FALSTAFF CUTS CLOSEST:

Now let me tell you about another play. It involves a king so bogged down by the personal and political conflicts of his staff of toadies that his ability to govern is utterly compromised. False narratives are spun on all sides until even the king doesn't know what's true. There are accusations of money laundering, of treason, of murder. While feigning innocence, the king stokes conflict by proposing a duel between the fighting factions, WWE-style -- as we come to learn that he was the mastermind behind all these misdeeds. But no one will call him on his actions; a king's power is absolute.

At the last minute, he cancels the pay-per-view smackdown, claiming to put country before politics; instead, he banishes those we now know were merely acting under his orders. But rather than quell the PR catastrophe, this act breaks it wide open. Come to find out, the king has not only depleted the royal coffers but he's--get this--personally profiting off government business. Matters, as always, come to a head, and the king is given a choice: give up your crown peacefully, or have it wrested from you. Problem solved? Hardly. Past grudges are never forgotten, and in the confusion of transitioning power, the deposed king is murdered -- by someone who thought he was operating under the new king's orders. The cycle restarts. [...]

[W]hat makes Richard II so damning, and so much stronger a political firestarter than Julius Caesar (or any of Will's other histories) is how wretchedly incompetent Richard is. He becomes the agent of his own demise, and every choice he makes shows a complete inability to govern. We feel sympathetic toward him only because he is utterly pathetic.

And the queen, if rumor is true, knew that this perception was the real threat to her rue, far more damaging than portrayals of a murdered monarch's violence. Her archivist, William Lambarde, claimed that Elizabeth, while lamenting that the play was performed forty times in "open streets and houses" during her rule, went on to declare bitterly, "I am Richard II, know ye not that?"

But how did Elizabeth punish the bringers of this message? Did she ban the play? Fine the troupe? Arrest the playwright? Denounce all involved and call for their excoriation? No. She never commented publicly on the play or rebuked the Bard or his troupe for writing and staging it. 

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