In Shakespeare's King Richard II, it shows several different ways as to how King Richard failed miserably as a king. This play was written around 1595, tells the story of how King Richard's reign started and even how it ended. Ironically, Henry Bolingbroke, Richard's cousin, was exiled in the beginning of the play by Richard. The irony in this would be that Henry Bolingbroke was the one that took Richard's throne, country, and his people from him and made them his own. The ways that Richard failed as a king would be how he was very ignorant whenever it came to spending money, he was surrounded by councilmen who only cared about telling him what he wanted to hear, and he was believed to not even care about his country. It was obvious to everyone …show more content…
Shakespeare showed several examples throughout the entire play of how Richard was not cut out to be a king. He cared too much about his own selfish wants and needs instead of caring about what his country needed. He eventually turned his people against him, which helped Henrey Bolingbroke overthrow Richard and take his country and throne away from him and make it his own. King Richard's decisions as king wound up getting him placed as a prisoner and watching his cousin, which he had put in exile in the beginning of the play, take over his country. If Henry had never found out about Richard taking his inheritance, things may have happened differently. However, Henrey Bolingbroke, with the help of Richard's people, was able to take over England and become King Henry IV. (Saul, 1998.) However, if King Richard would have made better choices especially whenever it came to his expenses and his councilman, maybe King Henry would not have been able to come and take Richard's country and people from