274 Henry IV (historical figure), 38, 54n., 59n., 135, 423; see also Bolingbroke (historical figure) (I Richard II) Henry IV (Richard II, I and 2 Henry IV), see Bolingbroke (I Richard II) Henry IV, Part One, 123, 198, 207, 219, 254, 262, 263, 267, 282, 289, 291, 320, 326, 337–9, 359, 363, 369, 370, 374, 384, 389, 397, 407, 419, 457, 465, 470–3, 492, 500, 503, 507, 508, 511, 518, 520, 524, 533, 537, 548n., 555n., 556n., 561n., 564n., 567nn., 568n., 569n., 574n., 576n., 581n., 589 Henry IV, Part Two, 154, 198, 264, 265, 280, 281, 296, 307, 326, 364, 372, 377, 389, 390, 397–8, 407, 416, 456, 457, 465, 470–3, 500, 502, 507, 508, 511, 517, 520, 524, 533 Henry IV plays, 1, 5, 13, 31, 33, 35, 59n., 60n., 144, 165, 173, 179, 227, 235–7, 257, 261, 263, 271, 289, 307, 337, 338, 362, 368, 374, 377, 389, 407, 414, 419, 447–9, 452, 457, 465, 470–3, 492, 500, 503, 507, 508, 510, 511, 517, 520, 524, 533, 555n. Henry V (also Prince Hal) (1 and 2 Henry IV, Henry V), 21, 35, 86, 92, 142, 144, 146, 151, 207, 218, 229, 249, 254, 262, 267, 271, 282, 288, 296, 338, 359, 361–2, 377, 415, 417, 418, 420, 447, 463, 464, 472, 476, 491, 502, 508, 533, 537, 561n., 567n.; see also Prince Hal (character) (1 Richard II) Henry V (historical figure), 35, 124, 201, 262

Henry V, 6, 33, 35, 59n., 60n., 62n., 63n., 92, 154, 165, 198, 201, 235, 261, 268, 289, 307, 322, 326, 334, 338, 362, 377, 415, 416, 420, 447, 448, 452, 457, 464–7, 469, 471, 472, 480, 500, 502, 510, 518, 520, 533, 548n., 575n., 580nn. Henry VI (1, 2, and 3 Henry VI), 13, 162, 163, 262, 271, 287–9, 306, 359, 400, 404, 420, 447, 460–2, 500, 566n., 574n. Henry VI (historical figure), 162, 262, 271, 284, 289, 566n. Henry VI, Part One, 6, 139, 334, 426, 448, 461, 465, 466, 469, 471, 472, 500, 509, 534, 578n., 579nn. Henry VI, Part Two, 3, 6, 24, 29, 59n., 127, 287, 324–6, 329, 369, 416, 423, 426, 427, 448, 461, 465, 466, 469, 471, 472, 500, 502, 506, 533, 578n.; see also Contention, The (II Shakespeare’s Works) Henry VI, Part Three, 6, 24, 29, 59n., 127, 163, 179, 287, 324–6, 329, 369, 374, 426, 448, 461, 465, 466, 469, 471, 472, 500, 509, 574nn., 578n.; see also True Tragedy, The (II Shakespeare’s Works) Henry VI plays, 6, 24, 29, 34, 59nn., 116, 119, 127, 144, 151, 152, 156, 162, 164, 165, 174, 225, 261, 262, 274, 288, 322, 324, 338, 368, 374, 447, 448, 460, 461, 465, 466, 469, 471–3, 483, 486, 500, 509, 548n., 561n., 570n., 573n., 578n. Henry VII (Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond) (Richard III), 34, 154, 359, 450, 566n. Henry VIII (Henry VIII), 580n. Henry VIII (historical figure), 336, 388, 569n. Henry VIII, 6, 289, 359, 361, 390, 433, 465, 534, 545n., 548n., 566n., 575n., 580n. Hotspur (1 Henry IV), 151, 229, 254, 291, 312, 364, 384, 508; see also Harry Percy (I Richard II) Hubert (King John), 389 Iachimo (Cymbeline), 151 Iago (Othello), 147, 469, 500, 524, 528 Jacques (As You Like It), 295 Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), 212, 378, 444, 563n.

 Index 605 Julius Caesar (Julius Caesar), 444, 494 Julius Caesar, 61n., 124, 228, 337, 346, 443, 444, 452, 469, 490, 500, 566n., 568n. Katherine of Aragon (Henry VIII), 149, 381, 545n. Katherine of France, Princess, Queen of Henry V (Henry V), 420 King John (historical figure), 189, 199, 225, 239, 249, 272, 283, 284, 337, 338, 389, 562n. King John (King John), 188, 199, 220, 249, 255, 267, 272, 283, 284, 288, 305, 360, 361, 373, 389, 394, 397, 417, 465, 474, 513, 537, 562n. King John, xviii, 5, 27, 30, 31, 61n., 173, 175, 185, 189, 198, 199, 220, 223, 225, 239, 240, 249, 255, 257, 267, 283, 287, 288, 305, 325, 326, 330, 334, 337, 360, 370, 372, 373, 377, 389, 390, 416, 433, 439, 452, 464–6, 469–72, 484, 485, 487, 511, 512, 522, 523, 533, 537, 549n., 559n., 562n., 564n., 569n., 570n., 571n., 573n., 575n., 579n. King Lear (King Lear), 34, 35, 92, 151, 513, 514 King Lear, 5, 6, 31, 83, 92, 125, 151, 152, 245, 346, 347, 357, 394, 395, 442, 444, 513, 556n., 566n., 576n. Lady Anne (Richard III), 480, 484 Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), 143, 149, 427, 444, 545n. Leontes (The Winter’s Tale), 480 Lover’s Complaint, The, 124 Love’s Labour’s Lost, 62n., 127, 216, 330, 365, 368, 413, 461, 470, 472, 502, 567n., 579n. Macbeth (Macbeth), 40, 143, 147, 176, 427, 444, 469, 514, 524 Macbeth, 165, 173, 176, 237, 333, 337, 346, 377, 442, 444, 475, 486, 490, 503, 545n. Margaret, Queen of Henry VI (Henry VI, Richard III), 404, 484, 496 Mark Antony (Julius Caesar), 494 Mayor (1 Henry VI), 580n.

Merchant of Venice, The, 151, 229, 257, 413, 503 Midsummer Night’s Dream, A, 62n., 330, 365, 461, 465, 567n., 579n. Miranda (The Tempest), 174 Monk of Swinstead, the (King John), 512 Mowbray, Lord (2 Henry IV), 264, 397–8 Much Ado About Nothing, 257, 321, 563n. New Arden edition of Shakespeare, ix New Variorum Shakespeare, vii Norfolk, Duke of (Richard III), 577n. Nurse (Romeo and Juliet), 452 Octavius (Antony and Cleopatra), 500 Octavius (Julius Caesar), 444 Ophelia (Hamlet), 573n. Orlando (As You Like It), 5; see also Johnson, Charles, Love in a Forest, A Comedy (III General Index) Orsino (Twelfth Night), 363 Othello (Othello), 147, 151, 378, 469, 480, 500, 513, 514, 524, 528, 573n. Othello, 2, 61n., 148, 149, 165, 346, 362, 377, 400, 439, 442, 444, 528 Pandulph, Cardinal (King John), 288 Percy family (1 and 2 Henry IV), 252, 271, 282 Pericles, 59n. Perkins Folio (Shakespeare, 1632), 215, 579n.; see also Collier, John Payne (III General Index) Petruchio (The Taming of the Shrew), 408 Polonius (Hamlet), 464, 573n. Prince Arthur, see Arthur, Prince (II Shakespeare’s Works) Prince John (2 Henry IV), 419 Prospero (The Tempest), 174, 480 Queen Katherine (Henry VIII), see Katherine of Aragon (II Shakespeare’s Works) Rape of Lucrece, The, 124, 301 Richard III (historical figure), 154, 236, 262, 272, 289, 566n. Richard III (Richard III), 31, 34, 39, 137, 145, 147, 151, 236, 262, 272, 274, 281,

Index

606 288, 289, 292, 296, 326, 359, 374, 376, 396, 450, 452, 461, 463–7, 471, 474, 496, 500, 513, 524, 525, 566n., 578n.; see also Gloucester, Richard, Duke of (II Shakespeare’s Works) Richard III, 2, 5, 13, 24, 26, 29, 30, 40, 54n., 59nn., 123, 144–6, 151, 159, 160, 179, 182, 216, 225, 229, 261, 262, 270, 274, 288–91, 324–7, 329, 330, 334, 359, 369, 370, 374, 376, 392, 393, 396, 416, 419, 426, 427, 443–9, 456, 461, 464, 466, 467, 469–74, 480, 484, 485, 487, 489, 496, 500, 501, 504, 509, 522–5, 555n., 561n., 563n., 566n., 569n., 570n., 573n., 575n., 578n. Richard, Duke of York (1, 2, and 3 Henry VI), 261, 287, 566n. Richard, Duke of York (abridgement of Henry VI), 164 Richmond, Henry Tudor, Earl of (Richard III), see Henry VII (II Shakespeare’s Works) Riverside edition of Shakespeare (1883), vii Riverside Shakespeare, The (1974), xvii Romeo (Romeo and Juliet), 151, 212, 303, 378, 444 Romeo and Juliet, 30, 62n., 143, 165, 229, 298, 301, 303, 325, 342, 365, 367, 370, 378, 437, 441–4, 452, 461, 465, 475, 489, 521, 534, 567n., 573n. Rutland’s tutor (3 Henry VI), see Tutor to Rutland (II Shakespeare’s Works) Second Part of the Contention, The (3 Henry VI), see Time Tragedy, The (II Shakespeare’s Works) Second Tetralogy, (also Henry Plays and Henriad), 66, 68, 69, 73, 77, 80, 82, 86, 89, 92, 100, 102n. Sergeant (Macbeth), 503

Shylock (The Merchant of Venice), 147 Sonnets, The, 129–30, 156, 283, 289, 301, 419, 489 Suffolk, Duke of (2 Henry VI), 404 Talbot (1 Henry VI), 470 Taming of the Shrew, The, 409, 414 Tempest, The, 174, 299, 325, 346, 460 Timon (Timon of Athens), 417 Timon of Athens, 59n. Titus Andronicus, 62n., 117, 151, 152, 174, 436, 472, 534, 573n. Touchstone (As You Like It), 414 Troilus and Cressida, 117, 151, 257, 463, 489, 548n. True Tragedy, The (3 Henry VI), 59n., 287, 327, 560n., 574n., 578n. Tutor to Rutland (3 Henry VI), 288 Twelfth Night, 363, 414, 460, 508 Two Gentlemen of Verona, The, 127, 330, 525, 579n. Two Noble Kinsmen, The, 301 Tybalt (Romeo and Juliet), 441 Variorum edition of Shakespeare, see New Variorum Shakespeare (II Shakespeare’s Works) Venus and Adonis, 299, 489 Vernon, Sir Richard (1 Henry IV), 576n. Vernon, Sir Richard (historical figure), 576n. Williams, Michael (Henry V), 92 Winter’s Tale, The, 325, 567n. Wolsey, Cardinal (Henry VIII), 138 York, Duke of (mentioned in Henry V), 221; see also Aumerle (I Richard II) York, Richard, 3rd Duke of (3 Henry VI), see Richard, Duke of York (II Shakespeare’s Works)

III GENERAL INDEX Abbey, Edwin A., 63n., 435 Abbot, The, see Scott, Sir Walter (III General Index) Abbott, E.A., xii Abel (Genesis), 51, 174, 279, 342, 382 Abel, W.J., 57n., 583

Absolom (2 Samuel), 449, 573n. Account of the English Dramatick Poets, An, see Langbaine, Gerard (III General Index) Achilles, 249, 296 Acland, Sir A.H.D., 346

