The Complete Richard II: An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play

Richard the Second is essentially weak and vacillating. Self-indulgent and prodigal, he appears to be a natural candidate for overthrow by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke. He is a man who enjoys the trappings of being king but fails to measure up to the responsibilities. Self-pitying and duplicitous, perhaps he deserves the reader’s pity-but he doesn’t elicit pity from his subjects or his peers. In one sense, then, it seems ordained that he be replaced by the future Henry IV.