2. Table of Contents
I. Image Research
The Wilton Diptych
War, Chivalry, and Politics in 14th Century England.
Chivalry
II. Glossary of Terms.
III. “Family Crests” – The key characters and their family
trees.
IV. Timeline of Events in and surrounding the play.
V. “The Real King Richard,” a biography of the title
character.
VI. “Richard in Art,” contemporary portraits and paintings
of scenes from Richard’s life.
VII. “Playing Richard” Production History
VIII. Background and Critical History Of the Play
Shakespeare’s Company and the play.
Shakespeare’s Influences.
VI. FMI
Books, Sounds & Videos.
3. Image Research
1: The Wilton Diptych
The Wilton Diptych (circa 1395) A diptych is a series
of four small portraits that can be folded in two parts.
This particular diptych was a portable altarpiece,
which meant that the congregation at the church
would see both God and King Richard as they prayed.
The four pictures of the diptych dramatically illustrate
Richard’s piety, as well as Richard’s authority to rule,
which he claimed from God.
During King Richard’s reign, kings were seen as
God’s substitute on Earth, a tradition that goes back to
kings David and Solomon in the Bible. Killing or
deposing a king, was considered an unforgivable sin.
4. The Wilton Diptych
2:
Richard and Divine Right
In the panel on the left, Richard appears as a pious,
angelic child, in the company of the two sainted kings
Edmund and Edward the Confessor. Richard holds out his
hands, reaching to the Christ child, the virgin Mary, and a
choir of angels, all wearing as a badge Richard’s personal
symbol- the white hart (right).
All of this imagery makes it clear that Richard is the rightful
king, chosen by God. The doctrine at the time was that if
God chose a bad king, he did it to punish the sins of the
people and the subjects had to endure the bad king’s reign
as a chastisement . This ‘doctrine of passivity’ in the face
of injustice is exactly what the characters of John of Gaunt
and the Duke of York struggle with- If the king has done
wrong, is it right to remove him from power?
5. The Wilton Diptych
3: Allegory
The White Hart
• Richard’s personal symbol
• It is woven into his robes and it appears as a
badge on the breast of all the angels and the
Virgin on the Wilton Diptych.
• A prize for hunters in royal hunts.
• Richard is the deer that gets hunted. By the brook
(Bolingbroke):
• As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my
soul pants after you, God. Psalm 42: Chapter 1
verse
Gardens
• Plantagenet (Richard’s family name) means
“garden.”
• Gaunt calls England a garden; “This other Eden”
(II, i).
• The gardeners talk about governing this ‘garden’
England (III, ii).
• Richard at Parliament compares himself to Christ
in the Garden of Gethsemane (IV, i)
• Carlisle warns that the garden ground will be
manured with English Blood (IV, i).
Chivalry, (or lack thereov).
Unlike other Plantagenet kings,
Richard chose to put himself in the
company of peaceful saints, rather
than the warlikc company of his father,
Edward the Black Prince of Wales.
A number of allegorical images appear both in the Wilton
Diptych, and in Shakespeare’s play.
6. Image Research 2:
War, and Chivalry in 14th
Century England
Above- the Irish Gallowglass sword, used by Irish
Mercenaries. At the time of Richard II, an alarming number
of Scottish mercenaries were coming to Ireland, offering
service to the Irish lords, (not the English king). These
mercenaries wielded giant 2 handed swords like this one,
and were organized into groups of 100 men.
Right- a 14th century knight. Notice that, although he has
on a few armored plates, most of him is covered by the
tunic, the helmet, or the chain-mail. It was knights like
these that Richard took with him, against the Irish rebels.
Judicial Combat.
• The fight between Bolingbroke and Mowbray was
a form of judicial combat- a fight designed to prove
who was guilty of treason by fighting. The rationale
was that God would not let the traitor live, and that
the victor was always the innocent party.
• In judicial combat, a space would be designated
for the fight, (like the large space at the center of
this picture), which no one besides the combatants
and the Marshals were permitted to enter. The
Lists at Coventry served this purpose; the Lists
were the ground chosen for the fight, and no one
was permitted on it except Henry, Mowbray, the
Marshals, officers, and the king.
7. Image Research 3:
Chivalry.
Although there was no official Code of Chivalry in England,
sources like Cretien De Trois and The Song Of Rowland, give
clues as to the beliefs that all knights had during the time of
Richard. From the very beginning of the play, Bolingbroke and
Mowbray, who were knights of the Garter, were forced to chose
between their duty to their king, and their duty to honor.
A knight took an oath to defend the church, serve God, and
protect the weak.
A knight was expected to serve his lord.
A knight was never allowed to back down from a challenge.
A knight who had taken an oath to fight his enemy (as
Mowbray and Bolingbroke had done), could never break the
oath by calling off the combat. Such a knight would suffer
everlasting shame.