 Index 607 Adagia, see Erasmus, Desiderius, of Rotterdam (III General Index) Adair, Vance, 96 Adam (in Milton’s Paradise Lost), 354 Addison, Joseph, 20, 354, 566n.; The Coverley Papers (Roger de Coverley), 572n.; Notes Upon the Twelve Books of ‘Paradise Lost’, 566n. Aeneas (in Virgil’s Aeneid), 142 Aeneid, see Virgil (III General Index) Aeschylus, 202, 300, 437, 448 Agamemnon, 2, 249 Agesilaus, 574n. Ahn, F.H., 18, 57nn. 583 Ainger, Alfred, 56n., 583 Ajax, see Sophocles (III General Index) Albright, Evelyn M., 38, 60n., 586 Alexander, Peter, 59n., 324, 578n. Alexander the Great, 2 Alford, Henry, Dean of Canterbury, ‘Hymn for All Saints Day in the Morning’, 569n. Alighiere, Dante, 176, 304, 441, 548n.; De Vulgari Eloquentia, 548n.; Il Convivio, 548n. Allem, Maurice, 570n. Alleyn, Edward, 215 Alleyn Papers, The (1843), see Collier, John Payne (III General Index) Althusser, Louis, 75 Altick, Richard D., 21, 43, 57n., 586 Amhurst, Nicholas, 553n. Amyot, Thomas, 196, 218 Anderson, Mary, 563n. Anderson, Miranda, 97, 98 Annals of England, see Stow, John (III General Index) Anne of Bohemia (first queen of Richard II), 120, 183, 200, 342, 366 Ansari, A. A., 86 Apollo (mythological figure), 573n. Appreciations: With an Essay on Style, see Pater, Walter (III General Index) Arabella Stuart, Lady, see Stuart, Lady Arabella (III General Index) Arcadia, The, see Sidney, Sir Philip (III General Index) Archer, William, 25, 58n., 403, 586, 587

Aristotle, 44, 69, 443, 463, 467; Poetics, 554n. Arms and the Man, see Shaw, George Bernard (III General Index) Arnold, William Thomas. 408 Ars Moriendi (Anon.), 88 Ars Poetica, see Horace (III General Index) Arundel, Richard Fitzalan, 4th Earl of, 121, 185, 194, 217, 248, 506n.; see also Arundel, Thomas Fitzalan, 5th Earl of (I Richard II) Arundel, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, 121, 130 Asche, Oscar, 432, 571n., 572n. Ashby, Richard, 102n. Atalanta, 535 Atalanta in Calydon, see Swinburne, Algernon Charles (III General Index) Auguries of Innocence, see Blake, William (III General Index) Augustus Caesar (Roman emperor), 563n., 580n. Austin, J.L., 44 Autobiographies, see Yeats, William Butler (III General Index) Babcock, Robert Witbeck, 582 Bacon, Sir Francis, 37, 66, 135, 218, 262, 463, 465, 543n., 544nn., 558n., 565n., 574n.; De Augmentis Scientiarium, 574n.; Essays, 565n., 574n.; The Wisdom of the Ancients, 558n. Bagot, Ralph, 549n. Baker, George Pierce, 29, 30, 53, 468–73, 575n., 586 Baker, Susan, 63n., 592 Bakhtin, Mikail, 46, 48, 95, 96 Baldini, Cajsa C., 74 Baldo, Jonathan, 97 Bale, John, Kyng Johan, 83, 480 Balzac, Honoré de, 562n.; La Cousine Bette, 411, 570n. Bamber, Linda, 47, 62n., 586 Banks, Thomas Christopher, 550nn. Bard, The, see Gray, Thomas (III General Index) Barett, Wilson, 321, 563n. Barker, Christopher, 544n. Barker, Francis, 63n., 587 Barker, H. Granville, 25

608

Index

Barker, Kathleen M.D., 56n., 586 Baron, Robert, 54n., 589; The Cyprian Academy, 1; Mirza, 1 Barroll, J. Leeds, 38–9, 59n., 60n., 67, 587, 591 Barry, Philip, 468 Barry, William, 57n., 583 Barthes, Roland, 46 Bartlett, Henrietta C., 557n Barton, Anne (Righter), 43, 53, 60n., 61n., 587, 593 Barton, John, 60n., 70, 93 Bate, Jonathan, 56n., 66, 67, 101n., 582 Battell, Sophie Emma, 96 Battersby, H.F. Prevost (Francis Prevost), xiv, 28, 429–32, 572n., 587 Battersby, J.P., Major-General, 429 Baudissin, Graf W.H., 153 Bawdewin, Thomas, 570n. Baxter, John, 44, 62n., 587 Bayer, Mark, 74 Baylye, Thomas, 570n. Beauchamp, Thomas, see Warwick, Earl of (III General Index) Beaufort, Margaret, 566n. Beaumont, Francis, 140, 175, 179, 319, 485 Becket, Andrew, 11–12, 56n., 587 Becket, Thomas á (Saint Thomas of Canterbury), 18, 340 Beeching, Henry Charles, 568n. Beerbohm Tree, Herbert, see Tree, Herbert Beerbohm (III General Index) Beggar and the King, The (Anon.), 132, 587 Bell, John (publisher of Bell’s edition of Shakespeare, 1774), 10, 56nn., 583 Bell’s Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, see Bell, John (III General Index) Belsey, Catherine, 46, 48, 52, 63n., 587 Belvedere, or the Garden of the Muses, see Bodenham, John (III General Index); see also Crossley, James (III General Index) Benjamin, Walter, 91 Bennett, J.A.W., 548n. Bennington, Geoffrey, 102n. Benson, Frank R., xiv, 21, 22, 57nn., 408, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413–14, 415, 416, 417, 422, 571n., 572n., 586, 591, 592

Benson, Mrs Frank, see Samwell, Gertrude Constance (III General Index) Bentham, Jeremy, 419, 571n. Bentley, Gerald Eades, 53n., 54n., 582, 587 Berger, Harry, Jr., 49, 51–3, 63n., 74, 86, 587 Bergeron, David M., 38, 60n., 61n., 67, 91, 587 Berners, Lord (Sir John Bourchier), 205, 461, 553n., 554n., 556nn., 579n. Berri, Duke of, 194, 320, 384, 562n. Berry, Edward, 62n., 591 Berry, Ralph, 93 Béthune, Maximilien de, see Sully, Duc de (III General Index) Beverley, Mrs (character in Edward Moore’s The Gamester), 149 Bevington, David, 38, 587 Bezio, Kristin M. S., 69 Bishop, T. G., 89 Black, James, 42, 61n., 587 Black, John, 153, 155, 544n., 545n., 580n., 593 Black, Matthew W., 33, 55nn., 59n. 164, 564n., 572n., 578nn., 583 Black Prince, the (Edward, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Edward III), 23, 35, 135, 171, 240, 243, 249, 262, 271, 291, 302, 340, 364, 366, 374, 405, 483 Blackstone, Sir William, 127 Blake, William, 22, 410, 417, 570n.; Auguries of Innocence, 410; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 417, 570n., 571n.; Proverbs of Hell, 410, 570n. Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster (first wife of John of Gaunt), 302 Blank, Paula, 78 Blanpied, John W., 44, 62n., 587 Blessed Virgin Mary, see Mary, the Blessed Virgin (III General Index) Bloom, Harold, 50–1, 63n., 587 Boas, Frederick S., xii, 22, 27, 52, 396–402, 408, 409, 415, 422–6, 569n., 576n., 587 Bodenham, John, Belvedere, or the Garden of the Muses, 1, 54n., 583 Bohun, Mary de (daughter of the Duke of Berri), 384 Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas, 580n.

 Index 609 Bolam, Robyn, 94 Bonghi, Ruggero, 580n. Bonnard, George A., 40, 53, 60n., 587 Book of Common Prayer, The, 19, 89 Booke of Entries, A, see Coke, Edward (III General Index) Booth, Edwin, 25, 58n., 586, 588, 595 Booth, Junius Brutus, 26, 588 Booth, Stephen, 44, 45., 587 Boris, Edna Zwick, 37, 587 Boswell, James, 116, 118; The Life of Samuel Johnson, 118 Boswell, James, Jr. (editor of Shakespeare), xi, 116, 119, 166, 549nn., 550n., 551nn., 552nn., 579–80n., 583 Boswell-Stone, W.G., 24, 57n., 579n., 580n., 582 Bourchier, Sir John, see Berners, Lord (III General Index) Boyle, Roger, see Orrery, 1st Earl of (III General Index) Bracton, Henry de, 71 Bradley, A.C., xii, 19, 28, 40, 442–5, 488–9, 587 Brae, E.A., 215 Brandes, Georg M.C., 25, 403–7, 570n., 587 Brayton, Lily (Mrs Oscar Asche), 432, 572 ‘Brief Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare, A’, see Smart, Christopher (III General Index) Briggs, William Dinsmore, 31, 58n., 583 Bristow, Ann, xvii Brockbank, Philip, 44, 62n., 587 Brodribb, W.J., 554n. Bronson, Bertram H., 126 Brooke, C.F. Tucker, 29, 30, 32, 499–503, 573–4n. 587 Brooke, Nicholas, 41, 61n., 588 Brooke, Stopford A., xiv, 29, 53, 446–59, 573–4n., 588 Brotherton, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, 549n. Brown, A.D.J., 588 Brown, John Mason, 468 Brown, John Russell, 45, 48, 61n., 62n., 588, 590 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 366; ‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship’, 567n.

Browning, Robert, 446, 493; Protus, 566n. Brownlow, Frank W., 34, 59n., 588 Bruckner, Lynne, 99, 100, 102n. Bryan. George B, 58n., 588 Brydges, Sir Egerton, 550n. Budra, Paul, 77, 78, 91 Bullen, A.H., xi, 319, 423 Bulloch, John, 23, 57n., 588 Bullough, Geoffrey, 582 Bulwer–Lytton, Edward Robert, see Lytton, 1st Earl of (III General Index) Bunnètt, F.E., 55n., 260, 589 Bunyan, John, 179 Burden, Dennis H., 59n., 582 Burghley, 1st Baron (Sir William Cecil), 23, 284–6, 289, 559nn., 560n. Burke, Edmund, 116; Reflections on the Revolution in France, 547n. Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop of Salisbury, 544n. Burrage, Champlin, 560n. Butler, Judith, 81, 82, 94 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 182, 213; Don Juan, 489, 577n.; Letters, 554n.; Sardanapalus, 213 Cain (Genesis), 51, 342 Caius Marius, 145, 545n. Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, 153, 202, 220 Calderwood, James L., 45, 53, 62n., 588 Caldwell, Zoe, 59n. Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 89 Cambridge, Earl of (character in Sir John Oldcastle), 117 Cambridge, Richard, Earl of (historical figure), 566n. Camden, William, 423, 543n., 549n., 572n. Campbell, Lily B., xiii, 38, 60n., 583, 588 Campbell, Thomas, xiv, 14, 182–3, 548nn. Campion, Edmund, 283 Candido, Joseph, xii, xviii, 86–8, 98 Canning, A.S.G., 58n., 588 Canning, George, 190, 551nn. Canning, Patricia, 90, 96 Capell, Edward, 9, 11, 56n., 111–15, 122, 543n., 584, 588 Cardinal, The, see Shirley, James (III General Index)

610 Carey, Henry, 1st Baron Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain, 286, 302, 554n. Carlyle, Jane Welsh, 274 Carlyle, Thomas, 274, 554n.; The French Revolution: A History, 566n., 570n. Carr, Diana, xviii Case, R.H., xii, 511 Castle of Perseverance, The (Anon.), 50 Catholicism, see Roman Catholicism (III General Index) Cattle, Graham, 101n. Cauthen, Irby B., Jr., 39, 60n., 588 Cavanagh, Dermot, 80 Cavendish, William, see Devonshire, 6th Duke of (III General Index) Caygill, Howard, 92, 100 Cecil, Sir Robert, 1st Earl of Salisbury, 1, 560n. Cecil, Sir William, see Burghley, Lord (III General Index) Cerasano, S.P., xviii Chaitin, Gilbert, xviii Chalmers, George, 12, 22, 52, 133–5, 156, 199, 216, 218, 229, 546n., 588 Chambers, E.K., xiv, 26, 53, 54n., 57n., 360–6, 490, 543n., 555n., 566–7n., 570n., 577n., 582, 584 Chapman, George, 298, 475, 576; The Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, 475 Charles I, 28, 230, 276, 333, 353, 363, 495, 558n., 565n., 577n. Charles II, 3, 7 Charles VI, King of France, 194, 200, 259, 562n., 569n. Charles, Duke of Byron, see Chapman, George (III General Index) Charney, Maurice, 84, 85 Chasles, Philarète, 15, 16, 202, 281 Chatterton, Thomas, 341, 375 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 17, 301, 338, 340, 482, 546n. Chaudhury, Sarbani, 80 Chauvet, Victor, xvi, xviii, 527–8, 580n., 591 Cheang, Wai-Fong, 92 Christ, Jesus, 34, 39, 60n., 242, 375, 383, 393, 428, 516, 588

