# Characters of Shakespear's Plays/Richard II

RICHARD II.
Richard II. is a play little known compared with Richard III. which last is a play that every unfledged candidate for theatrical fame chuses to strut and fret his hour upon the stage in; yet we confess that we prefer the nature and feeling of the one to the noise and bustle of the other; at least, as we are so often forced to see it acted. In Richard II. the weakness of the king leaves us leisure to take a greater interest in the misfortunes of the man. After the first act, in which the arbitrariness of his behaviour only proves his want of resolution, we see him staggering under the unlooked-for blows of fortune, bewailing his loss of kingly power, not preventing it, sinking under the aspiring genius of Bolingbroke, his authority trampled on, his hopes failing him, and his pride crushed and broken down under insults ​and injuries, which his own misconduct had provoked, but which he has not courage or manliness to resent. The change of tone and behaviour in the two competitors for the throne according to their change of fortune, from the capricious sentence of banishment passed by Richard upon Bolingbroke, the suppliant offers and modest pretensions of the latter on his return, to the high and haughty tone with which he accepts Richard's resignation of the crown after the loss of all his power, the use which he makes of the deposed king to grace his triumphal progress through the streets of London, and the final intimation of his wish for his death, which immediately finds a servile executioner, is marked throughout with complete effect and without the slightest appearance of effort. The steps by which Bolingbroke mounts the throne are those by which Richard sinks into the grave. We feel neither respect nor love for the deposed monarch; for he is as wanting in energy as in principle: but we pity him, for he pities himself. His heart is by no means hardened against himself, but bleeds afresh at every new stroke of mischance, and his sensibility, absorbed in his own person, and unused to misfortune, is not only tenderly alive to its own sufferings, but without the fortitude to bear them. He is, however, human in his distresses; for to feel pain, and sorrow, weakness, disappointment, ​remorse and anguish, is the lot of humanity, and we sympathize with him accordingly. The sufferings of the man make us forget that he ever was a king.
The right assumed by sovereign power to trifle at its will with the happiness of others as a matter of course, or to remit its exercise as a matter of favour, is strikingly shewn in the sentence of banishment so unjustly pronounced on Bolingbroke and Mowbray, and in what Bolingbroke says when four years of his banishment are taken off, with as little reason.
"How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters and four wanton springs End in a word: such is the breath of kings."
A more affecting image of the loneliness of a state of exile can hardly be given than by what Bolingbroke afterwards observes of his having "sighed his English breath in foreign clouds;" or than that conveyed in Mowbray's complaint at being banished for life.
"The language I have learned these forty years. My native English, now I must forego; And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up, Or being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be a pupil now."—
Richard II. may be considered as the first of that series of English historical plays, in which "is hung armour of the invincible knights of old," in which their hearts seem to strike against their coats of mail, where their blood tingles for the fight, and words are but the harbingers of blows. Of this state of accomplished barbarism the appeal of Bolingbroke and Mowbray is an admirable specimen. Another of these "keen encounters of their wits," which serve to whet the talkers' swords, is where Aumerle answers in the presence of Bolingbroke to the charge which Bagot brings against him of being an accessory in Gloster's death.
"Fitzwater. If that thy valour stand on sympathies, There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine; By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand'st I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it, That thou wert cause of noble Gloster's death. If thou deny'st it twenty times thou liest, And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart Where it was forged, with my rapier's point. Aumerle. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see the day. Fitzwater. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour. Aumerle. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this. Percy. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true, In this appeal, as thou art all unjust; And that thou art so, there I throw my gage To prove it on thee, to th' extremest point Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st. ​Aumerle. And if I do not, may my hands rot off, And never brandish more revengeful steel Over the glittering helmet of my foe. Who sets me else? By heav'n, I'll throw at all. I have a thousand spirits in my breast, To answer twenty thousand such as you. Surry. My lord Fitzwater, I remember well The very time Aumerle and you did talk. Fitzwater. My lord, 'tis true: you were in presence then: And you can witness with me, this is true. Surry. As false, by heav'n, as heav'n itself is true. Fitzwater. Surry, thou liest. Surry. Dishonourable boy, That lie shall lye so heavy on my sword, That it shall render vengeance and revenge, Till thou the lie-giver and that lie rest In earth as quiet as thy father's skull. In proof whereof, there is mine honour's pawn: Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st. Fitzwater. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse: If I dare eat or drink or breathe or live, I dare meet Surry in a wilderness, And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies, And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith, To tie thee to thy strong correction. As I do hope to thrive in this new world, Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal."
