SOURCE: Law, Robert Adger. “Deviations from Holinshed in Richard II.” University of Texas Studies in English 29 (1950): 91-101.

[In the following essay, Law contends that Shakespeare deviated from Holinshed's account of Richard II in the Chronicles to create a more sympathetic dramatic portrayal of the monarch.]

In a number of studies concerning the play of Richard II recently made by competent Shakespeare scholars, no one has questioned the statement that its basic source is Holinshed's 1587 Chronicle, although Dover Wilson suggests a lost play based on Holinshed.¹ Yet just how closely the drama follows the Chronicle, and how far it deviates, has not been to my knowledge made entirely clear. For many readers know Holinshed only through the parallel passages cited by W. G. Boswell-Stone (Shakespeare's Holinshed, New York, 1896). Moreover, critics have shown more interest in the actual number of sources used by Shakespeare than in his treatment of material at his hand. Yet it matters little in a specific case of departure from his chief source whether the playwright is following one or another minor source or whether he is depending on his own imagination. The important fact is that for the moment he is rejecting Holinshed's authority, and he must have some reason for doing so. The usual comparative summary of relations between the drama and its sources follows the order of Shakespeare's version, as does the abridgment of Boswell-Stone. The table that follows reverses this order in giving first the events as they come in Holinshed's 1587 edition, designated by page, column, and initial line, with brief explanatory titles roughly summarizing the borrowings, and finally the act, scene, and inclusive lines of Shakespeare:

RICHARD II IN HOLINSHED'S TEXT AND IN SHAKESPEARE

Holinshed III	Incident	Shakespeare
493/2/56	King Richard summons Norfolk and Hereford	I.i.1-19
494/1/23	King asks why they cannot become friends	25-29
1/27	Knight for Hereford calls Norfolk traitor	30-46
1/52	Knight for Norfolk calls Hereford a liar	47-68
1/69	King addresses Norfolk, who denies charges	109-31
2/23	Hereford casts down gage; Norfolk takes it	69-83
2/25	King finds agreement impossible; sets fight	152-205
2/61	Preparations for beginning fight at Coventry	iii.1-6
2/68	Hereford enters lists and gives his name	26-41
495/1/35	Norfolk enters and announces his name	7-25
1/44	Lances are given to both; trumpet sounds	100-17
1/56	King halts combat and banishes both contestants	118-92
2/21	He later cuts four years off Hereford's term	208-12
2/25	Commons show love to departing Hereford	iv.23-36
2/31	King prevents marriage of Hereford in France	II.i.167-68
496/1/11	King forces nobles to sign blank charters	I.iv.48-51
1/22	John of Gaunt dies; King seizes property	II.i.1-210
2/66	Bay trees wither; people are alarmed	iv.8
2/70	King goes to Ireland to put down rebellion	i.218
497/1/11	York made deputy governor in King's absence	219-21
2/54	Friends of Hereford urge him to return	224-30
498/1/36	York wants to resist Hereford; people refuse	ii.78-121
1/56	Bushy, Bagot, and Greene flee for safety	122-48
1/64	Hereford lands at Ravenspur, joined by many	iii.1-20
2/3	He tells Percies he wants only his own lands	21-74
2/23	York with an army goes to meet King	81-171
2/64	Hereford executes Bushy, Wiltshire, and Greene	III.i.1-35
499/1/4	Storms detain King Richard in Ireland	II.iv.1-7
1/32	Salisbury's Welsh army tire and go home	8-25
1/66	King lands in Wales; friends bring ill tidings	III.ii.1-202
2/20	In despair he discharges his army	204-18
2/74	Worcester breaks staff to join Hereford	II.iii.26-35
500/2/3	Hereford and friends approach the King	III.iii.1-61
2/12	Hereford sends Northumberland to King	72-126
2/71	King talks, surrenders, and starts to London	127-209
501/2/63	He is committed to the Tower	IV.i.316
502/1/4	King is declared ready for deposition	107-10
503/1/53	On friends' advice King consents to deposition	181-221
505/2/20	Hereford is made King by Parliament	111-12
513/2/3	Aumerle loses title of Duke and honors	V.ii.43
2/70	King Henry licenses Norfolk's return	IV.i.86-90
514/1/73	Norfolk is dead in Venice	91-100
2/3	Duchess of Gloucester is dead	II.ii.96
2/10	Abbot begins conspiracy to restore Richard	IV.i.321-34
515/1/17	York discovers on Aumerle treasonous papers	V.ii.56-71
1/32	Despite York's disclosure King pardons son	iii.23-134
516/1/64	King Henry learns that enemies are executed	vi.1-21
2/35	King Henry pardons Bishop of Carlisle	22-29
517/1/7	On King's hint Exton goes to kill Richard	iv.1-11
1/14	Attacking him in prison Exton slays Richard	v.95-118

