While reading act three of Shakespeare’s Richard II what really jumped out at me was how easily Richard seemed to give up and surrender to Bolingbroke. It seemed to me that while reading the first few acts of this play that Richard was a very strong willed king who believed in the divine right of kings-which therefore assumes that Richard would see himself as an extension of god and god’s power. Based on this fact I assumed that there was no way that Richard was going to peacefully hand over his crown to Bolingbroke. I would think that Richard would see himself as all powerful, and that therefore there could be no possible way that Bolingbroke could seize the throne from him. But it seems that Richard doesn’t believe he is so powerful at all because at the end of act three he just simply gives up all hope and decides to go to see Bolingbroke, where eventually he will surrender his crown. I ultimately found Richard’s acts at the end of this scene quite confusing and quite contradictory to what he says/does earlier on in the play or even scene.
Richard says earlier on in Act three, scene two before he gives up all hope, “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.” (50-53). What Richard is saying here is that he himself is the rightful god chosen king, and with god on his side there is no way that Bolingbroke stands a chance against him. This is a statement that I was not surprised to see Richard make and it is one that I thought fit his character very well. Richard here is explicitly stating that because of the divine right of kings, Bolingbroke cannot possibly become king. But then later on in this scene after Richard finds out that his loyal followers have been executed and his army and uncle have deserted him, he completely contradicts his previous statement by giving up hope and deciding to go see/surrender to Bolingbroke.
Richard simply giving up hope really bothered me and I really thought it went against his character. I was seriously preparing myself for an epic battle during act four between Bolingbroke and Richard, because I thought that Richard would never surrender peacefully, but in the end Richard just simply gave up his crown. I’m not sure what to make of this yet because I still haven’t finished act five, but the Richard who I once saw as a strong willed king, who wouldn’t even dream of giving up his throne, now just seems to be a coward…
2 comments:
I don't know if I could ever say Richard II wasn't a coward. Firstly, instead of owning up to his hand in the Duke of Gloucester's murder, he exiles two of his allies. Not exactly the bravest move ever. Actually, come to think of it, since by Act IV Bolingbroke has Richard backed into a corner, you might call his surrender an act of courage, or at least an act of sense. What else could he do? If he had an ace up his sleeve, we probably would have heard about it by now. Although, there is still another couple of acts to go...
I don't think Richard is inconsistent in his views: he starts out saying that there is no legitimate way that Bolingbroke can ever be king, and he ends that way as well. He never contradicts his previous statements of his having divine right, he just doesn't support them in his actions, which I think is understandable because there is no conceivable way for him to fight back that wouldn't be tantamount to suicide: Bolingbroke, after all, has all the weaponry on his side. He hands his crown over physically to Bolingbroke, but he never really gives it up, which can be seen in the way he accuses all his former subjects of breaking the oaths they made to be loyal to him and in the way he says that "glory [is now] base and sovereignty [is] a slave" - meaning that Bolingbroke's presumption that he can be king is unnatural, which is ironically the same argument that York gave him against seizing Bolingbroke's property in the first place. He never calls Henry the king, instead saying that he is "liv[ing] in Richard's seat."
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