[In this essay, Matheson explores the issue of Shakespeare's source materials, using the death scene in Richard II as an example.]

The murder of the king, weapon in hand, struck down (probably with a poleaxe) by Sir Pierce of Exton, in Shakespeare's Richard II (1595) is remarkable for several reasons. It shows a decisive aspect of Richard's character that is free of any sense of resignation or passive fatalism—in his last moments the roi fainéant becomes a man of action imbued with “desperat manhood” (as a marginal note in Holinshed puts it), who refuses to “go gentle into that good night.” Derek Traversi characterizes the murder as “no more than a pedestrian piece of melodramatic writing,”¹ but a consideration of Shakespeare's sources shows that the manner of Richard's death represents a choice among conflicting current accounts and that the language has been carefully constructed. The purposes of the present essay are: first, to suggest that Shakespeare was indebted not only to Raphael Holinshed but also to Edward Hall for his account of Richard's death; second, to trace to its direct textual origins the version of Richard's death chosen by Shakespeare (the texts printed below are generally known, but they have not previously been collected in one location and some of their relationships have been imperfectly recognized); finally, to discuss briefly why Shakespeare chose from those known to him the particular version of Richard's death that he did and the implications of that choice. Three options were open to him: death as a result of forced starvation; death as a result of grief or involuntary starvation; or death at the hands of Sir Piers de Exton, fulfilling directly or indirectly the wishes of Henry IV. A fourth option available to the chroniclers—a profession of ignorance as to the circumstances—can be ruled out for the dramatist.

Those parts of the relevant scenes in Richard II, act 5, that portray the immediate incitement to the murder, its execution, and the murderer's report thereof to Bolingbroke, now crowned as Henry IV, are given here at length to facilitate comparison with the sources.²

                                        [Scene iv. Windsor Castle.]

Manet Sir Pierce Exton &c. [Servant].

EXTON.
Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake?
“Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?”
Was it not so?
MAN.
These were his very words.
EXTON.
“Have I no friend?” quoth he. He spake it twice
And urged it twice together, did he not?
MAN.
He did.
EXTON.
And speaking it, he wishtly looked on me,
As who should say, “I would thou wert the man
That would divorce this terror from my heart!”
Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go.
I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.

[Exeunt.]

                                        [Scene v. Pomfret Castle.]
[Lines 1-97: Richard meditates on his fate and “this all-hating world” (line 66); he converses with one of his former grooms until a keeper enters with food.]
KEEPER.
My lord, will't please you to fall to?
RICHARD.
Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.
KEEPER.
My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton,
Who lately came from the king, commands the contrary.
RICHARD.
The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee!
Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.

[Beats the Keeper.]

KEEPER.
Help, help, help!

The Murderers [Exton and Servants] rush in.

RICHARD.
How now! What means Death in this rude assault?
Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.

[Snatches a weapon from a Servant and kills him.]

Go thou and fill another room in hell.

[Kills another.]Here Exton strikes him down.

That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire
That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
Hath with the king's blood stained the king's own land.
Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;
Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.

[Dies.]

EXTON.
As full of valor as of royal blood!
Both have I spilled. O, would the deed were good!
For now the devil, that told me I did well,
Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
This dead king to the living king I'll bear.
Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.

[Exeunt.]

                                        [Scene vi. Windsor Castle.]
[Lines 1-29: Bolingbroke, as King, receives reports of the deaths of Oxford, Salisbury, Blunt, Kent, and others and passes judgment on the bishop of Carlisle.]

Enter Exton, with [Attendants bearing] the coffin.

EXTON.
Great king, within this coffin I present
Thy burried fear. Herein all breathless lies
The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.
KING.
Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought
A deed of slander, with thy fatal hand,
Upon my head and all this famous land.
EXTON.
From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.
KING.
They love not poison that do poison need,
Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murderèd.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labor,
But neither my good word nor princely favor.
With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
[Lines 45-52: Bolingbroke protests his sorrow to the assembled lords, vows a pilgrimage to the Holy Land “To wash this blood off from my guilty hand” (line 50), and leads Richard's funeral procession offstage. The play ends.]

Shakespeare's favorite primary source for English history was, of course, the posthumous second edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (1587). This was a modernized version of the edition of 1577, with a continuation to January 1587 and with new material added to the earlier annals by the editors, often from sources already used in the first edition.³ For the reigns of Henry IV through Henry VIII, Holinshed had used as a major source Edward Hall's Vnion of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke (Richard Grafton, 1548, 2nd ed. 1550; John Kingston, ca. 1560).⁴ Although Holinshed tones down much of Hall's purple prose and improves the rather prolix style, his work is often so close to the Vnion, even quoting verbatim, that it is frequently difficult, sometimes impossible (and for literary study often irrelevant) to determine on purely textual grounds whether Shakespeare was using Hall or Holinshed in particular instances.

The second edition of Holinshed is generally accepted as having provided Shakespeare with the principal historical source material for Richard II, with only a general debt to Hall for providing “the moral scheme, the point of departure, and the insistence on the continuity between Richard's reign and Henry IV's”⁵ and a few points of historical detail. Accordingly, Bullough (Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare) and those editions that include sources have printed Holinshed's account as the immediate source of Richard's death. However, a close comparison suggests that Shakespeare was influenced by Hall's account of the murder, perhaps attracted by its more melodramatic flavor.⁶ I print Hall's narrative here from the 1550 edition,⁷ followed by indications of how Holinshed differs in substance:

[fol. xiiij] For poore Kyng Rycharde, ignorant of all this coniuracion [i.e., the rebellion on his behalf], kepte in myserable captiuite, knowyng nothyng but that he sawe in his chamber, was by Kyng Henry adiudged to dye, because that he, beyng synged and tickeled with the last craftie policie of his enemies, would deliuer hymselfe out of all inwarde feare and discorde, and cleane put away the very grounde whereof suche frutes of displeasure might by anie waie bee attempted againste hym, so that no man hereafter shoulde either fayne or resemble to represente the persone of Kyng Rychartde [sic]. Wherefore some saye he commaunded, other talke that he condiscended, many wryte that he knewe nat tyll it was done, and then it confirmed. But howe so euer it was, Kyng Rycharde dyed of a violent death, without any infeccion or naturall disease of the body.

The common fame is that he was euery daye serued at the table wyth costely meate lyke a kyng, to the entent that no creature should suspecte any thyng done contrary to the order taken in the parliament, and when the meate was set before hym, he was forbidden that he should not once touche it, ye not to smell to it, and so died of famyn, which kynd of death is the moost miserable, most vnnaturall, ye and most detestable that can be, for it is ten tymes more painefull then death (whiche of all extremities is the moost terrible) to die for thirst standyng in the riuer, or starue [fol. xiiij, verso] for hunger, besette wyth twentie deintie dysshes.

One writer whyche semed to haue muche knowledge of Kyng Rychardes affayres sayeth that Kyng Henry, syttyng at his table, sore syghyng saied, “Haue I no faytheful frende whiche wil deliuer me of hym whose life will be my death, and whose death will be the preseruacion of my lyfe?” This saiyng was muche noted of them whiche were present and especially of one called Sir Piers of Exton.

