The King of Trials: Historical Trials in Richard II William Shakespeare's Richard II acts as an amalgamation of three forms of trial: trial by ordeal, trial by combat, and trial by jury. Presenting the trial by ordeal in the spirit of its original Latin iudicium Dei, meaning "the truth of God", King Richard II offers himself an extension of God-ruling through divine right-therefore, creating a variant of an ordeal in his banishment of Henry Bolingbroke (Bartlett 5). Further, Richard II sanctions a trial by combat to determining an appeal of treason brought before him between Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray. The trial by jury, with testimony heard before judge and court, takes the form of Bolingbroke and his men hearing witnesses recount the…
The consequence of Bolingbroke’s rebellion against Richard and stealing of the throne seems to be, on the surface, a great venture that has awarded Bolingbroke. The reality though, is that since Bolingbroke has wrongfully taken the throne and has risen up against Richard, there are prophecies which lead us to believe that Bolingbroke’s rule will not be smooth-running. It is prophesied by Carlisle “And if you crown him [Bolingbroke], let me prophesy/ The blood of English shall manure the ground/…
“Richard II”: Through “Richard II”, Shakespeare describes the transition from a medieval conception, the aristocracy, in which the King is seen as the “prince”, in the latin meaning of it: primus inter pares, first among equals. It can be stated that the king is a sort of an elevated duke, who people need for military purposes, for the necessity to be protected (Lecture 10/01). Thus, he is bound to the law: with the sign of the Magna Charta the aristocrats have forced the King to recognize the…
In London was where Shakespeare got his beginning. By the 1590’s Shakespeare was managing an acting company in London. It was called The Lord Chamberlain’s men. While managing this company it became very popular, also Shakespeare began publishing and selling his work. By 1597 he had fifteen plays published and by 1599 Shakespeare and a few business built their own theater on the bank of the Thames River. They later named it The Globe (“Prezi 3”). Some of Shakespeare’s earlier plays include…
with language and tampering with values of honour and valour conveys the power of language in shaping misleading representations of people and politics. The end goal of the political figure is to establish control, regardless of the ambiguity surrounding their political motives due to projections of people and politics. Here, students will explore and analyse Shakespeare’s political representation of King Henry IV as having to establish himself as a credible and formidable leader after…
up blurring the line between themselves, their identity, and their characters “power” as a character has no true identity. A similar situation occurs in the play The Tragedy of Richard II by William Shakespeare. In the play, staging is a means of claiming power by using an audience to provide acknowledgment of said power. Power comes from others but is confused for identity which comes from oneself resulting in the downfall of King…
redemption exist in Henry IV, Part 1, as its characters exist in the wake of the deposition and murder of Richard II. In the work, King Henry IV seeks expiation in a planned crusade, but neglects to abdicate the throne granted to him by his denial of divine right. Similarly, Hotspur seeks to atone for his rebellion against Richard…
When Shakespeare wrote Henry IV, Part II, England faced issues of kingship, constitution, and rebellion. Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Elizabethans in the 1590s, undoubtedly had anxieties about the aging Queen Elizabeth I’s lack of an apparent heir, much like the anxieties surrounding Hal’s imminent succession to the throne. At the same time, Shakespeare presents to his audience a history play, dramatizes information, introduces fictional characters, and “mingling kings and clowns” on stage, and…
King Richard II’s Underserved Loyalty by the Commoners Wat Tyler’s Rebellion was written after 1381 by an anonymous author to persuade the readers that King Richard II did not deserve the loyalty and devotion put forth by the commons. The author provides the reader with a chronicle of the peasant’s revolt in which he presents the commons’ reasons for revolting and how the King reacts to each interaction with the commons. The peasants are portrayed as justified in their actions, while the King…
power is precisely the fact that it points in two opposite directions” and ultimately, Shakespeare is pushing us to choose one of the two sides of interpretation (34). Rabkin compares this idea to the known illusion of the picture that, on one side, shows a duck, and when turned 90 degrees, shows a rabbit. Rabkin believes that we can look at both views differently, though we know the other is there, we cannot simply find a middle ground. Rabkin starts his first section of the chapter by…