For the most part women are kept on the sideline of action in King Richard II; discuss what roles these ‘minor’ characters play in this text.

Shakespeare uses the women in Richard
II strategically. Although they may be considered minor characters, their
importance (as with anything Shakespeare included in his plays) is crucial to the
development of the plot and characterization, and the revelation the story's
themes.

The Duchess of Gloucester adds the touch of human
emotion to the play. As a widow, she shows the depth of her love for her deceased
husband who she misses terribly. She also serves the purpose of showing how a family
experiences the loss of a loved one, especially (in this case) a husband, which is much
different than the loss one experiences for a friend. Her love will also be held up as a
source of comparison with regard to the loss other characters experience in the play.
And in her sorrow, her character repeatedly helps to establish and feed the mood of the
story.

The Duchess of York also exemplifies a kind of love:
in this case, parental love. The complication to this love is that her son is complicit
in the plot to kill Bolingbroke. This places the Duchess at odds with her husband; she
cares less for politics and more for her child, and the Duke cannot afford to place his
child above his politics.

As with Richard
III, the women in Richard II occupy minor places within
the society (as was common for the time), and the men elevate king and country beyond
all else (a necessity for survival at the time).  However, this propensity of the men of
the time to place politics above all else shows them as hardened, lacking a human
dimension, while the women in the play elevate the human emotion of love for another to
provide balance and a clearer snapshot of Elizabethan
society.

Queen Isabel shows yet another connection between
a man and a woman, especially when compared with the Duchess of York; whereas the
Duchess defies her husband for her son's sake, the Queen supports Richard in all things.
 Her character also helps convey the dark mood presented by the Duchess of Gloucester at
the play's outset, and it is through the Queen that Shakespeare provides the audience
with foreshadowing that some horrible fate waits on the horizon [Richard's
murder].

Minor parts they may have had from a historical
standpoint, but in terms of the play, the women's roles are nothing if not necessary to
set the mood, define other characters by their presence, and move the plot along thereby
making the story's themes that much more powerful.