Links between Shakespeare's plays and the contemporary monarch:
- Popular revolt
- Misled by favourite advisors
- Succession - her childlessness
- Richard utterly obsessed with performance of own life, eloquent but incapable ruler compared to efficient but chilly successor
- Elizabeth I said "I am Richard II, know ye not that?" it had been "played forty times in open streets and houses"
- leaders of the Essex rebellion commissioned the Chamberlain's Men to perform it before their plot
- scene depicting king's abdication was cut by censors
- Richard's political mismanagement and unpopularity
- 'grievous taxes'
- England in danger
- King the 'landlord' not the ruler
- funding irish wars with Gaunt money - Elizabeth's wars in Ireland
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