RICHARD The ripest fruit first falls and so doth he.
His time is spent—our pilgrimage must be.
So much for that. Now for our Irish wars:
We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,
Which live like venom where no venom else,
But only they, have privilege to live.
And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance we do seize to us
The plate, coin, revenues and movables
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed. (2.1.153-162)
For just a moment, Richard seems to be responding with dignity and decorum, albeit he is mouthing commonplaces, nicely alliterated: the ripest fruit first falls, a common conceit for aging and timely death, because to be ripeis also to be ready. It was his time; his time is spent, the pilgrimage of his life (another common conceit) has come to an end, as all such pilgrimages must. There’s often a chin-stroking pause after this couplet, to allow this portentous platitude to resonate—so true—and then Richard himself breaks the spell, with a characteristically disruptive half-line: So much for that. Lip-service paid, mourning over. Now for our Irish wars. We’ve got to deal with those rebellious Irish peasants, shaggy-haired foot soldiers (that’s the usual gloss for kern, but the implication is of a fighting force less organised than foot soldier might now suggest); they live like venom where no venom else, but only they have privilege to live. That is, they’re like a poison in the land, where there isn’t anything else poisonous, because—as everyone knows—all the Irish snakes were driven out by St Patrick. (Irish bog oak was thought to be defensive against spiders too, as if things native to Ireland had magical anti-venom properties. I think I’m remembering that from something in Webster.) The casual anti-Irish sentiment here very much speaks to the 1590s context: there were frequently English armies in Ireland once again, attempting to put down so-called rebellion. We need money—these great affairs do ask some charge—and therefore we do seize to us (the royal plural and the auxiliary do are doing a lot of work here, making this near-illegal act sound more formal and official) all of Gaunt’s possessions other than land. Richard’s after the things that he can easily convert into cash: plate (gold and silverware, a common way of storing wealth), wealth held as coin, the revenues from the estates, and the movables—the furniture, tapestries, jewellery, clothing, all of which were also common ways of storing wealth. The world in which Shakespeare was writing, as well as the world which he depicts here, was one without banks: wealth was stored as possessions, above all as plate, jewels, and (especially) textiles. Richard isn’t just landlord of England, farming out his own country; he’s turning dealer, and acting in a way that is barely legal, as well as high-handed. It’s also an insult and an injury to Bolingbroke, Gaunt’s heir, and it will not be forgotten.
