Shakespeare's Richard II (Michael Pennington, 1990) 2/14 Video

Michael Pennington as King Richard II
Michael Cronin as Bolingbroke
Clyde Pollitt as John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster
Jack Carr - Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk
Ian Burford - Lord Marshall
Philip Bowen - Duke of Aumerle

Director: Michael Bogdanov

"The Wars of the Roses" (English Shakespeare Company, UK, 1990) is a direct filming, from the stage, of Michael Bogdanov and Michael Pennington's 7-play sequence based on Shakespeare's history plays.

Robert Clarke ("The tragedy of King Richard II" 1896):

In bold yet subtle contrast to Richard is his rival Bolingbroke. He, like Richard, is only gradually disclosed to us: a series of fine touches lets us see by degrees the man he is, and, without exactly foreshadowing the sequel, makes it intelligible when it comes. From the first he imposes by a quiet power, which pursues its ends under constitutional forms, knows how to bide its time, uses violence only to avenge wrong, and carries out a great revolution with the air of accepting a position left vacant. Nor are we allowed to think of him as a mere usurper.

The time calls for a strong king. The country, exasperated by Richard's mad and lawless rule, is ready to override the claims of legitimacy if it can get merit. If Bolingbroke uses the needs of the time for his own purpose, he is the man to fulfil them. If he is ambitious to rule, there is in him the stuff of a great ruler. The state of England is 'out of joint'; he is the man to 'set it right'. No crime-interest is allowed to arise in regard to him such as from the first fascinates us in the career ot Richard III.

His only act of violence is to sentence, with the sternness of the judge rather than of the conqueror, the favourites of Richard to the death they deserved. His first act as king is to inquire into the murder of Gloucester. The play closes upon his remorse for the murder he had wished, but not designed. He loves England too, as Gaunt, as Richard, as Mowbray, love it, each in his way. If he does not waste precious time after landing, like Richard, in an eloquent address to his 'dear earth', his brief farewell, as he goes into banishment, to the "sweet soil, my mother and my nurse", is full of restrained passion and pathos.

Thus Bolingbroke blends the characters of the ambitious adventurer and the national deliverer—the man of the hour. But, though never lacking the dignity of kingship, he wants the personal charm of Richard. Richard is hated by the people he misrules, but captivates his intimates—from the queen and Aumerle down to the unnamed and unseen singer, who unbidden makes music for his disport in prison; nay, even Bolingbroke "loves him, dead". Bolingbroke himself, on the contrary, owes his popularity partly to his warlike prestige, partly to a deliberate combination of habitual reserve with occasional condescension.

Cf. the striking passage in "Henry IV" (iii. 2. 39 f) where he schools the prince in the proper bearing of a king—

"By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But like a comet I was wonder'd at:
That men would tell their children, 'This is he';
Others would say, 'Where? which is Bolingbroke?'
And then I stole all courtesy from Heaven,
And dress'd myself in such humility
That 1 did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of a crowned king".

The whole of this speech should be familiar to the student of Richard II.