Richard II

• Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me. / Let's purge this choler without letting blood.


  Richard II, Act 1, Scene 1

  Richard shows his preference for talk rather than violence. While not in itself a fault, his unwillingness to act and his tendency to wax long and metaphorically make him seem weak next to Bolingbroke, who is bolder and more decisive.
• We were not born to sue, but to command, / Which, since we cannot do, to make you friends, / Be ready, as your lives shall answer it.

  Richard II, Act 1, Scene 1

  Richard asserts his kingly privilege, saying he is not going to plead with the quarreling Bolingbroke and Mowbray, but he will command them. He gives them permission to meet for a trial by combat; however, when the opponents meet, Richard banishes them before they have a chance to fight.
• Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one, /Were as seven vials of his sacred blood


  Duchess of Gloucester, Act 1, Scene 2

  The Duchess of Gloucester appeals to John of Gaunt, citing his family connection to Edward III, to move him to avenge the murder of the Duke of Gloucester, another of the "seven vials." Her point seems to be if anyone has the right to oppose the king, he does, since he is a closer descendant of Edward III than Richard II is.
• Observed his courtship to the common people; how he did seem to dive into their hearts

  King Richard, Act 1, Scene 4

  Bolingbroke is presented here

  as a man of the people. He is popular amongst the commoners and Richard views this with disdain - something that is unimportant failing therefore to recognise the power or importance of such support. He begins the question of whether a king has the right to rule simply because of divine right or whether the public support and constitutional backing is more important. Richard has the former, Bolingbroke the latter. However, Richard would have been condemned for this disdain of the common people and it also acts as a forewarning of the potential support Bolingbroke will receive on his return to

  the country.
• This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, / This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, / This other Eden, demi-paradise.


  John of Gaunt, Act 2, Scene 1

  John of Gaunt beautifully articulates his devotion not to the king himself, not to the people, not to family, but to the land of England, characterizing it as akin to the garden of Eden, or paradise. This love prompts him to speak plainly as he chastises Richard for mismanaging the country.
• Even through the hollow eyes of Death/ I spy life peering


  King Richard, Act 2, Scene 1

  Death is personified as a skull - the image is horrible and disturbing. Through the eyes of death itself, the hollow skull eye sockets life is dancing in a disturbing fashion. The image is one of hope but the juxtaposition of life and death conveys the danger and darkness of this hope perhaps implying the destruction that the usurpation will bring. The hope offered is Bolingbroke who represents a new life for England but only through the death of both Richard and the old England the image of which was so patriotically and

  poetically conveyed at the start by Gaunt.
• Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb is coming towards me

  Queen, Act 2, Scene 2

  Her image of sorrow being

  given birth to is disturbing as it conveys:

  1. the horror she feels

  2. it is prophetic - the sorrow to come is the arrival of Bolingbroke to be announced

  shortly and the death of Richard

  3. Ironically this is the only birth she will have as she will be separated from

  Richard and have no children herself.

  4. There is a contrast between this and the 'teeming womb' of Gaunt's England - the

  birth she is describing is therefore the birth of death - the teeming womb of

  England is sterile [partly because Bolingbroke's actions will eradicate the royal line through Richard and therefore England will give birth to no more true kings.
• The caterpillars of the commonwealth

  Bolingbroke, Act 2, Scene 3

  Animal imagery - Bushey, Bagot and Green are presented as parasites on feed off England's garden and therefore destroy and corrupt it to fatten themselves.
• Like a shooting star/ Fall to the base earth from the firmament


  Earl of Salisbury, Act 2, Scene 4

  Simile suggests that Richard's fall will be a fall of nature. It anticipates his demise and also suggests the brightness of the king's majesty will be lost as well as anticipating the later references to the base court.
• That power that made you king / Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.


  Bishop of Carlisle, Act 3, Scene 2

  The Bishop of Carlisle speaks of his complete confidence that God appointed Richard king of England and will keep him on the throne. To his mind, Bolingbroke cannot possibly become king because God has not chosen him for the position.
• the hollow crown

  Richard II, Act 3, Scene 2

  Realisation in the ultimate meaninglessness of the symbols of

  kingship that cannot protect him. It also links to the 'hollow' ground implying the impotence of such symbols and also the idea that he will not continue in the role of king or produce the next.
• I had forgot myself. Am I not king? / Awake, thou coward majesty, thou sleepest!

  Richard II, Act 3, Scene 2

  Richard desperately tries to bolster his confidence and courage as reports roll in about Bolingbroke's successes and his increasing support among nobles. Sir Stephen Scroop responds to Richard's confident statements by saying, "Glad am I that your Highness is so armed / To bear the tidings of calamity" before he launches in to the tidings of Bolingbroke's fearsome forces.
• For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground / And tell sad stories of the death of kings— / How some have been deposed.