Index Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, The, see Holinshed, Raphael (III General Index) Chronique de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux Roy Dengleterre (Anon.), 552n., 554n., 556nn., 76 Church, A.J., 554n. Churchill, Charles, The Rosciad, 118 Churchill, John, see Marlborough, 1st Duke of (III General Index) Cibber, Colley, 152, 553n. Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 42, 565n. Civil Wars, The, see Daniel, Samuel (III General Index) Clancy, Joseph P., 563n. Clare, Janet, 67, 68, 101n. Clarence, Lionel, Duke of, 347, 389 ‘Clarence, Reginald’, see Eldredge, H.J. (III General Index) Clark, William George, xi, 23, 57n., 58n., 225, 565n., 588 Clarke, Asia Booth, 26, 58n., 588 Clarke, Helen A., xii, 493 Clarke, Mary Cowden, xi Clavering, Sir Francis, Bart. (character in Thackeray’s Pendennis), 482, 576n. Clegg, Cyndia Susan, 67–9, 101n. Clement VIII, Pope, 120, 258 Close, John, 562n. ‘Cloud, Random’, see McLeod, Randall R. (III General Index) Cobbett, William, 195, 549nn., 550n., 551n. Cobham, Reginald, Lord, 121 Coburn, Kathleen, 142 Cohen, Derek, 77 Coke, Edward, 66; A Booke of Entries, 560n. Coleridge, Derwent, 230 Coleridge, Ernest Hartley, 142 Coleridge, Hartley, 16, 230, 588 Coleridge, Henry Nelson (editor of Samuel Taylor Coleridge), 13, 141, 545n., 547n., 548n.; Aids to Reflection, 172; Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, 172; Literary Remains, 141, 142, 172–9, 548n., 576n., 584; Table Talk, 172 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 8, 13, 16, 18, 21, 22, 28, 32, 42, 53, 140, 141–6, 147, 153,

 Index 611 159, 172–9, 180, 187, 197, 218, 226, 227, 235, 236, 237, 238, 261, 264, 273, 274, 279, 294, 299, 333, 387, 390, 436, 438–9, 491, 510, 521, 528, 539, 540, 544nn., 545nn., 548nn., 549nn., 552n., 553n., 558n., 561n., 563n., 566n., 569n., 573n., 576n., 577n., 584, 588; ‘The Ancient Mariner’, 141; Biographia Literaria, 141, 482, 576n.; Table Talk, 142, 172, 561n.; see also Coleridge, Henry Nelson (III General Index) Coleridge, Sara, 172 Colet, Louise, 570n. Collier, John Payne, x, xi, 15, 52, 56n., 142, 215–19, 225, 226, 256, 559., 569n., 579n., 584; The Alleyn Papers (1843), 215; The Diary of Philip Henslowe (1845), 215; The Memoirs of Edward Alleyn (1841), 215 Collins, Arthur, 549nn., 550n. Collison-Morley, Lacy, xvi, 31, 527–31, 588 Colvill, Robert, 544n. ‘Comic Dramatists of the Restoration, The’, see Macaulay, Thomas Babington (III General Index) Comus, see Milton, John (III General Index) Condren, Conal, 79, 102n. Congreve, William, 300, 562n.; The Way of the World, 118, 562n. Controversiae, see Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (III General Index) Corbett, Richard, Bishop of Oxford (also of Norwich), 173, 548n. Corneille, Pierre, 528 Cotgrave, John, The English Treasury of Wit and Language, 1, 54n., 584, 587 Country Wife, The, see Wycherley, William (III General Index) Coursen, Herbert, 94 Courtenay, Sir Peter, 550n. Courtenay, Thomas Peregrine, xiii, 14–17, 23, 27, 32, 52, 184–97, 209, 220, 264, 279, 284, 549nn., 550n., 553n., 582 Courtenay, William, see Devon, 11th Earl of (III General Index) Cousine Bette, La, see Balzac, Honoré de (III General Index)

Coverley Papers, The (Roger de Coverley), see Addison, Joseph (III General Index) Craftsman, The (periodical), 203, 553n. Craig, Hardin, xiv, 32, 52, 57n., 59n., 507–10, 582, 584 Craig, W.J., xii, 511 Cran, Marion Dudley, 28, 58n., 588 Crawford, Charles, 54n., 584, 588 Creizenach, Wilhelm M.A., xii, xiv, 30, 32, 52, 532–5, 580n., 588 Creswell, Joseph, 559n. Créton, Jean, Histoire du Roy d’Angleterre Richard, 34, 76, 201, 206, 252, 259, 549n., 550n., 553n., 556nn., 557n., 569n. Crook, C.W., 57n., 58n., 584 Cross-Gender Casting, 70, 93, 94 Crossley, James, 54n., 584 Crown Garland of Goulden Roses, see Johnson, Richard (III General Index) Cruikshank, George, 169 Cuffe, Henry, 120, 218, 543n. Cumberland’s British Theatre, 169, 584 Cumberland’s Minor Theatre, 16 Custumale Roffense, see Thorpe, John (III General Index) Cynthia’s Revenge, see Stephens, John (III General Index) Cyprian Academy, The, see Baron, Robert (III General Index) Daniel, George (Romantic writer), 14, 16, 169–71, 547n., 584 Daniel, George (seventeenth-century writer), 1, 54n., 584; Trinarchodia (1649), 54n. Daniel, P.A., 20, 23, 50, 319–20, 344–5, 562n., 565n., 584, 588 Daniel, Samuel, 54n., 258, 584; The Civil Wars (1595), 15, 17, 26, 31, 32, 34, 198, 199, 216, 235, 247, 256–9, 303, 497, 507–8, 553n., 557nn., 578n., 584 Dante Alighiere, see Alighiere, Dante (III General Index) Danzel, Dewey, 216 Dartois, Jenico, 253 Darton, F.J. Harvey, 57n., 584 David, Alfred, xviii

612

Index

David, King (2 Samuel), 573n. Davies, John, of Hereford, 24 Davies, Sir John, 70 Davies, Thomas, xiii, 11, 70, 588 De Augmentis Scientiarium, see Bacon, Sir Francis (III General Index) de Coverley, Sir Roger, 423; see also Addison, Joseph (III General Index) de la Pole, Michael, 2nd Earl of Suffolk, see Suffolk, 2nd Earl of (III General Index) de la Pole, William, 1st Duke of Suffolk, see Suffolk, 1st Duke of (III General Index) de Man, Paul, 50 De Rerum Natura, see Lucretius (III General Index) de Vere, Robert, 9th Earl of Oxford, Marquis of Dublin, Duke of Ireland, 185, 284, 423, 549n. Dean, Leonard F., 37, 60n. 588 Deighton, Kenneth S., 57n., 584 Delius, Nicolaus, xi, 301 DeNeef, A. Leigh, 60n., 587 Dennis, John, 57n., 584 Derrida, Jacques, 46, 95, 96, 99, 100, 102n.; Monolingualism of the Other, 96 Dessen, Alan, 48 Deutsche Shakespeare Gesellschaft, x, 555n., 575n. Devereux, Robert, see Essex, 2nd Earl of (III General Index) Devon, 11th Earl of (William Courtenay), 184 Devonshire, 6th Duke of (William Cavendish), 215, 216, 554n. Diary of Phílíp Henslowe, The, see Collier, John Payne (III General Index) Dibdin, Charles, 13, 136–8, 582 Dicks, John, xi Dido, Queen of Carthage, see Marlowe, Christopher (III General Index) Dido, Queen of Carthage (historical figure), 578n. Digangi, Mario, 84 Diogenes Laertius, 565n. Discourses (Machiavelli), see Machiavelli, Niccoló (III General Index) Discourses (Reynolds), see Reynolds, Sir Joshua (III General Index)

Dobson, Austin, 523 Dobson, Michael, 582 Doctor Faustus, see Marlowe, Christopher (III General Index) Dodsley, Robert, 552n. Dollimore, Jonathan, 46 Don Juan, see Byron, George Gordon, Lord (III General Index) Donovan, Dennis G., 60n., 587 Donovan, Thomas, 57n., 584 Doran, Madeleine, 59n., 324, 578n. Dorius, R.J., 41, 61n., 588 Doty, Jeffrey S., 78 Douce, Francis, 13, 52, 138–9, 582 Douglas, John Sholto, see Queensberry, Marquess of (III General Index) Douglas, Lord Alfred, 321 Dover, Baron, of Dover (George J.W.A. Ellis), 196 Dowden, Edward, xi, xii, 18–21, 27, 53, 290–7, 324, 375, 397, 408, 409, 415, 418, 419, 561nn., 568n., 569n., 571n., 588 Drake, Nathan, 14, 16, 156–8, 180, 588 Drayton, Michael, Mortimer’s Epistle to Queen Isabell, 132 Drusus (stepson of Augustus Caesar), 563n. Dryden, John, 2, 4, 17, 54n., 116, 170, 299, 477, 479, 545n., 547n., 548n., 553n.; Tenth Satire of Juvenal, 553n.; Troilus and Cressida, 2, 117, 151, 257, 463, 489, 548n5, 564n7 Du Piles, Roger, 204 Dublin, Marquis of, see de Vere, Robert (III General Index) Duchess of Malfi, The, see Webster, John (III General Index) Dudley, Robert, see Leicester, Earl of (III General Index) Duncan-Jones, Katherine, 65 Dusinberre, Juliet, 47, 589 Dutton, Richard, 59n., 582 Dyce, Alexander, xi, 215 Eaton, Thomas Ray, 17, 57n., 589 Edelman, Lee, 86 Edward I, 360, 376

 Index 613 Edward I, see Peele, George (III General Index) Edward II (historical figure), 284, 427, 565n., 575n. Edward II, see Marlowe, Christopher (III General Index) Edward III (Anon.), 111, 301, 360, 376 Edward III (historical figure), 35, 240, 253, 262, 288, 292, 340, 364, 376, 389, 449, 549–50n. Edward IV, see Edward, Duke of York (II Shakespeare’s Works) Edward VI, 253 Edward, Prince of Wales, see Black Prince, the (III General Index) Edwards, Edward, 560n. Edwards, Philip, 34, 59n., 589 Edwards, Thomas, 6, 11, 55n., 589 Eldredge, H.J. (‘Reginald Clarence’), 572n. Elements of Criticism, see Home, Henry, Lord Kames (III General Index) Eliot, George, 417 Elizabeth (sister of Henry Boligbroke), 569n. Elizabeth I, 1, 3, 23–5, 38, 54n., 55n., 66, 67, 69, 74, 100, 101n., 120, 124, 134, 135, 185, 194, 203, 217, 233, 244, 257, 258, 261, 283–7, 289, 302, 334, 344, 351, 360, 396, 405, 407, 512, 519nn., 537, 543–4nn., 554–5n., 557n., 560nn., 583 Elizabethan Stage Society, 422 Ellesmere, Lord Chancellor (Sir Thomas Egerton, Baron Ellesmere), 135, 544nn. Elliott, John R., Jr., 36, 41, 60n., 61n., 589 Ellis, George James W.A., see Dover, Baron, of Dover (III General Index) Ellis, Havelock, 25, 27, 331, 584 Ellis, Henry, 550n. Elliston, Robert William, 150, 546n. Elton, Oliver, 408 Elze, Karl, xii Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 304 Eminent Victorians, see Strachey, Lytton (III General Index) Emmet, Robert, 571n. ‘Emmet the Apostle of Irish Liberty’, see Yeats, William Butler (III General Index)