Sources: New Advent.org, http://www.medieval-spell.com/
8. Family Crests
Plantagenet
House of
Lancaster
Earl of
Northumberland
One can think of the story of Richard the
Second, as the story of three houses: the
house of Plantagenet, which Richard, his
father, and his grandfather claimed as their
own. Second, the house of Lancaster, which
broke from the house of Plantagenet and
formed its own house, and the house of
Northumberland, which helped Henry, duke of
Lancaster to the crown.
Richard II
Henry
Bolingbroke
At the start of the play, Richard, the head of the
Plantagenet house, and rightful king of England, is
supremely powerful. After he banishes Henry
Bolingbroke however, Richard loses support from
the nobles and commons and is eventually
deposed and imprisoned by Bolingbroke.
In order to explain how Richard goes from being
the unquestioned king of England to a lowly
prisoner, one needs to get some background into
the house of Plantagenet. The next page has a
family tree of the house of Plantagenet, beginning
with Richard’s grandfather, Edward the Third.
9. Timeline of Events
• 1327- King Edward III becomes king.
• 1337- Edward lays claim to the crown of France.
• 1348- The Black Death.
• 1360- Edward proclaimed sovereign of England and France.
• 1376- Edward the Black Prince, (son and heir of King Edward III),
dies.
• 1377- King Edward III dies, making Richard of Bordeaux king at 10
years old.
• 1381- Richard suppresses the Peasant Revolt, led by Wat Tyler..
• 1388- The Merciless Parliament arrests Richard’s favorites for
treason and misleading the king.
• 1398- Richard has 3 members of the Merciless Parliament,
including Thomas Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, murdered.
• 1398-1399- the Events portrayed in King Richard II
• Richard Banishes Henry Bolingbroke and seizes his lands.
• While Richard is away in Ireland, Bolingbroke lands in Gloucester,
traveling northward to Flint Castle in Wales.
• Bolingbroke captures Richard and put him in the tower for 1 month
before he finally abdicated the throne on September 30, 1399, .
• Richard dies in Pomfret Castle,
10. The Real King
Richard
Part 1:. Coronation and Kingship.
Richard was crowned at age 10; his uncle John of Gaunt was the
Lord Protector, and thus really ran the country. This meant the
nobles were used to having a ruler on their side. This might have put
the seeds of discord in Richard’s reign and set up his reign for
conflict. John of Gaunt organized Richard’s coronation as a festival,
celebrating the king’s connection to God and the church. When
Richard was crowned, his shirt was taken off, and his face, hands
and chest were anointed with a holy balm.
“22 years later, could he have remembered this moment of
anointing as a kind of apotheosis, a magical transformation
from a little man, into a little god?” –Simon Shama King Death.
From the beginning of his reign Richard was a very different
monarch, from his father and grandfather. He was not the kind of
warlike, Anglo-Saxon conqueror that the nobles and commons were
used to. For instance, he was faithful to his queen, and had no
mistresses (unlike other Plantagenet kings). Richard also had
peculiar customs- he
introduced the spoon to the court. As well as the pocket hankie
Richard built the new banqueting space in Westminster Hall, making
it into a brilliant architectural marvel. Richard’s gorgeous statues in
the hall included lions, harts, and angels at the building’s
crossbeams; Richard wanted people to know God holds this
monarchy together, just as he holds the building together. You can
take a virtual tour of the hall by going to this website:
http://www.parliament.uk/visiting/onlinetours/virtualtours/westminster
_hall_tours/westminster_hall/index.htm
In spite of his “effeminate” ways, Richard definitely inherited some of
his father’s courage; at age 14, Richard successfully quelled the
Peasant’s Revolt.
11. The ReaL King
Richard Part 2: The
Peasant Revol
When Richard was 14, John of Gaunt, the Lord Protector
of England, raised a poll tax that caused the poor and
the rising class of country gentlemen, to turn against
the nobles in order to protect their money and lands
from being seized by the nobles. These peasants still
claimed loyalty to the king, and felt that their revolt
would root out the nobles who had mislead the king.
The revolt was lead by Wat Tyler; Richard faced Wat
in person, and promised to give him his demands.
Then the mayor of London decapitated Wat.
Amazingly, Richard managed to disperse the mob
and get them to leave peacefully. This was when
Richard said, famously “You shall have no captain
but me.”
12. The Real King
Richard 3:
Richard’s Downfall
• After the Peasant’s revolt, Richard alienated the commons by being
more feared than loved. One week after Wat died, Richard
proclaimed to the rebels: “You wretches! You would seek equality
with lords and are unworthy to live. Rustics you were, and rustics
you are still. As long as we live, we will strive to suppress you!”