This knight incontinently departed from the court with eight stronge persones and came to Pomfret, comaundyng that the esquier whiche was acustomed to sewe and take the assaye before Kyng Rychard should no more vse that maner of seruice, saiyng, “Let hym eate well nowe, for he shall not long eate.”

Kyng Rychard sate downe to dyner and was serued without curtesie or assaye; he, muche meruaylyng at the sodayne mutacion of the thyng, demaunded of the esquier why he dyd not his duety. “Sir,” saied he, “I am otherwise commaunded by Sir Pyers of Exton, whiche is newely come from Kyng Henry.” When he heard that worde, he toke the caruyng knife in his hande and stroke the esquier on the head, saiyng, “The deuell take Henry of Lancastre and the together.” And with that worde Sir Piers entered into the chamber wel armed, with eight tall men in harneis, euery man hauing a byll in hys hande. Kyng Rycharde, perceiuyng them armed, knewe well that they came to his confusion, and puttyng the table from hym valiauntly toke the byll out of the firste mannes hande, and manly defended hymselfe, and slewe foure of them in a short space.

Sir Piers, being somwhat dismaied with his resistyng, lepte into the chaire where Kyng Richard was wonte to sitte, while the other foure persones assailed and chased hym aboute the chamber, whiche being disarmed defended him against his enemies beyng armed (whiche was a valiaunt acte), but in conclusion, chasyng and trauersyng from the one syde to the other, he came to the chaire where Sir Pyers stode, whiche with a stroke of his pollax felled hym to the grounde, and then shortly he was rid out of the worlde, without ether confession or receit of sacrament.

When this knyght perceiued that he was deade, he sobbed, wept, and rent his heare, criyng, “Oh Lord, what haue we done? we haue murthered hym whome by the space of two and twenty yeres we haue obeied as kyng and honoured as our souereigne lorde; now all noble men will abhorre vs, all honest persons will disdaine vs, and all poore people will rayle and crie out vpon vs, so that duryng our naturall liues, we shalbe poincted with the fynger, and our posterite shalbe reproued as children of homecides, ye, of regicides and prince quellers.”

Thus haue I declared to you the diuersities of opinions concerning the deathe of this infortunate prince, remittyng to your iudgement whiche you thynke moost trewe, but the very truthe is that he died of a violent death, and not by the darte of naturall infirmitie.

When Atropos had cut the lyne of his lyfe, his body was embaulmed and seared and couered with lead, all saue his face (to the entent that all men myght perceiue that he was departed out of this mortall lyfe) and [fol. xv] was conueyghed to London, where in the cathedrall churche of Saincte Paule he had a solempne obsequie, and from thence conueyghed to Langley in Buckynghamshire, where he was enterred, and after by Kyng Henry the V remoued to Westminster, and there entombed honorably with Quene Anne his wyfe, although the Scottes vntreuly write that he escaped out of prisone, and led a verteous and solitary lyfe in Scotlande, and there dyed and is buryed in the Blacke Friers at Sterlyng.

What trust is in this worlde, what suretie man hath of his life, & what constancie is in the mutable comonaltie, all men maye apparantly perceyue by the ruyne of this noble prince, whiche beeyng an vndubitate kyng, crouned and anoynted by the spiritualtie, honored and exalted by the nobilitie, obeyed and worshipped of the comon people, was sodainly disceyued by theim whiche he moste trusted, betrayed by theim whom he had preferred, & slayn by theim whom he had brought vp and norished, so that all menne maye perceyue and see, that fortune wayeth princes and pore men all in one balance.

(Hall, 1550⁸)

Compare the first paragraph of Hall quoted above and the following section from Holinshed (1587):

And immediatlie after, king Henrie, to rid himselfe of anie such like danger to be attempted against him thereafter, caused king Richard to die of a violent death, that no man should afterward faine himselfe to represent his person, though some have said, he was not privie to that wicked offense.

[After the account of “forced famine,” the 1587 edition adds the following]:

[Margin: Abr. Fl. [i.e., Abraham Fleming] out of Thom. Walsi. pag. 404, 405.] But Thomas Walsingham is so farre from imputing his death to compulsorie famine, that he referreth it altogither to voluntarie pining of himselfe. For when he heard that the complots and attempts of such his favourers, as sought his restitution, and their owne advancement, adnihilated; and the cheefe agents shamefullie executed; he tooke such a conceit at these misfortunes (for so Thomas Walsingham termeth them) and was so beaten out of hart, that wilfullie he starved himselfe, and so died in Pomfret castell on S. Valentines daie: a happie daie to him, for it was the beginning of his ease, and the ending of his paine: so that death was to him daintie and sweet, as the poet saith, and that verie well in brefe,

[Margin: Corn. Gall.]

                    Dulce mori miseris,
                    Neque est melius morte in malis rebus.

[The account of Richard's murder by Sir Piers de Exton is wrongly attributed in the margin to “Thom. Walsin.”; this section ends as follows:]

It is said, that sir Piers of Exton, after he had thus slaine him, wept right bitterlie, as one striken with the pricke of a giltie conscience, for murthering him, whome he had so long obeied as king.⁹

The actual substance of both accounts is essentially the same, but Shakespeare combines them verbally:

• 1) Henry Bolingbroke's “rid me of this living fear,” that is, Richard (quoted by Exton in 5.4.2), seems based on Hall's description of Henry's “inwarde feare and discorde,” which is further echoed in Henry's phrase “this terror from my heart” (5.4.9) and Exton's “thy buried fear” (5.6.31). The verb “rid” parallels Holinshed at this point, though Hall later relates that Richard “was rid out of the worlde.”
• 2) Exton's speech of self-loathing in Hall, only indirectly indicated in Holinshed, is paralleled in the play by Exton's speech of 5.5.113-18. Exton's prediction in Hall that the murderers and their posterity will henceforth be marked outcasts is picked up by Henry, with a verbal parallel to Holinshed's “giltie conscience”: “I hate the murderer. … The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labor. … With Cain go wander thorough shades of night, / And never show thy head by day nor light” (5.6.40, 41, 43-44).
• 3) The addition in Holinshed (1587) that records Walsingham's opinion that Richard died from “voluntarie pining of himselfe” may be echoed earlier in the play when Richard exclaims, “Go to Flint Castle. There I'll pine away” (3.2.209).

Although Hall and Holinshed contained, reasonably handily, the latest historical research and, indeed, much striking language that the playwright took over or adapted, their accounts of the death of Richard II did not exist in a contextual vacuum for their readers and other contemporaries. The essential shape of history that formed the general cultural awareness of sixteenth-century England was already formed before 1548 (or 1577) by a rich tradition of printed and manuscript vernacular chronicles, to which Hall pays halfhearted tribute in his dedicatory preface:

Sithe the ende of Frossarte, whiche endeth at the begynnyng of Kyng Henry the Fourthe, no man in the Englishe toungue hath eitheir set furth their honors according to their desertes nor yet declared many notable actes worthy of memorie dooen in the tyme of seuen kynges whiche after kyng Richarde succeded: Excepte Robert Fabian and one without name, whiche wrote the common English Chronicle, men worthy to be praysed for their diligence, but farre shotyng wyde from the butte of an historie.

