Enter Bolingbroke, York, Northumberland, Ross, Percy, Willoughby [and soldiers], with Bushy and Green prisoners

BOLINGBROKE          Bring forth these men.

Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls,

Since presently your souls must part your bodies,

With too much urging your pernicious lives,

For ’twere no charity. Yet to wash your blood

From off my hands, here in the view of men

I will unfold some causes of your deaths… (3.1.1-7)

New scene, new act (not that that means much, in performance, and this is probably still a bit too early for the interval in a modern production?)—but a radical shift of tone. Bolingbroke is emphatically in charge, and he’s not messing around. York is definitely with him, and he is taking decisive, and violent, action against Richard’s closest friends and allies. It’s a very imperfect comparison, because the dramatic construction is so different, but compare the first tetralogy: in 1 Henry VI the first of many battle scenes between the English and the French is 1.3, the first acts of 2 Henry VI are crammed with intrigue and plotting, including witchcraft, and 3 Henry VI begins mid-battle. So far in Richard II there’s been intrigue, certainly, but the only threatened physical violence has been the combat between Mowbray and Bolingbroke himself, dramatically halted at the last moment by the King. Here, Bolingbroke is about to order the first deaths of the play, not in the heat of battle, but coldly, summarily—and extra-judicially, in a starkly monosyllabic half-line. Bring forth these men. It’s a key moment for Bolingbroke: yes, he is prepared to kill, yes he believes that he has the authority (or at least the backing) to order these deaths, yes he will do it in public, and justify his actions. No hired killers or secret assassins here. It’s a sobering, uncomfortable moment, too, watching these two men, whom we have seen being amusing, weak, sometimes witty, sometimes spiteful, probably elegant—watching them terrified, cornered, knowing that this is it, counting down a very few moments to their violent, degrading deaths. (Some productions might give them a priest, but there’s certainly no indication in the stage directions.) They’ve probably been stylishly, even ostentatiously dressed in their previous scenes: now they will most likely be stripped to their shirts, perhaps bloodied and dishevelled, their hands bound.

I’m not going to keep you waiting much longer, says Bolingbroke, and I’m not going to vex your souls, trouble your consciences for long, because presently, very soon, your souls must part your bodies. I’m not going to urge, affirm, testify to your pernicious, sinful, wicked lives: it were no charity. It would be unkind—although whether the unkindness would be in prolonging the agony of waiting for the inevitable, or in going into the details is left unclear. (It could actually be construed as an act of charity to recount their crimes in the hope of securing their full confession and repentance before their deaths.) But actually, that consideration has to be set aside, because I need to wash your blood from off my hands; I need to explain why I’m having you killed, to justify and exculpate myself. (The resonance with Pilate as the washer of hands is glancing, but not insignificant; that context is going to become important in interactions with Richard, and in Richard’s own accounts of himself.) And so I’m going to do it publicly, in the view of men: I will unfold some causes of your deaths.

This is Bolingbroke: decisive, cold, pragmatic, politically savvy, a cost-benefit analysis for every action. Aware of image, aware of the value of being seen to be decisive, and of being seen to follow something that has at least the appearance of due process. Realpolitik—a stark contrast to the shooting star, the setting sun only a short moment before.