[In the following essay, Riddell defends the character of York against negative criticism, and asserts that York exemplifies the Christian ideal of magnanimity.]

Coleridge's high opinion of the character of York in Richard II has been shared by few critics in the past century. Although it is unlikely that anyone today would be as shrill (but at the same time obsequious) in disagreeing with Coleridge as Swinburne finally was, the essense of his view persists today. The figure of York, said Swinburne, “is an incomparable, an incredible, an unintelligible and a monstrous nullity. Coleridge's attempt to justify the ways of York to man—to any man of common sense and common sentiment—is as amusing in Coleridge as it would be amazing in any other and therefore lesser commentator.”¹ It seems often to be the case that the more a critic admires Richard, the less he admires York. Swinburne thought that Shakespeare's “attention and sympathy” were directed away from other characters because his interest “was wholly concentrated on the single figure of Richard” (Study, p. 41). If, like Pater and Yeats,² one finds Richard to be a poet (therefore sincere and attractive), one may subsequently find York to be a politician (therefore hollow and repellent). As Mark Van Doren puts it: “[Richard] is a touching person. … And the Duke of York, fussing like old Capulet over the grievous state of the realm, … is not so much a sorrower as a worrier; he is perhaps a parody, in the decrepit key, of Richard's full-noted grief.”³ In the years since Van Doren's judgment York has even been seen as so feeble and spineless that he must reflect some reservations Shakespeare had about traditional notions of order and ceremony.⁴ Or (when York's inner feelings are analyzed rather than Shakespeare's) he has been seen as doggedly pursuing the punishment of his son as a way of expiating his own guilt.⁵ More charitably, and most commonly, York has been seen as being merely weak and/or confused.⁶

To be sure, a few modern critics have expressed higher opinions of York's character, notably Peter Ure and Norman Rabkin. Rabkin sees York as being one of “Shakespeare's ‘reflector’ characters, who … epitomizes and directs our shifting sympathies. Like us York begins with a poignant sense of loyalty to the crown; like us he soon finds his sympathy virtually exhausted and declares an end to his former approval.”⁷ Ure refers us to Coleridge's observations, saying that they “are not likely to be bettered.”⁸ Perhaps they will not be bettered; however, they are no more than lecture notes and are so brief that they stand merely as assertions, with no evidence to convince anyone not already disposed to agree with them. Coleridge's fragmentary comments are:

The admirable character of York. Religious loyalty struggling with a deep grief and indignation at the king's vices and follies; and adherence to his word once given in spite of all, even the most natural feelings. …

York's character. The weakness of old age and the overwhelmingness of circumstance struggling with his sense of duty; and the function of both exhibited in boldness of words and feebleness in act.⁹

Coleridge was right, but for reasons that may never have entered his mind.

Before I proceed, however, I should like to mention that critics of York, those who disagree with Coleridge, exist entirely outside the play of Richard II: no character in the play has a bad word to say about York, either to his face or behind his back.¹⁰ Indeed, when anyone in the play has occasion to characterize York, it is always in terms of approbation. The Duchess of Gloucester, Woodstock's widow, calls him “good old York.”¹¹ The gardener, whose comments on the state of the realm appear to be so sane, talks of the “good Duke of York” (III.iv.70). Richard, wisely or not, does leave York in charge of his kingdom. Bolingbroke, sincerely or not, is always respectful of his uncle York, as Richard is not of his uncle Gaunt. (As I discuss the character of York in this article, I hope that it will become clear that Richard could have been wise in placing trust in him and Bolingbroke could have been sincere in respecting him.)