(Hall [1550], dedication to Edward VI)

The anonymous “common English Chronicle” is the Middle English prose Brut, and Hall is probably referring to one of its printed editions, although he was undoubtedly aware of the many manuscripts, of which more survive than of any other Middle English work except the Wycliffite translations of the Bible.¹⁰

The Brut was first translated into English from Anglo-Norman toward the end of the fourteenth century and originally ended in 1333, to which a continuation had been added to bring the narrative up to 1377; in the course of the fifteenth century the basic English text received various continuations and many individualistic versions of the work were also produced. In 1480 William Caxton made the Brut the first printed chronicle of England (under the title of The Chronicles of England), and it went through a further twelve editions until 1528. The work was owned and read across a wide social spectrum, by priests, monks, merchants, members of the minor gentry, and members of the nobility.¹¹ In terms of both content and style, its influence on historians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was pervasive.

The earliest account in English of Richard's death occurs in the standard Brut continuation of 1377-1419, which was composed soon after its concluding date (probably before 1422), and presents the forced starvation version:

And þanne anon deied King Richard in þe castell of Pountfret yn the Northcuntre, for þere he was enfammed vnto the deth be his keper, for he was kept into iiij or v. dayeȝ fro mete and drynke; and so he made is ende yn þis worlde. Yet moche pepil yn Engelond and yn oþir landeȝ saide þat he was alyue meny yereȝ aftir his deth; but wheþer he were alyue or ded, þi hilde hir fals opynyons and beleue þat þay hadde; and moche pepil aftirward comyn to myschif and to foule deth, as ye schulle here aftirwarde. And whanne King Henry wist and knew warly þat he was ded, he lete sere hym yn þe best maner þat he myȝte and closed hym yn lynnyn cloth, alle saue his visage, and þat was left opon þat men myȝt se and know his person from alle oþer men; and so he was brought to London with torchis lyȝt brennyng vnto Saynt Pouleȝ, and þere he hadde his masse and his dirige, with moche reverence and solempnite of seruiȝe. And fro Pouleȝ was brouȝt ynto þe Abbey of Westmynstre, and þere hadde alle his hole seruiȝe ayen; and fro Westmynstre he was ladd ynto Langeley, and þere he was beryed: on whose soule God haue mercy! Amen!

[CUL MS Kk.I.12, printed in Brie 2: 360/8-26;¹² the conspiracy against Henry IV is revealed only after Richard's death.]

This is the version found in the majority of Brut manuscripts that continue beyond 1377 and in Caxton's edition of 1480 and it must have been influential in creating the “common fame” that Hall and Holinshed ascribe to death by forced starvation. The elaboration of the common Brut account found in two manuscripts, BL Harley 53 (ca. 1452-53) and Lambeth 6 (a magnificently illustrated, late fifteenth-century volume that must have been owned by someone of the highest standing), is extremely close in wording to Hall, although, as we shall see, it was not Hall's direct source:

in the first yere of the regne of Kyng Henry the iiij^te, Kyng Richard, which þat was put doune of his Rialte, was in þe Castell of Pountfret vndir þe ward of Sir Robert [“Henry” in Lambeth 6] of Watirton, knyght; and þere he was ich day servet [as] a Kyng aught to be, that he myght se it; but he myght come to non þerof; wherfore sone aftir he deyd for honger in prison in þe same Castell; and so he made his ende.

[BL MS Harl. 53, printed in Brie 2: 546/3-9; the order of Richard's obsequies and the projected rebellion agrees with the common Brut description.]

In 1482 Caxton printed John Trevisa's translation of Ranulph Higden's Polychronicon and, like the Chronicles of England, the work remained current into the sixteenth century, being reprinted in 1495 by Wynkyn de Worde and in 1527 by Peter Treveris.¹³ To bring the Polychronicon narrative up to date, Caxton added a continuation from 1358 to 1461 that he named the Liber ultimus.¹⁴ This continuation falls into two parts, the latter of which, from 1419 to 1461, is based on the corresponding section of Caxton's Chronicles of England (1480). The earlier section, from 1358 to 1419, generally agrees in narrative outline with the corresponding section of the printed Chronicles, though occasionally somewhat abbreviated. However, Caxton also uses a variety of sources for additional material: a London civic chronicle, the Grandes chroniques de France (perhaps as printed at Paris in 1477 by Pasquier Bonhomme), the Fasciculus temporum (perhaps a personal copy of the edition published in 1475 in Louvain by Johan Veldener), an unidentified (but clearly minor) source called the Aureus de vniverso and, most important for present purposes, the French Chronicque de la traïson et mort de Richart Deux. From the latter Caxton translates several sections of narrative for the reign of Richard II, including a close though slightly condensed account of Richard's murder by Sir Piers de Exton (correctly transferred from Gravesend Castle in Kent to Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire) and the alternative story of voluntary starvation.

It was once thought that Caxton had taken this material from Lambeth MS 84, but the reverse is true.¹⁵ The manuscript is an expanded individual reworking of the Brut, first completed in 1479 and then extensively revised after 1482 by the incorporation of material from Caxton's edition of the Polychronicon, including the Exton murder and the voluntary starvation version, together with the Brut account of forced starvation as found in BL Harley 53 and Lambeth 6 (to which the compiler has appended a quaint vision experienced by Richard). Remarkably, Edward Hall seems to have known this manuscript directly.

To Caxton, therefore, belongs the honor of having first introduced into England the version of the murder portrayed in Shakespeare. Many of the surviving manuscripts of the Traïson et mort can be associated with the ducal library of Burgundy,¹⁶ with which Caxton seems to have been familiar during his long residence at Bruges, though it must have been between 1480 and 1482 that he decided to adopt the Traïson's account of Richard's end. The Liber ultimus text follows, collated with that of Lambeth MS 84 (designated L):¹⁷

Whanne [And whan L] Kyng Henry sawe that these lordes [the dukes of Surrey and Exeter and the earls of Salisbury and Gloucester, with several knights and servants of Richard II, all taken and executed] thus hadde rysen, and assemblyd greete peple to haue putte hym to deth, and for to restore Kynge Rychard ageyne to his crowne and to his royamme, thoughte [he thoughte L] teschue suche peryls. Anone [And anone he L] commaunded Sir Pyers of Exton that he shold goo strayte to Pountfreyte and delyuer the worlde of Kynge Rychard.

