Richard II (play) - Characters

Characters

  • King Richard II
  • John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster – Richard's uncle
  • Duke of York – Richard's uncle
  • Duke of Aumerle – York's son
  • Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk
  • Queen – Richard's wife (an unnamed composite of his first wife, Anne of Bohemia, and his second, Isabella of Valois, who was still a child at the time of his death)
  • Duchess of York – York's wife (an unnamed composite of York's first wife, Infanta Isabella of Castile, and his second, Joan Holland)
  • Duchess of Gloucester – widow of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, uncle to the king

Rebels

  • Henry Bolingbroke – Duke of Hereford, son of John of Gaunt, later King Henry IV
  • Earl of Northumberland
  • Henry 'Hotspur' Percy – Northumberland's son
  • Lord Ross
  • Lord Willoughby
  • Lord Fitzwater
  • Sir Piers Exton

Richard's allies

  • Duke of Surrey
  • Earl of Salisbury
  • Lord Berkeley
  • Bushy – favourite of Richard
  • Bagot – favourite of Richard
  • Green – favourite of Richard
  • Bishop of Carlisle
  • Abbot of Westminster
  • Sir Stephen Scroop

Others

  • Lord Marshal (post held in 1399 by Duke of Surrey, though this is not recognised in the play)
  • Welsh captain
  • Two heralds
  • Gardener
  • Gardener's man
  • Queen's ladies
  • Keeper – jailer at Pomfret prison
  • Groom
  • Attendants, lords, soldiers, messengers, etc.

Read more about this topic:  Richard II (play)

Famous quotes containing the word characters:

    It is open to question whether the highly individualized characters we find in Shakespeare are perhaps not detrimental to the dramatic effect. The human being disappears to the same degree as the individual emerges.
    Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)

    What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That’s what their substance is.
    Jonathan Miller (b. 1936)

    Socialist writers are made of sterner stuff than those who only let their characters steeplechase through trouble in order to come out first in the happy ending of moral uplift.
    Christina Stead (1902–1983)