Richard II (play)

The Life and Death of King Richard the Second (1595), also Richard II, is a Shakespearean history play about the lifetime and reign of King Richard II of England (r. 1377–1399). As a dramatised period history of the English monarchy, Richard II chronicles the machinations of the noblemen of the royal court who conspire, precipitate, and realise the downfall and death of the King of England.

As the first work in the Henriad tetralogy of English history plays, the political narrative of Richard II is thematically followed throughout the stories of Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V, which also are histories of the reigns of his royal successors to the Throne of England. Although the First Folio (1623) classifies The Life and Death of Richard the Second as an English history play, the earlier Quarto edition (1597) classifies Richard II as a tragedy, under the title The Tragedie of King Richard the Second.