And soo he departed fro the kynge and wente to the castel of Pountfret, wher as Kynge Rychard was in prysonne, the whiche was sette at table for to dyne. And anone after, Syre Pyers cam in to the chambre where the kynge was, and eghte [& he broughte viij L] men with hym and eche man an axe in his hond. Trouth it is whan [And whan (Trouth it is om.) L] the kyng sawe Sir Pyers with his felaushippe entre in to the chambre defensably arayed, he shoof the table from hym and sprange in [in to L] the myddes of hem & raughte an axe oute of one of theyr hondes and sette hymself valyauntly at defence. And hymself defendynge, he slowe foure of the eyghte. And whanne the sayde Syre [om. L] Pyers sawe the kynge soo defende hym, he was soore abasshed and gretely aferde, and forthwith [om. L] sterte vpon the place where as Kyng Rychard was wonte to sytte. And as Kynge Rychard foughte and defended hymself, goynge bacwarde, the sayd Syre Pyers smote hym on the heed with his axe that he fyll to gronnde. Thenne cryed Kynge Rychard, “God, mercy.” And thenne he gafe hym yet [om. L] another stroke on the heede, and soo he deyde. And thus was thys noble kynge slayne and murthred.

And whanne the kynge was deede, the knyght that hadde thus slayne hym sette hym doune by the deede bodye of Kynge Rychard and byganne to wepe, saynge, “Alas, what thynge haue we doone? we haue putte to deth hym that hath ben oure kynge and souerayne lord two and twenty yere. Now haue I lost myn honour. Ne [om. L] I shal neuer come in place but I shal be reproched. For I haue done ageynste myn honour.”

After this, the tweluest daye of Marche, was the bodye of the noble Kyng Rychard broughte thurgh London to Powlus, whiche corps [Aftyr this moche peeple in Englonde & other countrees also wolde not beleue þat Kyng Richard was deede, but sayde þat he was alyue many yerys aftyr. Where-for Kyng Herry, whan he wist verryly þat he was dede, he leete cere hym in þe best maner & with dyuers spices & balmes & in a fayre cheste closyd alle in lynyn clothe, saaf his visage, which was lefte opyn þat men myht see & knowe his persone from alle othir men. And thus he was broughte thurgh London to Powlus & his body L] was leyd on a charyotte coueryd with black, and foure baners, wherof tweyne were of the armes of Saynt George and tweyne of the armes of Saynt Edward. And there were an honderd men clothed in black, eche berynge a torche. And the cyte of London hadde thrytty men in whyte, eche berynge also a torche. And the corps was leyd open the vysage [and þe visage of þe dede body was leyde opyn L] that euery man myght see and knowe that it was hys body and that he was soo deede, for many men byleuyd it not. [L adds And from Powlus he was had to Westmenster & þere he hadde his hole masse & diryge also.] And from thennes he was caryed to the Frerys at [of L] Langley and there he was buryed. On whoos sowle God haue mercy. Amen.

The comyn oppynyon of Englysshmen is that Kynge Rychard deyde not after the maner aforesayd, but that he deyde other wyse: that is to wete [but þat he deyde & was famynyd & lakkyd bothe mete & drynke, & yet he was dayle seruyd þere-of lyke a kyng but he myht not towche yt but only see hyt & þerefor his (sic: add hunger) was þe more. And on a tyme, as he lay on his bed of estaate, hym thouhte þere come a fayre woman vnto hym and brought a kercherful of white rosys & bestruyd all his bed therwith, & he fed hym of tho rosys, þat his grete hungre was withdrawe; & whan he woke, hym thoughte his apyted was wel satysfyed, & þerby his lyf contynuyd a day or tweyne the lenger. And some sayeth thus L] that whanne he herde saye that his brother [lordys L] the duc of Excetre, the duc of Surrey, the erle of Salysbury, and the other lordes were deede, he was soo angry and soo sorowfull that he swore that he wolde neuer eete meete, and soo abode foure dayes withoute etynge, as they saye. And whanne that [om. L] Kynge Henry [Herry L] vnderstode that he wolde not ete, he sent to hym two prelates for-to comforte him. And whan they were come, he confessyd hym to one of them, the whiche gaf hym in penaunce that he sholde ete his mete. And whanne he supposed to haue eten, the meete myght not goo doune ne auale in to his stomake, for the conduytes of his bodye were shronken togeder. And thenne sayde the noble Kynge Rychard that it was done and that he muste nedes deye, and soo he deyde [and soo he deyde om. L]. But certes whether he deyde this waye or that other, certaynly he deyde [dede he is L], and was buryed at Langley. God haue mercy on his sowle. Amen. And thenne was Kynge Harry peasyly [peasbly L] kyng.

Within twenty-five years of Caxton's Liber ultimus and the compilation of Lambeth 84, Robert Fabyan completed his New Chronicles of England and France, which also contains the murder by Exton.¹⁸ In 1504 Fabyan completed the bulk of his work, ending with the accession of Henry VII in 1485, though a later continuation to 1509 is probably also by him. Fabyan used the prose Brut and Caxton's print of the Polychronicon as major sources, and his abbreviated account of Richard's death appears to have been primarily derived from the Liber ultimus, though there are details, here and in the earlier truncated account of a quarrel between Richard and the duke of Gloucester, that suggest that Fabyan was also using the original Traïson. He notes very cursorily the notion of famine, commenting “but this [the Exton story] of moost wryters is testyfyed & allegid.” Such an assessment is extremely curious, since this is not the clear opinion of his English sources. Perhaps he is giving greater credence to the French account here or perhaps he has misread Caxton's account. Whatever the original circumstances, however, this assessment must have circulated fairly widely, for the New Chronicles went through seven printings from its posthumous publication in 1516 to 1559 and was an important and respected source for later sixteenth-century chroniclers. Fabyan's full account, together with his record of Richard's Latin epitaph (later borrowed by Abraham Fleming for the 1587 edition of Holinshed), also given in English translation with a stanza of commentary by Fabyan himself, is as follows:

[Margin: Trucidatur Richardus.] Than it foloweth in the story of kynge Henry, whan he had fermelye consyderyd the great conspyracy agayne hym by the forenamyd lordys and other persones entendyd and imagenyd to his dystruccyon, & agayn releuynge Rycharde late kynge, he, in avoydynge of lyke daunger, prouyded to put the sayd Rycharde out of this present lyfe; and shortlye, after the opynyon of moost wryters, he sent a knyght, named syr Piers of Exton, vnto Pountfreyt castell, where he with viii other in his companye, fell vpon the sayde Rycharde late kynge, and hym myserably in his chaumbre slewe; but not without reuengement of his deth: for, or he were fellyd to the grounde, he slewe of the sayd viii iiii men, with an axe of theyr owne; but lastely he was woundyd to deth by the hande of the sayde syr Piers of Exton, & so dyed. After execucyon of which dedely dede, ye sayd syr Piers toke great repentaunce; in so moche that lamentably he sayd, “Alas! what haue we done, we haue now put to deth hym that hath ben ouer soueraygne and drad lorde by the space of xxii yeres, by reason whereof I shall be reprochyd of all honoure wheresoer I after this daye become, and all men shall redounde this dede to my dyshonour and shame.” Other opynyons of the dethe of this noble prynce are lefte by wryters, as by waye of famyne & other; but this of moost wryters is testyfyed & allegid. Whan the deth of this prynce was publysshed abrode, he was after opyn vysaged layed in the mynster of Pounfrayt, so yat all men myght knowe and see that he was dede. And the xii daye of Marche folowynge, he was with great solempnyte brought thoroughe the cytie of London to Paulys, & there layed open visaged agayn, to the end that his dethe myght be manyfestlye knowen, whiche was doutfull to many one, and speciallye to suche as oughte to hym fauoure. And then after a fewe dayes the sayd corps was caryed vnto the freris of Langley and there enterryd; but after he was remouyd by kynge Henry ye v in the firste yere of his reygne, and with great honoure and solempnyte conueyed vnto the monastery of Westmynster, and there within the chapell of seynt Edwarde, honourably buryed vpon the South syde of seynt Edwardys shryne, with this epytaphy vpon his toumbe as foloweth.