A study of this table leads to several general conclusions. First, one will note that almost all significant actions in the play are recorded by Holinshed, though frequently with changes in chronological order. Again, the time covered in the play is only a small portion of Richard's actual reign (1377-1399), all events occurring within two years. Holinshed's account of King Richard commences on page 415, while the drama begins with incidents of 1398, recorded at the bottom of page 493. From that point on through page 500, Shakespeare faithfully follows the lead of Holinshed with a very few changes to be noted later. But after that for about a dozen pages, almost no incidents are borrowed. Then follow five more pages, 513 through 517, which form the basis for practically all that occurs in the last two acts of the play. Omitted by Shakespeare are details of Richard's campaign in Ireland and also the long documents of charges and arguments brought against him in the deposition.

On the other hand, two Shakespeare scenes, I.ii, the visit of John of Gaunt to the Duchess of Gloucester, and III.iv, the Gardener's talk overheard by the Queen,² have no counterparts in Holinshed. The same statement might be made of the first fifty lines of II.ii, where the Queen is given reports of Hereford's return and the incipient rebellion, much of the deposition scene, IV.v, and nearly all of V.i, the supposititious farewell meeting between Richard and his Queen. The final three scenes reverse the order of events given in the Chronicle.

Yet the most striking departures from Holinshed are not in historical or semi-historical action. Shakespeare is concerned primarily in developing character and in motivation. Throughout the first two acts he shows particular interest in John of Gaunt. The opening line of the drama, “Old John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster,” sets him prominently before us as King Richard calls on him, contrary to Holinshed, to produce his son and, later, to make peace between this son and Norfolk. Then follows the invented scene, mentioned above, when Lancaster is again urged to take the lead, this time by his sister-in-law, to avenge his brother's murder. From high patriotic motives he refuses, being a subject, to “lift an angry arm” against the minister of God, murderer though he be. In the third scene Gaunt appears again at Coventry, anxious for his son in the dangerous fight with Norfolk but bidding him be valiant. Apparently he participates as a member of the King's Council in the decision to banish both contestants, but explains that he did so unwillingly at the urging of the King. Richard shortens by four years the sentence of Hereford's banishment, he declares, out of pity for the old father's grief, though no such motive for his mercy is indicated in Holinshed. Gaunt, while comforting his son in parting, foresees that his life will end before the son's return.

The last time Lancaster appears, his deathbed scene, II.i, has him praising his native land in eloquent verse that is quoted to the present day, and then angrily charging his nephew King beside him with abusing his high office by leasing out his land to flattering favorites. In this dialogue both men lose their tempers, the King terming his uncle “a lunatic, lean-witted fool,” and the Duke telling him, “Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!” For all this action of Gaunt in four of the first five scenes, Holinshed relates only his death in 1399 and the seizure of his estate afterward. As Dover Wilson suggests, a hint for the deathbed scene may have come from Froissart, but its development is wholly fanciful.

The opening episode of II.ii and Shakespeare's two later invented scenes, III.iv and V.i, center on Queen Isabel, her genuine affection for her husband and her grief in his misfortunes. That both episode and scenes are unhistorical is proved by the fact that Isabel, Richard's second wife, was barely seven years old when he in 1396 married her, and hence was ten years of age at the end of the play. In strongest contrast to the Queen Isabella of Marlowe's Edward II, she is pictured each time she appears as the innocent victim of her husband's enemies, dignified and queenly in her suffering, mainly because he is suffering, too. Froissart shows much sympathy for the French-born Queen, but Holinshed says little of her.

The parts played by York and his son Aumerle in the drama are fairly close to the chronicle. York is honest but weak, ever loyal to his King. Aumerle was a consistent friend of Richard, suspected of complicity in the murder of Gloucester and accused by the Nobles of treason to King Henry. Without doubt he was a participant in the Abbot's conspiracy to take Henry's life at Oxford; but when his father, states Holinshed, found on his person incriminating documents, he secured his pardon by outdistancing York in his race to confess all to the King. But Shakespeare considerably modifies this story by stressing the mother's concern for “my son Aumerle,” who has just lost that title “for being Richard's friend.” Her part in saving Aumerle's life is in sharp contrast with the Duke's heartless desire to have his son condemned for treason. Historically, this Duchess of York was not Aumerle's mother but his step-mother, and not involved in the episode.

King Henry's added lament over his son's wanton course of life and that youth's dissolute companions, when in reality he was only twelve years old, suggests that the dramatist already contemplated the writing of Henry IV and the Falstaffian scenes therein. Another hint of future events observed by many critics is Richard's warning to Northumberland of danger awaiting him in his adherence to Hereford's cause.

