That moment when power shifts
Shakespeare's Richard II concerns the transfer of a crown, but it's a cautionary tale for every sovereign people
I’m reading through Shakespeare’s plays in an attempt to make sense of the world today. Today I’m writing about “Richard II”. For a quick reference to posts on previous plays, click here. Next week: “King John.”
Monarchies share a certain terror at their core which Americans couldn’t have understood until recent history: the threat of a non-peaceful transfer of power.
Peaceful succession depends on the monarch having a child (perhaps one of the ‘right’ sex), one who survives, and isn’t hopelessly weak. That’s a big ask for centuries of rule. The play ‘Richard II’ explores, with unimaginably beautiful lyricism, the transfer of power from a childless king. This was an uncomfortably topical theme for its time, given that Queen Elizabeth I was both childless and late in her years. Perhaps that explains the deft care that Shakespeare gives to a king both weak and flawed.
Many lines in the play are well-known today for their soaring beauty. This, for example:
JOHN OF GAUNT
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house
Against the envy of less happier land;
This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England, [….]
Act 2 Scene 1
This speech is from a dying man who’s preparing himself to speak truth to the King who won’t be happy to hear it. His speech ends with these lines: “That England that was wont to conquer others / Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. / Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life, / How happy then were my ensuing death!”
To understand the stakes as well as the plot, it helps to be familiar with Richard II’s family tree.
The deceased King Edward had many more sons (and daughters too). The trimmed tree above focuses on characters featured or mentioned in the play.
This diagram shows the problem: King Richard II, son of the previous king’s firstborn son, has no children to succeed him on the throne. He can’t live forever; what will happen then? Before 1399, it was anyone’s guess, and that’s the thrust of the play. The question of succession would be top of mind for anyone attending Richard’s court, even as they bend knee and flatter him to stay in his good graces. Which they do abundantly, from the play’s opening scene.
Synopsis
As the play opens, John of Gaunt asks Richard to adjudicate a dispute between his son Henry (called Bolingbroke) and Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk. Bolingbroke claims that Mowbray has committed treason by stealing from the crown and plotting the death of their uncle, Gloucester, all of which Mowbray disputes. The two men challenge each other to a duel, which Richard initially allows.
Surprisingly, Richard relents just as they prepare to fight, deciding instead to exile them both. Bolingbroke is to be exiled for 10 years, a term that Richard reduces to six years in consideration of his uncle, John of Gaunt. He sets a term of life for the exile of Mowbray, who lacks familial influence.
Richard prepares a campaign in Ireland to fill his coffers with the spoils of war when he learns that John of Gaunt is dying. He sets off to see his uncle, mentioning that since Gaunt’s son is out of the way, he’ll take the inheritance of Gaunt’s estate once Gaunt is dead.
With his dying words, Gaunt advises Richard that his reputation has been spoiled by his rapacious taxation. He’s surrounded by flatterers who will destroy him. He calls him not the king, but “Landlord of England.” Richard ignores the advice of ‘a lunatic lean-witted fool’, and when Gaunt dies, Richard takes his estate.
Bolingbroke returns to England before his exile is up, having picked up significant military support while in exile. Bolingbroke has courted the English as a politician, and has won the people’s love even as Richard has earned their displeasure for the misery he’s subjected them to. Bolingbroke poses a credible threat to Richard: as Richard usurped Bolingbroke’s inheritence, Bolingbroke could do the same, at greater cost to the country and king.
Bolingbroke sends a message of flattery and threat to Richard: he’ll give Richard his allegiance and lay down his weapons if Richard repeals his exile and returns his father’s estate to him. “If not, I’ll use the advantage of my power, / And lay the summer’s dust with showers of blood / rained from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen.” Richard meets with him and concedes.
A scene between the Queen and her gardener lays out the argument that just as gardens require eradicating weeds and trimming what will hamper growth, a king must do the same. Richard has not been such a gardener. In the following scene, Bolingbroke—anticipating being the king—sets about to pull some weeds and settle some scores.