England’s Parnassus, 1, 2, 54nn. English Treasury of Wit and Language, The, see Cotgrave, John (III General Index) Epicoene (The Silent Woman), see Jonson, Ben (III General Index) Erasmus, Desiderius, of Rotterdam, 44, 574n.; Adagia, 574n. Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover, 260 Erpingham, Sir Thomas, 121 Escolme, Bridget, 94 Essay on Criticism, see Pope, Alexander (poet) (III General Index) Essay on Man, see Pope, Alexander (poet) (III General Index) Essays, see Bacon, Sir Francis (III General Index) Essays of Elia, see Lamb, Charles (III General Index) Essex, 2nd Earl of (Robert Devereux), 38, 54n., 64–7, 69, 101n., 119–20, 134, 135, 216, 260, 286, 288, 289, 302, 544n., 554n., 559n.; see also Essex rebellion (I Richard II) Estill, Laura, 101n. Etherege, Sir George, 324 Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit, see Lyly, John (III General Index) Euripides, 439, 535; Hippolytus, 153 Evans, G. Blakemore, xvii, 584 Evans, Maurice, 26, 59n., 586 Evesham, the Monk of, 128 Exeter, Duke of (Sir John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon), see Exeter, Duke of (I Richard II) Faber, Frederick William, 556 Fabian (or Fabyan), Robert, The New Chronicles of England and France, 218 Faerie Queene, The, see Spenser, Edmund (III General Index) Falco, Raphael, 71 Farmer, Dr Richard, 119, 134, 170, 547n., 549n. Farquhar, George, 562n. Fasti, see Ovid (III General Index) Fatal Curiosity, The, see Lillo, George (III General Index) Faust, see Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (III General Index)

614

Index

Faustus, Dr Johan (legendary figure), 532 Featherstonhaugh, Constance, see Samwell, Gertrude Constance (III General Index) Feerick, Jean E., 102n. Fielding, K.J., 566n., 570n. Filmer, Sir Robert, 537, 581n.; Patriarcha, 581n. Finn, Kavita Mudan, 102n. First Defence of the English People, The, see Milton, John (III General Index) First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie the IIII, see Hayward, Sir John (III General Index) Fischer, Sandra K., 48, 63n., 589 Fitzpatrick, Joan, 73, 101n. Fitzroy, Charles, see Grafton, 2nd Duke of (III General Index) Flathe, Johann Ludwig Ferdinand, 295, 561n. Flaubert, Gustave, 22, 411, 570n., 571n. Fleay, F.G., 24, 57n., 325, 563nn., 567n., 589 Fletcher, John, xii, 140, 175, 179, 319, 485, 566n., 584 Foakes, R.A., 141, 142, 544n., 545nn., 563n., 584, 588 Folland, Harold F., 40, 60n., 589 Folly Literature, 79 Ford, John, 230, 298, 584; Perkin Warbeck, 480 Forker, Charles R., xiii, xiv, 42, 54n., 61n., 64, 79, 80, 82–6, 90–2, 98, 101n., 102n., 575n., 584, 589 Forman, Dr Simon, 15, 217–18, 225, 247, 261, 372, 423, 552n., 555n., 556n., 559n., 567n., 568n. Forman, H. Buxton, 577n. Foucault, Michel, 46, 75, 85, 96 Four ’Prentices of London, The, see Heywood, Thomas (III General Index) Fox, John, Actes and Monuments, 89 Franz, Duke of Reichstadt (character in Rostand’s L’Aiglon), 580n. Franz, Wilhelm, xii Frasier, David K., xvii Frayne, John P., 415, 571n., 584, 595 Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, 407

French, A.L., 36, 60n., 589 French Revolution: A History, The, see Carlyle, Thomas (III General Index) Freud, Sigmund, 45, 51 Friedman, Donald M., 44, 62n., 589 Froissart, Jean, 34, 80, 199, 200, 205, 212, 228, 246, 253, 461, 482, 549n., 551n., 553nn., 554n., 556nn., 569n., 579n. Frost, Lea Luecking, 102n. Froude, Hurrell, 552n. Frye, Northrop, 50, 51, 63n., 589 Frye, Roland M., 34, 59n., 589 Funk, James, 89 Furness, Horace Howard, xi, 33, 493 Furness, Horace Howard, Jr., xii, 33 Furnivall, F.J., x, xi, 20, 22, 23, 301–3, 332, 584 Gaillard, Gabriel Henri, 552n. Gamester, The, see Moore, Edward (III General Index) Ganymede (mythological figure), 563n. Garrett, John, 60n. Garrick, David, 10, 12, 56n., 111, 117, 118, 136, 169, 545n. Gaveston, Piers (character in Marlowe’s Edward II), 299, 479 Gaveston, Piers (historical figure), 284, 353, 565n. Geckle, George L., 82, 83, 91 Gentleman, Francis, xiv, 10–11, 583, 589 George II, 6, 203 George, David, 86, 87 German Shakespeare Society, see Deutsche Shakespeare Gesellschaft (III General Index) Gervinus, Georg Gottfried, xii, xiv, 18, 19, 34, 48, 52, 53, 55n., 220, 223, 224, 260–73, 279, 295, 415, 419, 558n., 564n., 567n., 589 Gesta Romanorum, 138 Gielgud, Sir John, xiv, 33, 44, 59n., 62n., 589 Gildon, Charles, 2, 5, 585, 589; Laws of Poetry Explain’d and Illustrated, 4–5, 29, 55n., 589; Remarks on the Plays of Shakespeare, 585, 589; Some Reflections on Mr. Rymer’s Short View of Tragedy, 55n., 589

 Index 615 Gilman, Ernest B., 43, 589 ‘Glory of the Garden, The’, see Kipling, Rudyard (III General Index) Gloucester, Bishop of, 284 Glover, John, xi Goddard, Harold C., 39, 60n., 589 Godstow Chronicle, The (Anon.), 128 Godwin, William, 546n Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 220, 304, 416, 568n.; Faust, 568n.; Wilhelm Meister, 416 Gollancz, Israel, 57n., 584 Goodhall, James, Richard II (adaptation of Shakespeare), 10, 56n., 209, 553n., 584 Goodhart, Sandor, 92 Gorboduc, see Sackville, Thomas, and Norton, Thomas (III General Index) Gordon, Charles George, General, 418, 571n. Gordon, George Stuart, 32, 57n., 490–2, 577n., 584 Gosse, Edmund, 523 Gower, John, 482, 576n.; Tripartite Chronicle, 576n. Grady, Hugh, 75 Graf, Jeffrey, xvii Grafton, 2nd Duke of (Charles Fitzroy), 111 Gray, Lord (character in Sir John Oldcastle), 117 Gray, Thomas, 556n.; The Bard, 245, 556n. Green, Mary Anne Everett, 562n. Green, Thomas Hill, 568n. Greenblatt, Stephen, 46, 66; Renaissance Self-Fashioning, 83 Greene, Robert, 21, 24, 325, 327, 425, 436, 461, 466, 573n. Greene, Thomas M., 74, 101n. Grein, J.T., 58n., 572n., 589 Grieve, A.J., 547n. Grosart, Alexander B., 54n., 497, 578n., 584 Guicciardini, Francesco, 37 Guinness, Alec, 59n. Guizot, François P.G., 16, 231–4, 556n., 589 Gurr, Andrew, 86, 584 Hales, John Wesley, 23, 57n., 301, 562n., 567n., 578n., 590 Hall (or Halle), Edward, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrious Families

of York and Lancaster, 34, 48, 128, 199, 218, 253, 254, 337, 370, 496, 508, 556nn., 582 Hall, Sam Gilchrist, 79 Hallam, Henry, xiv, 14, 53, 180–1, 186, 549n., 590 Halliwell-Phillips, James Orchard, xi, 215, 422, 423, 576n. Halpern, Richard, 101n. Halstead, William L., 41, 61n., 590 Halverson, John, 42, 61n. Hamlin, Hannibal, 89 Hammer, Paul E. J., 66, 101n. Handel, George Frederick, 260, 342 Hands, Terry, 59n. Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 112–14, 543n., 558n., 563n. Hapgood, Robert, 35, 43, 45, 59n., 61nn., 590 Hardy, Thomas, 523 Hardyng, John, 550n., 551n. Harland, Ada, 523 Harris, Bernard, 61n., 590 Harris, Kathryn Montgomery, 43, 61n., 590 Harris, Robert, 59n. Harrison, Thomas P., 60n., 588 Hart, Alfred, 59n., 582 Hartman, Geoffrey, 63n., 587 Hartwig, Joan, 42, 53, 61n., 92, 590 Harvey, William (engraver), 226 Haterius, 580n. Haverkamp, Anselm, 71 Hawkes, Terence, 548n. Hawkins, William, 1 Hay, John, 26, 58n., 582 Hayes, George, 59n. Hayward (or Haywarde), Sir John, 38, 54n., 544n.; The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie the IIII, 38, 60n., 66, 120, 128, 135, 557n., 586, 590 Hazlitt, W.C., 552n. Hazlitt, William, x, 13, 16, 53, 74, 86, 140, 147–51, 159–64, 238, 546nn., 553n., 590 Hector (in Homer’s Iliad), 142 Heffner, Ray, 38, 54n., 60n., 590 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 220, 443–4, 488, 573n.

616

Index

Heilman, Robert B., 41, 61n., 590 Heine, Heinrich, 403 Heninger, S.K., Jr., 43, 61n., 590 Henley, William Ernest, 523 Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I, 352, 565n. Henry III, 195, 337 Henry IV, King (Anon.), see King Henry IV (III General Index) Henry IV, King of France, 212, 282, 555n. Henry VII (Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond) (historical figure), 550n., 561n., 566n.; see also Henry VII (II Shakespeare’s Works) Henslowe, Philip, 215; see also Collier, John Payne (III General Index) Heraud, John A., 18, 19, 274–7, 332, 590 Hercules (mythological figure), 436, 572n. Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 141 Herford, Charles Harold, xi, xiv, 27, 32, 52, 57n., 367–79, 567–8n., 581n., 584 Hero and Leander, see Marlowe, Christopher (III General Index) Hewet, H.W., 226 Hexter, J.H., 47, 63n., 590 Heywood, Thomas, 584; The Four ’Prentices of London, 533; If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, 1, 54n., 589 Hibbard, G.R., 62n. Hickson, Samuel, xii Hill, R.F., 41, 54n. Hillman, Richard, 83 Hippolytus (Euripides), 153 Histoire du Roy d’Angleterre Richard, see Créton, Jean (III General Index) History of Henry IV, The, see Hayward, Sir John (III General Index) Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, 581n. Hobson, Harold, 59n., 590 Hoby, Sir Edward, 1, 54n. Hoenselaars, Ton, 94 Hogarth, William, 129 Holbein, Hans (the younger), 139 Holderness, Graham, 47–8, 52, 62n., 590 Holinshed, Raphael, The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 9, 24, 29, 32, 34, 40, 41, 48, 57n., 67, 72, 75–7, 112, 121, 123, 128, 130, 157, 166, 168, 185, 187, 189–93, 195, 196, 199, 201,

203, 211, 218, 223–5, 232, 236, 253, 254, 261, 265, 276, 280, 286–7, 303, 334, 337, 370, 371, 377, 386, 392, 393, 397, 405, 417, 424, 425, 461, 470, 473, 486, 496, 501, 508–9, 512, 513, 518, 522, 530, 533, 543n., 547nn., 549nn., 550nn., 551nn., 553n., 555nn., 556nn., 557nn., 560nn., 564nn., 568n., 575n., 578n., 579n., 580n, 582, 583, 592 Holland, Charles, 150, 543n. Holland, John, Earl of Huntingdon, Duke of Exeter, see Exeter, Duke of (I Richard II) Holland, Norman, 45, 590 Holland, Peter, 70 Holland, Sir Thomas, 558n. Holland, Thomas, Earl of Kent, Duke of Surrey (historical figure), 120, 128, 186, 191, 196, 371, 543n., 551n., 557n., 579n.; see also Surrey (character) (I Richard II) Hollar, Wenceslaus, 139 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 392 Home, Henry, Lord Kames, 7, 56n.; Elements of Criticism, 7–8, 56n, 590 Homer, 3, 304, 544n.; The Iliad, 7, 122, 142, 248, 546n. Homilies (on obedience), 34 Hood, Thomas, 164 Hooker, Richard, 33, 337, 594 Hope, Jonathan, xii Horace, 325, 545n., 580n.; Ars Poetica, 545n.; Odes, 563n., 566n. Hortus conclusus, 80 Hosley, Richard, 59n., 591 Housholder, Clay, xvii Howard, Alan, 102n. Howard, Frances, Countess of Essex, 555n. Howard, Jean E., 80–2, 102n. Howard, Sidney, 468 Howard, Thomas, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, 388, 569n. Howe, P.P., 147, 150 Howells, William Dean, 523 Hudson, Henry N., xi, xiii, xiv, 16–19, 52, 53, 57nn, 235–8, 278–82, 295, 297, 557n, 558n, 561n, 584 Hugo, Victor, 300, 403, 539 Hugon, Cécile, 532, 588