Those who contend that York is feeble, or worse—often much worse—usually fault him for his behavior on two occasions: when he takes Bolingbroke into Berkeley Castle after withdrawing himself from conflict between Richard and Bolingbroke, and when he discloses to Henry that his son Aumerle has subscribed to plot against Henry. These are taken to be examples of his feebleness of spirit and feebleness of wit. It is, however, on precisely these two occasions that York demonstrates Christian stoicism and magnanimity (the former being an aspect of the latter), as would have been more immediately apparent to a sixteenth-century audience than to a modern one. Almost every contemporary author who touched upon the conduct of great men emphasized the significance of magnanimity, and it is from the point of view of this virtue, as it was perceived by Shakespeare's contemporaries, that I wish here to consider York's actions.¹² The classical antecedents for the sixteenth-century writers who dealt with magnanimity were preponderantly Roman, rather than Greek, and among the Romans none so important as Cicero, and then Seneca. Two qualities of magnanimity that Cicero stresses are that it is a passive as well as an active virtue and that its chief end is not personal satisfaction but rather the sustaining of the commonweal.¹³ As an active virtue magnanimity involves heroic exploits. As a passive virtue it involves an aloofness towards either the praises or the scorn of others, and, furthermore, a stoical capacity to accept one's own strengths or weaknesses, one's fortunes, indifferently. Thus, for instance, one faces death, as any other misfortune, with equanimity. As La Primaudaye says: “When a man is past all hope of saving his life, … perfect Magnanimitie alwaies knoweth how to finde out a convenient remedie and wise consolation, not suffering himselfe to be vexed therewith.”¹⁴

If a man is to face the loss of his life without suffering himself to be vexed, he surely must face any lesser calamity with patience and resolve. In the light of this consideration, it is plausible that York's behavior towards Bolingbroke when they meet in front of Berkeley Castle is a manifestation of York's magnanimity. In Thomas Lodge's translation of Seneca there is a passage that bears on this aspect of magnanimity:

These things which we undertake are to bee estimated, and our forces are to be compared with those things which wee will attempt. For there must alwais be a greater force in him that beareth, then in the burthen. These waights must need beare him down, that are greater then he is that carrieth them. Besides there are some affaires that are not so great as they are fruitfull, and breed many other businesse, and these are to be avoyded, from whence a new and divers occasion of trouble ariseth: neither must thou adventure thither, whence thou canst not freely returne againe. Set thy hand to these things, whose end thou mayest either effect or at least-wise hope. These things are to be left that extend themselves farther then the act, and end not there where thou intendest they should.¹⁵

What York is able to undertake, admonition and rebuke, he proceeds with; what he is unable to undertake, armed resistance, he abandons. Helpless to control events (through no fault of his own but age), he resigns himself to them, and in the conflict between Richard and Bolingbroke declares himself “neuter”:¹⁶

YORK
Well, well, I see the issue of these arms.
I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,
Because my power is weak and all ill left.
But if I could, by Him that gave me life,
I would attach you all, and make you stoop
Unto the sovereign mercy of the king;
But since I cannot, be it known unto you
I do remain as neuter. So, fare you well,
Unless you please to enter in the castle,
And there repose you for this night.
BOL.
An offer, uncle, that we will accept.
But we must win your grace to go with us
To Bristow castle, which they say is held
By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,
The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.
YORK
It may be I will go with you; but yet I'll pause
For I am loath to break our country's laws.
Nor friends, nor foes, to me welcome you are.
Things past redress are now with me past care.

(II.iii.151-70)

Given the circumstance in which York finds himself, his observation in the last line amounts to an expression of “perfect Magnanimitie.” He has assessed his opportunities, has realized that the burden is too great for him possibly to bear, and has acquiesced, without recrimination, without distress.

This is a quality of York which was introduced into this part of the story by Shakespeare. It is well known that he altered the role of York from that which he found in his sources. In Holinshed, the reasons given for York's action (or inaction) when he was to confront Bolingbroke are quite different: “The Duke of Yorke, whome king Richard had left as governour of the realme in his absence, hearing that his nephue the duke of Lancaster was thus arrived, and had gathered an armie, he also assembled a puissant power of men of armes and archers … but all was in vaine, for there was not a man that willinglie would thrust out one arrow against the duke of Lancaster, or his partakers, or in anie wise offend him or his freends.”¹⁷ The significant effect of Shakespeare's alteration, I suggest, is to place emphasis on York's making a decision rather than having his troops make it for him, and, more important, to place emphasis on the reason York made his decision as he did. What we see in the play but do not see in Holinshed is York's patience, his magnanimity.