Prudens et mundus Richardus, iure secundus
Per fatum victus iacet hic sub marmore pictus.
Verax sermone fuit et plenus ratione,
Corpore procerus, animo prudens vt Omerus,
Ecclesiam fauit, elatos subpeditauit,
Quemuis prostrauit regalia qui violauit.

Whiche versys are thus to be vnderstande, in our vulgare and Englysshe tonge, as foloweth.

Parfyght and prudent Rycharde, by ryght the seconde,
Vaynquysshed by fortune, lyeth here nowe grauen in stone.
Trewe of his worde, and therto well resounde.
Semely of persone, and lyke to Omer as one.
In worldely prudence, and euer the Churche in one
Vp helde and fauoured, castynge the proude to grounde,
And all that wolde his royall state confounde.
But yet alas! thoughe that this metyr or ryme
Thus doth enbelysshe this noble pryncis fame,
And that some clerke which fauoured hym some tyme
Lyste by his cunnynge, thus to enhaunce his name,
Yet by his story apperith in hym some blame.
Wherefore to pryncys is surest memory,
Theyr lyues to exercyse in vertous constancy.

Whan this mortall prynce was thus dede and grauen, kynge Henry was in quyet possessyon of the realme, [etc.; Fabyan goes on to relate the riches found in Richard's treasury, “as wytnessyth Polycronycon”].¹⁹

As noted earlier, Fabyan and Caxton are named by Edward Hall as two of his principal English sources. For Richard's death, however, Hall returned to the English prose Brut for the enforced famine version; remarkably, it appears that Hall's direct source was the unique text of Lambeth MS 84, which, like Hall, calls this the generally accepted version. He then turned to the French Traïson for the full Exton story, containing, for example, the episode between Richard and his food-tasting esquire (Shakespeare's keeper). The number of ax blows that fell Richard is reduced to one. A couple of details presumably came from Lambeth MS 84, such as the eight (rather than seven) accomplices and Exton's dismay at Richard's spirited resistance. That Henry IV does not directly order Richard's murder and Exton acts as the result of the new king's transparent hints at the dinner table represents a major innovation, duly reproduced by Holinshed and reflected in Shakespeare.

There has been considerable disagreement whether Shakespeare knew directly the Traïson and Jean Creton's mainly metrical Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre Richard II, which were only available in manuscript.²⁰ Peter Ure has argued that even Holinshed knew the Traïson only through the partial English translation written in the hand of John Stow in BL MS Harley 6219 and that the French work was not necessarily readily available in England in the late sixteenth century.²¹ While it is true that all the surviving manuscripts of the Traïson are found in French and Belgian libraries, Caxton, Stow, and Hall certainly, and Fabyan possibly, had access to the text (though the manuscript identified by Benjamin Williams as at least belonging to the type used by Stow is also, interestingly enough, of the same type as used by Caxton).²² The identification of the language in Holinshed's marginal reference to “an old French pamphlet belonging to John Stowe” suggests that it was the original text rather than the partial translation to which he was referring.²³ The “French pamphlet that belongeth to master John Dee” or “master Dees French booke” to which Holinshed also refers can be identified with Lambeth MS 598, a copy of Creton, in French, which contains Dee's signature and the date 1575.²⁴ There are some general similarities between Shakespeare and the two French historical works, especially parallels drawn between Richard and Christ, but the evidence is not conclusive whether the dramatist knew these narratives.

Similarly, one can speculate which, if any, of the older English chronicles underlying the sixteenth-century historical writers might have been known to Shakespeare. There is a good chance that he was acquainted with both the immensely popular prose Brut (Chronicles of England) and the Liber ultimus of the Polychronicon through one of the many subsequent printings of Caxton's editiones principes. Both were standard works, still current though perhaps a little old-fashioned by the late sixteenth century, which provided convenient, basic, and relatively short accounts of Richard's reign and death.

It remains to consider whether Shakespeare made a conscious decision to portray the version of Richard's death that he did. If the comments of Hall and Holinshed regarding popular belief in the various versions are to be taken at face value, Shakespeare has deliberately chosen the most colorful (and melodramatic) but not the commonly accepted account. In effect, Shakespeare would be emphatically disclaiming any pretensions to strict historical accuracy at this point, thus marking his version as an overtly self-conscious literary construct with its own criteria of selection. He would be asserting quite categorically that Richard II is a tragedie, not a chronicle play.

There would have been a certain circumspect political sense to such a decision, given the topicality and touchiness of the question of deposition. We recall that the deposition scene in Richard II, although already written, was omitted from the first three quarto editions and was first published after Queen Elizabeth's death in the fourth edition of 1608.²⁵ It may have been this play (perhaps with the deposition scene) that the conspirators chose to view on the eve of the earl of Essex's short-lived rebellion in February 1601, in order to put steel in their backbones. In the summer following the failed rising and in the context of continuing Catholic agitation for her dethronement, Elizabeth is reported to have remarked, “I am Richard II. Know ye not that?” Parallels between the reigns of Richard and Elizabeth had been drawn earlier.²⁶ Richard seems to have enjoyed a vogue as the accepted type of the monarch most likely to be deposed. At her trial in 1586 Mary, Queen of Scots, had compared the proceedings to what had happened to Richard;²⁷ after Mary's execution Elizabeth sought to disclaim all responsibility.²⁸ In 1592 a correspondent of Lord Burghley reports “a libel” warning James VI of Scotland of Richard II's fate.²⁹ There could, therefore, have been sound political reasons to portray an account of Richard's death that was generally accepted to be historically false.

