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 
e Law of the LandChristopher BrownShakespeareDr. John Alvis11 May 2009
 
Shakespeare’s Henriad, beginning with
Richard II 
and ending with
Henry V,
considersprimarily the reinstitution of order following the usurpation of the throne from the incumbentKing Richard II. Henry V is the overwhelming focus of the tetralogy, appearing front and centereven in his father’s plays. Yet, the narrative arc of the tetralogy peaks with Bullingbrook’sdeposition and murder of King Richard in
Richard II 
, and everything that follows is the(sometimes rocky) denouement while Henry IV and Henry V reinstate peace and civil order inEngland. What leads to Richard’s dethronement is the subject of 
Richard II 
.In that play, K ing Richard conflates divine right with absolute monarchy, assertinghimself as highest law. Specifically, he sets himself above the laws of property—the natural,ageless laws of ownership and inheritance. He oversteps the bounds of his o
ffi
ce as king, which Wolfgang Iser calls “the clash between o
ffi
ce and person” (69). Richard’s narcissistic, politically moribund “quest for the self” fails because Richard does not remain in his proper place (Iser 69).
 
ere is tension between Richard’s “constantly invoked” divine right and his social place in the“feudal system,” but the tension is potentially manageable (Iser 73). Richard does not abide within his boundaries of kingship, however, like Mowbray, he insists on “gaining substance by disrupting the existing order”—which self-destructs because “such disruption does not provideorientation for self-assertion” (Iser 74). Gaunt warns Richard, “
 
 y state of law is bond-slave tothe law” (Shakespeare
1
2.1.110-113). When Richard infringes upon laws higher than himself, herelinquishes the protection and right that accompanies kingship, e
ff 
ectively vacating the throne toanother, more prudent, law-abiding king.King Richard overreaches both his position and his capabilities. He asserts himself asabsolute monarch, but lacks the power to support his will. As James E. Berg demonstrates,Richard’s “land-grab” is a desperate attempt to control more than his rightful or possible domain(225). Richard admits his court’s “dearth” of resources: “our co
ff 
ers … are grown somewhat light, /Brown 1
1
From this point forward, all citations with act, scene, and line numbers will imply Shakespeare.
 
 We are enforc’d to farm our royal realm”; frantic to raise money, Richard must first appropriatemore land in order to lease it, which will fund the war in Ireland (Berg 226, 1.4.43-5). Bergremarks, “Of all the problems faced by Tudor and Stuart [and presumably Plantagenet] regimes,economic disorder was arguably most dangerous” (225). Because of the “quasi-feudal politicalorder” of even Richard’s time, the king must retain greater “real” wealth and resources in order tomaintain his rule (Berg 225, 228).
Richard II 
, however, is “informed by impossible dreams of immediate royal control over land,” and Richard finds, finally, that “he cannot literally have akingdom in his hands” (Berg 229, 237). As the tetralogy progresses, it becomes clear that “theKing does not possess the land of his kingdom,” due to “civil law, as well as common law” (Berg231). “Given the structure of property ownership in Tudor society … possession of England as a whole was a dream barely to be comprehended” except through symbols and the proper politicalchannels (Berg 245). Richard II is merely one man; “absolute power in England rested inparliaments, not the monarch” (Berg 233). By divesting parliament of its power, Richardemasculates England’s government and himself.Yet, as ruling king of England, Richard holds claim to divine right, which Glenn Burgesspresents as initially “valuable for its defence of the rights of monarchy against the political claimsof the Papacy,” supporting the sovereignty of the monarch (837). But Burgess rejects the idea thatthe king’s “power is incapable of legal limitation,” repeating that “belief in the King’s divine rightimplied no particular belief as to the extent of a King’s rights in England or elsewhere … thereare but very few traces in English writings before 1642 of any theory of royal absolutism by divine right” (839). Divine right does not render the king superior to the law, contrarily, it was widely accepted that “kings should rule through the common law” and “within legal bounds by the nature of the English constitution” (Burgess 860, 844). Instead, divine right functionsprimarily as an incentive to “moral duty,” to assert that “the authority of kings was derived fromGod directly, [not] from their people,” intending to prevent popular dissent from being actedBrown 2
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