0:00:17 > 0:00:24For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories
0:00:24 > 0:00:26of the death of kings.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30Westminster Abbey.
0:00:30 > 0:00:32For over 1,000 years,
0:00:32 > 0:00:37graveyard of the great kings and queens of England.
0:00:39 > 0:00:43This is one of them, Richard II,
0:00:43 > 0:00:46murdered, some say,
0:00:46 > 0:00:48over 600 years ago.
0:00:53 > 0:00:58The inscription says here that he was tall in body,
0:00:58 > 0:01:00and as sage as Homer.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04It goes on to say that he laid low
0:01:04 > 0:01:06anyone who violated the royal prerogative.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12Well, that last bit perhaps flatters him.
0:01:12 > 0:01:16One man, Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford,
0:01:16 > 0:01:20not only violated the prerogative, he dismantled it.
0:01:24 > 0:01:29The play Richard II dares to imagine what it is to have supreme power
0:01:29 > 0:01:32and then lose it.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36Are you contented to resign the crown?
0:01:36 > 0:01:38Ay.
0:01:38 > 0:01:40No.
0:01:40 > 0:01:41No.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44Ay, for I must nothing be.
0:01:46 > 0:01:50This drama offers a ringside seat to one of the most scandalous
0:01:50 > 0:01:53and shocking moments in English royal history.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55Richard II, a play about
0:01:55 > 0:01:59a weak, ineffective monarch who is deposed.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02The tragedy of the play and the theatrical dynamic of it
0:02:02 > 0:02:05comes from the fact that Richard is the rightful king,
0:02:05 > 0:02:09anointed by God, but he's an ineffective king.
0:02:09 > 0:02:13Bolingbroke is not the rightful king,
0:02:13 > 0:02:16but he is an effective politician.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20It's a brutal and forensic examination
0:02:20 > 0:02:23of Richard's catastrophic mental collapse.
0:02:25 > 0:02:27The play is very powerful in the way that it
0:02:27 > 0:02:31deals with redefining where power comes from.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34Can it ever be right to dethrone a king?
0:02:34 > 0:02:37This is deeply threatening to Elizabethan politics.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41Threatening, too, for the man who wrote it.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44If things had gone just a little bit differently,
0:02:44 > 0:02:47Shakespeare could've been thrown in the Tower or even executed.
0:02:50 > 0:02:52Beyond the politics,
0:02:52 > 0:02:56Richard II is also a powerful evocation of England,
0:02:56 > 0:03:01and the only one of Shakespeare's plays written entirely in verse.
0:03:03 > 0:03:06This royal throne of kings,
0:03:06 > 0:03:09this sceptred isle,
0:03:09 > 0:03:12This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars...
0:03:13 > 0:03:15..This other Eden,
0:03:15 > 0:03:18demi-paradise,
0:03:18 > 0:03:24This fortress built by nature for herself against infection
0:03:24 > 0:03:26and the hand of war.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34I want to find out who the real Richard II was.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37And how - long after Richard was dead -
0:03:37 > 0:03:40Shakespeare was able to piece together his story.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45I'll show how actors bring poetry to life,
0:03:45 > 0:03:49giving us one of history's most complex characters
0:03:49 > 0:03:53in a drama as fresh today as it ever was.
0:03:53 > 0:03:55Because it's a warning to kings,
0:03:55 > 0:03:58presidents and prime ministers anywhere
0:03:58 > 0:04:02who dare to believe in their own invincibility.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09We were not born to sue but to command!
0:04:10 > 0:04:13Any actor would kill to play Richard.
0:04:15 > 0:04:20Ben Whishaw is the latest to take on one of acting's greatest roles.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23Six frozen winters spent,
0:04:23 > 0:04:26Return with welcome home from banishment.
0:04:26 > 0:04:29How long a time lies in one little word!
0:04:30 > 0:04:32My understanding of him
0:04:32 > 0:04:36is of someone who's not really in the world.
0:04:36 > 0:04:38He doesn't consider himself to be
0:04:38 > 0:04:41a human being quite like other human beings.
0:04:41 > 0:04:43For a long time, actually,
0:04:43 > 0:04:45I was really interested in
0:04:45 > 0:04:48Richard II as a sort of Michael Jackson figure -
0:04:48 > 0:04:51sort of sexually ambiguous, separate,
0:04:51 > 0:04:53playful, capricious, a diva.
0:04:53 > 0:04:58There's a monkey in the piece which is the one echo still of that.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01Whishaw follows a clutch of actors who've tackled the role,
0:05:01 > 0:05:03each in their own unique way.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10A young Ian McKellen wallowed in Richard's self-love.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13Not all the water in the rough rude sea
0:05:13 > 0:05:16Can wash the balm from an anointed king.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21Mark Rylance played the king as a spoilt child.
0:05:22 > 0:05:27We were not born to sue but to command!
0:05:28 > 0:05:30Stars like Jeremy Irons,
0:05:30 > 0:05:32Ralph Fiennes and Kevin Spacey
0:05:32 > 0:05:35have all tackled Shakespeare's masterpiece.
0:05:36 > 0:05:38Rarely performed for decades,
0:05:38 > 0:05:42the play has even been staged with a woman, Fiona Shaw,
0:05:42 > 0:05:43in the title role.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48What must the king do now?
0:05:48 > 0:05:50Must he submit?
0:05:50 > 0:05:52I, too, have worn the crown.
0:05:52 > 0:05:56Back in the 1978, I played Richard on BBC television.
0:05:56 > 0:05:58The king shall be contented.
0:06:00 > 0:06:02Must he lose the name of King?
0:06:02 > 0:06:05It's strange to see it.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09It's quite moving to watch it because I've never seen it.
0:06:09 > 0:06:15And to see yourself 31 years younger is quite startling anyway.
0:06:15 > 0:06:17No deeper wrinkles yet?
0:06:17 > 0:06:21Of course, they tried to make me look like the pictures of Richard,
0:06:21 > 0:06:24so they curled and frizzed my hair.
0:06:24 > 0:06:25O flattering glass.
0:06:26 > 0:06:31Like to my followers in prosperity, thou dost beguile me!
0:06:31 > 0:06:34And there I am with this round moonface,
0:06:34 > 0:06:37which sort of works for the part.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42My Richard also starred one of Britain's greatest actors -
0:06:42 > 0:06:43John Gielgud.
0:06:45 > 0:06:50In the 1930s, Gielgud's own Richard had been a critical triumph.
0:06:50 > 0:06:52As near as I could sift him on that argument...
0:06:52 > 0:06:55Gielgud was the legendary Richard,
0:06:55 > 0:06:58so the part was very much associated with Gielgud.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00I knew the legend
0:07:00 > 0:07:04and when we were all together, doing the first read-through,
0:07:04 > 0:07:08and he was sitting next to me, it was a very daunting experience.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11This royal throne of kings,
0:07:11 > 0:07:14this sceptred isle...
0:07:14 > 0:07:19Nearly 50 years later, Gielgud, now playing the aged John of Gaunt,
0:07:19 > 0:07:21dominates the early scenes
0:07:21 > 0:07:24with a blistering attack on Richard's misrule.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27This dear, dear land,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30Dear for her reputation through the world,
0:07:30 > 0:07:33Is now leased out.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36Should dying men flatter with those that live?
