| | 

Character
Directory
KING RICHARD II |
Richard II, King of
England (1367-1400) is the title character of Richard II, king deposed by
Henry Bolingbroke. Richard is a self-centered man and an inept ruler; his
fall seems both deserved and inevitable. Nevertheless, Shakespeare elicits
strong sympathy for the fallen king as he suffers painful psychological
trauma before coming to accept his fate.
It is quickly
established that Richard is an incompetent king. In 1.2 we learn that
Richard, before the play begins, had arranged the murder of his uncle the
Duke of Gloucester, an admired member of the royal family. Furthermore,
his ordinary conduct as king is persistently disastrous. When his
'coffers, with too great a court / And liberal largess, are grown somewhat
light' (1.4.43-44), he turns to extortionate abuses of the public. And he
seizes the estate of John of Gaunt, rightly the inheritance of the exiled
Bolingbroke. This not only stimulates Bolingbroke's rebellion, but it
alarms many other nobles, who fear that their own holdings may similarly
be in jeopardy. Richard's wrong-headedness is exemplified by his obstinate
refusal to heed the good advice of his uncles Gaunt and the Duke of York.
He delights in ceremony and the trappings of power, and his rhetoric is
windy. Narcissistic and arrogant, he does not rule; he enjoys himself in
the role of ruler. Despite all his boasting, Richard cannot use the power
of his position, and Bolingbroke's triumph, when it comes, is almost
effortless.
However, in political
decline Richard becomes a more sympathetic character. His speech is no
less extravagant, but now his mannered style is plainly a manifestation of
inner distress. He is a more complex person than he had seemed earlier; in
his isolation, he is intensely introspective and racked with anxiety,
alternating between unjustified hope and exaggerated despair. Finally,
imprisoned and due to be killed, he acknowledges that his own failings
have played some part in his fall: 'I wasted time, and now doth time waste
me' (5.5.49). Richard, with his penchant for strong imagery and elaborate
metaphor, is the first of Shakespeare's protagonists to demonstrate an
extraordinary imagination and artistic sense. A complex and ambiguous
personality, Richard foreshadows the great heroes of Shakespeare's later
Tragedies.
Richard's poetic
language and love of ceremony place him in striking opposition to the
prosaic and practical Bolingbroke. This powerful contrast reflects a basic
human conflict between the doer and the dreamer. It also enhances
Richard's strong symbolic role as the last representative of the medieval
England of Edward III, in which the ethos of chivalry was still dominant.
The passing of this nostalgically romantic period is a major theme of the
play.
The historical
Richard is for the most part ignored by Shakespeare, who focuses entirely
on the last year of a 22-year reign. When Edward III died, Richard, his
grandson and heir, was only 10 years old. The young king seems to have
been fond of pomp and splendor, and he had a reputation as a dilettante,
but he was also courageous. At 14 he faced a murderous crowd during the
great peasants' rebellion of 1381 and convinced them to disperse. However,
England was governed during Richard's minority by his uncles, especially
the Duke of Gloucester. When Richard attempted to assert himself 10 years
later, an armed conflict ensued and Richard was nearly forced from the
throne. A coalition of nobles ruled for two years, but Richard gathered
supporters and successfully began to rule at the age of 22. He seems to
have governed well. His reign was noted for his emphasis on peace; he
concluded truces in Ireland in 1394 and, more important, in the Hundred
Years War against France in 1396. (By the latter treaty, he agreed to
marry the young Princess Isabel, who was a child, not the adult Queen of
the play.) In 1397 another rupture between the king and Gloucester
resulted in the duke's imprisonment and death. Modern scholarship tends to
confirm the contemporary opinion that Richard was responsible for his
uncle's murder, but the truth cannot be ascertained.
The political events
of the play are roughly accurate—Shakespeare followed his sources, for the
most part—but the emphasis on Richard's incompetence is distinctly
overdrawn. His departure for Ireland, shortly after seizing Gaunt's estate
and alienating the nobility, was a grave error, but even worse was his
delay in returning once Bolingbroke's invasion had begun. This
procrastination, as well as the dismissal of much of his force upon
arrival in England, appears to have been advised by Richard's
second-in-command, Aumerle, who promptly deserted his master, an event
that Shakespeare omits. Richard was given sworn oaths by Northumberland,
who was speaking for Bolingbroke, that the latter did not intend
usurpation and would disarm if Gaunt's titles and estates were restored to
him. Richard accepted these terms and unknowingly allowed himself to be
taken prisoner. Thus his final fall was due as much to treachery as to
wrongdoing on his part. The deposition scene (4.1) is entirely fictitious;
Bolingbroke certainly could not afford to give his enemy a platform, and
he did not. Sir Piers Exton’s murder of Richard is also a fiction,
although Shakespeare took it from his source and doubtless believed it. A
contemporary report states that Richard died of starvation, either
deprived of food by his jailer or refusing to eat. The actual
circumstances of Richard's death are not known, although his bones were
exhumed in 1871 and no signs of violence were found. |
JOHN OF GAUNT |
John of Gaunt is
Richard II’s uncle and father of Bolingbroke. Gaunt, though he dies in
2.1, is an important figure. He represents a grand tradition of
statesmanlike patriotism and honor, encouraging Bolingbroke, in 1.1 and
1.3, towards the ideal of obedience to the King, whom he believes rules by
divine right. On the same grounds, he resists the Duchess of Gloucester's
demands in 1.2 for vengeance against the King for the murder of her
husband, Gaunt's brother. Yet he is aware of Richard's failings, and,
before dying, he chastises the King severely for ruining the country
through overtaxation and self-indulgence. Preparing himself for this final
encounter with Richard, he meditates on England in a patriotic passage
that has been famous since it was first performed: 'This royal throne of
kings, this scept'red isle, . . . This blessed plot, this earth, this
realm, this England, . . .' (2.1.40-50).