If York is perceived as being magnanimous, his actions in “appeaching” his son of treason are not only consistent with his character, but also provide further evidence of its excellence. I do not mean to suggest that the York-Aumerle-Henry episode reflects only York's magnanimity. York, as is the case with other venerable counselors in Shakespeare, is shown to be occasionally foolish, even ridiculous. Like Gonzalo in The Tempest, he becomes a victim of his own high-mindedness by persisting too narrowly in it. York neglects to eschew anger in his diligent attempt to provide for the good of the commonweal. His excess, however, should not subvert our understanding of his virtue. I think that we should see York as an example of magnanimous man, but one who is slightly flawed—ironically by a passionate devotion to a virtue the central quality of which is dispassion. Beyond this, however, we see York taking action when there is every reason to believe that the action will be fruitful. Furthermore, the action he takes is at the expense of his personal benefit, for the benefit of the king, the law, the commonweal. In this he is something like the prince whose virtue provides an example in the courtesy book of Bertrand de Loque:

Zaleucus enacted his lawes, that whosoever should bee found to commit adultery, should have both his eies put out: it fell out that his owne sonne was convinced of this crime, wherefore his father would in any wise have the law executed upon him: and sure so it had bin, had not the importunate praiers of his people, entreating him to remit wholly the culpe, moved him some thing in the matter: but see what hee accorded unto the people, because he would not have his lawes violated, and to be made without effect: to satisfy the law, hee put out one of his own eies, and commaunded that his sonne should have one of his eies put forth in the like manner.¹⁸

Fully as persistent as Zaleucus in upholding the law of the state, York demands the death of Aumerle for treason. Here, again, Shakespeare's use of his sources is instructive. There is nothing in the chronicles to suggest that Aumerle was an only son, and indeed historically he had a younger brother. However, Shakespeare focuses our attention on the absolute nature of York's commitment by making Aumerle an only son and by causing the Duchess to dilate upon the implication of the fact, in particular emphasizing that she and her husband can no longer have children. York is willing, in short, to sacrifice his entire posterity for the sake of the commonweal.

If, indeed, Shakespeare intended his audience to perceive York as being magnanimous, what is the purpose? I think that Rabkin's notion about York being a “reflector” character is close to the mark. However, I would alter his evaluation somewhat, and would suggest that York is a kind of measure against which Richard—or one significant quality of Richard—can be judged. I suggest that Richard's chief failing is his lack of magnanimity as a king. It is now a commonplace that in Richard II Henry's decisiveness as king is set off against Richard's indecisiveness. But there is a much more comprehensive statement about Richard's character implicit in the contrast between him and York. York is not a king, and so the contrast is not one to be drawn between men of equal station. Nor is York a gardener, and so the contrast cannot be seen as allegorical, drawn between one at the top and one near the bottom of the order of mankind. We are to be informed by the quality of York's spirit, and that can be seen through his devotion to the principles of magnanimity. The more we are reminded of York's devotion to those principles, the more we are invited to recognize Richard's indifference to them. Jacques Hurault's rather full description of a magnanimous man is virtually a catalogue of qualities Richard should possess but does not:

Magnanimitie or noblemindedness is the meane betweene bacemindednes and overloftines. … The nobleminded man advanceth not himselfe for honor, riches, or prosperity, neither maketh he the greater account of himself for them; if he fall from his degree or loose his goods, he stoopeth not for it; for he is upheld with a certain force and stoutnes of mind. Contrariwise, the baceminded or faint-hearted man, becometh wonderfully vainglorious of every little peece of good fortune or advauncement that befalleth him, and at every little losse that betideth him, he shrinketh and is cast downe like an abject, as if he lost al, because he hath not the force of mind, to beare his fortune either good or bad.¹⁹

Richard, however, is not borne up by stoutness of mind when he falls from degree. His stooping behavior in the deposition scene, furthermore, is the opposite of York's behavior when he reflects upon the losses Richard has exacted from him, and from his brothers and Bolingbroke as well. York has asked:

How long shall I be patient? ah, how long
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
Not Gloucester's death, nor Herford's banishment,
Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,
Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.

(II.i.163-70)

York refuses to make public, or even to take personally, his private losses; tender duty compels that he forbear. Richard, on the other hand, insists upon making personal his public losses, and, worse, upon making a public display of his personal grief. It is an understatement to say that he has not “the force of mind to beare his fortune either good or bad.”

Hurault continues with a list of qualities that a magnanimous man should possess:

The nobleminded man hath six properties: the first is, that he thrusteth not himself into perils rashly and for small trifles, but for great matters, whereof he may have great honor and profit. … The second propertie of the nobleminded, is to reward vertuous persons, and such as have imploied themselves in his service. Whereunto a king ought to have a good eie. … The third propertie of the nobleminded, is to do but little, and not to hazard hisself at all times. For a man cannot do great things easily and often. The fourth property, is to be soothfast, and to hate lying and all the appurtenances thereof, as flatterers, talebearers, and such others, which ought to be odious, most cheefly unto princes, who should be a rule to other men.