In Parliament, he interrogates who plotted his uncle Gloucester’s death. Several step forward to name his cousin Aumerle, the son of the Duke of York. Aumerle in turn accuses them of lies; gauntlets are thrown down all around in challenge. Since he’s heard only charges and no facts to support them, Bolingbroke proposes to bring Mowbray back from exile to bear witness. He learns that Mowbray has died abroad as a man of honor. Without his testimony to determine lies from truth, Bolingbroke lets the challenges (gauntlets) remain, deciding nothing. York arrives with word that Richard will yield his crown to Bolingbroke, who is to become Henry IV. This scene parallels the first scene of the play, in which Bolingbroke accused Mowbray (baselessly, we now know) of the death of Gloucester. In both scenes, gauntlets are thrown down to signify the righteousness of the charge, in absence of fact.
Henry sends Richard to the Tower, but then decides to send him to Pomfret. Richard says goodbye to the Queen, who returns to France.
The Duke and Duchess of York discover that their son, Aumerle, is plotting to kill King Henry. The Duke is enraged—he fears being on the wrong side of Henry—and immediately goes to tell Henry of the plot, willing to sacrifice his son. The Duchess follows him and beseeches Henry to be merciful. Henry agrees to spare Aumerle’s life.
Exton, one of Henry’s men, kills Richard, having taken Henry’s offhand remarks as an order. As the play ends, Henry is wrapping up the ‘gardening’ he’s undertaken to rid his kingdom of potential threats. He’s happy to hear of Richard’s death, but exiles Exton for Richard’s murder to distance himself from it.
Thoughts
The play’s subject is power, reified into the crown worn by the king and passed symbolically to signal the transition. Crowns feature prominently in verse throughout the play; let’s follow the imagery as it develops.
The hollow crown
John of Gaunt, near death and confronting Richard, has refused to flatter the king as is custom. Instead, he demeans Richard’s supposed wealth and power and accuses him of laying to waste the former king’s lineage. (The former king is Gaunt’s father and Richard’s grandfather.)
JOHN OF GAUNT
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head,
And yet, encagèd in so small a verge,
The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
O, had thy grandsire with a prophet’s eye
Seen how his son’s son should destroy his sons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
Deposing thee before thou wert possessed,
Which are possessed now to depose thyself.
-Act 2 Scene 1
Once Richard’s fortunes have shifted, he picks up the imagery as he reflects on the impending loss of his throne to Bolingbroke. In his morbid ruminations, the crown has become the court of death.
KING RICHARD [Sitting] For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings— How some have been deposed, some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed, All murdered. 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, Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life Were brass impregnable; and humoured thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall; and farewell, king. Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood With solemn reverence. Throw away respect, Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty, For you have but mistook me all this while. I live with bread, like you; feel want, Taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus, How can you say to me I am a king? -Act 3 Scene 3
This imagery anticipates his ultimate death, and Richard senses even now what awaits him. He doesn’t know how to live a normal man’s life, without the comforts of being king: he imagines that such a life is filled with want, which his would be without his power. Even so, he realizes that wearing the crown is like wearing a target. Although he loses a kingdom in taking it off, perhaps he can save his life if he does.
Bolingbroke, the man eyeing that target, summons Richard once he hears of Richard’s concession to him. The image of the crown assumes a new form.
KING RICHARD Give me the crown. [To Bolingbroke] Here, cousin, seize the crown. Here, cousin. On this side my hand, on that side thine. Now is this golden crown like a deep well That owes two buckets filling one another, The emptier ever dancing in the air, The other, down, unseen, and full of water. That bucket down and full of tears am I, Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high. -Act 4 Scene 1
Richard, consumed with his own losses, can only see the transfer of power as zero-sum: for one to win the other must lose. One raised in glory, the other drowned in his own tears. Just as democracies are only possible with peaceful successions, monarchies depend on vesting power in one crown, worn by one person. Power-sharing is antithetical to the idea of a king. Richard’s problem is that he’s not gone yet, and he knows that the king needs him to be.