On the other hand, there are reasons for doubting the accuracy of Hall and Holinshed's assessment. Their “common fame” echoes suspiciously the “common opinion” of Lambeth MS 84 (and of Caxton's Liber ultimus, although Caxton assigns popular belief to the voluntary starvation story). It may well be that Hall and Holinshed were simply following their sources conservatively, thus reflecting the situation in the fifteenth century before the Exton account was introduced into England. Hall does admit doubt whether Henry ordered Richard's death or not and he does offer “the diuersities of opinions concerning the deathe of this infortunate prince, remittyng to your iudgement whiche you thynke moost trewe, but the very truthe is that he died of a violent death, and not by the darte of naturall infirmitie.” His tear-jerking, Marlowesque apostrophe to the horrors of death by starvation may suggest that this was the version that he accepted as historical. Holinshed gives the three versions, though he seems to favor the Exton story since the narration of Richard's obsequies follows naturally thereupon, with no intervening expression of doubt. The Myrroure for Magistrates (1559), Samuel Daniel's Civil Wars (1595), and John Hayward's King Henry the IV (1599) accept the murder by Exton (though Daniel “will not here defile / My unstained verse with his opprobrious name” and it is left to a marginal note to remark “This Knight was Sir Pierce of Exton”).³⁰ Despite Hall and Holinshed, it would appear that the Exton murder had become the “common fame” in the course of the sixteenth century, though there had also arisen some doubt whether Henry was directly responsible. Shakespeare is, then, simply following the general current belief in his choice of deaths. Shakespeare also reflects sixteenth-century doubts over Henry's direct involvement and responsibility—“some saye he commaunded, other talke that he condiscended, many wryte that he knewe nat tyll it was done, and then it confirmed” as Hall wrote.

Arguably, there are a number of parallels between the Exton account of Richard's death and the murder of Thomas Becket. Shakespeare's Sir Pierce reports that he takes his cue from Henry's rhetorical question, “Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?” (5.4.2; cf. Hall, followed by Holinshed, “Haue I no faytheful frende whiche wil deliuer me of hym whose life will be my death, and whose death will be the preseruacion of my lyfe?”). This is reminiscent of Henry II's rhetorical musings that instigate the murder of Becket, as recorded by Holinshed:³¹

[Margin: The occasion of the kings words that cost bish. Becket his life.] The king giuing eare to theire complaint, was so displeased in his mind against archbishop Thomas, that in open audience of his lords, knights, and gentlemen, he said these or the like words: “In what miserable state am I, that can not be in rest within mine owne realme, by reason of one onelie preest? Neither is there any of my folkes that will helpe to deliuer me out of such troubles.”

There were some that stood about the king, which gessed by these words, that his mind was to signifie how he would haue some man to dispatch the archbishop out of the waie.³²

The physical circumstances of the two deaths are also similar in Holinshed:

• 1) Both victims are assailed by a group of armed men.
• 2) Like Richard, Becket offers some resistance, albeit nonlethal: “And herewith taking on other of the knights by the habergeon, he floong him from him with such violence, that he had almost throwne him downe to the ground.”³³
• 3) Both receive their deathblows on their heads, which had been anointed.
• 4) The murderer(s) are subsequently spurned by their kings: “King Henrie [II] gaue them so litle thankes for their presumptuous act, sounding to the euill example of other in breach of his lawes, that they despairing vtterlie of pardon, fled one into one place, and another into another” (Ellis, 1807-8, 2: 136).
• 5) Both kings deny complicity in murder: when Henry II finally purges himself he vows “that he neither willed, nor commanded the archbishop Thomas to be murthered, and that when he heard of it, he was sorie for it” (2: 143).
• 6) Each king receives a penance for the murder: one of the articles of Henry II's penance is that within three years “he should take vpon him the crosse, and personallie passe to the holie land” (2: 143). (The comment in the margin is “O vile subiection vnbeseeming a king!”)

Other parallels existed also. Like Henry IV, Henry II had a namesake son who was riotous in his youth (2: 130-31). Both Richard, in French chronicles and in Shakespeare, and Becket, in hagiographic accounts, are compared with Christ and parallels are drawn between their deaths and the Passion.³⁴

In the late sixteenth century any reminiscences of Thomas Becket's murder would have been highly charged politically and in terms of the characters of Bolingbroke and Richard. From the time of the Reformation, Becket was officially persona non grata, declared by royal proclamation in 1538 “a rebel and traitor to his prince,”³⁵ and his shrine in Canterbury Cathedral was destroyed, as were those of other “counterfeated Sainctes.”³⁶ Tudor and Elizabethan antiquarians were assiduous in scratching out of manuscripts that had been in monastic hands the words “pope” (occasionally substituting “bishop of Rome”) and “saint” as a title of Becket (in favor of “bishop”). Chronicles such as Fabyan's, originally published before 1538 and reprinted after that date, were carefully edited and their history altered to show Becket in a vile light.³⁷

Nevertheless, the murders of Richard II (Exton version) and Thomas Becket were similar, and there were other links between these two and Henry IV that were probably known to Shakespeare and his audience, in particular the story attached to the consecration oil used to anoint Henry IV. John Capgrave describes Henry's coronation:

Thus was he crowned on Seynt Edward day and anoynted with þat holy oyle þat was take to Seynt Thomas of Cauntirbury be oure Lady, and he lefte it in Frauns. This oyle was closed in a egel of gold and þat egil put in a crowet of ston, and be reualacion Herry, þe first duke of Lancastir fond it, and brout it hom to Ynglond, and gaue it to þe Prince Edward [the Black Prince], to þis effect, þat aftir his faderes deces he schuld be anoynted with þe same. And aftir þe princes deth it was left in þe kyngis tresory, and neuyr man tok kep þerto til, a litil before þat þe king [Richard] exiled þe Bischop Thomas [Arundel], þis relik was found, and certayn writing þeron, as Thomas of Cauntirbury left it. Than was Kyng Richard glad, and desired of þe bischop to be anoynted new, but he wold not. But for al þat þe kyng bare it with him into Yrland, and whan he was take in his coming ageyn, he dylyuered it to Thomas Arundel, and soo was Herry crowned with þe same.³⁸

Capgrave's account is a shortened adaptation of a popular story given by Thomas Walsingham, who recounts that Richard came across the eagle and ampulla while rummaging around in his ancestors' relics in the Tower of London and that the writing attached to these was a prophecy of Thomas Becket.³⁹ The underlying prophecy, the so-called “Vision at Sens” or “The Ampulla Prophecy,” survives in Latin in many manuscripts and chronicles.⁴⁰ It was translated into French by Jean Bouchet in the Annals of Aquitaine, which were known to Edward Hall.⁴¹ In the late fifteenth century the compiler of Lambeth MS 84 made an English translation of the prophecy, which he found prefixed to a manuscript of the Latin Polychronicon, and inserted it into his account of Becket. The following text has not been printed before:

[Lambeth MS 84, fol. 93] [Margin: A Prophesi.] Also it is red in Policronicon a prophese, wryttyn in Latyn in þe begynnyng of þe booke, þat seyth thus:

Whan I Thomas, Archebisshop of Cauntirbury, was exilid & fled in to Fraunce, & so went to Rome to Pope [erased] Alexandre, then beyng olde, to telle hym þe evyl & malicius customys & abusiouns þat þe kyng of Engelond wolde haue brouht in to þe cherche.

And on a nyhte, as I was in þe cherche of Seint Columbe in my prayours, praying vnto þe queen of heuyn þat she woolde geve vnto þe kyng of Engelond & to his ayeres ful purpose & wyl to amende ther transgressis doon vnto þe cherche, and at Crist of His mercy & beneuolence myhte make them to love þe cherche.