• “Although Shakespeare sets his tragedy many years after the
Peasant’s Revolt, it’s hard not to believe, that in his portrait of a
petulant, self-admiring Richard II, there is the sense of someone
trapped in an adolescent fantasy of indestructibility.” –Simon Shama
• Shama seems to endorse Shakespeare’s portrait of a king who
swings between the extremes of fatalism and feelings of
omnipotence. After the Peasant’s Revolt, Richard gained no friends,
demanding to be called “Your highness” and “Your majesty,” (the first
ever monarch to make this demand).
• Richard would eventually lose the noble’s hearts as well. To begin
with , Richard did not seem interested in continuing his father’s
conquest of France, which would have pleased the nobles by
bringing them money. In addition to feeding his own sense of power,
Richard also found ways to take power away from the nobles.
• His royal decrees, made it unnecessary for him to seek Parliament’s
approval, taking away the nobles’ ability to control him. Now the
nobles saw Richard as an autocrat, and they responded by blaming
his entourage: Robert DeVere (Duke of Ireland), and Sir Simon
Burghley
13. The Real KIng Richard
Richard’s Downfall, Part II
• In Feb 1388, Parliament arrested DeVere and Burleigh for treason. They accused the
Duke of miss-leading the king’s youth, just as Bushy, Bagot and Green would a few
years later.
• This was known as “The Merciless Parliament”
• DeVere, the most hated of Richard’s favorites, managed to escape the country before
he could be executed.
• Richard waited 10 years after the execution of Burleigh, and then he took his revenge
on the peers.
• He murdered these members of the Merciless Parliament:
• The Earl of Arundel- executed
• The Earl of Warrick- exiled
• Thomas Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester- murdered (smothered).
• After Richard murdered the duke of Gloucester, all the nobles wondered who would be
next. One such nervous noble was Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk. Mowbray told
Henry Bolingbroke, (son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster), that he had a power to
levy against the king, believing Bolingbroke would join him. Instead, Bolingbroke used
the opportunity to condemn Mowbray as a traitor by telling King Richard. The king
didn’t want Bolingbroke or Mowbray to expose him as a murderer, so he banished
them both. Then, to raise money for his Irish wars, Richard seized Henry’s family lands
after John of Gaunt died.
• Once he banished Bolingbroke and took his inheritance, the nobles banded together
with Henry in France and landed with 3,000 men in York. They then marched all the
way to Flint Castle in Wales. To see Bolingbroke’s passage through England, see the
Google Map on the next page.
• Bolingbroke captured Richard and forced him to abdicate the crown. Parliament then
voted for Henry Bolingbroke to become King Henry IV.
• Richard was sent to Pomfret castle and died in prison.
• Bolingbroke arranged a royal funeral for King Richard.
• As Richard prophesied, the Earl of Northumberland did revolt against King Henry,
which put the kingdom in continual strife throughout Bolingbroke’s 15 year reign.
14. The Real King
Richard: Part IV
IV. Fact vs. Fiction
• After Bolingbroke began his rebellion in England,
the real Richard did not, “Tell sad stories of the
death of kings”. Instead, he disguised himself as a
priest, running all over England, and bewailing his
fortune.
• Richard’s Queen was still a child when he was
deposed; Shakespeare makes here a grown
woman.
• It took over a month to convince Richard to
abdicate the throne. Rather than entreating him to
resign, Bolingbroke captured Richard, put him in
the tower, and then summoned him to “willingly
abdicate the throne,” in front of the House of
Parliament.
• Richard was actually starved to death, not violently
attacked and killed. If Bolingbroke ordered
Richard’s death, he didn’t want the corpse to show
15. Richard in Art.
Coronation
picture from
Westminster.
Anonymous painting
of the meeting
between Richard
and Wat Tyler,
notice the figure of
the Lord Mayor
riding behind Wat,
ready to chop off his
head.
Richard
watches while
Mowbray throws
down his gage
to Bolingbroke.
Richard meets
Bolingbroke at Flint
castle, disguised as a
priest.
16. Behind the throne:
Background to Shakespeare’s Play
• Before Shakespeare wrote Richard II, two other popular versions of the
story existed- Thomas Heywood’s Henry the Fourth, and the
anonymous Thomas of Woodstock, which shows how Gaunt and
Mowbray plotted to kill the Duke of Gloucester, under Richard’s
orders, thus precipitating the events of Shakespeare’s play. Some
scholars believe Shakespeare wrote Thomas of Woodstock, and
alternately refer to it as Richard the Second, Part 1.
• Shakespeare’s Richard II was first performed around 1596. The play
went through four quartos and was printed in the First Folio of 1623.