0:07:36 > 0:07:37No, no, men living flatter...
0:07:37 > 0:07:39'A huge row with Richard follows.'
0:07:39 > 0:07:42Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land
0:07:42 > 0:07:46wherein which thou liest in reputation sick.
0:07:46 > 0:07:48A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
0:07:52 > 0:07:56Landlord of England art thou now, not king.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58Now, by my seat's right royal majesty,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son?
0:08:01 > 0:08:03This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
0:08:03 > 0:08:06Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders!
0:08:06 > 0:08:09I don't think Richard's cruel, and Gaunt very much was
0:08:09 > 0:08:11a father figure to him. I think he's insensitive.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15We were not born to sue but to command.
0:08:15 > 0:08:21It's a kind of inherent insensitivity to other people,
0:08:21 > 0:08:24to other people's feelings, to other people's possessions,
0:08:24 > 0:08:27just to other people.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31There is only one person that's of any importance in this room
0:08:31 > 0:08:34and that is me, Richard.
0:08:36 > 0:08:40Shakespeare's Richard was, of course, based on a real king -
0:08:40 > 0:08:41Richard of Bordeaux.
0:08:41 > 0:08:43Like his character in the play,
0:08:43 > 0:08:46the real Richard adored the trappings of power.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56This was just one of Richard's many baubles.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59It is the last surviving medieval English crown,
0:08:59 > 0:09:04pure gold and peppered with diamonds, rubies and pearls.
0:09:08 > 0:09:12By rights, the crown should have gone to Edward, the Black Prince,
0:09:12 > 0:09:15one of England's first heroes.
0:09:15 > 0:09:17but the Prince died before he could claim it.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20And so, in 1377,
0:09:20 > 0:09:23it was Richard, his ten-year-old son,
0:09:23 > 0:09:26who was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
0:09:28 > 0:09:32Richard became the first king in English history
0:09:32 > 0:09:35to demand that subjects call him "majesty".
0:09:35 > 0:09:38But where did the supreme arrogance come from?
0:09:43 > 0:09:45At the National Gallery in London,
0:09:45 > 0:09:49one of the real King Richard's most intimate possessions is on display.
0:09:50 > 0:09:55It's an object that perfectly sums up his sense of divine destiny.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01This is the famous Wilton Diptych.
0:10:01 > 0:10:03600 years old,
0:10:03 > 0:10:08and still so wonderfully vibrant and colourful,
0:10:08 > 0:10:10and meaningful.
0:10:10 > 0:10:15This was Richard's own personal travelling altarpiece.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19He'd simply open it up, kneel down and pray.
0:10:20 > 0:10:22You see him here.
0:10:22 > 0:10:25You see his curly, golden hair,
0:10:25 > 0:10:27kneeling with three saints -
0:10:29 > 0:10:32John the Baptist, holding the Lamb of God,
0:10:32 > 0:10:36St Edward the Confessor and St Edmund.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40And they are all looking over to the right here,
0:10:40 > 0:10:44where there's this wonderful representation of the Virgin Mary
0:10:44 > 0:10:47and the Christ child,
0:10:47 > 0:10:51surrounded by eleven angels,
0:10:51 > 0:10:55one of whom's carrying the flag of St George,
0:10:55 > 0:11:01and she seems to be offering or presenting it to Richard.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07So there you have it.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10This is how Richard sees himself -
0:11:10 > 0:11:14in sole and divine possession...
0:11:15 > 0:11:17..of England.
0:11:20 > 0:11:21To be fair to Richard,
0:11:21 > 0:11:25he wasn't the only one who thought himself divinely appointed.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27It was taken as read.
0:11:29 > 0:11:31De jure divino. By divine right
0:11:31 > 0:11:35is a core late medieval understanding,
0:11:35 > 0:11:38not only about kingship, but about society.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41Everybody has their proper order and degree.
0:11:41 > 0:11:43So, from angels in the heavens
0:11:43 > 0:11:47down to the lowest stone that we would encounter in the street,
0:11:47 > 0:11:51everything is created by God to have its right station.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55The most powerful sort of figure on earth is, of course, the king,
0:11:55 > 0:11:59who is appointed by God. He's God's representative on earth.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05For Shakespeare's audience, Richard's divinity
0:12:05 > 0:12:09and his downfall 200 years earlier were the stuff of legend.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11But where did that legend come from?
0:12:14 > 0:12:16Researching his subject in the early 1590s,
0:12:16 > 0:12:21Shakespeare would have turned to the standard history book of the Elizabethan age.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24It's one of the great scholarly industries,
0:12:24 > 0:12:29trying to identify precisely the sources for Shakespeare's Richard II.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31There are a number of candidates,
0:12:31 > 0:12:35but the major one must be Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles,
0:12:35 > 0:12:40which devotes about 140,000 words to the entire life of Richard II.
0:12:40 > 0:12:48We can see that Holinshed himself has a very clear moral position on the reign of Richard II.
0:12:48 > 0:12:52He is regarded as an evil man and these are evil times.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58"There reigned abundantly the filthy sin of lechery
0:12:58 > 0:13:04"and fornication, with abominable adultery, especially in the king."
0:13:07 > 0:13:09It goes on,
0:13:09 > 0:13:12"Those who he chiefly advanced were readiest to control him,
0:13:12 > 0:13:15"which stirred such malice betwixt him and them
0:13:15 > 0:13:20"that at length he could not be assuaged without peril and destruction to them both."
0:13:27 > 0:13:31Digging for as much dirt as possible, Shakespeare's drama,
0:13:31 > 0:13:34written early in his career in the mid-1590s,
0:13:34 > 0:13:36is one of his greatest history plays.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40It both documents and embellishes
0:13:40 > 0:13:44Richard's painful overthrow at the hands of Henry Bolingbroke,
0:13:44 > 0:13:46the future Henry IV.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51These iconic figures from history
0:13:51 > 0:13:54would be brought back to life at London's Globe Theatre,
0:13:54 > 0:13:56an Elizabethan playhouse.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00Today, a replica stands on the south bank of the River Thames.
0:14:02 > 0:14:04I think you have to remember that
0:14:04 > 0:14:06despite the codification of their relationship,
0:14:06 > 0:14:09they are close relatives...
0:14:09 > 0:14:12'Inside, actors are discussing Richard's overwhelming arrogance.'
0:14:12 > 0:14:18Richard's a bit like the thief who's come to rob his relative, who's...
0:14:18 > 0:14:23'John of Gaunt is now dead, his son, the exiled Henry Bolingbroke,
0:14:23 > 0:14:25'Duke of Hereford, is his rightful heir.'
0:14:27 > 0:14:30Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.
0:14:32 > 0:14:34'But for Richard, himself desperate for cash,
0:14:34 > 0:14:38'Gaunt's tragic death is an enticing opportunity.'
0:14:38 > 0:14:43The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he.
0:14:45 > 0:14:49His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.
0:14:49 > 0:14:51So much for that.
0:14:51 > 0:14:52Now for our Irish wars.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,
0:14:56 > 0:15:00which live like venom where no venom else but only they have
0:15:00 > 0:15:01privilege to live.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
0:15:04 > 0:15:07towards our assistance we do seize to us the plate, coin,
0:15:07 > 0:15:10revenues and moveables, whereof our Uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12Whereof our Uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.
