# Queen Isabel — Richard II character guide

> Queen Isabel in Richard II by William Shakespeare.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Queen

**First appearance:** 0005-act-i-scene-iv

## Snapshot

Richard's devoted queen, who watches her lion of a husband bow to Necessity and refuses to let him call their marriage a dream.

## Who they are

Isabel meets Richard on the road already stripped of pomp, and where he counsels her to think their former state a happy dream and cloister herself in France, she recoils at a king who would kiss the rod. She names him a lion dying that still wounds the earth, and her grief insists on the reality of what they were. Their forced parting, ordered by Northumberland, splits a twofold marriage of crown and wife, and her voice gives the deposition its most intimate cost.

## In the story

### [Scene II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/richard_ii_se/chapters/act-ii-scene-ii)

Suffers from a premonition of sorrow beyond Richard's departure; learns of Bolingbroke's invasion and despairs.

### [Scene IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/richard_ii_se/chapters/act-iii-scene-iv)

Grieving and anxious, she seeks distraction in the garden but is overwhelmed by sorrow and foreboding.

### [Scene I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/richard_ii_se/chapters/act-v-scene-i)

Grieves over Richard's imprisonment and forced departure to France, pleading to stay with him.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/richard_ii_se/characters/queen_richard
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/richard_ii_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/richard_ii_se/characters