• English history plays were very popular in the 1590s. Every
Englishman wondered about the Queen’s succession and the
continued threats against her life, and all of Shakespeare’s history
plays touch on these issues. Writing about current events was
impossible due to a government act of censorship. In 1583, Lord
Burleigh put a law in place forbidding books or plays to mention
contemporary politics. Watching plays about the past allowed the
people to see patterns and parallels between history and contemporary
politics, allowing them to understand the dangerous times in which they
lived.
• On February 7, 1601, Shakespeare’s company was hired to perform
“the deposing and killing of Richard the Second”. We do not know if the
play they performed was Shakespeare’s Richard II or Thomas
Heywood’s Henry the Fourth, but we do know that the point of
performing the play was to raise support for the Earl of Essex who the
very next day, attempted to overthrow the government. Like
Bolingbroke, Essex was a strong willed noble who had lost favor with
the king during an Irish rebellion.
17. Playing Richard:
Production History
• For most of the 20th century, the biggest question in theatrical productions of the play
has been how to play the title character. Richard is so full of contradictions that his
character can be interpreted in many different ways.
• One common trait that many 20th and 21st century actors have emphasized is
Richard’s effemminacy.
John Gielgud- Old Vic Theatre 1929.
• Called by Richard Eyre an “Unashamed esthete.”
• "Richard II is something of a plaster saint and he knows it. But it is a rewarding part
with lovely things to say, and I thought it suited my personality. I always had the
feeling I could do something with the part.” –John Gielgud
Ian McKellen- Prospect Theatre Co. 1968.
Played the role with an Oscar Wilde like sarcasm and disdain for his fellow lords.
His investment in preserving identity as king, made him enact the deposition as a theatrical
performance
Richard Pasco- RSC 1971. (Photo unavailable).
•Alternated the role with Ian Richardson to show Richard and Bolingbroke
as two sides of a coin.
•Played Richard not as a homosexual, but a man in “perpetual
bewilderment.”
Derek Jacobi- BBC Video, 1978.
•Played as a homosexual, who loved the company of Bagot, Bushy,
and Green.
Fiona Shaw- 1995.
Tried to take the effeminacy to its logical conclusion- a female Richard.
Played Richard as Bolingbrook's jilted lover.
Jonathan Slinger- RSC, 2007.
Performed the role in drag as Queen Elizabeth, taking his cue from her remark:
“I am Richard the Second, know ye not that?”
John Harrell- ASC, 2008.
Attempted to make Richard a comic, almost childish figure whose jokes
at his own expense endear him to the audience.
18. For More
Information:
• Books:
1. Alexander, Catherine M.S. Shakespeare: the Life, the Work the Treasures
New York: Simon and Shuster Publishing, 2007.
2. Kott, Jan Shakespeare: Our Contemporary (translated by Boleslaw Taborski).
New York: Norton Publications Inc, 1974.
3. Saccio, Peter Shakespeare’s English Kings. New York : Oxford University Press, 1977.
4. Shakespeare, William. Richard the Second (Prepared and Annotated by Neil Freeman)
New York: Applause Books, Inc 1998.
• Video: Shama, Simon, A History of Britain (Vol 3): “King Death” BBC Video, 2002.
• Websites:
Online Videos:
• Derek Jacobi’s Richard (BBC 1978) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08yaDBDSBpM
• Casting a King- a documentary that discusses the portrayals of McKellen, Shaw, and Jacobi.
• Part 1- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJb2hjlFJds
• Part 2- McKellen & Fiona Shaw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7-i1MVjnYM
• Part 3- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb0wyBn5V6k
• Globe theatre production:
• Mark Rylance delivers Richard’s-prison speech (Act V, Scene v): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE-
6tu7Pawk
• Final scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE-6tu7Pawk
Historical Research.
• Production History- Internet Shakespeare Editions.
Ihttp://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Theater/sip/49342b65811c57542772503c1e8e3d6a77784878.contin
ue?terms=Richard+II&focus=all
• Timeline of Edward III http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/timeline-of-king-edward-iii.htm
• Plantagenet Family Tree: http://www.britroyals.com/plantagenet.htm
• Virtual Tour of House of Parliament: http://www.parliament.uk/visiting/onlinetours/virtualtours/lords-
tour/index.htm
Music:
• - “As the Hart (Psalm 42) by Felix Mendelson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB0GJT9QH7E
- Medieval Music: CD: Chanticleer. (Vocal group). “Mysteria.” Teldek , 1995. CD.
Editor's Notes
My Glossary of terms is a Word File, which I sent as a separate attachment.
My Family Tree of Richard is another separate file. I did this to keep the orientation of the timeline portrait rather than letter like this file. I felt the portrait format would be easier to read.
To see a larger version of the painting: visit the National Gallery Website:
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/english-or-french-the-wilton-diptych/*/viewReverse/1
Citation: My information on the ‘doctrine of passivity’ came from the Introduction to Richard the Second by David Bevington,
New York: Bantam Books, 1980.