The historical Gaunt
was a very different sort of man from the paragon of virtue presented in
the play. Shakespeare altered the much more accurate portrait found in his
principal source, Holinshed’s Chronicles, in part because Queen Elizabeth
traced her ancestry to Gaunt, but also in order to hold up an ideal
representative of the chivalric age, whose passing is a major theme of the
play. Gaunt, named for his birth in English-occupied Ghent, in Flanders,
was a greedy and aggressive aristocrat, devoted to his own interests, not
to the common welfare. Before the time of the play, he spent several
years—and vast amounts of English wealth—fighting in Spain in an
unsuccessful attempt to seize the crown of Castile for himself. He was
widely detested in England, and during the great revolt of 1381 his palace
in London was thoroughly sacked by gleeful crowds. |
DUKE OF YORK |
Edmund of Langley,
Duke of York (1341-1402) is uncle of King Richard II. Like his brother
John of Gaunt York deplores the misguided rule of their nephew but
believes strongly in the divine appointment of kings and is doggedly loyal
to Richard. Richard, even as he is censured by York, appoints him Governor
of England to rule in the king's absence, observing that 'he is just'
(2.1.221). However, he is helpless to prevent the usurpation of the crown
by Bolingbroke, and, once this is accomplished, he transfers his loyalty
to the new king, despite his own grief at Richard's fall. He even
denounces his son, the Duke of Aumerle, as a traitor.
York is a
representative of a vanishing medieval world of inviolable political and
social hierarchies. In 2.3.96-105 he consciously identifies himself with
that system, nostalgically recalling his comradeship with the Black Prince
in the days of King Edward III. Ironically he speaks just as Bolingbroke
is preparing the triumph of a more modern world of opportunistic,
Machiavellian politics. York's sympathetic character is intended to
heighten the pathos that colors the passing of that older world, one of
the principal themes of the play.
The historical York
apparently resembled Shakespeare's character. He was noted for his gentle,
peaceloving nature, combined with a marked incapacity in political and
military matters. He was the founder and namesake of the York branch of
the Plantagenet family; through a younger son than Aumerle, the Earl of
Cambridge, who appears in Henry V, York's great-grandson would
eventually claim the crown and rule as King Edward IV.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE |
Henry Bolingbroke
(later King Henry IV, 1366-1413) is the usurper of the throne from King
Richard II. (The same individual appears as King Henry IV in 1 and 2 Henry
IV.) Bolingbroke's rise to the throne balances Richard's fall, and
Bolingbroke, like Richard, undergoes personal change. In 1.1 he uses
elaborate rhetoric to accuse Mowbray of murdering the Duke of Gloucester
and to challenge him to a trial by combat. We learn in 1.2 that
Gloucester's murder was Richard's doing, as Bolingbroke must have known.
It is clear that Bolingbroke is hostile to Richard from the very beginning
and that the King has no effective response. Bolingbroke's triumph can
already be foreseen. (Shakespeare will have assumed that his audience knew
that Bolingbroke was to become King in any case.) Although Bolingbroke
accepts his banishment, we know that he will shortly reappear as Richard's
enemy. Thus Bolingbroke seems an unscrupulous schemer from the beginning.
When he returns from
exile to claim his inheritance—the estates of his father, John of
Gaunt—his first actions reinforce this impression. In 2.3 he welcomes
Percy, Ross, and Willoughby as his allies with apparently frank gratitude,
but, having seen his ambition we doubt his sincerity. Moreover, the
playwright will probably have counted on his audience's familiarity with
the fate of Percy, who later died in rebellion against Bolingbroke (as is
enacted in 1 Henry IV). Later in this scene, Bolingbroke offers an
elaborate rationale for his rebellion against the crown when he is
criticized by the Duke of York; it is clear that he thinks it important to
maintain an appearance of justified innocence, masking his ambition with
assertions of political rectitude. Further, he proclaims that he has come
only to claim his inheritance, but he also proceeds to execute the alleged
villains Bushy and Greene for 'crimes' that are actually offences against
Bolingbroke personally rather than against the state.
Significantly,
Bolingbroke's diction changes at this point. As Richard's strikingly
poetic manner of speaking becomes prominent in his emotional collapse,
Bolingbroke adopts a plainer mode of speech intended to reveal his
motives. His practical realism is emblematic of the new era in politics
that he represents. Bolingbroke is a Machiavellian leader, prepared to
take whatever measures are necessary to acquire and preserve power,
whereas Richard, relying on long-standing tradition, believes in the
ancient theory of divine right. The passing of the romantic medieval world
represented by that tradition is a major theme of the play. Bolingbroke's
easy reliance on his own strength is a new attribute of kingship,
reflected in his speech and manner as soon as he begins to assert his
power.
