RICHARD Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him
If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice
Or worthily, as a good subject should,
On some known ground of treachery in him?
GAUNT As near as I could sift him on that argument,
On some apparent danger seen in him
Aimed at your highness, no inveterate malice. (1.1.8-14)
The icy needling continues: how much does Gaunt know? whose side is he on? has he sounded his son, got to the bottom of this accusation? Is it just ancient malice, a longstanding grudge between the two men, Hereford and Mowbray, an ongoing quarrel of which this is merely the latest episode? (Another echo of R&J, the ancient grudge breaking to new mutiny.) Or—pointedly, silkily—is Henry Hereford, Gaunt’s son a good subject, loyal to his king, who is making this accusation only because he has certain knowledge, some known ground of Mowbray’s treacherous intentions towards the monarch? Gaunt is straightforward, obliging, formal, clear: yes, I’ve asked him just that, carefully, sifted him: there was a threat, an apparent danger seen in Mowbray, aimed at your highness. My son was thinking only of you, not pursuing some kind of personal vendetta.
So much seethes beneath the courtly, formal surface here. Powerplay, certainly, between the generations, the king young (and often played very young), and Gaunt, his great-uncle, old, one of the few survivors of a passing, parental (or grand-parental) generation. But this is also merely the latest episode of infighting, of accusations and counter-accusations: there is indeed much ancient and inveterate malice at work in this play, and one of the events specifically being invoked here, albeit obliquely, is King Richard’s own part in the death of Thomas of Woodstock (another uncle), for which Mowbray had been responsible but with the King’s support. The anonymous play Thomas of Woodstock is in some respects a prequel to Shakespeare’s play. How much would an audience need to know this? Did they have the intricacies of Plantagenet genealogy at their fingertips? Almost certainly not, and Shakespeare takes that sense of not quite knowing the back story and makes it central to how the play begins. There’s a quarrel, accusations and counter-accusations of disloyalty and treason – but beneath the gilded, courteous, formal surface, these tensions are proxies for other faultlines, deep and longstanding, not yet explicitly articulated. We don’t need to know what’s going on – we just need to know that there’s something, and it’s big…
Richard’s not weak, here. He’s really good at this sort of thing, the formal, oblique, overloaded exchange, studded with timebomb words like treachery, even as he merely seems to ask: have you talked to your son?