  Richard II, Act 3, Scene 2

  Richard II finally realizes he is not going to be able to defeat Henry Bolingbroke, and he begins to despair. He considers his story may join those other stories of kings who died, were deposed, and were poisoned.
• For within the hollow crown / That rounds the mortal temples of a king / Keeps Death his court


  Richard II, Act 3, Scene 2

  Richard invokes the symbol of the crown, the symbol of the kingship of England, but he calls it a "hollow crown," which can be passed from one to another as Death intervenes in a king's life. The crown cares nothing for the head within it, but it confers power where it rests.
• Show us the hand of God / That hath dismissed us from our stewardship.


  Richard II, Act 3, Scene 3

  Richard, confronted with Henry Bolingbroke's demand that he give up power, is amazed anyone would have the nerve to question his right to be king. He feels only God can dismiss him from his position.
• Must he be deposed? / The King shall be contented. Must he lose / The name of king? I' God's name, let it go.


  Richard II equates losing his kingship with losing his name. The kingship is an essential part of who he is, and he has difficulty finding a sense of self without it.
• Bolingbroke / Hath seized the wasteful king. O, what pity is it / That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land / As we this garden!


  Gardener, Act 3, Scene 4

  A gardener expresses his gratitude for Bolingbroke's removal of the "wasteful" king. He characterizes Richard as a gardener who did not tend his own garden.
• Who sits here that is not Richard's subject?

  Bishop of Carlisle, Act 4, Scene 1

  The Bishop of Carlisle cannot believe Bolingbroke would be so bold as to declare himself king; he reminds everyone they are all technically Richard's subjects. Bolingbroke does not heed his opinion.
• That owes two buckets, filling one another, the emptier ever dancing in the air, the other down, unseen and full of water


  Richard II, Act 4, Scene 1

  The extended metaphor is continued effectively here. The two buckets are the symbols for the two characters whilst the way one fills the other is symbolic

  of their exchange of power and roles from subject to king and king to subject. Richard describes Bolingbroke's bucket however as 'emptier' implying it is lighter so that it can rise but also suggesting Bolingbroke is lesser than he is and empty of morals or real power as he has no divine right backing. The verb 'dancing' suggests something frivolous and meaningless as if Bolingbroke does not value the kingship. In contrast Richard's bucket is heavier and so falls 'down' symbolic of his downfall and loss. The term 'unseen' reminds us of the way he is ignored by the people - his loss unmourned as will be exemplified later by York's description of the procession through London. 'full of water' suggests that Richard is a fuller and more moral, kingly character, unlike the empty Bolingbroke however it also refers to his tears - he is full of grief. Richard is self-pitying here but the poetic eloquence of his poetry draws sympathy.
• How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face

  Richard II, Act 4, Scene 1

  Richard makes this comment after looking into a mirror and then smashing it to pieces. It is a typically theatrical gesture for the king, and Bolingbroke gives a typically levelheaded reply: "The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed / The shadow of your face."
• I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land


  Henry Bolingbroke, Act 5, Scene 6

  Bolingbroke claims he will undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to remove the sin and stain and thereby gain absolution. It is ironic that the play begins with an enforced banishment and ends with a promised one giving it a circular structure. However both banishments are effectively unfulfilled as the first is broken with Bolingbroke's swift return and the second by the fact he is too preoccupied with problems during his reign to fulfill it. The fact he fails to complete it could reflect his lack of remorse or explain the destruction of his land the problems as it casts Bolingbroke as Cain who has committed a like crime to Richard at the start who is also overthrown as a result. At least Bolingbroke however admits his crime while Richard does not but merely passes the blame and hides his guilt. There is also a contrast implicit to Mowbray who does in effect undertake a pilgrimage in entering into the crusades and dying nobly. He therefore becomes a hero. In many ways it is argued that Bolingbroke does complete his pilgrimage as he is buried in the Jerusalem tomb although this is in England. (See the text note on this section, as it is crucial). It is particularly worth noting that according to the chronicles Henry's intention to visit the Holy Land occurs at the end of his reign not at this point so Shakespeare's insertion could be intended to portray Bolingbroke in a more positive and remorseful light. However, the whole speech could merely be pretense to prevent future opposition by expressing guilt and sorrow now and therefore politically calculated.
• To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.


  Henry Bolingbroke, Act 5, Scene 6

  There is a sense here that he needs absolution - the stain can never be removed. The same stain was on Richard and tainted his reign so this acts as a reminder of earlier reference hinting that Bolingbroke's reign is already doomed and will bring further problems beyond it. The Elizabethans saw the Tudors as saving England after the Civil Wars and restoring order and removing this stain so this could be read as part of Shakespeare's promotion of Tudor Orthodoxy as critics such as Tillyard argue.