The truth is, that there is neither truth nor honour in all these noble persons: they answer words with words, as they do blows with blows, in mere self defence: nor have they any principle whatever but that of courage in maintaining any wrong they dare commit, or any ​falsehood which they find it useful to assert. How different were these noble knights and "barons bold" from their more refined descendants in the present day, who instead of deciding questions of right by brute force, refer every thing to convenience, fashion, and good breeding! In point of any abstract love of truth or justice, they are just the same now that they were then.
The characters of old John of Gaunt and of his brother York, uncles to the King, the one stern and foreboding, the other honest, good-natured, doing all for the best, and therefore doing nothing, are well kept up. The speech of the former, in praise of England, is one of the most eloquent that ever was penned. We should perhaps hardly be disposed to feed the pampered egotism of our countrymen by quoting this description, were it not that the conclusion of it (which looks prophetic) may qualify any improper degree of exultation.
"This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-Paradise, This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war; This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall (Or as a moat defensive to a house) Against the envy of less happy lands: This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, ​Fear'd for their breed and famous for their birth, Renown'd for their deeds, as far from home, For Christian service and true chivalry, As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son; This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it) Like to a tenement or pelting farm. England bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious surge Of wat'ry Neptune, is bound in with shame, With inky-blots and rotten parchment bonds. That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself."
The character of Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV. is drawn with a masterly hand:—patient for occasion, and then steadily availing himself of it, seeing his advantage afar off, but only seizing on it when he has it within his reach, humble, crafty, bold, and aspiring, encroaching by regular but slow degrees, building power on opinion, and cementing opinion by power. His disposition is first unfolded by Richard himself, who however is too self-willed and secure to make a proper use of his knowledge.
"Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green, Observed his courtship of the common people: How he did seem to dive into their hearts, With humble and familiar courtesy, What reverence he did throw away on slaves; Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles, ​And patient under-bearing of his fortune, As 'twere to banish their affections with him. Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench; A brace of draymen bid God speed him well, And had the tribute of his supple knee, With thanks my countrymen, my loving friends; As were our England in reversion his, And he our subjects' next degree in hope."
Afterwards, he gives his own character to Percy, in these words:
"I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sure I count myself in nothing else so happy, As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends; And as my fortune ripens with thy love, It shall be still thy true love's recompense."
We know how he afterwards kept his promise. His bold assertion of his own rights, his pretended submission to the king, and the ascendancy which he tacitly assumes over him without openly claiming it, as soon as he has him in his power, are characteristic traits of this ambitious and politic usurper. But the part of Richard himself gives the chief interest to the play. His folly, his vices, his misfortunes, his reluctance to part with the crown, his fear to keep it, his weak and womanish regrets, his starting tears, his fits of hectic passion, his smothered majesty, pass in succession before us, and make a picture as natural as it is affecting. Among the most striking ​touches of pathos are his wish "O that I were a mockery king of snow to melt away before the sun of Bolingbroke," and the incident of the poor groom who comes to visit him in prison, and tells him how "it yearned his heart that Bolingbroke upon his coronation day rode on Roan Barbary." We shall have occasion to return hereafter to the character of Richard II. in speaking of Henry VI. There is only one passage more, the description of his entrance into London with Bolingbroke, which we should like to quote here, if it had not been so used and worn out, so thumbed and got by rote, so praised and painted; but its beauty surmounts all these considerations.
"Duchess. My lord, you told me you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off Of our two cousins coming into London. York. Where did I leave? Duchess. At that sad stop, my lord, Where rude misgovern'd hands, from window tops, Threw dust and rubbish on king Richard's head. York. Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know, With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course, While all tongues cried—God save thee, Bolingbroke! You would have thought the very windows spake, So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes Upon his visage; and that all the walls, With painted imag'ry, had said at once— ​Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke! Whilst he, from one side to the other turning, Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck, Bespake them thus—I thank you, countrymen: And thus still doing thus he pass'd along. Duchess. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the while? York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard; no man cried God save him! No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home: But dust was thrown upon his sacred head! Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off— His face still combating with tears and smiles, The badges of his grief and patience— That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, And barbarism itself have pitied him."