A third Bolingbroke,
the generous victor, begins to assume importance in 3.1. Although he
undertakes a ruthless act of state in condemning Bushy and Greene, he
anticipates his later development in demonstrating his sympathy for
Richard's Queen, instructing that she be treated well. Bolingbroke's
magnanimity is further stressed in Act 5, when he pardons Carlisle and
Aumerle and when he repudiates Richard's murder. The playwright is clearly
paving the way for Bolingbroke's appearance as Henry IV.
The historical
Bolingbroke was Richard's close contemporary, although the playwright
makes the usurper younger than the deposed King (e.g., in 3.3. 204-205) to
emphasize his greater vitality. Henry Bolingbroke was so called because he
was born at Bolingbroke, a castle in Lincolnshire. (The alternative
version of his name, Bullingbrook, first used in the Q,l edition of the
play, suggests its probable pronunciation in Elizabethan English.) As a
young man, Bolingbroke belonged to a political faction, led by Gloucester,
that nearly dethroned Richard in 1387. However, he remained aloof from the
politics of the court throughout the 1390s, spending much of his time as a
Crusader in Lithuania, and he seems to have had nothing to do with the
conflict of 1397 that resulted in Gloucester's death. His motivation in
challenging Mowbray two years later is unclear, although the play makes it
appear to be ambition for the throne. Actually, even after his invasion,
Bolingbroke may have intended only to claim his inheritance; it is unclear
when he decided to seize power.
Shakespeare invented
several aspects of Bolingbroke's assumption of the crown. The deposition
scene, in which Bolingbroke formally displaces Richard, is entirely
fictitious; the triumphant usurper had no interest in providing his
defeated opponent with a public platform. Similarly, his instigation of
the murder of Richard by Piers Exton is unhistorical. The episode, in
which Bolingbroke vows to go on crusade to atone for Exton's crime, is
intended to introduce
the religious
tendencies of Henry IV, Although the playwright took this incident from
his chief source and certainly believed it. Bolingbroke’s repudiation of
Exton after the murder is Shakespeare’s fiction. A similar story
concerning Thomas a Becket and Henry II was one of several apocryphal
anecdotes that the playwright might have used as a model’ an account in
Plutarch was another.
AUMERLE |
Edward York, Duke of
Aumerle (c. 1373-1415) is a supporter of Richard II. Aumerle is a
flattering courtier whose loyalty to King Richard is later undercut by his
willingness to betray his fellow conspirators, who attempted to restore
the deposed king, in order to save his own life. Aumerle displays his
hypocrisy with seeming pride in 1.4, when he boasts of having feigned
affection for Bolingbroke. He offers advice to Richard at several points;
in 3.2 he suggests firmness in resisting Bolingbroke but then shifts to
less honorable stalling tactics (3.3.131-132). After Bolingbroke has
triumphed, Bagot accuses Aumerle of complicity in Richard's murder of the
Duke of Gloucester; Bolingbroke postpones the question, but we hear in 5.2
that Aumerle has been stripped of his dukedom (though he continues to be
designated Aumerle throughout the play). In this scene Aumerle's father,
the Duke of York, discovers his son's involvement in the Abbot’s plot
against Bolingbroke and angrily declares that he will inform the new king.
Aumerle's mother, the Duchess, sends him to court to beg for mercy before
York can expose him. She follows and successfully pleads for his life.
This episode contrasts Aumerle's devious character with his father's
forthright patriotism, his mother's maternal passion, and Bolingbroke's
generosity.
The historical
Aumerle was a favorite of King Richard; when the Duke of Gloucester was
killed, before the play opens., Aumerle was awarded much of the dead man's
property and was created Duke of Albemarle (corrupted to Aumerle in
Elizabethan English). Aumerle accompanied Richard to Ireland, and it was
apparently his bad advice that led the King to delay his return to England
upon Bolingbroke's arrival and then to dismiss his army when he got there.
Further, in an episode probably unknown to Shakespeare, Aumerle abandoned
Richard for Bolingbroke at that point; therefore, when he joined the
Abbot's conspiracy against Bolingbroke, he was being doubly treacherous,
and he was shortly to betray his fellow conspirators as well. His father's
part in this action is probably not historical, although it is reported in
Shakespeare's chief source, Holinshed’s Chronicles. In any case,
Aumerle was pardoned by Bolingbroke, by then Henry IV, but his mother's
involvement is entirely Shakespeare's invention; the Duchess had actually
been dead for six years. Moreover, to increase the pathos other plea,
Shakespeare presented Aumerle as an only child; the Duke actually had a
younger brother, the Earl of Cambridge, who is a character in Henry V.
Aumerle himself reappears as the Duke of York in that play.
