Introduction
Shakespeare’s Henriad is not only a brilliant example of English literature but also a valuable source on the social, political, and even legal reality of the time when it was written. Among other things, it covers the perception of monarchic power and its nature, which was a particularly acute issue in Elizabethan England ruled by a female monarch. Richard II contains one of the most impactful scenes of royal deposition in the entirety of English literature and, as such, sheds much-needed light on the perception of royal power. The concept best suited to explain it would be the ‘two bodies of the king.’ Developed by English legal experts and researched by Kantorowicz, this political theory argued that, apart from the natural, biological body, monarch epitomized the ‘body politic,’ which encompassed the entire political commonwealth. Richard’s deposition in Act IV, Scene I, and particularly the mirror scene, illustrate the identity crisis that ensues once the former king loses his second body.
Context of the Scene
Scene I of Act IV takes place well past the middle of the play and depicts the downfall of the titular king. Prior to it, he has exiled his bitter rival Henry Bolingbroke for inquiring too much about a political murder committed by Richard’s order. However, following a strain of unpopular decisions, including the confiscation of the property belonging to John of Gaunt, Bolingbroke’s late father, the exile musters an army and returns to England. Betrayed by most of his associates and cornered, Richard has to abdicate in Bolingbroke’s favor. The ceremony requires him “t’ undeck the pompous body of a king” – that is, to surrender symbols of power – and to do it himself, since no mere mortal can forcefully depose a monarch (Shakespeare IV.I.261). After being deposed, Richard asks for a mirror and is apparently surprised that the act of deposition did not age or deform him visually. Angered and saddened with the contrast between his normal appearance and the grief he feels on the inside, the former king shutters the mirror into pieces and is taken into custody.
Theory of the King’s Two Bodies
Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology discusses the concept developed by jurists of the Tudor period. The essential point of this concept was that, apart from having a ‘body natural,’ like all of his subjects, the monarch also had a ‘body politic’- a larger-than-life entity that encompasses the entire country. To use the language of the Elizabethan period, the king’s natural physical body is “adorned and invested with the Estate and Dignity royal” to form an indivisible dichotomy (Kantorowicz 9). Generally speaking, the idea of the king’s body politic was devised to ensure the smooth and unhindered passing of royal power. The body politic, unlike the frail human one, is not subject to aging, infirmity, or moral imperfections and passes, like a mantle of leadership, from the predecessor to the successor (Kantorowicz 7-8). Thus, the second body of the king is essentially an idealized epitome of monarchic power itself – a theological construct designed to facilitate dynastic stability and unite the king as a person and kingship as an office.
Although the king’s ‘body natural’ and ‘body politic’ are united in a complex dialectic relationship, there should be no doubt as to which of the two is superior. Legal specialists of Shakespeare’s time are very clear when explaining that the body politic is greater in all possible respects and overshadows the natural human body. To use the precise phrasing, “body politic includes the Body natural, but the Body natural is the lesser, and with this, the Body politic is consolidated” (Reed 116). Hence, while the king as a person united both bodies, the body politic was the one of greater importance and, as such, the one more readily apparent to the outside observer. With this in mind, it might be useful to analyze the effects of a deposed king being deprived of his second body. Act IV, Scene I of Shakespeare’s Richard II may serve as a suitable example in this regard.
Act IV, Scene I Analysis
The mirror scene in Act IV, Scene I is the culmination of Richard’s humiliating journey from the apex of his power and regal splendor to deposition and irrelevance. Having been summoned and escorted before victorious Bolingbroke and pressured to abdicate in the latter’s favor, Richard succumbs and relinquishes the visible and recognizable elements of monarchic power. Moreover, the abdication becomes “an inverted rite, a rite of degradation,” with Richard taking off the symbols of power in the order opposite to coronation (Kantorowicz 36). However, it is not just a ploy to humiliate the defeated monarch even more, but a logical and judicial necessity. Since Richard is still a king – and, therefore, the deputy of God – until he relinquishes the title, no mere man can take what was given by God – hence, Richard has to de-coronate himself. He even highlights this necessity to do everything himself by muttering: “Am I both priest and clerk? Well, then, amen” (Shakespeare IV.I.182). Until Richard has voluntarily relinquished his title, he still possesses the second body – the king’s body politic – that makes him superior and inviolable to mere mortals.
The mirror scene, which follows the aforementioned rite of degradation, is the point when the concept of the king’s two bodies arguably becomes the most apparent in the entire play. The brief monologue is all about Richard looking for any sign of the recently possessed super-humanity and finding none. Admittedly, when Richard wonders whether his face is the one that held sway over thousands, it still can be interpreted as referring to a human face of a beloved leader (Shakespeare IV.I.293-294). However, the following lines make it exceedingly clear that Richard speaks not about the face of the king as an individual but about the face of the King as a superhuman entity. No physical face, no matter how influential his owner is, can make observers blink “like the sun,” yet it is exactly the effect that Richard reminisces upon (Shakespeare IV.I.295). Blinding the onlookers with its sheer majesty is but one of the qualities normally associated with the king’s body politic, which Richard came to equate with himself habitually. A superhuman until recently, he is now forced to confront the reality of existing without his second body.
