DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

KING RICHARD the Second.

JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster,
EDMUND OF LANGLEY, Duke of York, J

uncles to the

King.

HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son

to John of Gaunt; afterwards KING HENRY IV. DUKE OF AUMERLE, son to the Duke of York.

THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk.

DUKE OF SURREY.

EARL OF SALISBURY.

LORD BERKELEY.

BUSHY,

BAGOT, servants to King Richard.
GREEN,

EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

HENRY PERCY, surnamed Hotspur, his son.

LORD ROSS.

LORD WILLOUGHBY.

LORD FITZWATER.

Bishop of Carlisle.

Abbot of Westminster.
Lord Marshal.

SIR STEPHEN SCROOP.

SIR PIERCE of Exton.

Captain of a band of Welshmen.

QUEEN to King Richard.

DUCHESS OF York.

DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.

Lady attending on the Queen.

Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, two Gardeners, Keeper, Messenger, Groom, and other Attendants.

SCENE: England and Wales.

DURATION OF TIME

I. Dramatic Time. - Fourteen days represented on the stage, with indeterminable intervals.

II. Historic Time.-From April 29, 1398, to March 12, 1400, when what was officially stated to be the body of Richard was brought to London.

INTRODUCTION

in

Quarto Early the History.

Literary

RICHARD II. was first published in a
edition of
1597, which was entered
Stationers' Register on August 29 of that year.
title-page is as follows:-

Its

The Tragedie of King Richard the Second. As it hath been publikely acted by the right Honourable the Lorde Chamberlaine his Ser-uants. London. Printed by Valentine Simmes for Andrew Wise, and are to be sold at his Shop in Paules Church yard at the signe of the Angel. |

1597.

A second Quarto appeared in the following year, bearing Shakespeare's name. A third, in 1608, was announced to contain 'new additions of the Parliament Sceane, and the deposing of King Richard, as it hath been lately acted by the Kinges | Majesties Seruantes, at the Globe.'1 A fourth Quarto, reprinted from the third, appeared in 1615; and on this was evidently based the text of the Folio of 1623, certain errors being corrected, while, on the other hand, a number of short passages were excised, doubtless those currently omitted on the stage. A fifth Quarto, entitled 'The Life and Death of King

1 Some extant copies do not contain this announcement, the old title-page having been sub

stantially reprinted from Q2.
But all contain the additions
themselves.

The Abdication Scene.

The Essex
Play.

Richard the Second,' appeared in 1634. The First Quarto, so far as it extends, gives the most authoritative text. But in the "new additions of the Parliament Sceane" it would appear that the defective text of the [Fourth] Quarto had been corrected from the author's MS. For this part, therefore, the First Folio is our highest authority.'1

The 'new additions' (iv. 1. 159-318) first introduced in the 1608 Quarto are indistinguishable in style from the rest of the play, and undoubtedly belonged to the original text. Their omission during Elizabeth's lifetime is explained by the sinister significance which the story of Richard had acquired in the political intrigues of her later years as a means of veiled allusion to herself. It was dangerous to relate, even with the best intentions, Richard's deposition in print; and Sir John Hayward, who narrated it in his History of the Life and Raigne of Henry IV., in 1599, was censured by the Star Chamber and sent to prison. That such severity was not altogether groundless became clear in 1601 when Sir Gilly Merrick, with a company of Essex's confederates, procured the performance of 'the play of the deposing and killing of King Richard the Second,' on the afternoon before the revolt. 'Know ye not that I am Richard the Second?' said Elizabeth to Lambarde, the Keeper of the Records in the Tower, on his showing her the Rolls of the reign; adding, as an illustration of Essex's ingratitude to his benefactor, that the tragedy in question 'had been played 40tie times in open streets and houses.' 2

But

We have no definite evidence that this muchdebated tragedy was Shakespeare's Richard II. the sceptical view has been somewhat over-urged. In

1 Cambridge edition, iv. 9.

2 Nichol's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.

its favour is Camden's description of the piece as 'an obsolete tragedy'-exoletam tragediam de tragica abdicatione regis Ric. II.,—as well as the objection raised by the players, when applied to by Merrick, that it was 'so old and so long out of use that they should have small or no company at yt';1 an objection only overcome by the offer of 'forty shillings beyond their ordinary.' This is scarcely language which we expect to hear applied to a Shakespearean drama, especially one which repaid the issue of five quarto editions. But can we accept the players' excuse as their real motive? A play so dangerously suggestive as to be mutilated before publication was not likely to lack an audience when played, as it must have been, entire; and we know that the tragedy in question was in request 'in open streets and houses.' If the players hung back, we may surmise that it was rather from fear of official resentment than of deficient receipts, whatever subterfuge they chose to put forward in reply to Merrick. Moreover, not only is no other play on the subject known, but the language used of it appears to imply that no other existed, that they had no choice. Phillipps, a member of Shakespeare's company, and Lord Bacon, both speak of it as 'the play of the deposing,' etc. Two other Elizabethan Richard II.'s are known: (i) the play witnessed by Dr. Simon Forman, at the Globe, on April 30, 1611; (ii) 'The Tragedy of Richard II.,' still extant in a so-called Egerton MS.2 Both, however, deal with the earlier events of

1 Examination of Augustine Phillipps servant of the L. Chamberlain in the State Paper Office. The incident is told in substantially similar terms by Bacon in his 'Declaration of the practices and treasons attempted

and committed by Robert Earl of Essex,' and in the State Trials.

2 Printed privately by Halliwell. Cf. Marshall's paper in Transactions of New Shakesp. Society, April 10, 1885.