MOWBRAY |
Mowbray is an enemy
of Bolingbroke. The play opens with Bolingbroke's accusation to King
Richard II that Mowbray has committed treason by embezzling military
payrolls, engaging in unspecified plots, and, most important, having
murdered the king's uncle, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester. Mowbray hotly
denies these charges, and a trial by combat is scheduled. In their
vehement, fiery rhetoric, both contestants evoke the stylized pageantry of
a medieval world that was remote even in Shakespeare's day and whose
passing is a basic theme of the play. Before the trial by combat begins,
in 1.3, two decidedly sympathetic characters, John of Gaunt and the
Duchess of Gloucester, the widow of the murdered duke, make it clear that
Mowbray had in fact killed Gloucester and that he had done so on Richard's
orders. The king, presumably hoping to avoid potential embarrassment,
cancels the combat and banishes both disputants from England. Mowbray's
response is again highly oratorical, but it contains one particularly
distinctive passage (1.3.159-173), in which he regrets his departure to
non-English-speaking lands, asserting a psychological dependence on the
ability to express himself through language. This attitude surely reflects
Shakespeare's own. Later Carlisle declares (4.1.91-102) that Mowbray has
died in Venice after fighting bravely against the Saracens in a Crusade.
The historical
Mowbray, like Bolingbroke, belonged to a faction, headed by Gloucester,
that had rebelled against Richard in the late 1380s, and, with
Bolingbroke, he subsequently joined the king's party. When Richard was
again opposed by Gloucester, in 1397, the king arrested his uncle and
placed him in the custody of Mowbray, who commanded the English fortress
at Calais. Gloucester died in prison, and, while it cannot be confirmed,
14th-century rumor and modern scholarship alike agree with Shakespeare
that Mowbray most
likely had the duke killed at the king's command. When he was expelled
from England, Mowbray went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but he did
not fight there; the Crusades had ended a full century earlier. Mowbray's
son, Thomas Mowbray, later rebelled against his father's foe, when
Bolingbroke had become Henry IV. He was captured and executed in 1405, as
is enacted in 2 Henry IV.
SURREY |
Thomas Holland, Duke
of Surrey (1374-1400) is a supporter of King Richard II. In 4.1 Surrey
disputes Lord Fitzwater’s account of the Duke of Aumerle’s role in the
murder of the Duke of Gloucester. Fitzwater challenges him to a trial by
combat, one of many similar conflicts that erupt in this scene. The
episode serves to demonstrate the widespread disorder that the illicit
assumption of power by Bolingbroke has engendered.
Although he is not
seen again in the play, Surrey subsequently joins the revolt against
Bolingbroke, for his execution is announced by Northumberland in 5.6.8,
where he is called Kent. Thomas Holland had been named Duke of Surrey by
Richard in 1397, but Bolingbroke revoked that status at the time of the
rebellion, so Northumberland refers to him by his lesser title, the Earl
of Kent. Kent and the Earl of Salisbury were captured in battle by Lord
Berkely, who turned them over to a mob, who beheaded them.
SALISBURY |
John Montague (Montacute),
Earl of Salisbury (c. 1350-1400) is a supporter of King Richard II. In 2.4
Salisbury receives notice from the Welsh Captain that his troops will no
longer remain in Richard's army, and he mourns the likely downfall of the
king. He himself stays loyal and is eventually killed fighting against
Bolingbroke; his death is reported by the Earl of Northumberland in 5.6.8.
The historical Salisbury was a trusted adviser to Richard for many years;
in 1396 he negotiated the king's marriage to Queen Isabel. A year after
Richard's deposition, Salisbury was captured in battle, along with the
Duke of Surrey, by Lord Berkeley, who turned his prisoners over to a mob,
which beheaded them. Salisbury's son was the Earl of Salisbury in Henry V
and I Henry VI.
BERKELEY |
Lord Thomas Berkeley
(d. 1417) is an ally of the Duke of York. A Gloucestershire nobleman whose
castle has assumed strategic importance in the rebellion of Bolingbroke
against King Richard II, Berkeley greets Bolingbroke on York's behalf. The
historical Berkeley apparently allied himself with Bolingbroke when York
did, for he served on the commission of noblemen that issued the formal
declaration of Richard's deposition, and he opposed the rebellion against
the new king, capturing the Duke of Surrey and the Earl of Salisbury. He
turned his prisoners over to a mob, who killed them; their deaths are
reported in 5.6.8. In later years Berkeley fought for Henry IV, as
Bolingbroke became known, against Owen Glendower.
BUSHY |
Sir John Bushy (Bussy)
(d. 1399) is a supporter of Richard II. Bushy, John Bagot, and Henry
Greene are the 'caterpillars' (2.3.165) whose influence on the King is
alleged by Bolingbroke to have been disastrous for England. Bushy attempts
to comfort the distraught Queen Isabel in 2.2; his elaborate courtier's
language seems grotesque even to modern ears, unaware that it parodies
16th-century religious meditations. Later in 2.2 Bushy, Bagot, and Greene
recognize that their position as favorites of the King is likely to prove
dangerous if their master is defeated by Bolingbroke. The three decide to
flee when Bolingbroke approaches; Bushy and Greene seek safety in Bristol
Castle, but Bolingbroke captures them and sentences them to death. The
historical Bushy was a minor politician; he was frequently Speaker of the
House of Commons—not an important post in his day—and was also three times
Sheriff of London. Originally a supporter of the Duke of Gloucester, he
was recruited to Richard's party in the 1390s, before the murder of the
Duke. Butcher Minor character in 2 Henry VI.
BAGOT |
Sir John Bagot (d. c.
1400) is a supporter of Richard II. Bagot, with his colleagues John Bushy
and Henry Greene, is one of the 'caterpillars' (2.3.165) whose influence
on the King is said by Bolingbroke to have been disastrous |pr England.
