
Contents
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The King Outside the Law The King Outside the Law
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King or Tyrant? King or Tyrant?
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Sovereign Immunity and Richard II Sovereign Immunity and Richard II
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Bolingbroke as Outlaw Bolingbroke as Outlaw
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Legal Fictions, Deposition and Regicide Legal Fictions, Deposition and Regicide
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Hal as Bandit Hal as Bandit
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War and Law in Henry V War and Law in Henry V
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Sovereign Outlaws: Plantagenet, Lancastrian, Elizabethan and Shakespearean Sovereign Outlaws: Plantagenet, Lancastrian, Elizabethan and Shakespearean
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2 Sovereign Outlaws: Shakespeare’s Second Tetralogy
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Published:March 2020
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Abstract
This chapter asks whether the sovereign can (and perhaps must) act outside the law in a reading of the second tetralogy of Shakespeare’s history plays. The discussion opens with an examination of the notion of sovereign immunity, contrasted with a competing line of discourse against tyranny. It then argues that questions around the king’s status relative to the law constitute an important set of issues within Shakespeare’s Richard II,where both individuals (Richard and Bolingbroke) and events (Richard’s deposition) may be read as existing outside of the law in various senses. The chapter proceeds to consider the remaining plays in the tetralogy, arguing that Henry V, a sort of quasi-outlaw before gaining the throne, finds as king that he must act outside the law to defend the interests of his state. The discussion surveys a range of legal questions in Henry V, from his claim to the throne of France to his threats before Harfleur and his killing of prisoners at Agincourt. The chapter concludes with a brief glance at espionage in Elizabethan England, and the Elizabethan state’s recourse to methods of invisible power.
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