0:15:12 > 0:15:14Excuse me for interrupting...
0:15:14 > 0:15:16'I'm dropping in on the Globe rehearsal.'
0:15:16 > 0:15:18It sounds fascinating!
0:15:21 > 0:15:24You're making him much nicer than I did!
0:15:25 > 0:15:26Right, OK.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30I remember when he said, "The ripest fruit first falls."
0:15:30 > 0:15:33It's a kind of, "Oh, well, we're all going to die.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36"He's old, of course he's going to die, he's old.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39"I'm young, right, don't let's talk about that,
0:15:39 > 0:15:42"let's talk about these Irish wars.
0:15:42 > 0:15:44"I've got to go and do something about them.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47"I don't want to do them, it's going to cost money.
0:15:47 > 0:15:49"Who's got any? He's got some money, I'll have his."
0:15:49 > 0:15:53Its very in the moment, it's very much attitude-driven.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57You know, the man's dead, you were very close to him,
0:15:57 > 0:15:59and all you can think of saying is,
0:15:59 > 0:16:01"Well, he's old, what do you expect?"
0:16:03 > 0:16:05- That's virtually what you're saying.- Yeah.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08In theatrical terms, if you want to set it up
0:16:08 > 0:16:12with the first two lines being very serious and sombre,
0:16:12 > 0:16:13and then just going,
0:16:13 > 0:16:16"Bollocks to all that anyway, he's dead, who cares?"
0:16:16 > 0:16:20Potentially, you can get a laugh out of it. Did you ever do that?
0:16:20 > 0:16:23Always one for the cheap gag!
0:16:24 > 0:16:27My uncle, what's the matter?
0:16:27 > 0:16:30'Gaunt's brother, though, can't believe his ears.
0:16:30 > 0:16:32'To him, Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, has been
0:16:32 > 0:16:35'royally ripped off.'
0:16:35 > 0:16:37Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
0:16:37 > 0:16:39the royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
0:16:39 > 0:16:42Doth not the one deserve to have an heir?
0:16:42 > 0:16:44Is not his heir a well-deserving son?
0:16:44 > 0:16:49For how art thou a king but by fair sequence and succession?
0:16:49 > 0:16:51It's not just that succession is right,
0:16:51 > 0:16:54it's that it's right in this case as well.
0:16:54 > 0:16:57He's questioning Richard, he questions Richard openly
0:16:57 > 0:16:59and says what Richard is doing is wrong.
0:16:59 > 0:17:01Yeah, the basic one is, the father's dead, the son's alive.
0:17:01 > 0:17:02The son inherits.
0:17:02 > 0:17:06For how art thou a king but by fair sequence and succession?
0:17:07 > 0:17:10'Shamelessly stealing Bolingbroke's inheritance is
0:17:10 > 0:17:14'the decisive act on which the entire play turns.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17'It's vital that the audience understand this.'
0:17:17 > 0:17:20You pluck a thousand dangers on your head.
0:17:20 > 0:17:23They're hearing it for the first time, most of them,
0:17:23 > 0:17:30so for them, the accessibility is triggered by your attitude.
0:17:30 > 0:17:35And they can hear by your tonality, whatever,
0:17:35 > 0:17:39what you're thinking. Because it ain't what you say, it's the way what you say it.
0:17:39 > 0:17:42And prick my tender patience
0:17:42 > 0:17:45to such thoughts as honour and allegiance cannot think.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47Think what you will, we seize into our hands
0:17:47 > 0:17:49his plate, his goods, his money and his lands.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53It's this divinity, hedging this king.
0:17:53 > 0:17:55He can do anything, he can be wayward.
0:17:55 > 0:17:57And it's a wayward thing to do.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59Its whim, it's caprice, and at the end, he says,
0:17:59 > 0:18:02"Oh, sorry, I've hurt your feelings.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05"I tell you what, you be regent, that'll be nice for you!
0:18:05 > 0:18:06- "You can be in trouble."- Yeah.
0:18:06 > 0:18:10- With little thought for the consequences.- Yeah.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13Which is his great tragedy, he doesn't think.
0:18:13 > 0:18:16- He doesn't think things through.- No.
0:18:20 > 0:18:22Ah, Richard,
0:18:22 > 0:18:26with the eyes of heavy mind I see thy glory
0:18:26 > 0:18:31like a shooting star fall to the base earth from the firmament.
0:18:31 > 0:18:35Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
0:18:35 > 0:18:42witnessing storms to come, woe and unrest.
0:18:49 > 0:18:55Exiled, his father dead, his inheritance stolen,
0:18:55 > 0:18:58the Duke of Hereford, Henry Bolingbroke, returns home
0:18:58 > 0:19:01to wage war against the King.
0:19:05 > 0:19:07Richard at first panics,
0:19:07 > 0:19:11but then comforts himself with the belief that, whatever happens,
0:19:11 > 0:19:12God will save him.
0:19:15 > 0:19:20Not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm off
0:19:20 > 0:19:22from an anointed king.
0:19:23 > 0:19:25The breath of worldly men cannot depose
0:19:25 > 0:19:29the deputy elected by the Lord.
0:19:29 > 0:19:32For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd
0:19:32 > 0:19:36to lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
0:19:36 > 0:19:41God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay a glorious angel.
0:19:44 > 0:19:49Then, if angels fight, weak men must fall,
0:19:49 > 0:19:51for heaven still guards the right.
0:19:59 > 0:20:04So, who is Shakespeare's Bolingbroke, the man who believes
0:20:04 > 0:20:08he can defeat both Richard and his army of angels?
0:20:10 > 0:20:11Thou art a banish'd man,
0:20:11 > 0:20:14and here art come before the expiration of thy time,
0:20:14 > 0:20:17in braving arms against thy sovereign.
0:20:17 > 0:20:19I am a subject and I challenge law.
0:20:19 > 0:20:21Attorneys are denied me, and therefore,
0:20:21 > 0:20:24personally I lay my claim to my inheritance of free descent.
0:20:24 > 0:20:26I don't think Bolingbroke's the bad guy.
0:20:26 > 0:20:30He doesn't set out to replace Richard in anyway.
0:20:30 > 0:20:34Bolingbroke, when he comes back to England continually says
0:20:34 > 0:20:39he's only come back to regain what is his.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42He hasn't come back to be King, he hasn't come back to usurp Richard.
0:20:42 > 0:20:44He's come back to gain what is his.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47Now, the thing is, do you believe him?
0:20:47 > 0:20:51OK, we'll spend a few minutes thinking about Bolingbroke...
0:20:53 > 0:20:55'At the Globe, actors are discussing Bolingbroke
0:20:55 > 0:20:59'as he captures two of Richard's closest allies.'
0:20:59 > 0:21:03In this particular speech he appears to be punishing these men
0:21:03 > 0:21:06on behalf of Richard and I think a key line in it is when you say,
0:21:06 > 0:21:09"Myself a prince by fortune of my birth,
0:21:09 > 0:21:13"Near to the king in blood and near in love..."
0:21:13 > 0:21:16This is Bolingbroke's main problem, is that he cannot
0:21:16 > 0:21:19make clear his objective because to do so would be treason.
0:21:19 > 0:21:22Bolingbroke at this moment is surrounded by lords and nobles.
