Following on from Gonerills speech it is Regans turn to announce her love for her father, she values herself as being ‘made of that self-mettle as’ her sister. Thus saying that she deserves as good a part of the kingdom as Gonerill. In response to her Lear gives her a ‘third of our fair kingdom, no less in space validity, and pleasure than that conferred to Gonerill,’ giving them both an equal share of the kingdom. His again misuses his power in his treatment of his daughters as if her is giving them equal shares than the love test is pointless as he has already decided who is going to receive what share of the kingdom, this is made clears when he offers Cordelia ‘a third more opulent than her sisters’ when she responds to his offer saying that she can’t ‘heave her heart into her mouth.’ Lear responds saying that she should ‘mar her speech a little, lest she may mar her fortunes.’ This shows Lear to be giving her a chance to say she does love him, this could be interpreted as Lear abusing his power by trying to force his daughter to conform how he wishes her to, in contrast it can also be seen as him giving her a second chance as he wants her to say she loves him out of duty and simple practise in order to release the last third of his kingdom.
The following actions of Lear show how he misuses his power, he says to Cordelia ‘but goes thy heart with this’ giving her a further chance to just say that she does love him trying to force her to say it threatening with his power. The following hyperbolic speech Lear makes in anger where his anguish and anger is shown by his constant change from the regal 1st person plural speech to 1st person singular. He misuses his power to ‘disclaim all ... parental care’ over Cordelia in his anger, as he overreacts to her unwillingness to lie to him about her love. He now classes her as his ‘sometime daughter’ showing that he now no longer thinks of her as a daughter.
HE further abuses his power in the way he dismisses the injections of Kent to try and help him on line 115 by use of an Imperative ‘Peace Kent’ followed by the metaphor of ‘come not between the dragon and his wrath.’ Showing him to be all powerful and great yet in actual fact he has relinquished 2/3rds of his power to his daughters and now has not much power. Yet Kent still tries to get Lear to see sense, but Lear banishes him from “his” lands, which in actual fact is now only 1/3 of Britain. Even after Kent decrees his life has been devoted to protecting and honouring Lear he has given his life ‘To wage war against thine enemies, ne’er feared to lose it.’ Showing he would do anything for Lear. Yet in his anger with the royal “we” returning says to Kent that ‘if on the tenth day following thy banished truck be found in our dominions the moment is thy death.’ Having heard this from Lear, Kent bids his best wishes to Cordelia and says to Gonerill and Regan that he hope they honour their words of love to their father, he then leaves. His banishment is not clear on the terms, obviously Lear means the entire kingdom of Britain but in actual fact Lear at the point of banishing Kent is not in charge of any of the lands of Britain and therefore has no real power to banish Kent.
Lear then turns his attention to the problem of Cordelia, having removed the promises of land for whoever takes her hand in marriage Burgundy and France must decide on which will take her hand. Burgundy refuses but France having fallen for Cordelia takes her as his wife without the present of land in return.
In conclusion it is clear that Lear does misuse his power initially in holding the love test, it is quite clearly a psychological game in which Lear just wants to hear the words behind the flattery and not actually notice any sincerity in their meanings. He carries on however to demand an answer from Cordelia showing that he it trying to bully her into saying she loves him. Later however having denied Cordelia of any dowry splits the Kingdom between Gonerill and Regan, leaving him from that point owning no land, yet he then proceeds to banish Kent from “his” kingdom which technically does not exist, this is clearly a misuse of the remnants of power that he still has and the short tempered way he reacts to the comments of Kent and Cordelia by saying that he loved Cordelia most but is now banishing her would make his other daughter whom now have power bitter at the lack of love they receive from their father, in my opinion the fall of Lear proceeds from the way he gives all his power to Gonerill and Regan but then progressing to offending them by saying he loves Cordelia more.