  'my guilt hand': Admittance of error.
• Blood


  Blood is a powerful symbol of family ties; in a royal or noble line it symbolizes the inheritance and status passed down from a person's ancestors. The political feud between Richard and Bolingbroke is also a family conflict, since both are descended from Edward III's "sacred blood" (Act 1, Scene 2). Bolingbroke refers to his "high blood" in Act 1, Scene 1 and Richard II to his own "sacred blood" shortly thereafter. In Act 1, Scene 3 Bolingbroke calls Gaunt, his father, "the earthly author of my blood," and in Act 3, Scene 1 he describes his family connection to the king by saying he is "[n]ear to the King in blood."
• Sunrise and Sunset


  These images of the sun rising or setting are ways to talk about the failing power of Richard and the concurrent rise of Bolingbroke, who will be England's new sun. They align with other images of falling or moving downward used to describe Richard's trajectory. For example, in Act 2, Scene 4 Salisbury also describes Richard's downward spiral: "I see thy glory like a shooting star / Fall to the base earth from the firmament." And in Act 3, Scene 3 Richard poetically describes his deposition: "Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaëton, / Wanting the manage of unruly jades. / In the base court—base court, where kings grow base, / To come at traitors' calls and do them grace." Here, Richard physically comes down from a high castle wall to a lower court as he invokes Phaëton, the son of Apollo who was killed while driving Apollo's sun chariot.
• Mirror


  In Act 4, Scene 1 Richard demands a mirror, in which he examines his face and muses despairingly on losing the kingship—a large part of his personal identity: "Was this face the face / That every day under his household roof / Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face / That like the sun did make beholders wink?" In a symbolic action, Richard smashes the mirror, declaring that his glory is now broken: "brittle as the glory is the face, /He breaks the mirror.For there it is, cracked in an hundred shivers."

  
  

  The broken mirror represents Richard's broken sense of self, which he only too late sees was only an image of reality, not reality itself. It is only after he loses the kingship that he realizes outward appearance is no substitute for inner substance: "My grief lies all within; / And these external manners of laments / Are merely shadows to the unseen grief / That swells with silence in the tortured soul."
• Garden


  References to gardens in the text are often metaphors for England. In Act 2, Scene 1 Gaunt laments the way Richard has not cared for England, which he compares to the Garden of Eden. In Act 3, Scene 4 the gardener and his man discuss the executions of Richard's followers Bushy and Green, wondering why they should keep the estate's own garden in order, "When our sea-wallèd garden, the whole land, / Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up, / Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined, / Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs / Swarming with caterpillars?" Bolingbroke also refers to Richard's close followers as "caterpillars of the commonwealth" in Act 2, Scene 4, suggesting they are feeding on the garden of England and harming it in the process.
• Crown


  In both reality and in the text, the crown is a symbol of kingly power and majesty. As such, it is significant that in Act 4, Scene 1 York asks Richard for "[t]he resignation of thy state and crown / To Henry Bolingbroke." The crown will not be taken by force, exactly, though Richard has little choice. Richard is asked to give it up of his own volition. He does so in a final symbolic act, offering the crown to Bolingbroke as he continues to hold one side: "Here, cousin, seize the crown. / Here, cousin. / On this side my hand, on that side thine." As he finally lets go of the crown and abdicates the throne to Bolingbroke, he states with finality, "With mine own hands I give away my crown."
• Yet one but flatters us


  Recognises the falsity of words, yet ironically never realises who he can trust and who has his best interest at heart shown as he fails to truly recognise the danger Bolingbroke poses
• With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat


  Importance of loyalty

  Treason is the worst crime
• What my tongue speaks my right drawn sword may prove

  B prepared to fight for what he believes is right, anticipating later events
• Throws down his gage


  DM- symbolic challenge- recurring method throughout the play
• As he is but my father's brother's son


  Dismissive

  Makes B sound less eminent by diminishing royal connection
• He is our subject


  Emphasises divine right and that both are subservient to him
• Once did I lay an ambush for your life


  Admits to plotting against Gaunt in the past, makes him seem less honest

  Probably also on R's orders- gives B motive to hate them both
• though no physician


  failure as king as they were meant to heal

  ironic
• My life thou shalt command, but not my shame: The one my duty owes; but my fair name


  R can command his death but not his great name

  Suggests that whilst the king can try and physically control his people, he has no power over their mentality
• God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute, His deputy anointed in His sight


  Alternative view, believes in divine right and that only God can punish a King
• To reach at victory above my head'

  Bolingbroke's overreaching ambition
• A charge is sounded. King richard throws down his warder


  DM

  Action dramatically ends combat just at moment it is about to start

  Shows his power
• Stay! The King hath thrown his warder down'


  Single act ends combat

  Height of power and tension = anti-climax