0:21:22 > 0:21:24He has to make sure he doesn't put a foot wrong
0:21:24 > 0:21:27and that seems to be his objective throughout the play.
0:21:27 > 0:21:29He is politic in a way that Richard isn't.
0:21:29 > 0:21:34That's right. Bolingbroke is a sort of realist. You're trying to isolate Richard.
0:21:37 > 0:21:38Bolingbroke is a politician.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42Only a politician could execute Richard's closest allies
0:21:42 > 0:21:45and claim he's only doing it to protect the King.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50You have misled a prince,
0:21:50 > 0:21:51A royal king,
0:21:51 > 0:21:54A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,
0:21:54 > 0:21:58By you unhappied and disfigured clean.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02Bolingbroke himself says all he is doing is seeking to remove these people
0:22:02 > 0:22:05to allow you again to be the king you should be
0:22:05 > 0:22:07and were before.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10Now, that may well force Richard into an untenable position.
0:22:10 > 0:22:12But this is old-style punishment.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16He's going to kill a number of people, starting with these two.
0:22:16 > 0:22:18So he takes a pretty stern line
0:22:18 > 0:22:21and I think it is intended to demonstrate strength.
0:22:21 > 0:22:26Myself, a prince in fortune of my birth,
0:22:26 > 0:22:29Near to the king in blood, and near in love,
0:22:29 > 0:22:33Till you did make him misinterpret me,
0:22:33 > 0:22:35Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries,
0:22:35 > 0:22:39And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,
0:22:39 > 0:22:41Eating the bitter bread of banishment,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
0:22:44 > 0:22:47Dispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,
0:22:47 > 0:22:52From my own windows torn my household coat,
0:22:52 > 0:22:55Razed out my impress, leaving me no sign...
0:22:56 > 0:23:00..Save men's opinions and my living blood,
0:23:00 > 0:23:03To show the world I am a gentleman.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09This and much more,
0:23:09 > 0:23:12Much more than twice all this,
0:23:12 > 0:23:15Condemns you to the death.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30Today, battles for power in England are fought here
0:23:30 > 0:23:32at the Palace of Westminster.
0:23:35 > 0:23:37Most of the buildings date from the 19th century.
0:23:37 > 0:23:41One original building, though, survives.
0:23:41 > 0:23:43Westminster Hall.
0:23:45 > 0:23:50In the 1300s, this was Richard's military headquarters.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54Some of the events recreated in the play actually happened here.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00The real Richard had a huge timber roof built overhead.
0:24:00 > 0:24:03It was studded with wooden angels,
0:24:03 > 0:24:06watching over him like a divine army.
0:24:06 > 0:24:08Now, in the drama,
0:24:08 > 0:24:11Shakespeare's Richard is about to mobilise them.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17Yet know my master, God omnipotent,
0:24:17 > 0:24:20Is mustering in his clouds
0:24:20 > 0:24:24Armies of pestilence, and they shall strike
0:24:24 > 0:24:27Your children yet unborn and unbegot
0:24:27 > 0:24:31That lift your vassal hands against my head
0:24:31 > 0:24:35And threat the glory of my precious crown.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40The central theme of Shakespeare's Richard II
0:24:40 > 0:24:44rings remarkably true across the centuries.
0:24:44 > 0:24:47Like Richard, many despots from our own time
0:24:47 > 0:24:51have professed themselves amazed that anyone could challenge them.
0:24:58 > 0:25:02Although Richard II is set in a distant past,
0:25:02 > 0:25:04even when it was first put on it was set in the past,
0:25:04 > 0:25:07it's hugely relevant to the present.
0:25:12 > 0:25:15The reality of regime change
0:25:15 > 0:25:19is something that the leader who's losing his grasp on power
0:25:19 > 0:25:23simply doesn't fully understand.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27I remember that moment when Ceausescu finally lost power
0:25:27 > 0:25:30in Romania as the Soviet empire was collapsing
0:25:30 > 0:25:33and he's on the balcony. He looks out.
0:25:33 > 0:25:36And you can almost see on his face that he can't quite believe
0:25:36 > 0:25:38that the people are shouting for his downfall
0:25:38 > 0:25:40not shouting in praise of him.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43They love me. All my people love me. All.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46They're often in a state of delusion.
0:25:46 > 0:25:48They think that people still love them, that
0:25:48 > 0:25:51they can still give orders, but it doesn't happen.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57Still waiting for God's reinforcements, Richard,
0:25:57 > 0:26:00now confronted by Bolingbroke, is running out of options.
0:26:02 > 0:26:07We are amaz'd and thus long have we stood,
0:26:07 > 0:26:11To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,
0:26:11 > 0:26:14Because we thought ourself thy lawful king,
0:26:14 > 0:26:19And if we be, how dare thy joints forget.
0:26:19 > 0:26:23Well, I remember when we were preparing to film the play.
0:26:23 > 0:26:28it was the time when Gaddafi's regime was in its death throes.
0:26:28 > 0:26:32And, I think it was actually Gaddafi's son, was making these speeches
0:26:32 > 0:26:35about how if the people rose up in rebellion,
0:26:35 > 0:26:37there would be rivers of blood,
0:26:37 > 0:26:40and they would be dammed and blah, blah, blah.
0:26:50 > 0:26:55And Richard stands on a rampart at one point and says exactly the same thing.
0:26:55 > 0:27:00Tell Bolingbroke, for yond methinks he stands,
0:27:00 > 0:27:03That every stride he makes upon my land
0:27:03 > 0:27:06Is dangerous treason!
0:27:07 > 0:27:12He is come to open the purple testament of bleeding war,
0:27:12 > 0:27:16But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
0:27:16 > 0:27:20Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons
0:27:20 > 0:27:23Shall ill become the flower of England's face,
0:27:23 > 0:27:26Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
0:27:26 > 0:27:30To scarlet indignation and bedew her pastures' grass
0:27:30 > 0:27:32with faithful English blood.
0:27:32 > 0:27:34That felt incredibly...
0:27:34 > 0:27:39I mean, it was literally, you could sort of put the two speeches side by side
0:27:39 > 0:27:41and they resonated so strongly.
0:27:44 > 0:27:47The themes marbled into the text of Richard II
0:27:47 > 0:27:52don't just resonate with one-party states and self-appointed dictators.
0:27:52 > 0:27:5620 years ago, England famously witnessed a political drama
0:27:56 > 0:27:59not unlike the one faced by Richard.
0:28:02 > 0:28:08For ten years, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady,
0:28:08 > 0:28:12had, like Richard, been invincible, her leadership unchallenged.
0:28:12 > 0:28:18But in 1990 her attempt to levy a new poll tax triggered violence
0:28:18 > 0:28:20on the streets of London,
0:28:20 > 0:28:23and ultimately a rebellion deep within her own party.
0:28:25 > 0:28:28Itching to take over, former minister Michael Heseltine
0:28:28 > 0:28:31challenged Mrs Thatcher for the leadership.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36For BBC Journalist John Sargeant,
0:28:36 > 0:28:39it was a battle of Shakespearian proportions.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42'Mrs Thatcher, could I ask you to comment?
0:28:42 > 0:28:44'Good evening. Good evening, gentlemen.'
0:28:44 > 0:28:48He's pushing me.
