Enter with drum and colours, Bolingbroke, York, Northumberland, attendants [and soldiers]

BOLINGBROKE                      So that by this intelligence we learn

The Welshmen are dispersed and Salisbury

Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed

With some few private friends upon this coast.

NORTHUMBERLAND            The news is very fair and good, my lord.

Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.

YORK                                      It would beseem the lord Northumberland

To say ‘King Richard’. Alack the heavy day

When such a sacred king should hide his head!

NORTHUMBERLAND            Your grace mistakes: only to be brief

Left I his title out.

YORK                                                                          The time hath been,

Would you have been so brief with him, he would

Have been so brief with you to shorten you,

For taking so the head, your whole head’s length.(3.3.1-14)

However many attendants and soldiers can be mustered for this scene, there’s one guiding principle: there must be more than in the previous scene (Richard, Aumerle, Carlisle, joined by Salisbury and Scroop, and possibly some soldiers). And the drum and colours, the banners or flags, will make an immediately different impression: brighter, noisier, more organised, more obviously military, as well as more numerous (and a pointed contrast to the few private friends known to be with Richard).The news is coming in efficiently; Bolingbroke has an intelligence network (unlike Richard) and here he’s being briefed about the events of the previous scene. He knows that the Welsh forces have deserted, and that Richard will know of that by now too, from Salisbury. And Northumberland’s got the latest update (always keen to be seen and heard by Bolingbroke, is Northumberland): the news is very fair and good, and he can relish, alliteratively, delivering this up-to-the-minute report: Richard not far from hence hath hid his head. York’s not standing for this flippant, disrespectful tone, even from Northumberland (and he’s clearly still uneasy about his own support for Bolingbroke): it would beseem the lord Northumberland to say ‘King Richard’. Icy use of the third person and the most formal title, and, more significantly, an affirmation that York still regards Richard as the king. O tempora! O mores! Alack the heavy day when such a sacred king should hide his head! What has the world come to? York’s response is heartfelt as well as pointed: this is a terrible, distressing situation; that it should come to this. That such a sacred king—that’s the crucial bit; York apparently shares Richard’s own view of the divine, sacramental nature of kingship. The king is sacred. His sovereignty is conferred by God, and is inviolable. And now he’s hiding his head, gone to ground like an animal, or like a frightened child having a nightmare. Northumberland’s smooth, realising that he’s got to tread more carefully, and being scrupulously polite to York: your grace mistakes, you’ve misinterpreted my meaning (no); I was just saving time by leaving his title out. Hmmm. York’s not buying that, and neither should he; he presses home to Northumberland (and Bolingbroke) the ongoing outrage of the situation in which they all are, and the seriousness of what they’re doing. Time was—and it’s not that long ago—that if you’d been that brief with Richard to his face (and taken that tone), and deprived of his title, his head (and got above yourself in so doing), he’d have shortened you by the length of a head. York’s exaggerating for effect; even Richard wouldn’t execute a great peer for such a trivial thing, but the point stands: what Northumberland is doing, by depriving Richard of the name of king, and what they’re all doing, by leading an army against him, is treason. And for that, the penalty is indeed death.