A still earlier play, Kynge Johan by Bishop John Bale (c. 1650), had nothing to do with later versions.
Richard the Second, unlike Richard the Third, is not simply the story of one man. While Richard III is on the stage during more than two-thirds of the latter play, Richard II appears during almost exactly half of the action. Richard III dominates his play throughout; Richard II in only two or three scenes. Richard's two uncles, John of Gaunt and the Duke of York, and his two cousins, Hereford (Bolingbroke, later Henry IV) and Aumerle, claim almost as much of our attention as does the central figure of the play, the light, vain, and thoughtless king.
And yet with all this improvement in the adjustment of the leading role to the whole picture, Shakespeare drew a far more real and complete character in Richard II than any he had yet portrayed in historical drama. It is a character seen in many lights. At first we are disappointed with Richard's love of the spectacular when he allows Bolingbroke's challenge to Mowbray to go as far as the actual sounding of the trumpets in the lists before he casts down his warder and decrees the banishment of both. A little later we see with disgust his greedy thoughtlessness, when he insults the last hour of John of Gaunt by his importunate visit, and without a word of regret lays hold of his dead uncle's property to help on his own Irish wars. Nor does our respect for him rise at all when in the critical moment, upon the return of Bolingbroke to England, Richard's weak will vacillates between action and unmanly lament, and all the while his vanity delights to paint his misery in full-mouth'd rhetoric. Vanity is again the note of his abdication, when he calls for a mirror in which to behold the face that has borne such sorrow as his, and then in a fit of almost childish rage dashes the glass upon the ground. His whole life, like that one act, has been impulsive and futile.
But now that misfortune and degradation have come upon King Richard, Shakespeare compels us to turn from disgust to pity, and finally almost to admiration. We realize that after all Richard is a king, and that his wretched state demands compassion. Moreover, a nobler side of Richard's character is portrayed. His deeply touching farewell to his loving Queen, as he goes to his solitary confinement, though tinged with almost unmanly meekness of spirit, is yet poignant with true grief. And the last scene of all, in which he dies, vainly yet bravely resisting his murderers, is a gallant end to a life so full of indecision.
In strong contrast with this weak and still absorbing figure are the two high-minded and patriotic uncles of King Richard, and the masterful though unscrupulous Henry. The famous prophetic speech of dying John of Gaunt is committed to memory by every English schoolboy, as the expression of the highest patriotism in the noblest poetry. And just as our attitude towards Richard changes from contempt to pity and even admiration, so our admiration for Henry, the man of action and, as he calls himself, "the true-borne Englishman," turns into indignation at his usurpation of the throne and his connivance, to use no stronger term, at the murder of his sovereign. Throughout the play, however, Shakespeare makes us feel that the national cause demands Henry's triumph.
Date.—Marlowe's Edward II is usually dated 1593; and Shakespeare's Richard II is dated the year following, in order to accommodate facts to theory. The frequency of rime points to an earlier date, the absence of prose to a later date. Our only certain date is 1597, when a quarto appeared. Others followed in 1598, 1608, and 1615.
A play "of the deposing of Richard II" was performed by wish of the Earl of Essex in London streets in 1601, on the eve of his attempted revolt against the queen. If this was our play, then Essex failed as signally in understanding the real theme of the play as he did in interpreting the attitude of Englishmen toward him. Both the one and the other condemned usurpation in the strongest terms.
Source.—Holinshed's Chronicles furnished Shakespeare with but the bare historical outline. It is usual to suggest that Marlowe's portrayal of a similarly weak figure with a similarly tragic end suggested Shakespeare's play; and this may be, though there is nothing to indicate direct influence.