They recognize that their position as favorites of the King is likely to
prove dangerous if Bolingbroke defeats him, and in 2.2 they decide to seek
safety when Bolingbroke appears. Bushy and Greene are captured and
executed, but Bagot joins the King in Ireland and thus lives to appear
before the triumphant Bolingbroke at the beginning of 4.1. He brings an
accusation against the Duke of Aumerle, presumably in exchange for
clemency, and then disappears from the play. The historical Bagot was a
lesser aristocrat of Warwickshire and had originally been a supporter of
the murdered Duke of Gloucester. He was later recruited to Richard's cause
and became close to the King; it was at Bagot's residence in Coventry that
Richard stayed at the time of the trial by combat between Bolingbroke and
Mowbray that is depicted in 1.3. After the fall of the King, Bagot was
imprisoned by Bolingbroke in the Tower of London, where he is last known
to have been alive.
GREEN |
Greene (1)
(Green), Henry (d. 1399) is a supporter of King Richard II. Greene, John
Bagot, and John Bushy are the 'caterpillars' (2.3.165) whose influence on
the King is alleged by Bolingbroke to have been disastrous for England. In
1.4 Greene, the least prominent of the three, advises the King that he
must address the pressing problem of a rebellion in Ireland. The three
favorites recognize that their closeness to the King is likely
to prove dangerous if their master is
defeated by Bolingbroke. In 2.2 they decide to flee when Bolingbroke
appears; Bushy and Greene seek safety in Bristol Castle, but Bolingbroke
captures them and sentences them to death. Little
is known about the historical Greene, a member of the gentry who was
recruited for Richard's faction from among the supporters of the Duke of
Gloucester some time before the Duke’s murder.
NORTHUMBERLAND |
Northumberland is a
supporter of Bolingbroke against Richard II in the first play, and a rebel
against him—after he has begun to rule as Henry IV—in the two later works.
In Richard II Northumberland is Bolingbroke's chief lieutenant; in
2.1 he leads others into rebellion against Richard by providing a
rationale for revolt: 'The king is not himself, but basely led by
flatterers ...' (2.1.241-242). In 2.3 Northumberland himself resorts to
flattering his leader unctuously, and in 3.3 he hypocritically conveys
Bolingbroke's false declaration of loyalty to Richard. In 4.1
Northumberland takes on the most boldly disrespectful functions in the
process of removing the king from his position, and in 5.1 he is the
hard-hearted deputy who separates Richard and the grieving Queen. On that
occasion he tersely states a cruel principle that aptly represents the new
world of Machiavellian politics that Bolingbroke has inaugurated: replying
to a request for mercy, he observes, 'That were some love, but little
policy.' (5.1.84)
In the Henry IV plays
he is a less prominent but no more likeable figure. Northumberland and his
son, the fiery Hotspur, join in rebellion against King Henry, whom they
perceive as ungrateful to the Percy family. However,' the earl fails to
appear with his forces at the crucial battle of Shrewsbury, sending word
that he is ill; the rebel forces are defeated there and Hotspur killed. At
the outset of 2 Henry IV the personification of Rumour claims that
Northumberland was 'craftysick' (Ind. 37), and in 2.3 Lady Percy,
Hotspur's widow, chastises her father-in-law for having dishonorably
abandoned his son; no other evidence is presented that Northumberland's
illness was feigned, however. The earl then deserts the rebels again,
fleeing to Scotland rather than supporting the renewed efforts of the
Archbishop of York. His final defeat is reported in 4.4.97-101.
The historical
Northumberland did first rebel with Bolingbroke and then against him, but
Shakespeare exaggerates his treachery and alters the facts of his life
considerably. A man of King Henry's age in the play, Northumberland was
actually a generation older; this change is part of Shakespeare's
development of the rivalry between Hal and Hotspur by making them
contemporaries. Northumberland, a major landowner in northern England and
a distinguished warrior in the Scottish border conflicts, was a close
friend and supporter of King Henry's father, John of Gaunt. Like Gaunt, he
had supported Richard II against Thomas of Gloucester, but he was
alienated by Richard's seizure of Gaunt's estate, and when Bolingbroke
returned from exile, the earl became one of his chief allies, as in
Richard II. His despicable personality as Bolingbroke's lieutenant may
derive from the playwright's knowledge of a famous incident that,
surprisingly, he did not use. Sent by Bolingbroke to negotiate with
Richard, Northumberland swore a sacred oath that Bolingbroke intended to
allow Richard to remain in power if he were restored to Gaunt's title and
estates. Richard was thus induced to forgo escape by sea and leave the
castle in which he had taken shelter. He was promptly ambushed by
Northumberland and taken to London, where he was deposed. It is not known
whether or not Northumberland used this ploy under orders, but it was
reported in Shakespeare's source, Holinshed’s Chronicles, as a heinous
betrayal.
