In Richard II it is not only the king’s counselors who are killed by the usurper; it is the king himself. The usurper Bolingbroke never declares directly that he intends to topple the reigning monarch, let alone murder him. Like Essex, while he rails against the corruption of the ruler’s inner circle, he dwells principally upon the injustice done to him personally. But having contrived Richard’s abdication and imprisonment, and having had himself crowned as King Henry IV, he moves with cunning vagueness—the vagueness that confers what politicians call “deniability”—to take the essential last
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