A Veil of Victimization to Cover the Tyrant Beneath

As Act III progresses and Richard II begins to don a veil of supposed victimhood, it is difficult to see him as anything other than the Machiavellian villian that we remember from the earlier Acts. While, at the end of Act 3: Scene 4 Richard promises to give up his crown to Bolingbroke, this act is not one of kindness or penance, but one made out of desperation after having exhausted all other available avenues of escape from what seems to have presented itself as his unavoidable fate. It seems thus, that in realizing that he must inevitably give up the crown, Richard II attempts to characterize himself as the innocent victim who has been forced to give up his God-given power by the "discomfortable"(3.2. 32) Bolingbroke who he claims will inevitably be punished for his treason by God who "...darts his light through every guilty hole/then murders, treasons, and detested sins/the cloak of night being plucked off their backs/stand bare and naked trembling at themselves?" (3.2. 39-42). However, when read in reference to the fact implied by several of the characters in the earlier scenes, that Richard II is responsible for the Duke of Gloucester's death, it seems that during this moment of despondency, Richard II is entering a semi-disturbed state of dilusion and denial spawning from his fear of being tried as a common citizen once he loses his crown. Thus, his attempt to don the persona of one who has been persecuted begins in this speech and continues into Act 4 where his affected state of victimization becomes one of Christlike comparison, where he eventually likens Bolingbroke and Northumberland to that of Pilate who "have here delivered me to my sour cross/and water cannot wash away your sin" (4.1. 31-32). It is in this scene that Richard II's realization of the actuality of his fate both in this world and the next becomes most clear, at least subconsciously, to him who has realized that "...within the hollow crown/that round the temple of a king/keeps Death his court; and there the jester sits" (3.2, 156-158). Disillusioned, he realizes that he was never immune to God's judgment, that all of his sins, those of gluttony and of greed, will not be forgotten by a God who judges mortals all the same. In this same vein, the Queen reaches a similar frightening realization when she overhears the gardener recounting what he has heard, that Richard II will give up the crown much to the liking of all of the citizens. Her reaction to this news seems similar to the beginning of Richard II's speech in Act 3: Scene 2 where he attempts to portray Bolingbroke as the treasonous villian. Similarly, upon hearing this news, the Queen curses the gardener, who only an innocent citizen recounting what he has heard, she portrays as one resembling "...old Adam's likeness..." (3.4, 74). By characterizing the gardener as the fallen man, she attempts to avoid accepting her own mortality and sin. Thus, Act III seems overpowered by an air of avoidance that casts a spell over Richard II and the Queen, who realizing their impending fall from power, refuse to accept the implications of their fate.