Once Henry was in
power, disputes arose between him and the Percies, eventually leading to
their revolt. However, Northumberland's role in it in the Henry IV plays
is almost wholly fictitious. According to Shakespeare, his unforeseen
illness shocks the rebels, disturbs their plans, and contributes to their
defeat at Shrewsbury, but in reality he had been sick for some time and
his absence had been anticipated.. The playwright's version is
dramatically more interesting, and it allows the rashness of Hotspur and
Douglas to be emphasized. The earl's pretending to be ill is also
unsupported by Shakespeare's sources; it is simply an appropriately nasty
rumor to associate with his Machiavellian character. Further, his betrayal
of the Archbishop is untrue; Northumberland was the elected leader of the
renewed rebellion, and the Archbishop commenced the uprising prematurely,
before Northumberland could join him. Only after the disaster at Gaultree
Forest, when Henry marched on his headquarters at Warkworth Castle, did
Northumberland flee to Scotland. Several years later, after recruiting
arms and money in Flanders and France, he again revived the rebellion and
invaded England, dying in unsuccessful but valorous combat, according to
Holinshed. This account of tenacious courage did not at all suit
Shakespeare's model of a contemptible rebel, and he simply ignored it.
HENRY PERCY |
Henry Percy
(1364-1403) is a supporter of Bolingbroke son of the Earl of
Northumberland. The same historical figure appears as Hotspur in 1 Henry
IV. In Richard II Percy is a minor figure who primarily delivers
information. He is plainly introduced solely in anticipation of his far
greater importance in I Henry IV. Presented as younger by a generation
than he really was Percy is thus made the contemporary of Bolingbroke son,
Prince Hal, who is to be his great rival Significantly, it is Percy who
tells Bolingbroke the disreputable news of his son in 5.3.13-19. Percy’s
role is clear evidence that Shakespeare had already formulated the general
outline of 1 Henry IV while writing Richard II.
LORD ROSS |
William de Ross (d.
1414) is a supporter of Bolingbroke. In 2.1 Ross, Lord Willoughby, and the
Earl of Northumberland agree to join Bolingbroke's rebellion against King
Richard II. They fear that their own estates are endangered by such acts
as Richard's illegal seizure of Bolingbroke's inheritance. In 2.3 they
accompany Bolingbroke as he marches against the King. The historical Ross,
a prominent landowner in northern England, went on to serve for a time as
Lord Treasurer of England during Bolingbroke's reign as King Henry IV.
LORD WILLOUGHBY |
William de Willoughby
(d. 1409) is a supporter of Bolingbroke. In 2.1 Willoughby and Lord Ross
join the Earl of Northumberland in rebellion against King Richard II,
agreeing that their status as aristocrats is imperiled by Richard's
seizure of Bolingbroke's inheritance. In 2.3 they accompany Bolingbroke as
he marches against the King. The historical Willoughby, a prominent
landowner in Lincolnshire, was descended from a knight in the army of
William the Conqueror and thus had great prestige among the aristocracy.
He later married the widow of the Duke of York, Joan of Kent—the successor
to the Duchess of the play—who went on to marry a third Shakespearean
character, Henry Scroop.
LORD FITZWATER |
Lord Walter Fitzwater
(Fitzwalter) (c. 1368-1407) is a supporter of Bolingbroke. In 4.1
Fitzwater seconds Bagot’s assertion that Aumerle had boasted of killing
the Duke of Gloucester, and he challenges Aumerle to a trial by combat. He
is in turn challenged by the Duke of Surrey, as the scene erupts in
charges and counter-charges. The episode reflects England's political
chaos, for Bolingbroke has just displaced King Richard II. In 5.6
Fitzwater reports the defeat of a rebellion against Bolingbroke, and is
promised rewards by the new king.
CARLISLE |
Thomas Merke, Bishop
of Carlisle (d. 1409) is a supporter of King Richard II. Carlisle
accompanies Richard on his return from Ireland to face Bolingbroke, and he
warns the King against inaction, but his speech is equivocal. His
ambivalence is immediately emphasized by the Duke of Aumerle’s much more
pointed statement of the same warning. Nonetheless, Carlisle is the only
defender of Richard in the deposition scene, 4.1. In a formal speech he
appeals to the assembled aristocrats not to violate the sanctity of a
King, divinely placed on the throne—What subject can give sentence on his
king?' (4.1.121), he asks rhetorically—and he predicts disaster for
England if the deposition is carried out. Northumerland promptly arrests
him for treason, and he is placed in the custody of the Abbot of
Westminster. At the close of the scene Carlisle joins the Abbot and
Aumerle in a plot against Bolingbroke. At the end of the play he is
brought before Bolingbroke, now King Henry IV, who pardons him referring
to his honorable character.
The historical
Carlisle was a Benedictine monk who served Richard ably as an
administrator and was rewarded with his bishopric as a result. He did not
protest Henry's accession; his speech is drawn from accounts of his
opposition to a later proposal to try Richard on criminal charges. These
accounts may have been invented, however, for they derive from an
unreliable, propagandistic tract, probably written by a member of Queen
Isabel's French household, that was the source for Shakespeare's source,
Holinshed’s Chronicles. However, regardless of its historical
reality Carlisle's speech presents an important aspect of Tudor political
dogma: the citizenry may not judge its monarch in any way. This idea is
emphasized in Holinshed, and it is present throughout the History Plays.
Carlisle did participate in the Abbot s conspiracy, but he was not
willingly pardoned by Henry. Tried and convicted, he was dismissed from
his see. and his life was spared only by papal intervention.
Abbot |
William Colchester
Abbot of Westminster (c. 1345-1420) is a conspirator against Bolingbroke.
