BOLINGBROKE          Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign’s hand

And bow my knee before his majesty,

For Mowbray and myself are like two men

That vow a long and weary pilgrimage;

Then let us take a ceremonious leave

And loving farewell of our several friends.

LORD MARSHAL        The appellant in all duty greets your highness

And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.

RICHARD                    We will descend and fold him in our arms.

[He descends and embraces Bolingbroke]

Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right

So be thy fortune in this royal fight.

Farewell, my blood—which if today thou shed

Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead. (1.3.46-58)

This is where things start to get much more interesting… Bolingbroke is going off-script and starting to seize the initiative here. It’s clever, because he starts by asking for the opportunity to perform, once again, his loyalty—but by asking a favour, requesting a moment of proximity and intimacy with King Richard, in which he will kneel before him and kiss his hand. Everyone is in their allotted place, at this moment, and Bolingbroke wants to disrupt that picture. And Bolingbroke also introduces a simile into a scene which thus far has been formal, straightforward, and literal: he says that he and Mowbray are like two men that vow a long and weary pilgrimage. It’s a vivid but unexpected and counterintuitive image for judicial combat, temporally extended, spiritually inflected. It makes it even more serious, more personal and existential, not least because it is the pilgrimage itself which is imagined as weary, rather than (or as well as) those who undertake it. Bolingbroke’s speech here is also a version of that traditionally associated with Roman gladiators—ave Imperator, morituri te salutant, Hail Emperor, those who are about to die salute you—but here it’s Christianised. Bolingbroke is contemplating not only the fight which awaits him, but the possibility of death, and declares his readiness for it. He and Mowbray must take their leave of their friends, and here he’s drawing attention to the fact that Richard is not only more supportive of him, but is also a blood relation, friend meaning family.

The Lord Marshal, perhaps, asserts the fact that he’s the one in charge here (and, after all, Bolingbroke very correctly made his request through him), relaying that request to the King. But Richard responds every bit as enthusiastically, even fulsomely, as Bolingbroke could wish. He’s characteristically lofty, using the royal we of which he is so fond. But he descends. He comes down from his throne, from his dais. He lowers himself, comes down to the level of Bolingbroke, Mowbray, the people. That movement of descent, willing and unwilling, returns again and again in the play. Here Richard is magnanimously in control, embracing his cousin, folding him in his arms (our arms; this is a sovereign’s embrace, not merely a cousin’s), and unambiguously stating that he believes that Bolingbroke is in the right in his quarrel with Mowbray. But there’s a sting (as there usually is, with Richard): Bolingbroke is his blood, absolutely, they’re kin. But if Bolingbroke loses, and dies in this fight, Richard isn’t going to avenge his death, although he may shed a tear. His own loyalty and family feeling will go only so far.

Interestingly (well, I think so) this 3-way exchange is thirteen lines long and ends in a couplet. If the embrace represents a pause (the stage direction is editorial) then there’s a semi-sonnet-like thing here, sort of, a key moment which is also a semi-discrete unit.