Strength vs all else
Bolingbroke’s first lines in the play foreshadow these events. Richard has called Bolingbroke and Mowbray in to hear their cases against each other.
BOLINGBROKE
Many years of happy days befall
My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!
MOWBRAY
Each day still better others’ happiness,
Until the heavens, envying earth’s good hap,
Add an immortal title to your crown!
-Act 1 Scene 1
Richard underscores the difference in their approaches to him: “Yet one but flatters us.” While Bolingbroke wishes Richard days of happiness, Mowbray wishes him an eternity of rule. Bolingbroke speaks to what the king can give, Mowbray of what the heavens will give to the king.
They continue to differentiate themselves through their charges against each other, their challenges on the day of the duel, and in their responses after hearing their respective punishments. Bolingbroke is passionate while Mowbray is reasoned. Bolingbroke seeks revenge and Mowbray his own honor. Bolingbroke lies in his flattery to Richard, and Mowbray speaks truthfully. They both swear on the king’s sword that they won’t return to England during their terms of exile, and won’t plot against the king. Bolingbroke quickly breaks this oath; Mowbray maintains it to death.
Even so, Richard relents: without being solicited, he stops the duel and orders exile, to prevent bloodshed. He tries to appease the two factions and instead inflames them. Unprompted, he lightens Bolingbroke’s term, seemingly in consideration for family ties, perhaps trying to appease Bolingbroke’s wrath. He knows that Bolingbroke is a threat: why else would he force him to swear not to attack him? The disconnect between what he knows and his willingness to act is the source of his weakness as a king, a flaw that will be fatal.
In this play, brutishness wins out. Only one character demonstrates the will and ability to pluck the crown from the king. The play reminds us that there will be dire consequences, even if they aren’t visited on Henry / Bolingbroke.
BISHOP OF CARLISLE
And, if you crown him, let my prophesy
The blood of English shall manure the ground,
And future ages groan for this foul act.
Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars
Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound.
Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny
Shall here inhabit, and this land be called
The field of Golgotha and dead men’s skulls.
O, if you rear this house against this house
It will the woefullest division prove
That ever fell upon this cursèd earth!
Prevent it, resist it; let it not be so,
Lest child, child’s children, cry against you woe.
-Act 4 Scene 1
We know from history and from Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays that the grandsons of King Henry IV (Bolingbroke) and the Duke of York will battle for power over England in the bloody and long War of the Roses. York’s descendants will look back to this moment as the cause of their family’s great injury: that Bolingbroke usurped the crown, stealing it from the branch of the family that was loyal to Richard.
Richard’s character made him vulnerable. Although the play favors him with memorably beautiful verse, it makes the case that he wasn’t the king history needed him to be. His character echoes Henry VI’s, their falls from the throne sadly mirrored. Power cares little for beauty. Its only requisite is strength.
As power shifts, sovereignty hangs in the balance
The play illuminates the tensions within our concepts of strength. We need strength of character in our leaders; without it we live in a world of deceit and mistrust. We valorize strength in battle, and recoil from its mortal outcomes. Strength, in its masculine attributes, is both fearsome (a strong man) and fearful (a strongman). Brute strength is wielded at the expense of logic (the law) and feeling (spirituality). Its opposite isn’t necessarily weakness; it could just as easily be intelligence, imagination, empathy.
The sovereignty of any people can be put at risk by strongmen wresting power for the benefit of the few against the many. What happens when symbols of power are in play is critical not simply in the moment but for history.
The US Constitution puts the White House in play every four years; the House of Representatives puts the gavel of the Speaker—second in succession to the President—in play at least every two years. How the players handle the transfer means everything. Watch closely.
Ellie’s Corner
It was raining the other day when Dave took this picture. She’s willing him to make the rain stop so she can go outside to play. That’s a powerful look, but not enough to stop the gods of rain.
Thanks for reading,