0:28:48 > 0:28:50'I got more than half the Parliamentary party
0:28:50 > 0:28:54'and disappointed that it's not quite enough to win on the first ballot
0:28:54 > 0:28:57'so I confirm it is my intention to let my name go forward...'
0:28:57 > 0:29:00SHOUTING AND BABBLE OF VOICES
0:29:02 > 0:29:04The game is up. Within two days she's gone.
0:29:04 > 0:29:09- It's two days after this?- Two days after this, she's finished. She resigns, that's the end of it.
0:29:09 > 0:29:13And the comparison with Richard II is extremely close.
0:29:13 > 0:29:15It is amazing the parallels between
0:29:15 > 0:29:20what happens when a Prime Minister of Margaret Thatcher's stature
0:29:20 > 0:29:25is then brought down by the people who she would regard as traitors.
0:29:25 > 0:29:31She certainly had a sense in which she could spot the people who might be traitors.
0:29:31 > 0:29:35Michael Heseltine clearly was, in fact, the most dangerous one.
0:29:35 > 0:29:37He was Bolingbroke
0:29:37 > 0:29:40and there was no question that he wanted the crown
0:29:40 > 0:29:43and he was then going to attack her, as he did,
0:29:43 > 0:29:46in the ballot of Conservative MPs.
0:29:46 > 0:29:50And even in referring to her being stabbed.
0:29:50 > 0:29:52- Yes!- Stabbed in the front. - Absolutely.
0:29:52 > 0:29:55But these are the death of kings, aren't they?
0:29:55 > 0:30:00In the Richard II quote, "Let us sit around and discuss the death of kings
0:30:00 > 0:30:02"Are they deposed, are they killed in battle?"
0:30:02 > 0:30:04'When Mrs Thatcher entered the chamber...'
0:30:04 > 0:30:08Mrs Thatcher described events leading to her fall
0:30:08 > 0:30:11as "treachery with a smile on its face."
0:30:11 > 0:30:13And Parliament seemed to agree.
0:30:13 > 0:30:15May I pay tribute to the Prime Minister
0:30:15 > 0:30:18and to her decision this morning.
0:30:18 > 0:30:21She showed by that, that she amounts to more
0:30:21 > 0:30:24than those who have turned upon her in recent days.
0:30:24 > 0:30:27It's interesting, because I only met her met her once
0:30:27 > 0:30:28and at one point she said to me.
0:30:28 > 0:30:33"The job you do and the job I do has many differences
0:30:33 > 0:30:36"and many parallels."
0:30:36 > 0:30:38She said, "But one interesting thing I noticed tonight,
0:30:38 > 0:30:42"you require a darkened auditorium,
0:30:42 > 0:30:48"you don't see your audience, they're beyond the fourth wall.
0:30:49 > 0:30:56"I need lights. I need to see their eyes."
0:30:56 > 0:30:58As she said it, the way she said it,
0:30:58 > 0:31:01the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
0:31:01 > 0:31:04"I need to see their eyes."
0:31:04 > 0:31:05Ladies and gentlemen,
0:31:05 > 0:31:09we're leaving Downing Street for the last time
0:31:09 > 0:31:12after 11.5 wonderful years.
0:31:12 > 0:31:16Deserted by many of her closest allies,
0:31:16 > 0:31:19Mrs Thatcher finally accepted that it was over.
0:31:22 > 0:31:27So far, Shakespeare's Richard has fought bitterly to deny the inevitable.
0:31:29 > 0:31:32Now, though, he appears to just give up,
0:31:32 > 0:31:34almost deposing himself.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39What must the king do now? Must he submit?
0:31:39 > 0:31:43The king shall do it. Must he be deposed?
0:31:43 > 0:31:47The king shall be contented. Must he lose the name of king?
0:31:47 > 0:31:49O God's name, let it go.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,
0:31:52 > 0:31:55My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
0:31:55 > 0:31:58My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,
0:31:58 > 0:32:01My figured goblets for a dish of wood,
0:32:01 > 0:32:04My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,
0:32:04 > 0:32:06My subjects for a pair of carved saints
0:32:06 > 0:32:10And my large kingdom for a little grave,
0:32:10 > 0:32:14A little, little grave, an obscure grave.
0:32:14 > 0:32:18It's the sensitivity of Richard, it's the vulnerability of Richard
0:32:18 > 0:32:23behind the divinity, the impregnable man,
0:32:23 > 0:32:29the man with ostensibly total self-belief.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32And therefore total courage
0:32:32 > 0:32:36and inside is this kind of boy.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39This sensitive boy who actually can't cope.
0:32:39 > 0:32:41I'll be buried in the king's highway,
0:32:41 > 0:32:44Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet
0:32:44 > 0:32:47May hourly trample on their sovereign's head,
0:32:47 > 0:32:51For on my heart they tread now whilst I live,
0:32:51 > 0:32:53And buried once, why not upon my head?
0:32:53 > 0:32:55The pathos is simultaneously
0:32:55 > 0:32:58moving and annoying, as pathos sometimes is.
0:32:58 > 0:33:01Richard is self-indulgent, infantile,
0:33:01 > 0:33:05absurd in his too-easy glorying and too easy despair.
0:33:05 > 0:33:08But at the same time one feels the poignancy of it all.
0:33:10 > 0:33:15What we feel is obviously heightened by the brilliance of the play's stunning poetry.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20Indisputably it's the work of a literary genius.
0:33:20 > 0:33:23But was it Shakespeare's genius?
0:33:23 > 0:33:26Some think not.
0:33:26 > 0:33:28Hedingham Castle, near London,
0:33:28 > 0:33:32is the ancestral home of the De Vere family.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40The De Veres first came here over 800 years ago.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47In the course of his reign, Richard proved a very contentious King.
0:33:47 > 0:33:51He set many cats among many pigeons.
0:33:52 > 0:33:56And my presence here at Hedingham Castle may,
0:33:56 > 0:34:00like Richard, set the fur flying.
0:34:03 > 0:34:05Edward De Vere,
0:34:05 > 0:34:10the 17th Earl of Oxford, once entertained Elizabeth I here.
0:34:10 > 0:34:12Oxford was close to the Queen.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16He had a reputation as a bit of a poet too.
0:34:16 > 0:34:21But I believe his literary skills went way beyond dabbling in verse.
0:34:21 > 0:34:26I believe he, and not William Shakespeare,
0:34:26 > 0:34:30wrote both Richard II, and, in fact, all the plays
0:34:30 > 0:34:32attributed to the man from Stratford.
0:34:37 > 0:34:40Hedingham's current incumbent agrees.
0:34:40 > 0:34:45Like me, Jason Lindsey believes Oxford wrote the works anonymously,
0:34:45 > 0:34:49allowing Shakespeare to stage the plays
0:34:49 > 0:34:51and take all the credit.
0:34:53 > 0:34:56You've presumably heard of the authorship debate?
0:34:56 > 0:34:58Very much so, yes.
0:34:58 > 0:35:02I, for my part, am totally convinced that it wasn't Shakespeare.
