One last flung glove, then Bolingbroke the grown-up intervenes (4.1.84-91) #KingedUnKinged

AUMERLE                  Some honest Christian trust me with a gage—

That Norfolk lies, here do I throw down this,

If he may be repealed to try his honour.

BOLINGBROKE          These differences shall all rest under gage

Till Norfolk be repealed. Repealed he shall be

And though mine enemy, restored again

To all his lands and signories. When he is returned,

Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.  (4.1.84-91)

 

Aumerle has had enough; he’s run out of gloves of his own to throw down in challenge, and so he has to ask to borrow one in order to issue a challenge to the absent Mowbray: some honest Christian trust me with a gage, he asks, quick, quick, someone lend me a glove. It could be Surrey; whoever it is supplies one swiftly, as Aumerle can continue, that Norfolk lies(about overhearing the plot to murder Gloucester) here I do throw down this, so that if he may be repealed (from banishment, like Bolingbroke; unlike Bolingbroke, banished for life by Richard, not for a fixed term) we can fight to settle this question of honour.

And, finally, Bolingbroke intervenes; he hasn’t said a word for nearly sixty lines, but now he’s had enough, this is getting silly and distracting and it’s time for him both to move things along and to assert his authority. These differences shall all rest under gage, that is, the challenges and the disputes will remain live, but suspended, until Norfolk is repealed. (Spoiler: it is revealed in the next moment that Mowbray is dead: Bolingbroke could not know, perhaps, or he could know already and want to appear magnanimous.) Bolingbroke is starting to sound like a king: repealed he shall be, he says, and though mine enemy, restored again to all his lands and signories, his titles and estates. He’s asserting that he has the right and the power to repeal Richard’s sentence of perpetual banishment on Mowbray—but then, Bolingbroke has himself returned, in defiance of that order, for all that he has protested that it was simply to claim what was rightfully his own. When he is returned, against Aumerle we will enforce his trial—and Bolingbroke, as has increasingly been the case, uses we, we—the sovereign?—will make sure that trial by combat takes place.

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