 Index 617 Hulme, Peter, 63n., 587 Hume, David, 7, 55n., 232, 550n., 551n., 552n., 556n., 582 Humphreys, Arthur R., 36, 59n., 590 Hunsdon, Henry Lord, see Carey, Henry (III General Index) Hunt, Leigh, 140, 147, 164, 546n., 562n. Hunt, Maurice, 87, 88, 98 Hurd, Richard, 111 Hutchinson, Thomas, 558n. Hutson, Lorna, 70, 71 ‘Hymn for All Saints Day in the Morning’, see Alford, Henry (III General Index) Ibsen, Henrik Johan, 429 Ideas of Good and Evil, see Yeats, William Butler (III General Index) If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, see Heywood, Thomas (III General Index) ‘Il Penseroso’, see Milton, John (III General Index) Iliad, The, see Homer (III General Index) Imagines Mortis, 139 Imitations of Horace, see Pope, Alexander (poet) (III General Index) Importance of Being Earnest, The, see Wilde, Oscar (III General Index) Ingleby, C.M., 54n., 582 Ireland, Duke of, see de Vere, Robert (III General Index) Ireland, William Henry, 116, 126, 133 Irish National Theatre, 415 Irving, Sir Henry, xi, 25, 58n., 321, 332, 562n., 584, 591, 594 Irving, Washington, 182 Isabella (character in Thomas Southerne’s Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage), 149 Isabella (or Isabelle), Queen of Edward II, 132, 352, 405, 548n., 565n.; see also Marlowe, Christopher Edward II (III General Index) Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage, see Southerne, Thomas (III General Index) Iversen, Margaret, 63n., 587 Jack Straw (Anon.), 40, 423, 486, 533, 552n., 585 Jackson, Berners W., 59n., 590

Jackson, Ken, 79 James I (also James VI of Scotland), 9, 67, 101n., 120, 135, 203, 233, 257, 284, 289, 534, 544n., 554n. Jameson, Anna Brownwell, 14, 47, 52, 56n. Jameson, Frederic, 50 Jenkins, Harold, 59n., 582 Jesus Christ, see Christ, Jesus (III General Index) Jew of Malta, The, see Marlowe, Christopher (III General Index) Job, the Book of (Bible), 433 John, Gospel of, 165 John, Ivor B., 31, 511–22, 578–9nn., 584; see also Arden edition (1912) (I Richard II) Johnes, Thomas, 556n. Johnson, Barbara A., xviii Johnson, Charles, 5, 55n., Love in a Forest, A Comedy (adaptation of As You Like It), 55n., 585 Johnson, Colton, 415, 571n., 584 Johnson, R. Brimley, 57n., 585 Johnson, Richard, Crown Garland of Goulden Roses, 132 Johnson, Samuel, xi, 7, 8–12, 15, 56nn., 113, 116, 118, 122, 124–7, 129, 131, 156, 159, 170, 180, 190, 194, 196, 198, 201, 203–5, 211, 226, 244, 342, 474, 488, 492, 535, 537, 539, 543n., 547nn., 550nn., 551nn., 554nn., 556n., 564n., 577nn., 580n., 584, 585, 591; Preface (to Shakespeare), 577n.; The Vanity of Human Wishes, 556n. Johnston, Kenneth, xviii Jones, Ernest, 45 Jones, Leonidas M., 164, 585, 593 Jones, Sir William, ‘An Ode in Imitation of Alcaeus’, 558n. Jones-Davies, Margaret, 70 Jonson, Ben, 4, 27, 110, 218, 298, 367; The Silent Woman (Epicoene), 555n.; Timber, 564n., 580n. Joughin, John J., 86 Jove (mythological figure), 248; see also Jupiter (III General Index) Jowett, Benjamin, 442 Judas Iscariot, 113, 122, 217, 428, 532 Julius Caesar (historical figure), 2, 339

618

Index

Jump, John, 37, 60n., 590 Jupiter (mythological figure), 563n.; see also Jove (III General Index) Juvenal, 553n. Kahn, Coppélia, 45–7, 62n., 590 Kames, Lord, see Home, Henry (III General Index) Kamps, Ivo, 62n., 63n., 590 Kant, Immanuel, 141 Kantorowicz, Ernst H., 21, 34, 57n., 68–71, 81, 82, 93, 98, 101n., 582; The King’s Two Bodies, 68–70; see also ‘Body politic/Body natural’ (I Richard II) Karremann, Isabel, 89, 97 Kawachi, Yoshiko, 54n., 583 Kean, Charles, 17, 21, 22, 25, 57n., 340, 564n., 585 Kean, Edmund, 13, 17, 21, 147–50, 152, 164, 489, 546nn., 577n. Keats, John, x, 14, 164, 341, 375, 488, 489, 577. Keble, John, 552n. Keeling, William, 1 Kehler, Dorothea, 63n., 592 Keller, Wolfgang, 28, 422–4, 427, 502, 572nn., 576n. Kelly, H.A., 36, 37, 591 Kemble, John Philip, 143, 147, 149, 182, 545n. Kendall, Timothy, Kendall’s Epigrams (1577), 129 Kendall’s Epigrams, see Kendall, Timothy (III General Index) Kennedy, Dennis, 94 Kennett, White, 543n. Kenrick, William, 591 Ker, W.P., 553–4n., 556nn. Kermode, Lloyd Edward, 73 Kernan, Alvin, 35, 59n., 591 Kierkegaard, Søren, 79 Kiernan, Pauline, 77 King and Beggar, The (Anon.), 132 King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid (Anon.), 132 King Henry IV (Anon.), 116, 134, 423 Kipling, Rudyard, 504, 523, 538; ‘The Glory of the Garden’, 538, 581n. Kitskill, William, 224

Kläger, Florian, 73 Klett, Elizabeth, 70 Klinck, Dennis R., 71, 72, 100 Knapp, James A., 92, 93, 101 Knight, Charles, xi, xiii, xiv, 14–20, 31, 52, 53, 198–225, 229, 259, 281, 497, 548n., 552–4nn., 555n., 556n., 569nn., 585 Knight, G. Wilson, 39, 60n., 591 Knox, John, 287 Kott, Jan, 35, 591 Kreyssig, Friedrick A.T., 19, 295, 375, 401, 521, 536, 540, 561n., 568nn., 569nn., 579n, 581n, 591n. Kurtz, Martha A., 91, 92 Kyd, Thomas, 327 Kyng Johan, see Bale, John (III General Index) Lacan, Jacques, 95, 96, 99, 102n. ‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship’, see Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (III General Index) L’Aiglon, see Rostand, Edmond Lamb, Charles, 13, 14, 21, 24, 27, 28, 52, 56n., 82, 135, 140, 298, 324, 327, 331, 410, 437, 479, 570, 583; Mrs. Leicester’s School, 56n.; ‘New Year’s Eve’ (Essays of Elia), 570n.; Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, 140, 327, 564n., 576n., 582; Tales from Shakespeare (with Mary Lamb), 140; Woodvil, 140 Lamb, Jonathan P., 98 Lamb, Mary, Tales from Shakespeare (with Charles Lamb), 140 Lambarde (or Lambard), William, 1, 67, 135, 286, 302, 544n, 555n, 557n.; Pandecta Rotulorum, 135, 544n Landau, Aaron, 102n. Langbaine, Gerard, 2; An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, 2, 583 Langland, William, 389; Richard the Redeless, 576n. Lanham, Richard A., 43, 61n., 591 Lapoole (character in Woodstock), 425, 427 Laroche, Rebecca, 102n. Last Poems, see Yeats, William Butler (III General Index) Laud, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, 353, 565n.

 Index 619 Law, Matthew, 345, 555n., 565n. Law, Robert A., 35, 59n., 591 Lawrence, Natlie Grimes, 61n., 590 Laws of Poetry Explain’d and Illustrated, see Gildon, Charles (III General Index) Lee, Sir Sidney, xi, xiv, 22, 413–14, 477, 585, 591 Leeds Barroll, J., see Barroll, J. Leeds (III General Index) Leggatt, Alexander, 59n., 591 Leicester, Earl of (Robert, Dudley), 23, 284, 289, 559n. Leicester’s Commonwealth, see Morgan, Thomas (III General Index) Lemon, Rebecca, 78 Lennox, Charlotte, 7, 10, 29, 53, 55n., 591 Leo, Brother, see Meehan, Francis Joseph Gallagher (III General Index) Le Poittevin, Alfred, 571n. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 141, 371, 568n. Leviathan, see Hobbes, Thomas (III General Index) Levin, Harry, 86 Levin, Richard L., 47, 49, 62n. Le Winter, Oswald, 527 Liebler, Naomi Conn, 45, 62n., 73, 74, 591 Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley, The (Anon.), 283 Life of Samuel Johnson, The, see Boswell, James (III General Index) Lillo, George, 118; The Fatal Curiosity, 118 Lincoln, Abraham, 26–7, 58n., 304, 582 Lingard, John, 549nn., 550n., 551n. Lipsius, Justus, 98 Lisak, Catherine, 76, 77, 79 Literary Remains (Coleridge), see Coleridge, Samuel Taylor; see also Coleridge, Henry Nelson (III General Index) Lives of the Caesars, The, see Suetonius (III General Index) Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, see Plutarch (III General Index) Lloyd, William Watkiss, xiii, 17, 247–55, 585 Lobban, J.H., 57n., 585 Locke, John, 69 Locke, Russell F., xviii

Lockhart, John Gibson, 274 Locrine (Anon.), 130 Loeb Classical Library, xvii Logan, Robert, 83, 84 Logan, Sandra, 101n. Long, Timothy, xviii Longinus, Dionysius, On the Sublime, 6, 55n., 585 Loomis, Catherine, 101n. Lopez, Jeremy, 68, 75, 95, 98 Louis XVI, King of France, 276, 357, 566n. Louis Napoleon, see Napoleon III (III General Index) Louis-Philippe, King of France, 231 Love in a Forest, A Comedy, see Johnson, Charles (III General Index) Lovejoy, Arthur O., 59n., 583 Lovelace, Richard, ‘To Althea, From Prison’, 569n. Low, Jennifer, 82 Lowell, Abbott Lawrence, 540, 581n. Lowell, James Russell, 392 Luce, Morton, xiv, 29, 460–7, 521, 567n., 575n., 591 Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 561n. Luis-Martínez, Zenón, 91 Lyly, John, 365, 466; Euphues, 365, 567n. Lynd, Robert, 570n. Lyrical Ballads, see Wordsworth, William (III General Index) Lytton, 1st Earl of (Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton), 321, 322, 563n. Macaulay, G.C., 579n. Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 561–2n.; ‘The Comic Dramatists of the Restoration’, 561–2n. McCauliff, C.M.A., 69 McCleod, Randall R. (‘Random Cloud’), 46, 62n. MacCracken, Henry Noble, 57n., 585 MacDonald, Ramsay, 504 MacDonald, William, 570n. McEachern, Claire, 98, 99 McEleney, Corey, 85, 86 McGuire, Philip C., 45, 62n., 591 McKerrow, R. B., 574n. McMillin, Scott, 46, 62n., 591 McNeir, Waldo F., 42, 53, 61n., 591