0:35:02 > 0:35:05Yep. It is a contentious issue. I am descended from Edward
0:35:05 > 0:35:07so I have a vested interest, it's worth declaring that,
0:35:07 > 0:35:10but I do feel that there is so little
0:35:10 > 0:35:13on the William Shakespeare of Stratford,
0:35:13 > 0:35:17there just isn't enough knowledge, really,
0:35:17 > 0:35:21that can be gained from a person who was educated in a local school.
0:35:21 > 0:35:23Why aren't there any manuscripts?
0:35:23 > 0:35:29There are only six signatures, I think, of William of Stratford,
0:35:29 > 0:35:32and they're barely legible.
0:35:32 > 0:35:36And why did, if he were the greatest writer that's ever lived,
0:35:36 > 0:35:39did he keep his children illiterate?
0:35:39 > 0:35:42And if you'd been involved, would you have had in your will,
0:35:42 > 0:35:45surely you would have mentioned something to do with the theatre or books,
0:35:45 > 0:35:48- there's nothing mentioned at all. - No, nothing, absolutely nothing.
0:35:48 > 0:35:51It's the most amazing conspiracy.
0:35:51 > 0:35:56Denying Shakespeare the authorship of...Shakespeare
0:35:56 > 0:35:59is, I'm well aware, hugely controversial.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03I'm always surprised that an actor,
0:36:03 > 0:36:05a great actor such as Sir Derek,
0:36:05 > 0:36:08should question the idea that Shakespeare's plays
0:36:08 > 0:36:11were written by William Shakespeare, the actor from Stratford-upon-Avon.
0:36:11 > 0:36:18Because the plays are so full of the actor's way of looking at the world.
0:36:18 > 0:36:21So full of the technical knowledge of the theatre.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23So many of the plays are collaborative,
0:36:23 > 0:36:25they're written for particular actors
0:36:25 > 0:36:27who were Shakespeare's friends and colleagues.
0:36:27 > 0:36:29They are insider plays.
0:36:29 > 0:36:34The argument is, how could a mere, middle-class grammar school boy
0:36:34 > 0:36:38from the provinces have understood about courts and kings and politics?
0:36:38 > 0:36:43Well, of course the answer is, the actors went to court,
0:36:43 > 0:36:46they saw the court, they were paid to play there.
0:36:47 > 0:36:51And courts and kings and politics are things that you can read books about.
0:36:53 > 0:36:56I'm not the first to question Shakespeare's authorship.
0:36:56 > 0:36:58In the last century and a half,
0:36:58 > 0:37:02dozens of alternative writers have been proposed.
0:37:02 > 0:37:05Most are speculative, but for me,
0:37:05 > 0:37:09the 17th Earl of Oxford has the most convincing claim.
0:37:11 > 0:37:15I firmly believe writers write from their own experience and personality.
0:37:15 > 0:37:18- Yes.- De Vere had the perfect background.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21Well, he had an amazing education.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23His family background, he was a courtier,
0:37:23 > 0:37:25he was with Queen Elizabeth at court,
0:37:25 > 0:37:28he travelled extensively in Italy.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31And these all appear in the plays.
0:37:31 > 0:37:34He also saw service in the army
0:37:34 > 0:37:38and the plays are full of references to war and fighting and sailing.
0:37:38 > 0:37:40There's too much knowledge.
0:37:40 > 0:37:43I think the claim has so much going for it.
0:37:43 > 0:37:47But we always come back to the one question of
0:37:47 > 0:37:50if it was Oxford, why the cover-up?
0:37:50 > 0:37:54You have to imagine the contemporary fever that was going on.
0:37:54 > 0:37:58If you wrote a play that was basically the deposition of a king,
0:37:58 > 0:38:00it was a treasonable offence.
0:38:00 > 0:38:03You can't put your name to it. You'd have been locked up, beheaded,
0:38:03 > 0:38:05- it was too dangerous.- Exactly.
0:38:05 > 0:38:07At the same time
0:38:07 > 0:38:11Oxford couldn't be allowed to be seen to publish a play,
0:38:11 > 0:38:14it was below his status.
0:38:14 > 0:38:20It's very hard in our day and age to understand the shame.
0:38:20 > 0:38:24It was known that he was a writer, but not a playwright.
0:38:27 > 0:38:31I'll always believe Shakespeare was just an actor,
0:38:31 > 0:38:35a clever opportunist who bathed in Oxford's reflected glory.
0:38:38 > 0:38:41In the play, Richard has built his royal career
0:38:41 > 0:38:44on God's reflected glory.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47As the drama approaches its final scenes,
0:38:47 > 0:38:51perhaps he too has been unmasked.
0:38:52 > 0:38:55This blessed plot, this earth,
0:38:55 > 0:38:57this realm,
0:38:57 > 0:39:00this England,
0:39:00 > 0:39:02this nurse.
0:39:03 > 0:39:06This teeming womb of royal kings.
0:39:09 > 0:39:12From the womb of royal kings,
0:39:12 > 0:39:15Richard's majesty is now stillborn.
0:39:15 > 0:39:20In the play, his kingdom is compared to an abandoned garden,
0:39:20 > 0:39:22her fruit trees upturned
0:39:22 > 0:39:26and her wholesome herbs swarming with caterpillars.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36With echoes of the real-life transfer of power,
0:39:36 > 0:39:40originally played out right here on the floor of Westminster Hall,
0:39:40 > 0:39:44Shakespeare's Richard now prepares formally to renounce the crown.
0:39:46 > 0:39:50Right, now we're moving on to the deposition scene, Act IV, i.
0:39:50 > 0:39:55I think what Richard fears is that this will be a rubber stamping
0:39:55 > 0:39:57of his resignation, this deposition.
0:39:57 > 0:40:01He's already, in effect, resigned, but he's determined
0:40:01 > 0:40:03to do it in his own way.
0:40:03 > 0:40:07I'm still, I have to admit to being still slightly unsure
0:40:07 > 0:40:09as to exactly what he's trying to achieve at this moment.
0:40:09 > 0:40:13- That's fine, that's good.- I know we said about a sense of occasion,
0:40:13 > 0:40:15but exactly what it is that he's trying to...
0:40:15 > 0:40:18He wants an acknowledgement of the reality of what is happening.
0:40:18 > 0:40:22I'm resigning my crown, I'm giving you what you want,
0:40:22 > 0:40:27but you're not going to shirk seeing the dismantling of myself.
0:40:27 > 0:40:29You are going to see that.
0:40:29 > 0:40:32So it's a kind of disclosure or disclosing.
0:40:32 > 0:40:36It has no point beyond that, but you want him to understand
0:40:36 > 0:40:39you are taking not just this crown, this thing,
0:40:39 > 0:40:43but my mind, my body and my heart.
0:41:07 > 0:41:08Here, cousin.
0:41:09 > 0:41:11Seize the crown.
0:41:13 > 0:41:14Here, cousin.
0:41:15 > 0:41:19On this side my hand, and on that side thine.
0:41:20 > 0:41:26Now is this golden crown like a deep well
0:41:26 > 0:41:29that owes two buckets, filling one another.
0:41:29 > 0:41:33The emptier ever dancing in the air.
0:41:33 > 0:41:39The other down, unseen and full of water.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42That bucket down and full of tears am I,
0:41:42 > 0:41:47Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
0:41:48 > 0:41:53There's a wonderful image of two buckets in a well.
0:41:53 > 0:41:59That image is used with regard to the arc, the narrative line,
0:41:59 > 0:42:02as Richard goes down, Bolingbroke goes up.
