CARLISLE Thieves are not judged but they are by to hear,
Although apparent guilt be seen in them,
And shall the figure of God’s majesty,
His captain, steward, deputy elect,
Anointed, crownèd, planted many years,
Be judged by subject and inferior breath,
And he himself not present? O, forfend it God
That in a Christian climate souls refined
Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed. (4.1.124-132)
A slight shift in Carlisle’s focus: he is still condemning the presumption of those who would seek to judge Richard, but the point he’s making is also a legal one. Thieves are not judged but they are by to hear, although apparent guilt be seen in them: even petty criminals whose guilt is self-evident are not condemned in absentia; they must be present at their own trial. And yet shall the figure of God’s majesty, his captain, steward, deputy elect be tried, judged, and condemned without being present, when even the meanest criminal has the right to hear the charges laid against him? Richard is God’s figure (and this is moving into another part of Carlisle’s argument): he is the image, the model, of God himself, His deputy elect, His steward on earth, His representative, His captain. What is more, Richard has been thus for a long time, anointed and crowned (two of Richard’s own obsessions), and planted many years—growing, deep-rooted; another of the garden images so characteristic of the play, just casually, in passing. Richard has been England’s king since he was a child. How can such a one be judged by subject and inferior breaths, by the voices and words of people who are so far beneath him, and who owe him their allegiance, let alone while he is not even present? It is a kind of sacrilege or blaphemy, Carlisle says, a violation of divinely sanctioned order: forfend it God, that in a Christian climate, a Christian land, souls refined, with any pretence to righteousness of life, virtue, Christian identity, should do something so heinous, black (a word which he has already used to other people of alien races and religions in the Middle East), obscene, repugnant, nearly unimaginable. It’s a grave and terrible sin.
