MOWBRAY     Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,

Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.

Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais

Disbursed I duly to his highness’ soldiers;

The other part reserved I by consent,

For that my sovereign liege was in my debt

Upon remainder of a dear account

Since last I went to France to fetch his queen.

Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester’s death,

I slew him not, but to my own disgrace

Neglected my sworn duty in that case. (1.1.124-134)

Choking on, or being choked by words, again: Mowbray imagines Bolingbroke’s heart not only as false, but low, base, dungeon-like, and his throat is a false passage, through which he lies. This is the first time that Bolingbroke has been so named in the scene and the play; it’s a moment, therefore, when at least some members of an audience might be distracted from what Mowbray is actually saying by the recognition of, yes, that’s Bolingbroke, he’s the one who is going to go on to… Bit unfair on Mowbray, who’s being conspired against dramaturgically, as well as everything else. And then he can’t quite categorically deny Bolingbroke’s accusation, instead having to concede that bits of it are true. I did pay out three-quarters of that money I was given to distribute to the soldiers, but the 25% that I retained, it was by consent: the King knew about it, he said it was OK, because he owed me money. (Never a good idea to announce, in public, that the King owes you money, even if everyone knows already.) The whinging, special-pleading, ill-judged tone is compounded when Mowbray explains that the King’s debt was incurred when Mowbray, of a dear account, since last I went to France to fetch his queen. Mowbray (and Aumerle) brokered the marriage with Isabel of France, but they spent enormous sums in so doing and it was not a universally welcomed marriage, not least because Isabel was a child (historically, although she’s not portrayed as a child in the play), meaning that there was no prospect of an heir for many years, Richard’s first marriage having been childless too. An added—not quite insult—but at least ill-judgment, in the reminder that Richard couldn’t even negotiate his own marriage? had to have his queen fetched? couldn’t afford to pay for it himself? Now swallow down that lie, he booms, but it’s not quite a lie; Mowbray’s had to concede that, on the surface it perhaps could have been misinterpreted, the money, which perhaps should have gone in its entirety to the soldiers. And a similarly tricky concession in the matter of Gloucester’s death: I slew him not, he says, but it was still kind of my fault. To my disgrace I neglected my sworn duty in that case. The couplet, disgrace/case suggests an attempt at closure, but what he’s saying is also—perhaps deliberately—ambiguous: was his sworn duty to protect Gloucester, or in fact a promise to kill him, at King Richard’s bidding? That he cannot say, even if it’s widely understood.