(sigs. Vl-Vl^v)

Although there is not at every point a convenient comparison to be made between York and Richard, the pattern is apparent; there are, of course, more examples of Richard's behavior than of York's. In Hurault's summary, the first and third properties are much alike, as are the second and fourth. In both (or all) respects, Richard's faults are clear. He pursues his Irish wars, where the gain to be realized cannot be great but where the hazard to himself is likely to be, and does prove, disastrous. His eye for good service, as shown many times in the play, is altogether false. The seductive flattery of Bushy, Bagot, and Greene is preferred to the sound advice of counselors such as Gaunt or York, as York reminds Gaunt just before Richard pointedly ignores Gaunt's appeal from his deathbed. York poses his argument in explicitly patriotic language; the distinction between indifference to flattery and susceptibility to it is set in terms of sound English values as opposed to frivolous foreign ones. When Gaunt hopes that his “death's sad tale may yet undeaf [Richard's] ear,” York replies:

No, it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,
As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,
Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen,
Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.

(II.i.16-23)

Later in the scene, when Northumberland, Willoughby, and Ross determine to join forces with Bolingbroke, they do so citing Richard's being “not himself, but basely led / By flatterers” (ll.241-42) as justification. Through the very fact that he is not a “rule to other men,” he is perceived as an example of misrule, an invitation to rebellion.

Hurault's final properties are also relevant:

The fifth property of the nobleminded, is that he is no great craver nor no great borrower; assuring himself that nothing is so deerly bought, as that which is gotten by intreatance. … The sixt propertie of the nobleminded, is that he passeth not whether he be praised or dispraised, so long as he himselfe do well.

(sig. Vl^V)

Richard is a great craver, as witness, for instance, his seizure of the “royalties and rights” of Bolingbroke, which subsequently will contribute greatly to his own danger, as York accurately predicts:

If you do wrongfully seize Herford's rights,
Call in the letters patents that he hath
By his attorneys-general to sue
His livery, and deny his off'red homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,
And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

(II.i.201-08)

The sixth property touches upon all of those in Hurault's catalogue, and is the one most obviously wanting in Richard. Richard's love of praise is, if anything, doubly evident in his inability to distinguish praise from flattery, as we are reminded throughout the play. Richard, in fact, courts attention of any sort, so long as it is personal. When he looks into the mirror in the deposition scene he is searching for praise or dispraise, rather than disinterested counsel. And in his final appearance (V.v), the implied dispraise of even an animal causes Richard dismay, and provokes his trivial lament that his royal horse, Barbary, has willingly borne Bolingbroke to be crowned.

I do not mean to suggest that Shakespeare rigorously followed Hurault, or any other guide to the proper behavior of magistrates. Nor do I insist that at all times York is held up as a figure against which Richard can be measured. I do believe, however, that both characters are more accurately perceived if one considers how the principles of magnanimity apply to each. Magnanimity is a state of mind; although its manifestations in a prince are of necessity different from its manifestations in lesser creatures, they are the result of the same impulse. Therefore when we see York's exemplary devotion to the principles of magnanimity, we are reminded of Richard's neglect of those principles—if, as members of a sixteenth-century audience would be, we are aware of what the principles are.

Notes

1. A. C. Swinburne, Three Plays of Shakespeare (London: Harper, 1909), p. 71. In this volume, published in the year of his death, Swinburne carried to an extreme the misgivings he felt about the character of York some thirty years previously: “It is for me at least impossible to determine what I doubt if the poet could for himself have clearly defined—the main principle, the motive and the meaning of such characters as York, Norfolk, and Aumerle” (A Study of Shakespeare [1880; rpt. London: Heinemann, 1920], p. 39).

2. Walter Pater, Appreciations: With an Essay on Style (London: Macmillan, 1889), pp. 196-212 passim; W. B. Yeats, Ideas of Good and Evil (London: Bullen, 1903), pp. 156-67 passim.