620

Index

McPeek, James A.S., 45, 62n., 591 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 36, 37, 47, 74, 75, 101n., 288, 289, 565n.; Discourses, 565n. Macready, William C., 17, 22, 25, 30, 56n., 58n., 524, 580n., 585, 586 Mahood, M.M., 43 Maley, Willy, 72, 73 Mallet, David, 218, 543n. Malone, Edmond, xi, 11–12, 14, 53n., 56n., 116–17, 119–26, 130, 131, 133, 166, 170, 182, 184, 194, 195, 199, 216–18, 229, 548n., 549n., 552nn., 585, 591 Manzoni, Allesandro, xvi, xviii, 32, 527–31, 580n., 588, 591 Maradan, Frank, 59n. Marchand, Leslie A., 554n. Marion, Jean-Luc, 93 Marius, Caius, see Caius Marius (III General Index) Marius the Epicurean, see Pater, Walter (III General Index) Marlborough, 1st Duke of (John Churchill), 18, 143, 173, 502n. Marlowe, Christopher, 24, 60n., 82–5, 102n., 299, 324–9, 365–9, 379, 392, 396, 426, 436, 439, 440, 446, 462, 465, 466, 472, 478–9, 485, 486, 499, 500, 509, 521, 522, 561n., 576n., 581n., 583, 593, 594; Dido, Queen of Carthage, 578n.; Doctor Faustus, 326, 436, 439, 480, 500, 567n.; Edward II, xvii, 13, 21, 25, 28, 30–2, 53, 58n., 82–5, 140, 289, 299, 324, 326, 331, 360, 365, 367, 369, 376, 379, 392, 394, 396, 403–5, 407, 423, 426–8, 435, 436, 438–40, 446, 447, 461–2, 464–6, 470, 472, 477–80, 486–8, 499–502, 521, 565n., 567n., 575n., 583, 584, 586; Hero and Leander, 576n.; The Jew of Malta, 326, 396, 466, 467, 480; Tamburlaine, 140, 326–8, 396, 440, 447, 466, 467, 480, 500, 561n. Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The, see Blake, William (III General Index) Marriott, J.A.R., 32, 52, 536–41, 581n., 591 Marshall, Frank (or Francis) A., xi, 25, 29, 42, 52, 53, 58nn., 332–5, 564n., 584, 591

Marston, John, The Wonder of Women, 218 Marsyas (mythological figure), 440 Martin Mar-Prelate pamphlets, 560n. Martindale, Charles, 62n., 592 Marx, Karl, 35, 46 Mary I, 286, 334, 405 Mary, Queen of Scots, 38, 288, 519n., 574n. Mary, the Blessed Virgin, 340 Masefield, John, 30, 31, 504–6, 591 Mason, Monck, 205 Massinger, Philip, 118, 140, 179, 230 Matthews, Brander, 29, 30, 523–6, 579n., 591 Matthieu, Pierre, La guisade, 83 Maud, see Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (III General Index) Maveety, Stanley R., 43, 61n., 591 ‘May Morning, On a’, see Milton, John (III General Index) Mayer, Jean-Christophe, 65, 88 Meadows, Kenny, 226 Meehan, Francis Joseph Gallagher (Brother Leo), 30, 58n., 592 Meiklejohn, J.M.D., 57n., 585 Memoirs of Edward Alleyn, The, see Collier, John Payne (III General Index) Memorabilia, see Xenophon (III General Index) Menaechmi, see Plautus, Titus Maccius (III General Index) Menon, Madhavi, 85, 86 Menzer, Paul, 83 Meres, Francis, 1, 216; Palladis Tamia, 1, 133, 478, 592 Merick (also Merrick, Meyrick), Sir Gilly, 119, 120, 134, 194, 217, 511–12, 564n. Merivale, J.H., 164 Merke (or Merkes), Thomas, see Carlisle, Bishop of (I Richard II) Merriam, Thomas, 102n. Mézières, A.J.F., 561n. Michel, Laurence, 553n., 557n., 578n., 585 Michelet, Jules, 436 Mill, John Stuart, 554n. Mills, Charles, 166

 Index 621 Milton, John, 12, 48, 52, 131, 132, 164, 446, 547n.; Comus, 131; The First Defence of the English People, 18, 558n; ‘Il Penseroso’, 553n.; Of Education, 440, 573n.; ‘On a May Morning’, 132; Paradise Lost, 20, 176, 354, 553n., 566n.; Sonnets, 554n. Milward, Peter, 37, 60n., 592 Mirror for Magistrates, A, 77, 583; see also Campbell, Lily B. (III General Index) Mirza, see Baron, Robert (III General Index) Mnouchkine, Ariane, 59n. Modern Language Association of America, vii Moffatt, James Hugh, 57n., 585 Molière (Jean Baptiste Poquelin), 300, 523; Le Misanthrope, 30, 525; Tartuffe, 525 Monk of Evesham, the, see Evesham, the Monk of (III General Index) Monkhouse, Allan, 408 Montague, C.E., xiv, 22, 27, 53, 57n., 408–12, 570n., 592 Montaigne, Michel de, 75; ‘How one ought to governe his wil’, 92 Montrose, Louis, 65 Moore, Edward, The Gamester, 545n. Moore, Jeannie Grant, 47, 63n., 592 Morgan, J.A., xi Morgan, Thomas, Leicester’s Commonwealth, 284, 559n. Morgann, Maurice, 488 Morley, Henry, 56n., 592 Morris, David, 57n., 585 Morrison, the Rev. A.J.W., 153, 155, 220, 556n., 593, 594 Morse, Ruth, 76, 77, 98, 99, 102n. Mortimer, Anne (sister of Edmund, 5th Earl of March), 566n. Mortimer, Edmund, 5th Earl of March, 389, 533, 565n., 566n. Mortimer, Roger, 1st Earl of March (character in Marlowe’s Edward II), 299, 327, 565n.; see also Marlowe, Christopher Edward II (III General Index) Mortimer, Roger, 1st Earl of March (historical figure), 132, 404, 428, 480, 565n.

Mortimer, Roger, 4th Earl of March, 347, 359, 533, 565n. Mortimer’s Epistle to Queen Isabell, see Drayton, Michael (III General Index) Moses (Deuteronomy), 548n.; (Genesis), 566n. Moulton, Richard G., xii, 32, 52, 433–4, 592 Mowat, Barbara A., 63n. Mrs. Leicester’s School, see Lamb, Charles (III General Index) Muir, Kenneth, 585 Munroe, Jennifer, 102n. Murray, John, 554n. Musa, Mark, xviii Myers, O.M., 572n. Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon), 393 Narcissus (mythological figure), 62n., 558n., 592 Nashe (or Nashe), Thomas, 465, 574n.; Pierce Penniless, 574n. Neale, J.E., 559n. Neilson, William Allan, 57n., 485, 585 Nero, Claudius Caesar (Roman emperor), 28, 576n. Neville family, 289, 551n. Nevo, Ruth, 40, 43, 60n., 592 New Chronicles of England and France, The, see Fabian, Robert (III General Index) New Shakespeare Society, 22, 23, 283, 301, 319, 588, 594 New Shakespeareana, x ‘New Year’s Eve’, see Lamb, Charles (III General Index) Newlin, Jeanne T., xviii, 360, 527 Newman, John Henry, 552n., 560nn. Newton, Sir Isaac, 211 Nichols (or Nicols), John, 54n., 55n., 553n., 560n., 583 Nicolas, Sir Nicholas Harris, 196, 552n. Nicoll, Allardyce, 41, 56n., 60n., 583, 592 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 403 Noctes Shakespearianae, x Nollekens, Joseph, 138 Norbrook, David, 68–70, 80 Norfolk, Duke of, see Brotherton, Thomas (III General Index)

622 Northumberland, Duke of, 550n. Norton, Thomas, 325; Gorboduc (with Thomas Sackville), 478 Notes Upon the Twelve Books of ‘Paradise Lost’, see Addison, Joseph (III General Index) Nuttall, A.D., 45, 53, 62n., 592 Oates, Titus, 3 ‘Ode in Imitation of Alcaeus, An’, see Jones, Sir William (III General Index) ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality’, see Wordsworth, William (III General Index) Odes (Horace), see Horace (III General Index) Of Education, see Milton, John (III General Index) Of Time and the River, see Wolfe, Thomas (III General Index) ‘On a May Morning’, see Milton, John (III General Index) O’Neill, Eliza, 149, 545n. O’Neill, Eugene, 468 O’Neill, Stephen, 73 On the Sublime, see Longinus, Dionysius (III General Index) Orleans, Duke of, 201 Ornstein, Robert, 36, 592 Orphan, The, see Otway, Thomas (III General Index) Orpheus (mythological figure), 436 Orrery, 1st Earl of (Roger Boyle), 136 Ostovich, Helen, 79, 80 Otterbourne, Thomas, 128 Otway, Thomas, The Orphan, 55n., 593; Venice Preserved, 118 Overbury, Sir Thomas, 555n. Ovid (Publics Ovidius Naso), 62n., 439, 592; Fasti, 567n. Owen, Tir, 134 Oxford, Earl of (Aubrey de Vere), 216 Oz, Avraham, 102n. Page, Malcolm, 59n., 592 Paget family (Elizabethan), 289 Palladis Tamia, see Meres, Francis (III General Index) Palmer, John, 39, 60n., 592

Index Pandecta Rotulorum, see Lambarde, William (III General Index) Paradise Lost, see Milton, John (III General Index) Parallel Lives, see Plutarch (III General Index) Parker, John, 572n. Parker, Patricia, 63n., 587 Parsons, Robert (‘John Philpatris’, or ‘John Philopater’), 65, 66, 68, 284, 559nn.; Conference About the Next Succession, 65, 68 Parvini, Neema, 95, 96, 98 Pasco, Richard, 59n., 93 Pater, Walter, Appreciations: With an Essay on Style, xii, 20–1, 27, 28, 34, 39, 43, 52, 53, 86, 336–43, 375, 408, 418, 539, 564nn., 566n., 568nn., 570nn., 575n, 592; Marius the Epicurean, 336, 379, 568n. Patriarcha; or, The Natural Power of Kings, see Filmer, Sir Robert (III General Index) Patterson, Annabel, 48, 583, 592 Payne, Susan, 102n. Peck, D.C., 559n., 560n. Peele, George, 327, 329, 466, 563n., 584; Edward I, 360, 376 Pendennis, see Thackeray, William Makepiece (III General Index) Penry, John, 286, 560n. Percy, Sir Charles, 54n., 66, 69 Percy, Thomas, Bishop of Dromore, 132, 301 Percy family, 69, 312, 550n. Perkin Warbeck, see Ford, John (III General Index) Perkins Folio, see under II Shakespeare’s Works Perugino (Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci), 436 Petowe, Henry, 576n. Phaeton (mythological figure), 262, 374, 375, 516 Phèdre, see Racine, Jean (III General Index) Phialas, Peter G., 35, 59n., 592 Philip II, King of Spain, 284 Phillips (or Philips), Augustine, 54n., 119, 302, 422, 511, 545n., 562n., 564n., 570n., 572n., 578n.

