Richard, A Weak King?

Sam Montagna

Shakespeare II

Professor Mulready

5 March 2012

Richard, A Weak King?

A typical king is supposed to be strong enough to be able to handle the struggles of his people. The king is divinely chosen and has the ultimate power over his people. To go against the king was to go against God. However, what if the king is not right for the job? Is overthrowing him going against God? Or is God appointing a new king in favor of the old one? It is clear that Richard has power, but is he necessarily cut out for his job? Richard has ultimate power but does he cross the line when he aims to seize Hereford's inheritance to pay for the war in Ireland? Does it make him a coward to banish the two men who may know the truth about the Duke of Gloucester's death? Or is he just protecting himself in the only way he can? A king and leader should be clear about his motives to keep the loyalty of his people. After his plan to fight Ireland failed and his power and faith in himself dwindled quickly after banishing Bolingbroke and Mowbray. Bolingbroke comes back to England after being exiled to reclaim his inheritance and Richard does nothing about it. He, instead, names Bolingbroke his heir. Richard then makes a speech similar to Shylock's speech from The Merchant of Venice. Richard declares himself no different than any other man even though he is king. Richard states “I live with bread, like you; feel want, taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus, how can you say to me I am a king?” (1016.171-173). This statement is true for every king but Richard admits it. In other people's or other kings' eyes, that confession may make him less of a king. Richard's humanity can be viewed as a weakness and it can justify why he is, in fact, weak. Richard gives up his throne without any fight. History states that a king will typically defend his throne to the death. Richard hands it over and wishes Bolingbroke “many years of sunshine days” (1028.211). These actions mean that either Richard was not a good king, realized that his time was up and went gracefully or he simply did not want to fight for his throne, especially since Bolingbroke was gaining so much leverage. This event reminds me of the Glorious Revolution which occurs in England. The crown changes hand without bloodshed. This behavior is far from king-like, however. Richard can be considered the King of England who did not act like a king.

Richard the Deposed Drama King?

            Act four is only comprised of one scene, and even though a few different things happen within this scene it is safe to say the most significant event is Richard’s resignation as king, and his crowning of Bolingbroke to rule in his place.  When Richard enters the scene he expresses a melancholy demeanor as he speaks of how short a time he has had to adapt to his transition from king to subject, stating “I hardly yet have learned / To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee” (4.1.155-56).  He insists that he should be given more time to deal with the sorrow he feels from falling from his position of absolute authority to a humbled state of submission.  When he questions why he has been brought before Bolingbroke York reminds him that it is his duty to perform the ceremony of crowning a new king.  Richard holds the crown in his hands and speaks to Bolingbroke with words of self-pity, describing how the crown is like a deep well.  As Bolingbroke’s bucket becomes “the emptier ever dancing in the air,” Richard’s bucket becomes “down, unseen, and full of tears” (4.1.176-77).  When Bolingbroke questions his willingness to resign Richard says that he is giving up his crown, but not his grief at losing it.  This back and forth exchange between Richard and Bolingbroke seems like an attempt to delay the inevitable, but finally Richard hands over the crown and his sceptre.  When Richard asks what more there is to do, Northumberland states that he must confess to the accusations and crimes he and his followers committed during his kingship.  Richard argues that he should not have to give a public reading of his acts of wrongdoing as it would shame him, and he is already feeling miserable about being deposed.  Northumberland insists upon reading them, to which the Richard replies “Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see,” (4.1.234).  Richard seems to play out his grief in an overly dramatic way that doesn’t seem to suit the proper demeanor of a king.  Richard becomes even more melodramatic as he comments on Northumberland referring to him as “lord” and exclaims that he is no lord of his, but furthermore that he is “no man’s lord” (4.1.245).  He no longer has a name or a title. 

            Richard’s request to have a mirror brought to him only emphasizes his over dramatic reaction to his resignation.  He looks at his image reflected in the glass and rambles on about how he cannot believe he had so quickly lost his royal authority and king status.  He looks at his face and recalls his glory days:

                        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?

                        Is this the face which faced so many follies,

                        That was at last outfaced by Bolingbroke?

                        A brittle glory shineth in this face,

                        As brittle as the glory is the face.  (4.1.271-78)

Richard then shatters the glass, exclaiming how his deep sorrow destroyed his face.  Bolingbroke suggests that the darkness of his sorrow, not the sorrow itself, is behind the destruction of the resigned king’s face. 

            This entire moment within the scene may have been intended to make me feel compassion toward Richard, but in actuality it made me dislike him more.  His behavior was very unbecoming of someone who had once been a king, and yet can we even truly say he ever possessed the qualities of an honorable king?  His self-pity and overdramatic reaction to his grief over his resignation in this part of the scene make clear to us just how weak Richard was from the very beginning.  The truth is that the loss of power he laments for he never truly possessed.  The only type of king Richard can rightfully be called is a Drama King. 

                        

Readings and Misreadings of Duchess of Gloucester and King Richard

In our early readings of Richard II, two characters interest me, one for her character’s archetypal past and the other for his unapparent complexity.

Almost three hundred years after Shakespeare’s time, Henrik Ibsen, the father of Modern drama, invents a new convention and gives the (problematically) flawed female character a way out. A colleague of Professor of Theatre Frank Trezza calls the plays to which Ibsen responded “a woman with a past plays.” They are dramas characterized by a disgraced woman who inevitably goes off stage to kill herself whether due to a fault of her own or more often was the case a man’s. This convention would lead an audience to expect that a corrupted woman like A Doll’s House’s Nora would do just that. She of course did not kill herself but instead (much to the dismay of 19th Century Norwegian audiences) returned and basically flipped her husband the bird.

This is not to suggest that the female characters that predated Nora were entirely passive. Duchess of Gloucester is no wall flower. She does not pull any punches or hold back her passion. Her husband’s death need be revenged. Blood for blood as it were. When John of Gaunt pushes back and calls attention to the elephant in the room that he can’t quarrel with a king, Duchess of Gloucester doesn’t cede any ground. “Where then, alas, may I complain myself” is her response effectively emasculating and shaming John of Gaunt’s weak sense of familial responsibility. Now this is not the perfect example of a woman with a past play (but maybe a woman without a future?) but it is notably parallel in that the Duchess has few options in the bleak future ahead. Her last lines offer an ominous assortment of suicidal tendencies: “ Yet one word more... Nay, yet depart not so... Let him not come there to seek out sorrow that dwells everywhere. Desolate, desolate will I hence and die.”

Like Hamlet, King Richard is a hard nut to crack. Each characters’ inaction offers an irresistible impulse to judge them as being indecisive. The last point is one that I challenge. Let’s first start with Hamlet, the philosophizing, art loving nerd terribly miscast to do instead of his more inclined impulse to talk and think ad infinitum. In the first scene we meet a Hamlet intent on hitting the books at Wittenberg. We listen to him mediate on ideas and words, “Seems, madam?” And later we of course have no choice but to indulge in his meta-theatrical designs. These character traits point to idea that Shakespeare has (purposely and terribly) miscast Hamlet in the bloody role.

In King Richard’s case the potential to misread his character lies in how he acts (or does not act) as ruler of England. In act one, the nobles and officers stand in disbelief when King Richard calls off Bolingbroke and Mowbray’s duel. But here too we see a classic Shakespearean (and historical) miscast. King Richard is in fact a sensitive, pampered, diplomatically-inclined ruler who to no fault of his own is attuned to nature and peace rather than blood and war: “Which, so roused up with boisterous untuned drums, with harsh-resounding trumpets dreadful bray, and grating shock of wrathful iron arms, might from our quiet confined fright fair peace.”