0:42:02 > 0:42:05And I think symbolically, looking at those two characters,
0:42:05 > 0:42:09there's a sense in which Richard represents an old world,
0:42:09 > 0:42:14a medieval world of chivalry, of the divine right of kings.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17Whereas Bolingbroke represents a new world,
0:42:17 > 0:42:21a world of ambition, of pragmatic politics.
0:42:21 > 0:42:24I thought you had been willing to resign.
0:42:24 > 0:42:28My crown I am, but still my griefs are mine.
0:42:28 > 0:42:32You may my glories and my state depose,
0:42:32 > 0:42:36but not my griefs, still am I king of those.
0:42:38 > 0:42:40Part of your cares you give me with your crown.
0:42:42 > 0:42:45Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.
0:42:45 > 0:42:50My care is loss of care, by old care done.
0:42:50 > 0:42:54Your care is gain of care, by new care won.
0:42:54 > 0:42:57Are you contented to resign the crown?
0:42:59 > 0:43:01Ay.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05No. No.
0:43:08 > 0:43:10Ay.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13There's a great line in the deposition scene,
0:43:13 > 0:43:16"Ay. No. No. Ay."
0:43:16 > 0:43:18Yes. No. No. Yes.
0:43:18 > 0:43:20I can't make up my mind.
0:43:20 > 0:43:23But it's also, of course, "I, no, no, I" -
0:43:23 > 0:43:27who am I if I'm not the king?
0:43:27 > 0:43:29For I must nothing be.
0:43:29 > 0:43:34He cannot distinguish between his role and his persona.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38He thinks if he has no role, he has no persona, that he will disappear.
0:43:40 > 0:43:42Therefore no, no...
0:43:44 > 0:43:46..for I resign to thee.
0:43:48 > 0:43:52I think he's feeling so sorry for himself that the danger is
0:43:52 > 0:43:54he could alienate your sorrow.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57From the actor's point of view it's a dangerous moment
0:43:57 > 0:44:01because he could lose the audience's sympathy
0:44:01 > 0:44:05if he's too obviously sorry for himself,
0:44:05 > 0:44:09ie, the audience is saying, "You don't need our sympathy
0:44:09 > 0:44:12"you've got it all yourself."
0:44:12 > 0:44:14You're your own audience, in a sense.
0:44:14 > 0:44:16This is the great dichotomy of playing Richard,
0:44:16 > 0:44:19he is always his own audience.
0:44:19 > 0:44:24But, ultimately, there's got to be something about him,
0:44:24 > 0:44:28that makes the audience see through that and say, yes,
0:44:28 > 0:44:30I can see you're acting it, I can see,
0:44:30 > 0:44:33but at the same time I know you're feeling it too.
0:44:37 > 0:44:41When Richard II was first performed in the early 1590s,
0:44:41 > 0:44:44it was seen by some as a thinly veiled attack
0:44:44 > 0:44:48on Shakespeare's own monarch, Elizabeth I.
0:44:51 > 0:44:56Elizabeth, queen for over 30 years and with no obvious heir,
0:44:56 > 0:45:00was, it's true, seen by some as a tyrant.
0:45:00 > 0:45:02And she knew it.
0:45:02 > 0:45:05In a memorandum by the Keeper of the Records,
0:45:05 > 0:45:07she is reputed to have said,
0:45:07 > 0:45:12"I am Richard II, know ye not that?"
0:45:13 > 0:45:17Playing it safe, it is believed that Shakespeare's original production
0:45:17 > 0:45:21of Richard II was performed with the deposition scene cut.
0:45:22 > 0:45:23A few years later, though,
0:45:23 > 0:45:29the scene would come back to haunt both him and Elizabeth.
0:45:33 > 0:45:36She has, over a number of years,
0:45:36 > 0:45:42made particular use of an ambitious military man, the Earl of Essex.
0:45:42 > 0:45:44He's fought the Irish campaign for her,
0:45:44 > 0:45:47he's led the campaign against the Spaniards.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51But Essex has over-stepped the mark, he's fallen out with the queen
0:45:51 > 0:45:56and in the late 1590s, a group of discontented courtiers,
0:45:56 > 0:46:00they really feel something needs to be done and they begin to plan,
0:46:00 > 0:46:02potentially a coup d'etat against the queen.
0:46:02 > 0:46:07Essex as a political figure has become a rival to the Queen.
0:46:07 > 0:46:08He is a powerful figure
0:46:08 > 0:46:12who can conjure a lot of support from leading aristocrats.
0:46:12 > 0:46:16So, so here we have almost a good parallel, in historical terms,
0:46:16 > 0:46:18between Richard and Bolingbroke,
0:46:18 > 0:46:22and a lot of Essex's contemporaries see that parallel.
0:46:26 > 0:46:31Essex knew that even a hint of deposing Elizabeth would be considered treason.
0:46:34 > 0:46:39In early 1601, he began to fortify Essex House,
0:46:39 > 0:46:44his town mansion, which once stood here, close to the Strand.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47Something big was about to happen.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55Secretly recruiting a small band of like-minded aristocrats,
0:46:55 > 0:46:59he now looked around for ways to encourage and inspire them.
0:47:02 > 0:47:07On the night before the coup he decided to treat them all to a show
0:47:07 > 0:47:09at London's Globe Theatre.
0:47:12 > 0:47:16For one night only, the auditorium would reverberate
0:47:16 > 0:47:20to the sound of revolutionary English poetry.
0:47:20 > 0:47:23The play was Shakespeare's Richard II,
0:47:23 > 0:47:25performed, it's thought,
0:47:25 > 0:47:29with the previously censored deposition scene
0:47:29 > 0:47:32restored and intact.
0:47:39 > 0:47:44Now mark me, how I will undo myself,
0:47:44 > 0:47:47With mine own hands I give away my crown,
0:47:47 > 0:47:53With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
0:47:53 > 0:47:58With mine own breath release all dutious oaths.
0:47:58 > 0:48:02All pomp and majesty I do forswear.
0:48:02 > 0:48:06My manors, rents, revenues I forgo.
0:48:06 > 0:48:11My acts, decrees and statutes I deny.
0:48:11 > 0:48:16God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!
0:48:16 > 0:48:21God keep all vows unbroke that swear to thee!
0:48:21 > 0:48:26Make me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved,
0:48:26 > 0:48:31And thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved!
0:48:31 > 0:48:36Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,
0:48:36 > 0:48:39And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit!
0:48:40 > 0:48:45Richard II - a play about a weak, ineffective monarch who is deposed.
0:48:45 > 0:48:46It's as if they're psyching themselves up
0:48:46 > 0:48:48for what they're going to do themselves.
0:48:48 > 0:48:53God save King Henry! Unking'd Richard says,
0:48:53 > 0:48:58And send him many years of sunshine days.
0:49:02 > 0:49:04What more remains?
0:49:09 > 0:49:14The morning after the performance, Essex and his fellow conspirators
0:49:14 > 0:49:18swarmed into the City of London. Their goal? To confront the Queen.
0:49:21 > 0:49:23But he'd badly miscalculated.
0:49:23 > 0:49:28Essex was relying on popular support to help him force the Queen's hand.