 Index 623 Phillips, E.A., 57n., 585 Phillips, James, 78–9 ‘Philopater, John’, see Parsons, Robert (III General Index) ‘Philopatris, John’, see Parsons, Robert (III General Index) Pierce Penniless, see Nashe, Thomas (III General Index) Pilate, Pontius, 287, 342, 375, 428, 475 Pimlott, Steven, 93, 94 Pinero, Arthur Wing, 523, 575n. Plato, 36, 361, 363; The Republic, 179, 465, 575n. Plautus, Titus Maccius, Menaechmi, 127 Plutarch, Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (Parallel Lives), 145, 211, 545n., 565n., 574n. Poel, William, 572n.; see also Elizabethan Stage Society (III General Index) Poems and Ballads, see Swinburne, Algernon Charles (III General Index) Poet-Lore, x, 493 ‘Poet’s Song, The’, see Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (III General Index) Pole, Michael de la, see Suffolk, 2nd Earl of (III General Index) Pole, William de la, see Suffolk, 1st Duke of (III General Index) Political Poems and Songs, see Wright, Thomas (III General Index) Pollard, A.W., 557n., 565n. Pollock, Sir Frederick, Bart., 58n., 580n., 585 Pope, Alexander (actor), 150, 545n. Pope, Alexander (poet), 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 19, 55nn., 111, 113–15, 170, 274, 546n., 580n., 585, 588; Essay on Criticism, 415, 571n.; Essay on Man, 563n.; Imitations of Horace, 144, 545n. Pope Clement VIII, see Clement VIII, Pope (III General Index) Popish Plot, the, 3 Porter, Charlotte, Endymion, xii, 30–1, 52, 53, 493–8, 577n., 585 Porter, Joseph A., 44, 53, 62n., 592 Post nati legal case, 135, 544n. Potter, Lois, 40, 60n., 93, 592 Preface (to Shakespeare), see Johnson, Samuel (III General Index)

Prelude, The, see Wordsworth, William (III General Index) Prevost, Francis, see Battersby, H.F. Prevost (III General Index) Price, Thomas R., 523 Prior, Moody E., 37, 41, 61n., 592 Prodicus, 572n. Protus, see Browning, Robert (III General Index) Proust, Marcel, 86 Proverbs of Hell, see Blake, William (III General Index) Psalm 137, 89 Public sphere (emergence of), 78 Publius Syrius, 574n. Puckering, Sir John, 559n. Pusey, Edward Bouverie, 552n. Pye, Christopher, 48, 592 Pyre, J.F.A., 32, 58n., 592 Pyrrho (Pyrrhonian scepticism), 79 Queensberry, Marquess of (John Sholto Douglas), 321 Quinn, Michael, 41, 61n., 592 Rabkin, Norman, 37, 38, 60n., 593 Racine, Jean, Phèdre, 153 Rackin, Phyllis, 45, 49, 53, 62n., 80–2, 102n., 593 Raffel, Burton, 90 Raffield, Paul, 101n. Raleigh (or Ralegh), Sir Walter (Elizabethan poet), 490, 560nn. Raleigh, Sir Walter (twentieth-century literary scholar), 30, 474–6, 499, 575n., 593 Ralli, Augustus, 583 Ranald, Margaret Loftus, 47, 62n., 593 Rann, Joseph, 142 Ransome, Cyril, xiv, 20, 53, 346–59, 565nn., 577n., 593 Rayner, Francesca Clare, 94 Raysor, T.M., 142, 544n., 561n., 569n., 577n. Read, David, 102n. Reed, Henry Hope, 16, 239–47, 556n, 558n., 593 Reed, Isaac, 126, 129, 546nn., 554n. Reed, Robert R., Jr., 45, 62n., 593

624

Index

Reed, W.B., 240 Reese, M.M., 35, 59n., 560n., 593 Reflections on the Revolution in France, see, Burke, Edmund (III General Index) Religion, see Anglican Church (I Richard II); Religious elements (I Richard II); Roman Catholicism (III General Index) Remarks on the Plays of Shakespeare, see Gildon, Charles (III General Index) Republic, The, see Plato (III General Index) Reynolds, J.A., 61n., 590 Reynolds, John Hamilton, 14, 29, 164–5, 547n., 585, 590 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 116; Discourses, 203–4, 553nn. Rhodes, Neil, 101n. Ribner, Irving, 41, 60n., 593 Richard I (Coeur de Lion), 337 Richard II (Anon.), 217–18, 225–6, 260, 369, 403, 407, 423, 553n., 558n., 559n., 567n.; see also Forman, Dr Simon (III General Index) Richard II (character in Woodstock), 424 Richard II (Goodhall), see Goodhall, James (III General Index) Richard II (Tate), see Tate, Nahum (III General Index) Richard II (Theobald), see Theobald, Lewis (III General Index) Richard II (Wroughton), see Wroughton, Richard (III General Index) Richard II, Part I, see Woodstock (III General Index) Richard the Redeless, see Langland, William (III General Index) Richardson, Ian, 59n., 93 Richmond, H.M., 41, 61n., 593 Riddell, James A., 42, 61n., 593 Riechelmann, Georg Ludwig, 568n. Righter, Anne, see Barton, Anne (III General Index) Ritson, Joseph, 12, 126–8, 130, 585 Rittenhouse, David, 564n. Rob Roy, see Scott, Sir Walter (III General Index) ‘Rob Roy’s Grave’, see Wordsworth, William (III General Index) Roberts, Josephine A., xvi, 33, 59n., 583 Robin Hood, 126

Robinson, Henry Crabb, 142 Robinson, H.G., 18, 57nn., 585 Robson, Mark, 96 Rodney, Frank, 414, 417, 571nn. Roe, John, 74 Rolfe, William J., xi, 57n., 585 Rollins, Hyder E., 164 Rolls, Albert, 70 Roman Catholicism, 23, 34, 37, 283, 285, 286, 290, 305, 340, 552n., 559n., 565n. Rosciad, The, see Churchill, Charles (III General Index) Roscius, 117 Rosenberg, Samuel N., xviii Rosendale, Timothy, 89 Rosenstein, Rod, 77 Rossiter, A.P., 37, 60n., 572n., 573n., 585, 593 Rostand, Edmond, L’Aiglon, 525, 536n. Roubiliac, Louis François, 211 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 75 Rowe, Nicholas, 55n., 585, 589 Rowlands, Richard, see Verstegan, Richard (III General Index) Rowse, A.L., 555n. Rubens, Peter Paul, 227 Ruiter, David, 91, 92 Rump, Eric S., xviii Ruskin, John, 321 Rutter, Tom, 102n. Rymer, Thomas, 2, 550nn., 589; A Short View of Tragedy, 54n. ‘S.N.’, 6, 55n., 593 Sacks, Elizabeth, 43, 61n., 593 Sackville, Thomas, 325; Gorboduc (with Thomas Norton), 478 Saint Thomas of Canterbury, see Becket, Thomas à (III General Index) Saintsbury, George, xiv, 30, 477–84, 576n., 579n., 585, 593 Salingar, Leo, 90 Salmasius, Claudius, 558n. Samuelson, David A., 62n., 591 Samwell, Gertrude Constance (Constance Featherstonhaugh, Mrs Frank Benson), 416, 571 Sanchez, Melissa E., 81, 82 Sanders, Wilbur, 36, 60n., 593

 Index 625 Sandford, Francis, 551n. Sandler, Robert, 63n., 589 Sardanapalus, see Byron, George Gordon, Lord (III General Index) Sarrazin, Gregor, xii Saussure, Ferdinand de, 46 Schalkwyk, David, 98, 99, 102n. Schechner, Richard, 77 Schell, Edgar, 50, 63n., 593 Schelling, Ernest, 427 Schelling, Felix E., 28, 52, 426–8, 572n., 593 Schlegel, August Wilhelm von, xii, xiv, 13, 16, 20, 22, 32, 34, 40, 53, 56n., 141, 142, 153–5, 159, 166, 184, 219, 535, 544n., 545n. 546n., 555nn., 580n., 593 Schmidt, Alexander, xii, 555n. Schmitz, L. Dora, 220, 594 Schoenbaum, Samuel, 40, 60n., 166, 216, 583, 593 Schuler, Robert M., 88 Schuster, Alfred F., 532 Scolnicov, Hanna, 92 Scot, William, 121 Scott, Charlotte, 89 Scott, Sir Walter, 30, 126, 182, 459, 501; The Abbot, 574n.; Rob Roy, 576n. Scott, William, The Model of Poesy or the Art of Poesy Drawn into a Short or Summary Discourse, 65 Scott, William O., 71, 72, 100 Scott-Warren, Jason, 67 Scroop, Lord (character in Sir John Oldcastle), 117 Searls, T.H., 590 Sedge, Douglas, x Seelig, Sharon Cadman, 86, 87 Selimus (Robert Greene?), 436, 573n. Sen Gupta, S.C., 39, 60n., 593 Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (the elder), 41, 42, 98; Controversiae, 580n. Senelick, Laurence P., xviii, 527, 528 Shakespeare, Hamnet (son of the dramatist), 87 Shakespeare, John (father of the dramatist), 284, 559n. Shakespeare, Mary (mother of the dramatist), 284 Shakespeare Allusion-Book, The, 1

Shakespeare Jahrbuch (Deutsche Shakespeare Gesellschaft), x, 422, 445, 572n., 576n., 578n., 587 Shakespeare Society (Great Britain), 215 Shakespeare Society of New York, x, 493 ‘Shakespeare’s English Kings’, see Pater, Wlter, Apprecations (III General Index) Shakespearian Studies (1916), 523 Shakespeariana, x, 493 Shapiro, I.A., 54n., 593 Shaw, Fiona, 33, 70, 93 Shaw, George Bernard, 25, 469; Arms and the Man, 469 Shaw, Jonathan Samuel, 86 Shawcross, John T., 566n. Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 300, 403, 488, 539 Sherbo, Arthur, 56n., 180, 543n., 547nn. 550nn., 551nn., 552nn., 553nn., 556n., 564n., 577nn., 580n., 583, 585; see also Johnson, Samuel (III General Index) Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 118 Sherman, Anita Gilman, 102n. Shewring, Margaret, 70 Shipps, Anthony W., xvii Shirley, James, 470; The Cardinal, 470, 575n. Shorey, Paul, 575n. Short View of Tragedy, A, see Rymer, Thomas (III General Index) Shuger, Debora, 88 Shurbanov, Alexander, 91 Sicilian Usurper, The (adapatation of Richard II), see Tate, Nahum (III General Index) Siddons, Sarah Kemble, 143, 147, 148, 182, 544n., 545nn. Sidney, Sir Philip, 37, 468; The Arcadia, 131 Siegel, Paul N., 34, 39, 59n., 593 Siemon, James R., 95, 96 Silent Woman, The (Epicoene), see Jonson, Ben (III General Index) Sillars, Stuart, 90 Simmes, Valentine, 216 Simonelli, Maria, 548n. Simpson, Percy, 367, 581n. Simpson, Richard, xii, 20, 23, 25, 38, 52, 283–9, 301, 332, 559–60n., 594 Sinfield, Alan, 46 Singer, Samuel Weller, 215, 247

626

Index

Sir John Oldcastle (Anon.), 117 Skelton, John, Magnificence, 83 Skottowe, Augustine, 14, 166–8, 380, 554n., 560n., 583 Skura, Meredith, 85 Slaughter of the Innocents, The (Anon.), 50 Smart, Christopher, ‘A Brief Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare’, 7, 56n., 594 Smith, Emma, 68 Smith, Molly, 81 Smith, Sir Thomas, 37 Smith, W.G. Pogson, 581n. Smith, William (classical scholar), 6, 55n., 585 Snider, Denton J., xiii, xiv, 20–1, 304–18, 594 ‘Solitary Reaper, The’, see Wordsworth, William (III General Index) Solomon, King of the Hebrews, 419, 571n. Some Reflections on Mr. Rymer’s Short View of Tragedy, see Gildon, Charles (III General Index) Song, Chang-Seop, 101n. Song of a Beggar and a King, A (Anon.), 132 Sonnets (Milton), see Milton, John (III General Index) Sonnets (Shakespeare), see Sonnets (II Shakespeare’s Works) Sonnets (Wordsworth), see Wordsworth, William (III General Index) Sophocles, 174, 448, 535; Ajax, 580n.; Trachiniae, 439 Sorensen, David, 566n., 570n. South Africa (apartheid), 99 Southampton, 3rd Earl of (Henry Wriothesley), 218, 302, 554n. Southerne, Thomas, Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage (Garrick’s alteration), 545n. Southey, Robert, 140, 274 Speaight, Robert, 572n. Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, see Lamb, Charles (III General Index) Spedding, James, xii, 544n., 558n., 574nn. Speed, John, 157, 546n. Spencer, Theodore, 59n., 583 Spenser, Edmund, 73; The Faerie Queene, 447 Sperry, Stuart M., xviii Spevack, Marvin, xii Spiekerman, Tim, 75

Spurgeon, Caroline F.E., 43, 164, 590 Squitieri, Christina M., 79 Stanco, Michele, 77, 78, 91 Stanihurst, Richard, 72, 73 Starnes, DeWitt T., 60n., 588 Staunton, Howard, xi, 215 Stavisky, Aron Y., 583 Steevens, George, xi, 9, 11, 12, 14, 45, 56nn., 116, 117, 120–2, 126, 129–33, 138, 139, 170, 184, 203, 212, 547n., 553nn., 585, 591 Stephen, Leslie, 587 Stephens, John, Cynthia’s Revenge, 132 Sterling, Eric, 82, 83, 91 Sterrett, Joseph, 89 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 22, 411, 575n. Stirling, Brents, 43, 61n., 594 Stoker, Bram, 58n., 594 Storey, Graham, 60n., 593 Stow (or Stowe), John, 32, 192, 194, 252, 337, 397, 424, 461, 555n.; Annals of England, 303, 370, 508, 550n., 551nn. Strachey, Lytton, Eminent Victorians, xii Strafford, 1st Earl of (Thomas Wentworth), 353, 363, 495, 565n., 577n. Straw, Jack, 217, 552n.; see also Jack Straw (Anon.) (III General Index) Streete, Adrian, 89 Strohm, Paul, 101n. Strype, John, 559n. Stuart, Lady Arabella, 287, 560n. Stubbs, Bishop William, 349, 538, 565n., 581n. Stukeley, Thomas, 283; see also The Life and Death of Captain Stukeley (Anon.) (III General Index) Styan, John, 48 Su, Tsu-Chung, 81, 82 Sue, Eugène, 562n. Suetonius (Gaius Suetonius), The Lives of the Caesars, 576n. Suffolk, 1st Duke of (William de la Pole), 284; see also Suffolk (2 Henry VI) (II Shakespeare’s Works) Suffolk, 2nd Earl of (Michael de la Pole), 185, 549n. Sullivan, Garrett A. Jr., 71–3, 101n. Sully, Duc de (Maximilien de Béthune), 228, 556n.

