Richard II

• Richard II is a legitimate king but a terrible ruler — surrounded by flatterers, financially reckless, arbitrarily tyrannical • He banishes Henry Bolingbroke (his cousin) and seizes his dead father's estates. This violates the property rights that underpin the entire feudal system • Bolingbroke returns from exile with an army — supposedly to reclaim his inheritance, actually to take the crown • Richard is in Ireland when Bolingbroke lands. His supporters melt away. He returns to find he has no army • The deposition: Richard is forced to surrender the crown in Parliament. He performs his own undoing with devastating eloquence • "I give this heavy weight from off my head, and this unwieldy sceptre from my hand" — Richard makes his humiliation into theater • The mirror scene: Richard smashes a looking glass, destroying the image of his kingship • Imprisoned in Pomfret Castle, Richard finally achieves genuine self-knowledge — too late • Bolingbroke is now Henry IV. He hints (perhaps) that Richard should be killed. Sir Piers Exton murders Richard • Henry is wracked with guilt: "I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land, to wash this blood off from my guilty hand" • The play asks: can a divinely anointed king be rightfully deposed? If yes, political order is just power. If no, bad kings are God's punishment • Written entirely in verse — no prose. The only Shakespeare play with this distinction