0:49:29 > 0:49:34The people of London, however, stubbornly refused to play ball.
0:49:34 > 0:49:40Essex retreated back to his house where he was later arrested.
0:49:42 > 0:49:48The Queen was in no mood for mercy. On 25th of February 1601,
0:49:48 > 0:49:52Essex was beheaded on Tower Green.
0:49:53 > 0:49:57Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have stood at a nearby window,
0:49:57 > 0:50:02disdainfully puffing tobacco smoke in sight of the condemned man.
0:50:09 > 0:50:11Retaliation, however, didn't end there.
0:50:12 > 0:50:16For the Globe Theatre, tangled up in a heinous conspiracy,
0:50:16 > 0:50:18it was a dangerous moment.
0:50:20 > 0:50:23Interrogated by Elizabeth's security police,
0:50:23 > 0:50:28the actors were, however, ruled out of involvement in the plot.
0:50:28 > 0:50:33It seems Shakespeare himself never, apparently,
0:50:33 > 0:50:36received a late-night knock on his door.
0:50:36 > 0:50:40There was a real sense of a Shakespeare history play
0:50:40 > 0:50:43playing a huge part in contemporary politics.
0:50:43 > 0:50:46If things had gone just a little bit differently
0:50:46 > 0:50:49in the interrogation following that performance,
0:50:49 > 0:50:52Shakespeare could've been thrown in the Tower or even executed.
0:50:52 > 0:50:54He got off by the skin of his teeth.
0:50:59 > 0:51:03Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs.
0:51:06 > 0:51:10You have misled a prince, a royal king.
0:51:15 > 0:51:19Here, cousin, seize the crown.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,
0:51:27 > 0:51:31And nothing can we call our own, but death.
0:51:38 > 0:51:41For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
0:51:41 > 0:51:46And tell sad stories of the death of kings.
0:51:51 > 0:51:56God save King Henry! Unking'd Richard says.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01What more remains?
0:52:13 > 0:52:19Richard I we remember by his soubriquet, Lionheart.
0:52:19 > 0:52:24Richard III we style the hunchback who killed the Princes in the Tower.
0:52:24 > 0:52:26Perhaps.
0:52:26 > 0:52:30But how does England remember the second King Richard?
0:52:31 > 0:52:37The truth is, we remember the real Richard II
0:52:37 > 0:52:40mostly through the play that was written about him.
0:52:40 > 0:52:44I don't think it really matters whether Shakespeare's Richard II
0:52:44 > 0:52:50is an authentic, historically accurate account of that history.
0:52:50 > 0:52:54What does matter is the debate around justice and tyranny,
0:52:54 > 0:52:59and that, in one sense, the truth that Shakespeare spoke, still speaks to us today.
0:53:01 > 0:53:04Discarded in a dungeon at Pontefract Castle,
0:53:04 > 0:53:08Shakespeare's Richard is about to discover that truth.
0:53:11 > 0:53:15I have been studying how I may compare
0:53:15 > 0:53:17This prison where I live unto the world.
0:53:19 > 0:53:21And for because the world is populous
0:53:21 > 0:53:25And here is not a creature but myself...
0:53:27 > 0:53:29..I cannot do it.
0:53:32 > 0:53:34Yet I'll hammer it out.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38I think, you know, Richard's great speech
0:53:38 > 0:53:40in the prison cell at the end is incredibly moving.
0:53:40 > 0:53:43He's very stoic. He's very positive. He's quite funny.
0:53:43 > 0:53:46And he's really profound.
0:53:46 > 0:53:50Thus play I in one person many people...
0:53:52 > 0:53:54..and none contented.
0:53:54 > 0:53:57I think it's the story of somebody who goes through
0:53:57 > 0:54:03this very radical and unhappy identity crisis, breakdown.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06And he's forced to confront the fact
0:54:06 > 0:54:09that he is a frail human being and he will die.
0:54:09 > 0:54:12And he has this sort of moment of enormous clarity
0:54:12 > 0:54:15where he sees that, you'll never really BE in the world
0:54:15 > 0:54:19until you can accept the fact that you're sort of nothing.
0:54:19 > 0:54:21Nor I nor any man that but man is...
0:54:23 > 0:54:26..With nothing shall be pleased
0:54:26 > 0:54:29Till he be eased with being nothing.
0:54:29 > 0:54:31That idea is... I think is very profound.
0:54:31 > 0:54:36And a radical idea, really. Cos none of us like to think that we're nothing.
0:54:36 > 0:54:39We're always just buffeted around from one thing to another.
0:54:39 > 0:54:42We're never satisfied, we're never at peace.
0:54:42 > 0:54:43I wasted time.
0:54:46 > 0:54:48And now doth time waste me.
0:54:48 > 0:54:54I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
0:54:54 > 0:54:58In a sense he is redeemed because he finds himself,
0:54:58 > 0:55:04he finds the man, the real man, inside all this kingliness.
0:55:04 > 0:55:06He finds the real man.
0:55:06 > 0:55:08Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!
0:55:11 > 0:55:13For 'tis a sign of love.
0:55:13 > 0:55:17But my goodness he pays for it, and he ends appallingly
0:55:33 > 0:55:35I have real sympathy for him.
0:55:35 > 0:55:39I feel that when he dies, something has been lost.
0:55:39 > 0:55:41Something...
0:55:42 > 0:55:45..from the world is gone.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56In the play, Richard's chilling murder
0:55:56 > 0:56:01would probably have satisfied Shakespeare's Elizabethan audience.
0:56:01 > 0:56:04Historians, though, tell us that the real Richard
0:56:04 > 0:56:08probably wasn't, in fact, murdered in quite such a brutal and bloody fashion.
0:56:08 > 0:56:12In all likelihood he simply starved to death
0:56:12 > 0:56:14in the bowels of Pontefract Castle.
0:56:16 > 0:56:19However, to the writer, this was probably just a detail.
0:56:22 > 0:56:27I can't help thinking that Richard, in Shakespeare's eyes,
0:56:27 > 0:56:31was already dead long before he reached Pontefract.
0:56:32 > 0:56:37That once unimpeachable force had been stripped of all majesty.
0:56:37 > 0:56:41His sense of self had simply imploded.
0:56:42 > 0:56:46All that remained was the question of his legacy,
0:56:46 > 0:56:51which was to leave two squabbling families - York and Lancaster -
0:56:51 > 0:56:53fighting over the spoils of England.
0:56:54 > 0:56:59The Wars of the Roses would drag on for decades.
0:57:00 > 0:57:03As for Shakespeare's Richard II,
0:57:03 > 0:57:08the play has fascinated and enthralled audiences for 400 years,
0:57:08 > 0:57:11and served as a warning to tyrants.
0:57:11 > 0:57:14So perhaps Richard II will last another 400 years.
0:57:18 > 0:57:22For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
0:57:22 > 0:57:29And tell sad stories of the death of kings.
0:57:29 > 0:57:33Watching it, actually, I want to play it again.
0:57:33 > 0:57:35I could do it better.
0:57:35 > 0:57:38I know, now, how to do it,
0:57:38 > 0:57:40and seeing myself do it there...
0:57:42 > 0:57:45..I know what it needs, now.
0:57:45 > 0:57:50I know I... I could do it better, yes.
0:58:12 > 0:58:16Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd