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The Hollow Crown - Richard II
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown
As part of the "Cultural Olympiad" the BBC did some remakes of Shakespeare's "Henriad", called the resulting series The Hollow Crown and aired it during the Olympics. I found out about this series via my recently acquired admiration of Tom Hiddleston - who plays the major role of Prince Hal/Henry in these productions. Thanks to the wonders of the internet I was able to download them here in Australia a day after they aired in the UK and watch them. (Don't worry, I will buy the DVDs if/when they come out in Oz). I found them surprisingly engaging, entertaining and well acted.
The only Shakespeare play I'd read previously was Romeo & Juliet after becoming briefly obsessed with Baz Lurhman's 1996 take on the play. I intended to read the Henriad before watching The Hollow Crown but I'm glad I didn't. The actors in this portray everything more naturally than you would see on stage. So much is said in the context, in the actions of the characters, and in the way they say things that you don't get from reading bare text. When you're actually saying these words as if they are regular conversation, instead of doing the cliched Shakespearan recitation, it all makes much more sense. And the long speeches which remain, even they posed little challenge for me. They are beautiful in their poetry and metaphor. I'm actually reading the plays now and also the Sparknotes online in an endeavour to understand all of what's going on.
These are plays based on history but far from historically accurate. Shakespeare has taken a lot of poetic licence, to tell the story HE wanted to tell.
My main problem with these plays especially is figuring out who's who among the characters. There multiple characters with the same name (there are multiple Henry/Harrys and Kate/Katherines), characters who are referred to by multiple names (Hal/Harry/Henry), and THEN there are the titles, which people are often referred to as, and a character can have multiple titles (Bolingbroke is Harry is Henry IV is Hereford is Lancaster, Prince Hal is Henry is Monmouth is the Prince of Wales). It's taken a few viewings to get the big players who aren't the key characters sorted out.
Lots of pictures and word vomit ahead. And spoilers, I guess. I think after 400 years they don't count as spoilers anymore.
We start the saga with Richard II. Richard was crowned at the tender age of 10 and was one of the English kings believed to be chosen by God. I guess being fawned over from such a young age means he never really grew up. He feels the throne is his God-given right and spends the majority of the play waxing lyrical about the trials of being a king without actually BEING a decent king. He makes bad decisions (even when strongly advised against them by his counsel) and thus is the object of his own demise.
Not wanting to see blood spilled, Richard opts to banish the duelling Mowbray and Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke's father, Sir John of Gaunt (hey look, it's Patrick Stewart with hair!) takes ill not long after and on hearing the news we discover how dastardly Richard can be.
Pray God we may make haste and come too late
Despite being berated by his councillors for it, he seizes Gaunt's land and money to fund a war against Ireland. Everything goes downhill for Richard from here. Bolingbroke learns of the news and returns to England, using the loophole that he was banished as Hereford, but as his father is now dead, he is now technically Lancaster. He quickly gathers the support of the commoners and even the Welsh soldiers that were waiting to fight for Richard, when Richard does not show up when expected and they presume him dead. Interestingly, Bolingbroke doesn't seem to particulary want to usurp Richard, who he has nothing but respect for. He seems to be pushed into it by Northumberland (remember that name!) and others who would see Richard deposed and Henry crowned in his place.
There are two scenes in this that I really enjoyed. The Beach Scene and The Deposing Scene.
Richard returns from abroad happy as a clam to back in England and prattling on about how all of this unrest in the country will now end with his return. Two of his fawning subjects - the Duke of Aumerle and the Bishop of Carlisle voice their agreement. Then the Earl of Salisbury rides up to inform him that his hoped for Welsh army has buggered off to join Bolingbroke. Richard stamps his feet and whines a bit until Aumerle sings his praises and bucks him up again. He's the God anoited king! No-one would dare cross him! He has the backing of God dammit! Then comes along Scroop with more bad news, Bolingbroke is advancing, and his a couple of his favourite subjects have been beheaded. The news of the beheadings is drawn out, at first Richard is given the impression that they have joined Bolingbroke, so he takes the opportunity to curse them soundly before being asked to rescind the curses because they paid for their loyalty with thier lives. Richard starts to unravel (as does his headpiece).
Trivia - Richard writes his name in the sand here - it's the actual signature of the real Richard II.
No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour’d thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
Aumerle, in his continuing effort to curry favour with the king, reminds him that his father, the Duke of York (played by David Suchet, you possibly know him as Poirot) will surely help out. Scroop chooses that moment to reveal more bad news (this guy really likes to draw things out), the Duke of York has also joined Bolingbroke. Richard chases Aumerle into the ocean for misleading him (even though really, this is all Scroop's fault) and resigns himself to being deposed. But he's not going to let his crown go easily.
Bolingbroke marches on the castle where Richard is (staying? hiding? hanging out?) and is greeted by a Richard dressed as some sort of avenging angel in a silly helmet. It's at this point I have to remind myself that these guys truly believed that Richard was appointed by God and that usurping him would envoke the wrath of God. Richard curses them all for trying to depose him but Bolingbroke promises he is just after his inheritance and nothing more. Behind the scenes it looks like Richard has already resigned himself and is just going along with things to prevent an out and out war (which he will lose anyway). Again, it's somewhat childish, he curses them all, then despite Bolingbroke saying otherwise, Richard insists on giving the throne over to him.
What must the king do now? must he submit?
The king shall do it: must he be deposed?
The king shall be contented: must he lose
The name of king? o' God's name, let it go:
I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,
My figured goblets for a dish of wood,
My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,
My subjects for a pair of carved saints
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little little grave, an obscure grave;
Or I'll be buried in the king's highway,
Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet
May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;
For on my heart they tread now whilst I live;
And buried once, why not upon my head?
I guess what follows is just the formal confirming of everything. And boy does Richard take this opportunity to steal the stage and ham it up. He's going to go out with a bang dammit. And a few well placed barbs. Both he and the Bishop of Carlisle continue to spout curses on Bolingbroke and his followers - something that will haunt Henry his whole life.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets, filling one another,
The emptier ever dancing in the air,
The other down, unseen and full of water:
That bucket down and full of tears am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.
My care is loss of care, by old care done;
Your care is gain of care, by new care won:
The cares I give I have, though given away;
They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.
His behaviour when asked to give over the crown is like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. He delays any answering to his crimes by waxing lyrical, at one point requesting a mirror so he can look upon himself, then smashing the mirror in front of Bolingbroke. When handing over the crown he tauntingly chimes, "Here cousin." When Bolingbroke finally asks him in clipped tones if he gives over the crown willingly he responds, defeated, "Aye." Then grabs the crown back with a anguished "No!!", before finally relinquishing it. It reminds me of Gollum with his precious. And then, after a bit of Biblical posturing, he grovels on the floor before Henry and all but throws the crown at him.
Rory Kinnear as Bolingbroke doesn't say an awful lot, but his incredulous looks as Richard carries on are priceless. In a mere expression you can almost hear him, "Now really? What, the, fuck? Are you right there? Is this really neccessary? God what a drama queen. Seriously?"
And thus, we have a new, albeit reluctant, king.
After being graciously pardoned by the new king after being accused of treason, the young Aumerle endevours to show his newfound loyalty by bringing his king what he feels is the greatest prize of all - the corpse of his rival, Richard II. But this is anything but what Henry IV wants. He felt bad enough taking the throne, but to him, this confirms the curse upon his head. As we see later, Henry IV was a sickly king despite his force of will and died at a relatively young age of a mysterious illness. His son, Henry V, is a strapping young lad, but suddenly dies of Dysentry at the tender age of 35, after achieving so much for England. And his grandson, Henry VI will lose it all again in the War of the Roses.
Scene stealer - Ben Whishaw as Richard II, playing a spectacular, verbose, drama queen of a king.
My understanding of the story is changing by the hour at the moment because I'm reading the actual plays and the Sparknotes, which make a lot of things a lot clearer. And if I wrote everything I interpreted from it, this would be a massive essay/retelling.
As for this particular version, I have two questions -
1. Why are there two crowns? One is larger and has pearls. The smaller seems to be worn by the queen when she and Richard are seen together, but it is sometimes worn by Richard.
2. Why does the crown FLOAT? In the scene where Richard hands (rolls) over the crown and it sits on the floor, from some angles it seems to be floating. Weird.
A lot of people (on Tumblr at least) have asked whether they really need to watch Richard II, or if they can justifiably just watch the Henry plays to ogle Tom Hiddleston. I say do whatever you want, but this is well worth watching (and rewatching) in my opinion.
As part of the "Cultural Olympiad" the BBC did some remakes of Shakespeare's "Henriad", called the resulting series The Hollow Crown and aired it during the Olympics. I found out about this series via my recently acquired admiration of Tom Hiddleston - who plays the major role of Prince Hal/Henry in these productions. Thanks to the wonders of the internet I was able to download them here in Australia a day after they aired in the UK and watch them. (Don't worry, I will buy the DVDs if/when they come out in Oz). I found them surprisingly engaging, entertaining and well acted.
The only Shakespeare play I'd read previously was Romeo & Juliet after becoming briefly obsessed with Baz Lurhman's 1996 take on the play. I intended to read the Henriad before watching The Hollow Crown but I'm glad I didn't. The actors in this portray everything more naturally than you would see on stage. So much is said in the context, in the actions of the characters, and in the way they say things that you don't get from reading bare text. When you're actually saying these words as if they are regular conversation, instead of doing the cliched Shakespearan recitation, it all makes much more sense. And the long speeches which remain, even they posed little challenge for me. They are beautiful in their poetry and metaphor. I'm actually reading the plays now and also the Sparknotes online in an endeavour to understand all of what's going on.
These are plays based on history but far from historically accurate. Shakespeare has taken a lot of poetic licence, to tell the story HE wanted to tell.
My main problem with these plays especially is figuring out who's who among the characters. There multiple characters with the same name (there are multiple Henry/Harrys and Kate/Katherines), characters who are referred to by multiple names (Hal/Harry/Henry), and THEN there are the titles, which people are often referred to as, and a character can have multiple titles (Bolingbroke is Harry is Henry IV is Hereford is Lancaster, Prince Hal is Henry is Monmouth is the Prince of Wales). It's taken a few viewings to get the big players who aren't the key characters sorted out.
Lots of pictures and word vomit ahead. And spoilers, I guess. I think after 400 years they don't count as spoilers anymore.
We start the saga with Richard II. Richard was crowned at the tender age of 10 and was one of the English kings believed to be chosen by God. I guess being fawned over from such a young age means he never really grew up. He feels the throne is his God-given right and spends the majority of the play waxing lyrical about the trials of being a king without actually BEING a decent king. He makes bad decisions (even when strongly advised against them by his counsel) and thus is the object of his own demise.
Not wanting to see blood spilled, Richard opts to banish the duelling Mowbray and Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke's father, Sir John of Gaunt (hey look, it's Patrick Stewart with hair!) takes ill not long after and on hearing the news we discover how dastardly Richard can be.
Pray God we may make haste and come too late
Despite being berated by his councillors for it, he seizes Gaunt's land and money to fund a war against Ireland. Everything goes downhill for Richard from here. Bolingbroke learns of the news and returns to England, using the loophole that he was banished as Hereford, but as his father is now dead, he is now technically Lancaster. He quickly gathers the support of the commoners and even the Welsh soldiers that were waiting to fight for Richard, when Richard does not show up when expected and they presume him dead. Interestingly, Bolingbroke doesn't seem to particulary want to usurp Richard, who he has nothing but respect for. He seems to be pushed into it by Northumberland (remember that name!) and others who would see Richard deposed and Henry crowned in his place.
There are two scenes in this that I really enjoyed. The Beach Scene and The Deposing Scene.
Richard returns from abroad happy as a clam to back in England and prattling on about how all of this unrest in the country will now end with his return. Two of his fawning subjects - the Duke of Aumerle and the Bishop of Carlisle voice their agreement. Then the Earl of Salisbury rides up to inform him that his hoped for Welsh army has buggered off to join Bolingbroke. Richard stamps his feet and whines a bit until Aumerle sings his praises and bucks him up again. He's the God anoited king! No-one would dare cross him! He has the backing of God dammit! Then comes along Scroop with more bad news, Bolingbroke is advancing, and his a couple of his favourite subjects have been beheaded. The news of the beheadings is drawn out, at first Richard is given the impression that they have joined Bolingbroke, so he takes the opportunity to curse them soundly before being asked to rescind the curses because they paid for their loyalty with thier lives. Richard starts to unravel (as does his headpiece).
Trivia - Richard writes his name in the sand here - it's the actual signature of the real Richard II.