This new reality proves brutal to the monarch who, until recently, perceived himself as the divine deputy but now has to come to terms with a severe identity crisis. Upon seeing his reflection, the deposed king wonders how the fundamental identity shift he just experienced did not leave a visible impact on his physical face. This surprise is fairly evident in the lines “Hath sorrow struck / so many blows upon this face of mine / and made no deeper wounds?” (Shakespeare IV.I.288-290). The profound change that Richard experiences on the inside has little effect on his physical body because it is not the one affected by it. Rather, the reason why Richard is so bewildered by seeing a normal and relatively unchanged human face in the mirror is that, at the moment, he recognizes the irreversible deprivation of his second body. To use Kantorowicz’s words, “the features as reflected by the looking-glass betray that he is stripped of every possibility of a second or super-body” which he once possessed (40). The effects of this deprivation are swift, overwhelming, and subject the former ruler to uncomfortable new experiences.
The contrast between what Richard sees in his reflection and what he feels on the inside reflects the pain of his newfound vulnerability that comes with losing the king’s body politic. For the first time in his life, the deposed monarch is forced to expose “his poor body natural to the eyes of the spectators” (Kantorowicz 36). He may not be mutilated, disfigured, or physically damaged in any other way. Yet now, without the king’s body politic shielding him with the mantle of regal majesty, he is as weak and open to mockery as the last of his former subjects. Although Richard certainly regrets losing power and control, his lament is not merely about the coercive aspect of being a king but also about the invulnerability to the outside gaze it once granted. When he was a ruler, his mere presence would “make beholders wink” rather than scrutinize the physical appearance of the deputy of God (Shakespeare IV.I.295). Now, however, he is in plain view for any willing outside observer – and, without his second body, the former monarch is, quite literally, naked.
Feeling vulnerable, Richard immediately attempts to come up with a coping strategy. Having lost his kingship and, hence, his second body, which, until now, had been the cornerstone of his identity, he wants at least a semblance of security in imitating his former regal status. He finds it in the sorrow of his deposition and is quick to proclaim: “You may my glories and my state depose / But not my griefs; still am I king of those” (Shakespeare IV.I.201-202). By declaring himself to still be king, even if only of his own sorrows, Richard clings to anything that can at least remotely resemble his proud kingship that ended so abruptly. Richard needs to invent any sort of kingship he is able to imagine because, without it, he would be forced to suffer recognition of his natural body – which is merely a human one (Block 275). For all intents and purposes, breaking the mirror and creating the idea of still being the ruler of one’s sorrows are a psychological defensive mechanism. Richard conjures imaginary kingship in an attempt to soothe the parting with his second body that defined his perception of himself until recently.
At the same time, Richard himself is far too smart to fall for his own deception and understands full well that this defensive mechanism is ultimately futile. It is important to point out that, according to his own words, the sadness overcoming him is an “unseen grief” (Shakespeare IV.I.309). It can only be assessable to observers via visible manifestations, “external manners of laments,” such as the breaking of the mirror (Shakespeare IV.I.308). In other words, Richard’s imaginary kingship lies within him and cannot be seen in any other way than through the actions taken and words uttered by his natural body. At this point, it would be useful to remember the legal jargon of Shakespeare’s time proclaiming that “Body politic includes the Body natural, but the Body natural is the lesser” of the two (Reed 116). Richard’s self-proclaimed kingdom of sorrow is hidden behind his natural body because it is lesser than the latter – unlike the king’s body politic, which is undoubtedly greater. This fact serves as a painful reminder that, at the moment of surrendering his rule to Bolingbroke, Richard also parts with his second body.
Conclusion
As one can see, Scene I of Act IV of Shakespeare’s Richard II and, in particular, the episode with the mirror is clearly representative of the theory of the king’s two bodies. Having originated in Tudor times, this piece of political theology envisaged the ‘body politic’ as a superhuman component of the royal person exemplifying the inviolable perception of monarchic power. In the mirror scene, Richard, forced to deprive himself of his second body, becomes barely able to handle the resulting identity crisis. For the first time in his life, he has to expose his natural body, which is mere human flesh, since his second superhuman body is not there anymore to shield him from scrutiny. Trying to cope with the stress, Richard promptly declares himself to still be the king of his own grief. However, his grief is lesser than even his human body – unlike the king’s body politic, which is always greater than the natural one – which serves as yet another painful reminder of Richard’s deposition.
Works Cited
Block, James E. “The Mirror of Transformation: Recognition and Its Dimensions After Honneth.” Axel Honneth and the Critical Theory of Recognition, edited by Volker Schmitz, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, pp. 273-282.
Kantorowicz, Ernst H. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology. Princeton UP, 2016.
Reed, Isaac A. Power in Modernity: Agency Relations and the Creative Destruction of the King’s Two Bodies. University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Shakespeare, William. “Richard II.” Folger Shakespeare Library.
Whalen, Brett E. “Political Theology and the Metamorphoses of The King’s Two Bodies.” American Historical Review, vol. 125, no. 1, 2020, pp. 132-145.