3. Mark Van Doren, Shakespeare (New York: Holt, 1939), p. 95.

4. S. C. Sen Gutpa, Shakespeare's Historical Plays (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1964), p. 117; Sheldon P. Zitner, “Aumerle's Conspiracy,” SEL [Studies in English Literature], 14 (1974), 254-56.

5. Harold C. Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1951), p. 158; James Winny, The Player King (London: Chatto and Windus, 1968), p. 76; Roy Battenhouse, “Tudor Doctrine and the Tragedy of Richard II,” Rice University Studies: Renaissance Study in Honor of Carroll Camden, 60, No. 2 (1974), 46.

6. For instance: Derek Traversi, Shakespeare: From Richard II to Henry V (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1957), p. 28; A. P. Rossiter, Angel with Horns (London: Longmans, 1961), p. 27; M. M. Reese, The Cease of Majesty (London: Arnold, 1961), p. 250; A. Norman Jeffares, “In One Person Many People: King Richard the Second,” The Morality of Art: Essays Presented to G. Wilson Knight, ed. D. W. Jefferson (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1969), p. 56; Robert Ornstein, A Kingdom for a Stage (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1972), p. 123.

7. Norman Rabkin, Shakespeare and the Common Understanding (New York: Free Press, 1967), p. 87.

8. King Richard II, ed. Peter Ure, New Arden Shakespeare (London: Methuen, 1956), p. lxxii, n.2.

9. Coleridge's Shakespeare Criticism, ed. T. M. Raysor (London: Constable, 1930), I, 153, 154.

10. It may be argued that York's wife faults him. That argument, however, turns against itself, as the essence of her complaint is that he acts too much upon principle, rather than upon sentiment as she does. Her dispraise, I intend to demonstrate, does more to call attention to a strength of York's character than to a weakness of it.

11. I.ii. 67. All references to Richard II are to Ure's edition.

12. The term magnanimity can be applied not only to a concept, but also to various manifestations of that concept, and, depending upon context, could refer to qualities as diverse as physical courage, generosity, or humility. It is the concept with which I am concerned here; although a discussion of it must necessarily be made in terms of its manifestations, no one of those should be construed as its full definition.

13. De Officiis, I.65 and I.88. Section numbers are from the Loeb edition (London: Heinemann, 1913). In Honor and the Epic Hero (New York: Holt, Rinehart, 1960), Father Maurice B. McNamee points out differences between Aristotelian and Ciceronian concepts of magnanimity (chap. 3). The views of Cicero, and of Romans in general, are those which most affected political and moral treatises of Shakespeare's time.

14. Pierre de la Primaudaye, The French Academie, trans. T[homas] B[owes], 4th ed. (1602), sig. T7.

15. The Workes (1614), sig. Hhh4.

16. This term, it is well to observe, has a precise political meaning; see OED [Oxford English Dictionary]: “2. Taking neither one side nor the other; not declaring oneself on, or rendering assistance to either side.” It is perverse, I think, to argue as Wilbur Sanders does that the political meaning is subverted by “grammatical senses of the word” (The Dramatist and the Received Idea [Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1968], p. 184). He finds the sense of neuter gender particularly damaging, “for it is a man who speaks, claiming a kind of ‘neutrality’ which is proper only to inanimate nature, impossible to man,” as though a political act were impossible to man. Zitner's wry comment, “‘I do remain as neuter,’ says York with formidable insight” (p. 245), makes a point only if one forces onto the term a definition unknown in Shakespeare's time. York's invitation to Bolingbroke, issued to one who is neither friend nor foe, is quite consistent with York's mere acceptance of that which is beyond his control.

17. Geoffrey Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, III (London: Routledge, 1960), pp. 398-99.

18. Bertrand de Loque, Discourses of Warre and Single Combat, trans. J[ohn] Eliot (1591), sig. D4. The chief concern throughout the text was indicated by Eliot, in his dedication to Essex. It was, he hoped, “now as fit to be perused as patronized by some magnanimous Martialist of our own Countrie. It may please you then (Right Ho.) to reade these Treatises in a rude stile, and shew them your favourable countinance, that they maie passe to the view of all valiant warriours (in whose number our countrie counteth your Lo. formost for your forwardly indevours and approved magnanimitie)” (sig. A2^v).

19. Jacques Hurault, Politicke, Moral, and Martial Discourses, trans. Arthur Golding (1595), Sig. V1.