And anon þe blessyd virgin Marie apperyd vnto me, hauyng afore her breste an egil of golde hangyng, & helde in her hande a lytil cruet of stone; she, takyng þe egil from her brest, & put þe cruet into þe egle & shet it fast. And then she toke it me in myn hand, seyng to me thes woordis be ordyr: “This oynement shal serve to annoynte with þe kyngis of Engelond, but nat he þat now regneth nor hereaftyr shal regne, forwhi they ar wykkyd & of evyl disposicioun & yewse moche synne & shal yewse. But ther ar [fol. 93v] kyngis hereaftyr to come þat shal be herewith anoyntyd, & they shal be blessedful & gret subportyrs of holichirche; they shal pesibile recouer þe land lost by her auncestours. There is a kyng of England to come þat shal be first anoyntyd with this oynement, þat shal wynne þe lande lost by his fadyrs afore, that is to sey, Normandy & Aquitaney, withoute resistyng. This kyng shal be grettest of al kyngis, & he shal edifie many chirchis in þe holy lande & wyn þe cite of Babilone, in þe whiche he shal bylde many chirchis. And in what batayle þat þe kyng bere þe egil on his brest, he shal haue þe victorie of his enemyes & evyr augment his kyngdom. And thow art a martir to come.”

And then I besouhte of þe blessidful virgin Marie þat she woolde shew me where þat I myht kepe suche a precius holi relique as þat was. Then she answeryd to me & sayde, “Ther is a man in this cete callid William, whiche is a monke of Seint Ciprian in Pictauensis, & he is vnryhtfully expulsid oute of his place by his abbot. And thow shalt go vnto þe pope [erased] & byd hym to compelle his abbot to resseyue hym ageyne in to his abbey. And take hym þe egil with þe cruet, to bere them into þe cite of Pictauensis & in þe chirche of Seint Gregore, þat is nyh þe cherche of Seint Hillarie, & þere to hide them in þe west ende of þe cherche vndir a grete stone, there to be founde in tyme to come. And be þe hede of a pagan they shal be founde”—and ther she departyd away.

Then I closid this egil in a vessel of lede & toke it to þe monke, biddyng hym do as I was comandyd.

Although the “Ampulla Prophecy” may have been composed earlier, it was readily applied for political purposes to Henry IV, the first king anointed with Becket's sacred unction, and was but one of a number of prophecies whose interpretation strengthened Henry's claim to legitimacy. The sacred oil continued to be used at coronations throughout the fifteenth century.⁴² Given the emphasis placed on the fact of anointment by Richard and other characters in the play (see 1.2.38, 2.1.98, 2.3.95, 3.2.55, 4.1.127, 4.1.206), it may have had significant resonances for Shakespeare and his audience.

The “Ampulla Prophecy” also indicates the general associative context in which to view Henry's expiatory intention to liberate Jerusalem and his desire in his will, duly honored, to be buried in Canterbury Cathedral, where his tomb stands on one side of the site of Becket's shrine (destroyed in 1538), while that of the Black Prince, Richard's father, stands on the other.⁴³

The golden eagle-shaped ampulla continues to be used in the coronation ceremony; in its present form it dates from the time of Henry IV (perhaps replacing Richard's pendant-sized one), elaborated and reshaped for Charles II.⁴⁴ Mary Tudor felt that the efficacy of the unction had been tainted by its use in the crowning of her Protestant half-brother Edward VI and sent to the pope for new consecrated oil, but Elizabeth returned to Becket's unction for her coronation.⁴⁵ One should not push the possible analogies too far however. If the staunchly Protestant Hall intended any parallels between Richard and Becket, then he would have intended them to be drawn to the detriment of Richard.

Behind Shakespeare's account of the murder of Richard II by Pierce de Exton, the beginning of the “continuall discension for the croune of this noble realme” (Hall, 1550, title page), lies a tradition that stretches back through Holinshed, Hall, Fabyan, and Caxton to “diuers other Pamphlettes, the names of whom are to moste men vnknowen” (Hall). Variously described as “our English Chronicles … rustie brasse, and worme-eaten bookes” in Nashe's Pierce Penilesse (86) or as “the leaues of a dog-hay, leaues of a worme eaten Chronicle” in Every Woman in Her Humor (2.1.197-98),⁴⁶ the late medieval chronicles nevertheless provide the background against which to measure the dramatist's handling of received historical knowledge and attitudes—the mental clutter of fact, falsehood, conjecture, rationalization, legend, myth, prejudice, opinion, and moral judgment that forms a nation's sense of itself, its past, and its place in the world—which Shakespeare shared with his audience.

Notes

1. Derek Traversi, Shakespeare from “Richard II” to “Henry V” (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957), 48.

2. The text quoted is that of The Pelican Shakespeare, ed. Matthew W. Black, rev. ed. (Baltimore: Penguin, 1970), with scene locations added.

3. Charles Lethbridge Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 271-74; Geoffrey Bullough, Earlier English History Plays: Henry VI, Richard III, Richard II, vol. 3 of Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (London: Routledge; New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), 3:13-14, 362-63.

4. See Graham Pollard, “The Bibliographical History of Hall's Chronicle,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 10 (1933): 12-17.

5. Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, 3:362.

6. Cf. Gordon W. Zeeveld, “The Influence of Hall on Shakespeare's Historical Plays,” ELH 3 (1936): 317-53.

7. Here and elsewhere below in quotations from manuscripts and early printed books, the punctuation, capitalization, and division into paragraphs have been modernized. Corrections and minor errors in the texts have been emended silently. Textual variants, variant readings, folio numbers, and editorial comments are enclosed in square brackets.

8. The Union of the Two Noble Families of Lancaster and York, 1550 (Menston, Yorkshire: Scolar Press, 1970) (a facsimile of Richard Grafton's second edition of 1550). The 1548 edition is printed in Henry Ellis, ed., Hall's Chronicle (London: J. Johnson, F. C. and J. Rivington, 1809).

9. R. S. Wallace and Alma Hansen, eds., Holinshed's Chronicles: Richard II, 1398-1400, Henry IV, and Henry V (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923), 24-26.

10. See Lister M. Matheson, “Historical Prose,” in Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres, ed. A. S. G. Edwards (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1984), 210-14; Donald Edward Kennedy, “Chronicles and Other Historical Writing,” in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1500, ed. Albert E. Hartung, vol. 8 (New Haven: Archon Books, for The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1989), 2629-37.

11. Lister M. Matheson, “The Middle English Prose Brut: A Location List of the Manuscripts and Early Printed Editions,” Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography 3 (1979): 265.

12. Friedrich D. Brie, ed., The Brut or The Chronicles of England, 2 vols., EETS 131, 136 (Part I: Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1906] 1960; Part II: Millwood, N.J.: Kraus Reprint, [1908] 1987).

13. A. S. G. Edwards, “John Trevisa,” in Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres, ed. A. S. G. Edwards (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1984), 143.

14. J. R. Lumby, ed., Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden Monachi Cestrensis (London: Rolls Series, 1882), 8: 522-87 (the text of Caxton's Liber ultimus). See Lister M. Matheson, “Printer and Scribe: Caxton, the Polychronicon, and the Brut,” Speculum 60 (1985): 601-7.

