SOURCE: Spiekerman, Tim. “King Richard II.” In Shakespeare's Political Realism: The English History Plays, pp. 59-90. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
In the following essay, Spiekerman maintains that Shakespeare questioned the institution of hereditary monarchy in Richard II, positing that Bolingbroke represents a rational and politically superior—if not entirely legitimate—alternative to a tyrannical hereditary ruler.
