SOURCE: Jacobs, Henry E. “Prophecy and Ideology in Shakespeare's Richard II.” South Atlantic Review 51, no. 1 (January 1986): 3-17.

In the following essay, Jacobs traces Shakespeare's shift from medieval to Renaissance political ideologies in Richard II.

Though Justice against Fate complain, And plead the antient Rights in vain:           But those do hold or break           As Men are strong or weak. Nature that hateth emptiness, Allows of penetration less:           And therefore must make room           Where greater Spirits come. 

(Marvell, “An Horatian Ode,” 37-44)

It is a commonplace to observe that Shakespeare's Richard II traces out a fundamental shift in the nature of kingship and the justification of rule.¹ This movement, which reflects both Tudor perspectives on history and Elizabethan political theory, signifies the transition from a medieval to a Renaissance concept of kingship and power. In this theoretical matrix, Richard II plays the role of the unsuccessful medieval monarch while Bolingbroke...