After Richard is formally deposed in 4.1, the Abbot conspires with the
Bishop of Carlisle and the Duke of Aumerle to kill the usurper. The plot
is discovered, and the Abbot's death, apparently of a bad conscience, is
reported in 5.6.19-21. The historical Abbot was pardoned by Bolingbroke,
by then King Henry IV, after one month in prison, and was permitted to
retain his office, which he held until his death. Shakespeare may have
confused the Abbot's fate with Carlisle's, as reported (inaccurately) by
Holinshed. The Bishop is said to have died upon capture, 'more through
feare than force of sick Abergavenny, George Neville, Lord (d. 1535)
Historical figure and minor character in Henry VIII, sonin-law of
the Duke of Buckingham. As the play opens, Abergavenny joins Buckingham
and the Duke of Norfolk in their complaints about Cardinal Wolsey’s abuse
of power. At the end of 1.1 Abervagenny and Buckingham are arrested for
treason, the victims of a plot by Wolsey. Like his father-in-law,
Abergavenny calmly accepts his fate, 'The will of Heaven be done, and the
king's pleasure / By me obey'd' (1.1.215-216), offering a strong contrast
with Wolsey's villainy. Shakespeare took Abergavenny's involvement from
Holinshed’s Chronicles, and the lord is merely an echo of
Buckingham. At 1.1.211 of the First Folio edition of the play,
Abergavenny's name is spelled 'Aburgany', indicating its ordinary
pronunciation.
Lord Marshal |
Marshal is the
nobleman who presides over the trial by combat between Bolingbroke and
Mowbray in 1.3. Historically, the Marshal on this occasion was the
Duke of Surrey, a supporter of Richard II and thus an enemy of
Bolingbroke. Shakespeare apparently forgot this fact, which appears in his
chief source, Holinshed’s history, when he presented the Marshal as a
friend of Bolingbroke in 1.3.251-252. This is one of the many minor errors
and inconsistencies that appear throughout the plays.
EXTON |
Sir Piers (Pierce)
Exton is the murderer of Richard II. Exton, an ambitious nobleman who
wishes to curry favor with Bolingbroke, the new king, decides in 5.4 that
he will murder the old one, believing that Bolingbroke has expressed a
desire that this deed be done. In 5.5 Exton leads a gang of hired
murderers against Richard in his cell at Pomfret Castle, and they kill the
ex-king, although Exton suffers pangs of conscience. He presents the
corpse to Bolingbroke, now Henry IV, hoping for a reward, but the king
rejects him.
Shakespeare took the
account of Exton's deed from his chief source, Holinshed, but the
anonymous French author of Holinshed's source, probably a member of Queen
Isabel's household, apparently invented the story. No other early source
mentions Exton or supposes that Richard died violently; the only other
contemporary chronicler asserts that Richard was starved to death, either
by his jailers or by his own will. This source, also French, has its own
propagandistic bias, and Richard may well have died of natural causes. His
skeleton was exhumed and examined in the 1870s, and no evidence of
violence was found. We cannot say conclusively how the ex-king died, but,
in any case, Henry IV's rejection of the murderer appears to be
Shakespeare's own addition to the tale, possibly in anticipation of the
opening of 1 Henry IV. A similar story concerning Thomas a Becket and
Henry II was only one of several apocryphal anecdotes that might have
served the playwright as a model; an account in Plutarch was another.
Captain |
The captain is the Welsh commander who
desert the cause of Richard II in 2.4 after the King has not appeared for
many days. The Captain tells of rumors that Richard has died and
cites menacing omens that seem to substantiate them. Shakespeare may
have associated the captain with Owen Glendower who is mentioned 3.1.43.
QUEEN |
Queen Isabel of
England (1389-1409) is the wife of Richard II. The Queen is so completely
different from her historical counterpart that she is virtually
fictitious. Shakespeare introduces her to help provide a human context
for the political events of the play. In 2.3 she glumly regrets the
temporary absence of her husband—'so sweet a guest as ... sweet Richard'
(2.2.8-9)—casting the vain and headstrong King in a very different light
than he has yet been seen. Later, after she overhears the Gardener’s
remarks on Richard's capture and likely deposition by Bolingbroke, she
responds with hysterical grief. She last appears in the famous farewell
scene with Richard (5.1), which restates, on a personal level, the breach
in the political fabric that Bolingbroke's usurpation has effected.
(Richard refers to this in his speech beginning with the expostulation
'Doubly divorc'd!' [5.1.71].) The Queen's pleas that she be permitted to
accompany her husband are rejected by the stony Earl of Northumberland,
and the sorrowing couple are forcibly separated, just as Richard has been
parted from his crown. The historical is presented on a human level, with
a degree of poignancy far greater than any dismay we may feel for
Richard's fall from worldly greatness or for the collapse of England's
feudal traditions.
The historical Isabel
was no happier than Shakespeare's Queen, but she was a child of 10 when
these events occurred. The daughter of Charles VI, the French King of
Henry V, she was married to Richard when she was 7. While this couple
seem to have been genuinely fond of one another, they had no opportunity
to develop the mature relationship that Shakespeare depicts. Although she
is banished to France in the play, she was actually detained in England
for two years following Richard's deposition, virtually a prisoner,
because the new government was reluctant to return her dowry. When she
finally returned home, Isabel was still an eminently eligible princess,
and she was married in 1404 to Prince Charles of Orleans (who appears in
Henry V). She died in childbirth five years later, at the age of 20.
