Enter Lord Fitzwater

FITZWATER               My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London

The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely,

Two of the dangerous consorted traitors

That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.

BOLINGBROKE          Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot,

Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.             (5.6.13-18)

One has to feel for Fitzwater, slightly: he had a shouty standoff (much glove-flinging) with Aumerle at the top of the deposition scene, and this is his only other moment, with two slightly tricky, potentially comic names to get right, in the context of labelling yet another consignment of heads. If Aumerle’s present, he might be making himself particularly inconspicuous at this moment, or exchanging a glance with his father, not just because of his own history with Fitzwater, but because of the specific mention of Oxford, the particular conspiracy in which he had been involved, as another of the dangerous consorted traitors duly (or rather summarily) executed. (Brocas and Seely were both historical figures, of whom little is known.) Another promise of reward—thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot—and a neat, dismissive couplet: Right noble is thy merit, well I wot. Next! But the switch to I rather than we might signify: a recognition of the personal danger that Bolingbroke has been in? Or a sense of moral unease, in hearing and responding so matter-of-factly about the savage putting-down of the rebellion that has been enacted in his, the King’s, name?