Again we owe to fancy the long soliloquy of Richard in prison, interrupted by a visit of the groom, who is disturbed because roan Barbary delighted to carry the new King as though he were the old. Froissart, it is true, tells of a pet dog of Richard that proved similarly faithless under the new dispensation, but Shakespeare's version is more effective.

Of less significance are many minor changes in the plot, such as the timing of the Duchess of Gloucester's death, or of Aumerle's hot words with Bagot and other knights, or of the number of attackers killed by Richard before he died. The importance of those discussed is that each one, I believe, tends to develop character or add a human situation. For example, John of Gaunt symbolizes in a large way the love of England which he so eloquently portrays. He denounces King Richard not for private but for public vices, and he cannot understand why the grandson of Edward III could so far forget his heritage. This, as more than one critic has noted, is not the Gaunt of Holinshed and other chroniclers, but more near the pictures drawn of his brother, the Duke of Gloucester.³ However that be, Gaunt is England.

All this naturally leads us to a discussion of Richard's character and that of his antagonist as Shakespeare conceived them. Near the end of his chapter Holinshed tells us that Richard

was seemelie of shape and favor & of nature good inough, if the wickednesse & naughtie demeanor of such as were about him had not altered it. His chance verelie was greatlie infortunate, which fell into such calamitie, that he tooke it for the best waie he could devise to renounce his kingdome, for the which mortall men are accustomed to hazard all they have to atteine thereunto. … He was prodigall, ambitious, and much given to the pleasure of the bodie. … Furthermore, there reigned abundantlie the filthie sinne of leacherie and fornication, with abhominable adulterie, speciallie in the king.

(III, 507-08)

How many of these traits does the Richard of Shakespeare possess? Aside from the general suspicion of his guilt in the murder of Gloucester and his “grievous” taxation of the common people, he is accused of surrounding himself with flatterers, whose “wickednesse & naughtie demeanor” may well have altered his native disposition. Personally, he appears to be “seemelie of shape and favor,” since his Queen calls him “my fair one” and a “most beauteous inn.” Somewhat effeminate he is until the last, when he fights so valiantly against his armed murderers and slays two of them. Though prodigal and ambitious, he gives no evidence of lechery or adultery, the deadly sin so emphasized in the Chronicle.⁴ In brief, his individual shortcomings seem to be merely those of the self-indulgent youth, scorning the advice of his elders and showing weaknesses that he shares with Prince Hal of Henry IV. Throughout the latter part of the play, when his reckless abandon as king has overtaken him, he is constantly, like Hamlet, brooding in long poetic speeches, the theme of which is ever “the melancholy tale of me.” These frequent exhibitions of self-pity do at first arouse a certain antagonism in our attitude toward him, but with his valiant death only sympathy remains for the unfortunate titular hero.

Henry Hereford, or Bolingbroke, is a complete foil to Richard from the opening scene. A shrewd practical politician, he carries out this contrast to the end, even in the closing speech of the play, when the dramatist adds to Holinshed a disclaimer from him of desire to have Richard murdered at the same time as he acknowledges intent to wash off his guilty blood by a voyage to the Holy Land. In the first scene Hereford speaks boldly to Norfolk, whom he accuses of the murder of Gloucester. He well knows, however, that if this charge is true, Norfolk was carrying out the orders of King Richard. Gloucester's blood, he cries, calls

To me for justice and rough chastisement;
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

(I.i.106-08)

Richard does not miss the point, as he ironically observes:

How high a pitch his resolution soars!

When Norfolk intimates hesitancy to speak ill of the King's cousin, Richard cleverly assures him of his impartiality:

Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
As he is but my father's brother's son.

(I.i.116-17)

The King's request to both young men to throw down their gauntlets meets with no favor, whereupon Richard, with an eye still on Hereford, declares, “We were not born to sue, but to command.”

Never again in the play does Hereford speak with the same valiancy as he used, nominally to Norfolk, really to his monarch. Before the end of Act I Richard shows that he has observed this studied conduct with suspicion:

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.

(I.iv.31-36)

Though utterly insincere in speech and behavior on his return from banishment, asserting that he has done so only to procure his rightful inheritance, Hereford is consistently self-restrained and cautious. Quick to condemn to death Bushy and Green for “misleading” the King, he nevertheless adds:

Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house.
For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated.
Tell her I send to her my kind commends.
Take special care my greetings be delivered.

(III.i.36-39)

A like quality of mercy he shows later to Aumerle and to the Bishop of Carlisle, each of whom has conspired to kill him. He is ready to recall from exile his first opponent Norfolk and restore his forfeited lands, when he learns too late that Norfolk is dead. In a later play he is denounced by Hotspur as “this thorn, this canker,” who “put down Richard, that sweet, lovely rose.” “For some odd reason,” muses Hardin Craig, “in spite of constant and interwoven folly, one likes Richard better than one likes Bolingbroke.” Holinshed comments: “But yet to speake a truth by his proceedings after he had atteined to the crowne … he wan himself more hatred, than in all his life time (if it had beene longer by manie yeares than it was) had beene possible for him to have weeded out & remooved.” (III, 541.)