DUCHESS
OF GLOUCESTER |
Eleanor de Bohun
Duchess of Gloucester (1367-1399) is the sister-in-law of John of Gaunt
and widow of Duke Thomas of Gloucester. In 1.2 the Duchess visits Gaunt to
discuss her husband's murder. She blames King Richard II for his death and
passionately entreats Gaunt to avenge it. He insists that vengeance
against a king may be taken only by God, and the Duchess wrathfully
expresses the hope that Bolingbroke will kill Mowbray, whom she says
murdered Gloucester at the king's order. Then she resignedly asserts that
she will soon die of grief and departs for her home. Her death is reported
in 2.2.97. The episode casts light on the conflicts of 1.1 and 1.3, making
clear to the audience that Richard is implicated in Gloucester's murder
and that Bolingbroke's accusation of Mowbray is embarrassing to the king.
Although the Duchess
appears to be Gaunt's contemporary, she was actually a generation younger,
being only 32 when she died, reportedly of grief at the death other only
son. Shakespeare's rendering of her as an older woman helps to heighten
the pathos of the vanishing medieval world that colours his story of the
king's fall.
DUCHESS OF YORK |
Isabel of Castile
Duchess of York (1355-1393) is the mother of the Duke of Aumerle. When her
husband, the Duke of York, discovers Aumerle's part in a plot against the
new king (Bolingbroke), he insists on protecting the monarch by revealing
the conspiracy, exposing his son to charges of treason. The Duchess'
objections go unheeded, and in 5.3, after sending Aumerle ahead, she goes
to the king herself and argues against her husband, opposing her motherly
anguish to his concern for the state. She receives Bolingbroke's pardon of
Aumerle with great gratitude. A powerful dramatic presentation of maternal
passion, the episode also serves to stress the magnanimity of Bolingbroke
in preparation for his role as King Henry IV in 1 and 2 Henry IV.
The incident is
entirely fictitious; the real Duchess Isabel had been dead for years
before the events depicted in the play took place. The Duke of York had
remarried, but the second duchess, besides not being Aumerle's mother, had
nothing to do with his being pardoned by King Henry.
Ladies |
The ladies are attendants to the Queen.
In 3.4 the Ladies try without success to alleviate the Queen's grief at
the fall of King Richard II.
Lord |
The Lord is an accuser of the Duke of
Aumerle in 3.1. The Lord asserts that Aumerle falsely denied his
complicity in an earlier murder plot, and he challenges Aumerle to a trial
by combat. His accusation and Challenge follow several others and
lend a vivid sense of excess and confusion to the scene, thereby
suggesting the potential for chaos produced by the victory of Bolingbroke
over King Richard II.
Heralds |
The Heralds are petty officials at the
trial by combat between Bolingbroke and Mowbray in 1.3. Each Herald
cries out a formal statement of purpose for one contestant.
Gardener |
Gardener is a worker
in the household of the Duke of York. In 3.4 the Gardener and his
assistants discuss the news of the capture and likely deposition of King
Richard II by Bolingbroke. In their conversation the garden is an extended
metaphor for the state: just as a garden must be constantly tended if it
is to bear flowers and fruits, so must the state be kept in order by its
rulers if it is to function healthily. Thus the Gardener summarizes one of
the play's important moral points.
The episode also has
another function. The Queen overhears the Gardener's remarks and reacts
with hysterical anger. Although she curses him, the Gardener is
sympathetic to her grief, and his response neatly emphasizes the human
side of Richard's story. Up to this point we have been encouraged to
judge the King harshly as a self-centered and unreliable ruler; here, the
Gardener's pity stirs an awareness that Richard's fall, however deserved
it may be, has a personal dimension. Our sympathies begin to shift,
preparing us for the tragic and philosophical Richard of the second half
of the play.
Keeper |
The keeper is the jailer of King Richard
who brings him a meal in 5.5. The Keeper refuses to taste the meal
for poison though it has been routine to do so. He assets that Sir
Piers Exton has forbidden him to do so. Richard Strikes him in
anger, and the Keeper's cries summon Exton and the other murderers who
kill the king.
Groom |
The Groom is a supporter of Richard II who
visits him in prison. The visit raises the deposed king's spirits.
He tells Richard of the use of the horse Barbary by Bolingbroke.
This minor incident illustrates that Richard could inspire loyalty in a
simple servant and thus heightens the pathos of the deposed ruler's
murder, which follows immediately.
Servant |
Two servants appear in the Richard II
as messengers. The first servant brings news of the death of the
Duchess of Gloucester. This poignant moment emphasizes the duke's
helplessness in the face on onrushing events. The second is an
attendant of Exton who supports him in assumption that Bolingbroke wants
to have Richard murdered. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
To view other
Richard II sections:
Main Play
Page Play Text
Scene by Scene Synopsis
Character Directory Commentary
To view the other Plays
click below:
By Comedies
Histories
Romances Tragedies
To view other
Shakespeare Library sections:
Biography Plays
Poems
Sonnets Theaters
Shake Links
|