GARDENER Hold thy peace.
He that hath suffered this disordered spring
Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf.
The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter
That seemed in eating him to hold him up
Are plucked up root and all by Bolingbroke—
I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
SERVANT What, are they dead?
GARDENER They are, and Bolingbroke
Hath seized the wasteful King. (3.4.47-55)
News, finally (although not to the audience), and mind what you say, young man, hold thy peace. The Gardener and his Servant have both described this disordered spring, the plants shooting out of control in all directions, the weeds taking over, but this suggestion of seasonal disorder also recalls Richard’s defiant promise to Aumerle in the previous scene: We’ll make foul weather with despisèd tears. Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn and make a dearth in this revolting land. Never mind the time being out of joint: the seasons are, the climate. But the chief architect of this disorder, the one who has suffered or allowed it (but also, now, its victim) is the King himself, not named or even explicitly identified here, but easily inferred by the Servant, the audience and, presumably, the listening Queen. He has met with the fall of leaf: fall, for autumn, is now a North American usage, but until the seventeenth century it was common in English usage too, abbreviating fall of leaf, as here. So spring has given way all too rapidly to autumn, and fall of leaf cannot but be heard in terms of Richard’s other falls, his Phaëton-like descent to the base court at Flint Castle, the setting of his sun. He hasn’t fallen alone: the weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter, those on whom he looked with favour and to whom he offered his protection, that seemed in eating him to hold him up are plucked up root and all by Bolingbroke. A contemporary emblem depicting lifelong friendship shows an oak tree covered with a vine: the tree supports the vine as it grows, and the vine holds up the tree as it ages, in perfect accord and symbiosis. Not so here. These friends have been caterpillars, weeds, parasites, consuming, corrupting, and damaging the king. So they have been plucked up, and now some names, briefly suspending the allegory: I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green. (The names are historic, and surely must have shaped this recurring horticultural and arboreal conceit.) They’re dead, and Bolingbroke hath seized the wasteful King. The Gardener’s position is clear: Richard may have been exploited, badly advised and badly treated by his friends, but he is still, ultimately, to blame for this crisis, and for his own misfortune.