In the portrayal of the three women, Queen Isabel, the Duchess of Gloucester, and the Duchess of York, Shakespeare's wide departure from fact seems to stem from a desire to stress domestic ties. As mentioned earlier, Queen Isabel lives only for her husband, partaking of his sorrows and making them her own. The Duchess of Gloucester longs to avenge the murder of her husband, even to the shedding of royal blood. The Duchess of York will move heaven and earth to save the life of her son. Thus the poet has practically created a trio of women much like the three choric widows of Richard III, to add humanity to an altogether sombre tale.

Such detailed study leaves little ground for postulating a lost play between Holinshed and Shakespeare. Assuming, then, that the playwright did go directly to Holinshed for his material, one may ask whether the method of composition that he uses is in accord with his habits in writing other dramas. I think it is. Beginning with the incident that forms the starting point of Hall's Chronicle, the quarrel of Hereford and Norfolk in the presence of the King, he traces all the important events narrated by Holinshed for the next two years, and then skips a dozen pages of that Chronicle to close with the excitement afforded by the murder of Richard in prison and the resulting announcement to King Henry that all his enemies are dead or captured. This is practically the same outline, following closely the happenings of two years or so, and then hastening towards his goal, that the dramatist uses in Richard III, Part I and Part II of Henry IV, and Henry V. All historical matter he handles freely so as to explain situations and motivate action. His chief characters behave like human beings, affected by domestic relations and relieved of the more sordid vices. Protagonist is ranged against antagonist in order to sharpen contrasts of personality, and women are involved in the tragic fortunes of men.

Noting the presence in the play of numerous pointed references to the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, Miss Campbell relates these references to the political situation in England at the time this “history” was composed. She also cites frequent allusions to the supposed identity of Richard II and Queen Elizabeth.⁵ Under such circumstances an Elizabethan audience was likely to pay close attention to the poetic lines in which Carlisle asks:

And shall the figure, of God's majesty,
His captain, steward, deputy elect,
Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath
And he himself not present?

(IV.i.125-29)

This turn of the argument for Richard is not found in Holinshed's account of Carlisle's bold protest, nor have I discovered any reference whatever to the Divine Right in Holinshed's chapter, nor in Froissart. One can account for the extreme popularity of this drama in the late years of Elizabeth's reign only by taking the timeliness of the topic into account.

Still, I am not so thoroughly convinced as Miss Campbell seems to be that the “history” of Richard II was written to serve as a mirror of policy for kings. Political problems, especially those concerned with rebellion, are set forth, but the play does not exist for the setting forth of problems. Nor am I ready to accept Professor Tillyard's theory, despite the presence in the play of so much formality and symbolism, that Richard II is the prologue to an epic. It speaks for itself, and Maurice Evans has proved that it is a moving drama in which a melancholy Englishman, not qualified to rule his land, was opposed and finally murdered by an efficient forerunner of Claudius.

Notes

1. See especially the editions of G. L. Kittredge (The Kittredge Shakespeare, Boston, 1941), which is the text here followed, and of J. Dover Wilson (New Cambridge Shakespeare, Cambridge, Eng., 1939), and also the commentaries of E. M. W. Tillyard, Shakespeare's History Plays (New York, 1946), pp. 244-63; Lily B. Campbell, Shakespeare's Histories (San Marino, California, 1947), pp. 168-212; M. W. Black, “The Sources of Shakespeare's Richard II,” Joseph Q. Adams Memorial Studies (Washington, 1948), pp. 199-216; Hardin Craig, An Interpretation of Shakespeare (New York, 1948), pp. 124-36; O. J. Campbell, The Living Shakespeare (New York, 1949), pp. 179-83.

2. My colleague, Professor Harry J. Leon, convincingly traces the origin of this scene to a story told by Livy. See Philological Quarterly, XXIX (1950), 65-70.

3. This resemblance was pointed out by Dr. Sarah Dodson in The University of Texas Studies in English, 1934, pp. 31-37. It was later dwelt on by A. P. Rossiter in his edition of Woodstock (London, 1946), pp. 50-53.

4. Concerning Hereford's charge against Bushy and Greene that they had “made a divorce between his queen and” Richard (III.i.12), Kittredge comments: “There is no historical basis for the assertion that Bushy and Green had thus estranged the King and Queen, for the Queen was but nine years of age in fact. Nor does it accord with the relations between Richard and his queen in the play.” (Kittredge, op. cit., p. 147.)

5. Campbell, op. cit., pp. 191ff.