things and to make high things low at his pleasure, and to God are both souls and body due. And the like power have kings: they make and unmake their subjects, they have power of raising and casting down, of life and of death, judges over all their subjects and in all causes and yet accountable to none but God only.

The King and his kingdom

The most obvious point about a king is that he rules over a specific territory. For instance, the King of France is often referred to in King Lear as simply France. Lear's identity is bound up with being a ruler, and the play explores what happens to his sense of self when he gives up the territory that makes him a king.

Before Lear handsover his kingdom to Goneril and Regan, he represents his state and its health and prosperity is intimately bound up with him as its monarch. In King Lear, we see the physical and spiritual chaos that ensues upon the king's abdication. Shakespeare's first audiences may well have been reminded of the scene in Richard II in which two gardeners compare the order they keep in their garden with the king's neglect of his kingdom.

The king and power

Whilst a king reigns his word is law. Lear learns that, as soon as he gives away his kingdom, people (such as Oswald) stop respecting and obeying him. Kings were often thought of as having a spiritual and mystical power as well as power that was political and legal. For instance, from