s the youth of
Arthur, the widowhood of Constance, the character of Faulconbridge, are
all from the earlier version, as is the suppression of the baron's wars
and Magna Charta. Shakespeare added practically nothing to the action
in his source.

A still earlier play, _Kynge Johan_ by Bishop John Bale (c. 1650), had
nothing to do with later versions.

+Richard the Second+, unlike _Richard the Third_, is not simply the
story of one man. While Richard III is on the stage during more than
two-thirds of the latter play, Richard II appears during almost exactly
half of the action. Richard III dominates his play throughout; Richard
II in only two or three scenes. Richard's two uncles, John of Gaunt
and the Duke of York, and his two cousins, Hereford (Bolingbroke, later
Henry IV) and Aumerle, claim almost as much of our attention as does
the central figure of the play, the light, vain, and thoughtless king.

And yet with all this improvement in the adjustment of the leading role
to the whole picture, Shakespeare drew a far more real and complete
character in Richard II than any he had yet portrayed in historical
drama. It is a character seen in many lights. At first we are
disappointed with Richard's love of the {139} spectacular when he
allows Bolingbroke's challenge to Mowbray to go as far as the actual
sounding of the trumpets in the lists before he casts down his warder
and decrees the banishment of both. A little later we see with disgust
his greedy thoughtlessness, when he insults the last hour of John of
Gaunt by his importunate visit, and without a word of regret lays hold
of his dead uncle's property to help on his own Irish wars. Nor does
our respect for him rise at all when in the critical moment, upon the
return of Bolingbroke to England, Richard's weak will vacillates
between action and unmanly lament, and all the while his vanity
delights to paint his misery in full-mouth'd rhetoric. Vanity is again
the note of his abdication, when he calls for a mirror in which to
behold the face that has borne such sorrow as his, and then in a fit of
almost childish rage dashes the glass upon the ground. His whole life,
like that one act, has been impulsive and futile.

But now that misfortune and degradation have come upon King Richard,
Shakespeare compels us to turn from disgust to pity, and finally almost
to admiration. We realize that after all Richard is a king, and that
his wretched state demands compassion