No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour’d thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
Aumerle, in his continuing effort to curry favour with the king, reminds him that his father, the Duke of York (played by David Suchet, you possibly know him as Poirot) will surely help out. Scroop chooses that moment to reveal more bad news (this guy really likes to draw things out), the Duke of York has also joined Bolingbroke. Richard chases Aumerle into the ocean for misleading him (even though really, this is all Scroop's fault) and resigns himself to being deposed. But he's not going to let his crown go easily.
Bolingbroke marches on the castle where Richard is (staying? hiding? hanging out?) and is greeted by a Richard dressed as some sort of avenging angel in a silly helmet. It's at this point I have to remind myself that these guys truly believed that Richard was appointed by God and that usurping him would envoke the wrath of God. Richard curses them all for trying to depose him but Bolingbroke promises he is just after his inheritance and nothing more. Behind the scenes it looks like Richard has already resigned himself and is just going along with things to prevent an out and out war (which he will lose anyway). Again, it's somewhat childish, he curses them all, then despite Bolingbroke saying otherwise, Richard insists on giving the throne over to him.
What must the king do now? must he submit?
The king shall do it: must he be deposed?
The king shall be contented: must he lose
The name of king? o' God's name, let it go:
I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,
My figured goblets for a dish of wood,
My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,
My subjects for a pair of carved saints
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little little grave, an obscure grave;
Or I'll be buried in the king's highway,
Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet
May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;
For on my heart they tread now whilst I live;
And buried once, why not upon my head?
I guess what follows is just the formal confirming of everything. And boy does Richard take this opportunity to steal the stage and ham it up. He's going to go out with a bang dammit. And a few well placed barbs. Both he and the Bishop of Carlisle continue to spout curses on Bolingbroke and his followers - something that will haunt Henry his whole life.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets, filling one another,
The emptier ever dancing in the air,
The other down, unseen and full of water:
That bucket down and full of tears am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.
My care is loss of care, by old care done;
Your care is gain of care, by new care won:
The cares I give I have, though given away;
They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.
His behaviour when asked to give over the crown is like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. He delays any answering to his crimes by waxing lyrical, at one point requesting a mirror so he can look upon himself, then smashing the mirror in front of Bolingbroke. When handing over the crown he tauntingly chimes, "Here cousin." When Bolingbroke finally asks him in clipped tones if he gives over the crown willingly he responds, defeated, "Aye." Then grabs the crown back with a anguished "No!!", before finally relinquishing it. It reminds me of Gollum with his precious. And then, after a bit of Biblical posturing, he grovels on the floor before Henry and all but throws the crown at him.
Rory Kinnear as Bolingbroke doesn't say an awful lot, but his incredulous looks as Richard carries on are priceless. In a mere expression you can almost hear him, "Now really? What, the, fuck? Are you right there? Is this really neccessary? God what a drama queen. Seriously?"
And thus, we have a new, albeit reluctant, king.
After being graciously pardoned by the new king after being accused of treason, the young Aumerle endevours to show his newfound loyalty by bringing his king what he feels is the greatest prize of all - the corpse of his rival, Richard II. But this is anything but what Henry IV wants. He felt bad enough taking the throne, but to him, this confirms the curse upon his head. As we see later, Henry IV was a sickly king despite his force of will and died at a relatively young age of a mysterious illness. His son, Henry V, is a strapping young lad, but suddenly dies of Dysentry at the tender age of 35, after achieving so much for England. And his grandson, Henry VI will lose it all again in the War of the Roses.
Scene stealer - Ben Whishaw as Richard II, playing a spectacular, verbose, drama queen of a king.
My understanding of the story is changing by the hour at the moment because I'm reading the actual plays and the Sparknotes, which make a lot of things a lot clearer. And if I wrote everything I interpreted from it, this would be a massive essay/retelling.
As for this particular version, I have two questions -
1. Why are there two crowns? One is larger and has pearls. The smaller seems to be worn by the queen when she and Richard are seen together, but it is sometimes worn by Richard.
2. Why does the crown FLOAT? In the scene where Richard hands (rolls) over the crown and it sits on the floor, from some angles it seems to be floating. Weird.
A lot of people (on Tumblr at least) have asked whether they really need to watch Richard II, or if they can justifiably just watch the Henry plays to ogle Tom Hiddleston. I say do whatever you want, but this is well worth watching (and rewatching) in my opinion.
no subject
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
I saw the RSC production with Sam West and David Troughton in 2000.
And I enjoy R3 because it's a lot fun and also lyrical. "Sent before my time into this breathing world scarce half made up..."