 Index 627 Suzman, Arthur, 43, 61n., 594 Swete (or Sweet), E. Lyall, 417, 571n. Swinburne, Algernon Charles, xiv, 20–2, 24, 25, 27–9, 42, 298–301, 324, 327, 331, 365, 404, 405, 435–41, 460, 461, 464–6, 521, 539, 561nn., 562n., 573–4n., 579n., 581nn., 594; Atalanta in Calydon, 298; Poems and Ballads, 298 Swynford, Katharine (third wife of John of Gaunt), 566n. Syme, Holger Schott, 76, 77 Symonds, J.A., 331 Taborski, Boleslaw, 591 Tacitus, Cornelius, 544n., 554n., 565n. Talbert, Ernest William, 37, 60n., 594 Tales from Shakespeare, see Lamb, Charles and Mary (III General Index) Tamburlaine, see Marlowe, Christopher (III General Index) Tannenbaum, Dr S.A., 45 Tate, Nahum, 2–3; Richard II (adaptation of Shakespeare), 2, 3, 5, 10, 53nn., 80, 585; The Sicilian Usurper (further alteration of Shakespeare’s Richard II), 3, 54nn., 586 Taylor, Gary, 49 Taylor, M.P., 45 Tennenhouse, Leonard, 48, 63n., 594 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 446, 460, 576n.; Maud, 465; ‘The Poet’s Song’, 481, 576n. Terry, Ellen, 562nn. Thackeray, William Makepiece, Pendennis, 576n. Theobald, Lewis, 5, 6, 55n., 113, 114, 122; Richard II (adaptation of Shakespeare), 2–8, 10, 55n., 136, 544n., 586 Theocritus, 439 Thomson, Ian, xviii Thorndike, Ashley H., xiv, 30, 31, 52, 485, 577n., 594 Thorpe, John, Custumale Roffense, 554n. Three Hundred Sonnets, see Tupper, Martin Farquhar (III General Index) Throgmorton family (Elizabethan), 289 Thucydides, 361 Tiberius, Julius Caesar Augustus (Roman emperor), 2 Tibullus, 436

Tieck, Dorothea, 153 Tieck, Ludwig, 153, 555n. Tiffany, Grace, 93 Tilley, Morris Palmer, 574n. Tillyard, E.M.W., xiii, 32–7, 39, 47, 48, 50, 51, 59n., 64, 75, 583, 594 Timber: or Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter, see Jonson, Ben (III General Index) Tipton, Alzada J., 69 Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), 127 ‘To Althea, From Prison’, see Lovelace, Richard (III General Index) Tomalin, J., 142 Toole, William B., III, 45, 62n., 594 Tower, The, see Yeats, William Butler (III General Index) Trachiniae, see Sophocles (III General Index) Traïson, see Chronique de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux Roy Dengleterre (III General Index) Transactions (New Shakespeare Society), 22 Traubel, Horace L., 58n., 594 Trauerspiel, 91 Traversi, Derek A., 35, 59n., 594 Tree, Ellen, 17 Tree, Herbert Beerbohm, ix, 28, 58n., 422, 429–31, 572nn., 587–9 Tresillian (character in Woodstock), 502 Trevor-Roper, H.R., 548n. Trinarchodia, see Daniel, George (seventeenth-century writer) (III General Index) Tripaetite Chronicle, see Gower, John (III General Index) Troilus and Cressida (Dryden), see Dryden, John (III General Index) Tromly, Fred B., 86, 87 Troublesome Reign of King John, The (Anon.), 31, 189, 255, 512, 559n. Trousdale, Marion, 44, 62n., 594 Trunz, Erich, 416 Trussell, John, 1, 54n., 583 Tudeau-Clayton, Margaret, 73 Tupper, Martin Farquhar, 552n.; ‘Unholy Alliance’ (in Three Hundred Sonnets), 552n.

628

Index

Turner, Anne (conspirator in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury), 555n. Turner, Sharon, 549nn., 550nn. 551nn. 562n. Tyler, Wat, 199, 240, 552n., 567n., 579n. Tyrwhitt, Thomas, 119, 134 Tytler, Patrick Fraser, 196, 552n. Ulrici, Hermann, 15, 18, 34, 220–6, 229, 556nn., 594 Ulysses, 213, 249 ‘Unholy Alliance’, see Tupper, Martin Farquhar (III General Index) Union of the Two Noble and Illustrious Families of York and Lancaster, The, see Hall, Edward (III General Index) Unton, Sir Henry, 286 Ure, Peter, 39, 40, 43, 45, 60n., 61n. 555n., 570n., 586, 594; see also New Arden edition (1956) (I Richard II) Van Doren, Mark, 39, 60n., 594 Vanbrugh, Sir John, 562n. Vanity of Human Wishes, The, see Johnson, Samuel (III General Index) Vaughan, Henry Halford, 57n., 594 Vaught, Jennifer C., 82, 91 Velz, John W., 87 Venice Preserved, see Otway, Thomas (III General Index) Vere, Robert de, see de Vere, Robert (III General Index) Vergil (or Virgil), Polydore, 34, 157; Historia Anglica, 77 Verity, A.W., 24, 27, 57n., 58nn., 324–8, 331, 563n., 586, 594 Verlaine, Paul, 418, 571n. Vernant, Jean-Pierre, 92 Vernon, Diana (character in Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy), 481, 483, 576n.; see also Vernon, Sir Richard (historical figure) (II Shakespeare’s Works) Verplanck, Guilian C., 15, 16, 29, 226–9, 556n., 586 Verstegan, Richard (also known as Richard Rowlands), 284, 559nn., 560nn. Vickers, Brian, xviii, 54n., 55nn., 56nn., 62n., 111, 116, 118, 126, 129, 544n., 545n., 548n., 568n., 574nn., 581n., 583

Victoria, Queen, 14, 413, 446 Virgil, Publius Maro, 26, 142, 361; Aeneid, 361, 527, 546n. Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de, 202, 204, 525, 580n.; Zaïre, 528 Wagner, Adolph, 166 Waites, Alfred, 57n., 586 Waller, Lewis, 417, 571n. Walpole, Horace, 116, 120 Walpole, Sir Robert, 6, 203, 261, 553n. Walsingham, Sir Francis (Elizabethan statesman), 559n. Walsingham, Thomas of, 128, 549n., 550nn., 564n. Walworth, Sir William (mayor of London), 217 Warburton, Dr William, 6, 12, 55nn., 113, 114, 120, 586, 589 Warburton, Edward A., 22, 414, 571n. Ward, A.C., 408, 591 Ward, Ian, 69, 101n. Ward, Jeremy, xviii Ward, Sir Adolphus William, 11, 33, 58n., 594 Waring, James, 571n. Wark, Robert R., 553n. Warner, Beverley E., 27, 52, 58n., 380–91, 569n., 594 Warner, Deborah, 70, 93, 94 Warner, Ferdinando, 544n. Warner, William, 127 Warton, Joseph, 170, 547n. Warton, Thomas, 126 Warwick, Earl of (Thomas Beauchamp), 248 Watt, A.F., 18, 57nn., 586 Way of the World, The, see Congreve, William (III General Index) Webb, John, 549n., 551n. Webber, Joan, 43, 61n., 594 Webster, John, 54n., 289, 436, 589; The Duchess of Malfi, 436, 573n. Weir, George R., 414, 417, 571nn. Wells, Stanley, 59n., 65, 582 Wells, Susan, 50, 52, 63n., 594 Wendell, Barrett, 27, 392–5, 569n., 594 Wentworth, Thomas, see Strafford, 1st Earl of (III General Index) Wernham, R.B., 560n.

 Index 629 Werstine, Paul, 63n. West, Samuel, 94 Whitaker, Virgil K., 41, 61n., 594 White, Diana, 403, 587 White, Hayden, 83, 100 White, Richard Grant, vii, 17, 26, 31, 52, 256–9, 329–30, 493, 497–8, 557–8n., 578n., 586, 595 Whitgift, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 560n. Whitman, Walt, 26, 58n., 594 Wieland, Christoph Martin, 535 Wilde, Oscar, ix, 20, 321–4, 563n., 595; The Importance of Being Earnest, 321 Wilhelm Meister, see Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (III General Index) Williams, Benjamin, 552n., 554n. Williams, Deanne, 79, 80 Williams, Raymond, 46 Wilson, F.P., 585 Wilson, John Dover, 21, 34, 47, 57n., 586; see also Cambridge edition (1939) (I Richard II) Wilson, Richard, 57n., 586 Wilson, Robert (Elizabethan actorplaywright), 404, 570n. Windebank, Thomas, 287 Windisch, Martin, 101n. Winer, Burt, 142 Winny, James, 40, 45, 53, 60n., 595 Winter, William, 26, 58nn., 586, 595 Wisdom of the Ancients, The, see Bacon, Sir Francis (III General Index) Wise, Andrew, 216, 345, 565n. Wolfe, Thomas, 468; Of Time and the River, 468 Womersley, David, 74 Wonder of Women, The, see Marston, John (III General Index) Woodbridge, Linda, 62n., 591 Woodstock (Anon.), 27, 34, 40, 78, 422–7, 445, 486, 499, 502, 572n., 573n., 576n., 581n., 585, 587

Woodvil, see Lamb, Charles (III General Index) Worden, Blair, 66 Wordsworth, Charles, 57n., 586 Wordsworth, William, 22, 140, 280, 239, 274, 328, 488, 567n.; ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality’, 410, 554n., 570n.; Lyrical Ballads, 563n.; The Prelude, 379, 568n.; ‘Rob Roy’s Grave’, 352, 565n.; ‘The Solitary Reaper’, 566n.; Sonnets, 280, 546n., 552n., 558n. Wright, Thomas, 560n., 576n. Wright, William Aldis, vii, 23, 57n., 225, 344, 370, 413, 565n., 584 Wriothesley, Henry, see Southampton, 3rd Earl of (III General Index) Wroughton, Richard, Richard II (alteration of Shakespeare), 13, 17, 151–2, 169, 546n., 586 Wycherley, William, 562n.; The Country Wife, 562n. Wycliffe, John, 17 Xenophon, Memorabilia, 572n. Yachnin, Paul, 79 Yeats, John Butler (father of the poet), 571 Yeats, William Butler, xi, 20, 21, 28, 31, 39, 53, 86, 415–21, 571n., 575n., 577n., 578n., 584, 595; Autobiographies, 571n.; ‘Emmet the Apostle of Irish Liberty’, 571n.; Ideas of Good and Evil, 415–21, 578n.; Last Poems, 415; The Tower, 415 Yorkshire Tragedy, A (Anon.), 117 Zagorin, Perez, 63n., 590 Zaїre, see Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de (III General Index) Zall, Paul M., 564n. Zitner, Sheldon P., 42, 53, 61n., 595 Žižek, Slavoj, 96

630