Richard II is a play in which one king is deposed and another takes his place. What is remarkable about the depiction of this momentous transfer is that we don’t really know whether it was a good thing or not. The great unanswered question of the play is whether it was right – historically, politically, ethically, personally, dramatically – for Bolingbroke to take the throne from his cousin Richard. This question insinuates itself into the play’s imagery and choreography, and hangs over its stage history and critical reception – and the following sequence of history plays struggle with its
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