SOURCE: Cowan, Louise. “God Will Save the King: Shakespeare's Richard II.” In Shakespeare as Political Thinker, edited by John Alvis and Thomas G. West, pp. 63-81. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1981.

In the following essay, Cowan characterizes Richard II as a dignified but brooding monarch whose political mistakes and personal disloyalty lead to his downfall.

God save the king! will no man say amen? Am I both priest and clerk? well then, amen. God save the king! although I be not he; And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.(1) 

(IV.i.172-175)

Despite the attention given to Richard II in recent years, it remains a puzzling and enigmatic work. Careful studies by political and historical scholars have established its importance in Shakespeare's canon, along with that of the other histories.² Even so, granting the intellectual seriousness of the play, the reader is none the less...