15. Matheson, “Printer and Scribe,” 607-9.

16. See Benjamin Williams, ed., Chronicque de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux, Roy Dengleterre (Vaduz: Kraus Reprint, [1846] 1964), lxxxiii-xcii.

17. The full Liber ultimus is printed in Lumby. The relevant text from Lambeth MS 84 is edited in Brie 2:590/22-592/21. The present text and collation are reedited from the originals.

18. For Fabyan, see Kingsford, English Historical Literature, 261-65; Louisa D. Duls, Richard II in the Early Chronicles (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1975), 181-82, 187-88, 246-47; Antonia Gransden, Historical Literature in England, II: c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), 245-48; Kennedy, “Chronicles and Other Historical Writing,” 2654-55.

19. Robert Fabyan, The New Chronicles of England and France, ed. Henry Ellis (London: F. C. and J. Rivington [etc.], 1811), 568-69.

20. For an overview see Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources, 354, 369-72; Kenneth Muir, The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 46-51.

21. Peter Ure, “Shakespeare's Play and the French Sources of Holinshed's and Stow's Account of Richard II,” N & Q 198 (1953): 426-29. For Stow's translation, see Williams, Chronicque de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux, Roy Dengleterre, vi-vii.

22. See Williams, Chronicque de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux, Roy Dengleterre, vii; Matheson, “Printer and Scribe,” 605.

23. Williams, Chronicque de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux, Roy Dengleterre, vi; cf. Wallace and Hansen, Holinshed's Chronicles, 7.

24. Wallace and Hansen, Holinshed's Chronicles, 15, 21, 26; Williams, Chronicque de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux, Roy Dengleterre, vii.

25. Matthew W. Black, ed., Richard II, The Pelican Shakespeare, rev. ed. (Baltimore: Penguin, 1970), 17; for an argument that the scene is a late addition, however, see David M. Bergeron, “The Deposition Scene in Richard II,” Renaissance Papers (1974): 31-37.

26. Lily B. Campbell, Shakespeare's “Histories”: Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy, 3rd ed. (London: Methuen, 1964), 173, 191, 196-97; C. A. Greer, “The Deposition Scene of Richard II,” N & Q 197 (1952): 492-93.

27. William Poel, Shakespeare in the Theatre (New York: Benjamin Blom, [1913] 1968), 112.

28. See Campbell, Shakespeare's “Histories,” 162, quoting J. E. Neale's Queen Elizabeth (New York, 1936), 279.

29. Campbell, Shakespeare's “Histories,” 176.

30. A Myrroure for Magistrates in Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources, 422; Daniel, in Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources, 457; [John Hayward], The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie the iiii, extending to the End of the First Yeare of His Raigne (London: John Wolfe, 1599), 132.

31. Theodore A. Stroud, “Shakespeare's Richard II as a Saint Manqué in a Compounded Tragedy,” Iowa State Journal of Research 53 (1979): 203.

32. Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, ed. Henry Ellis, 6 vols. (London: Johnson, and Rivington, [etc.], 1807-8), 2:134.

33. Ibid.; Becket's slight resistance undercuts Stroud's argument that by resisting Richard fails to become a “Becket-like martyr” (“Shakespeare's Richard II,” 203-4). It is, however, in accord with Karl F. Thompson's contention that Richard follows the pattern of martyrdom presented in John Foxe's Actes and Monuments, where the faithful die heroically in action; see Thompson, “Richard II, Martyr,” ShQ 8 (1957): 159-66.

34. Muir, The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays, 50; Paul N. Siegel, Shakespeare's English and Roman History Plays: A Marxist Approach (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1986), 38-39; Paul Alonzo Brown, The Development of the Legend of Thomas Becket (Philadelphia: n.p., 1930), 134-37.

35. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Historical Memorials of Canterbury, (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs, 1899), 296.

36. Ellis, Hall's Chronicle, 826.

37. Francis Thynne, however, in his Liues of the Archbishops of Canturburie (1568), incorporated in the 1587 edition of Holinshed, describes Becket as “a good souldior both for the church and the kingdome” (Ellis 4: 689). Holinshed himself speaks of “that Romish rakehels ambitious and traitorous heart” (Ellis, Hall's Chronicle, 2:147).

38. John Capgrave, Abbreuiacion of Cronicles, ed. Peter J. Lucas, EETS 285 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 214 (line 27)-215 (line 10).

39. Historia Anglicana, ed. Henry Thomas Riley, 2 vols. (London: Rolls Series, 1863-64), 2:239-240. A similar account, in English, is found in certain texts of the Peculiar Versions of the prose Brut and the related text of “Davies's” Chronicle; for the latter, see John Silvester Davies, ed., An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II., Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI., Camden Society 64 (London: J. B. Nichols, 1865), 14.

40. Brown, The Development of the Legend of Thomas Becket, 226n6, 227. Latin texts of the prophecy are printed in PL 190: 391-94; as part of a collection of assorted legends in the Eulogium Historiarum Sive Temporis, ed. Frank Scott Haydon, 3 vols. (London: Rolls Series, 1858-63), 1:406-7; and, with the ampulla's later history, in Walsingham's Annales Ricardi Secundi et Henrici Quarti, a continuation of John de Trokelowe and Henry de Blaneford, Chronica et Annales, ed. Henry Thomas Riley (London: Rolls Series, 1865), 297-300 (see also Chris Given-Wilson, trans. and ed., Chronicles of the Revolution, 1397-1400: The Reign of Richard II [Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1993], 201).

41. Bouchet's French text is printed in John Webb, ed., “Translation of a French Metrical History of the Deposition of King Richard the Second,” Archaeologia 20 (1824): 266-67 (also contains the French text of Jean Creton's Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre Richard).

42. Percy E. Schramm, A History of the English Coronation, trans. Leopold G. Wickham Legg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937), 131-33, 137-38; J. W. McKenna, “The Coronation Oil of the Yorkist Kings,” EHR 82 (1967): 102-4.

43. J. A. Nichols, Collection of all the Wills … of the Kings and Queens of England [etc.] (New York: Kraus Reprint and AMS Press, [1780] 1969), 203; Stanley, Historical Memorials, 176.

44. Brian Barker, The Symbols of Sovereignty (Newton Abbot, Devon: Westbridge Books; North Pomfret, Vermont: David and Charles, 1979), 80-82 and plate opposite 84; Tessa Rose, The Coronation Ceremony of the Kings and Queens of England and the Crown Jewels (London: HMSO, 1992), 94 (plate) and cf. 97-99.

45. Rose, The Coronation Ceremony, 98. Elizabeth complained of the rank smell. The last of the original unction was used at the coronation of James I (Barker, The Symbols of Sovereignty, 82).

46. Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penilesse, His Svpplication to the Divell (1592), ed. G. B. Harrison (New York: Barnes and Noble, [1924] 1966); Every Woman in Her Humor (Anon, 1609), ed. Archie Mervin Tyson (New York and London: Garland, 1980).