YORK              I am the last of noble Edward’s sons,

Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.

In war was never lion raged more fierce,

In peace was never gentle lamb more mild

Than was that young and princely gentleman.

His face thou hast, for even so looked he,

Accomplished with the number of thy hours;

But when he frowned, it was against the French

And not against his friends. His noble hand

Did win what he did spend and spent not that

Which his triumphant father’s hand had won.

His hands were guilty of no kindred blood

But bloody with the enemies of his kin. (2.1.171-183)

It’s no wonder that Richard’s a bit messed up—and York is now, following Gaunt’s example, throwing away all caution and really letting him have it. York is the last of the sons of Edward III, as Richard’s father, Edward the Black Prince, was the eldest. The latter was a great warrior, a lion in war, and in peace he was milder than a gentle lamb. (A man for all seasons; conventional, idealised, a bit anodyne.) York makes Prince Edward sound much younger than he was, although the heroism was real (he was forty-five when he died, not in battle but of dysentery), a young and princely gentleman, and this is especially the case if Richard is being played young. His face thou hast, continues his only surviving brother, you look just like he did at your age, accomplished with the number of thy hours. (But you’re not at all like him, not one bit, is the implication, not in war, and not in peacetime either.) When he frowned, when he was the angry warrior, it was against the French, not his friends, friends here meaning family as well as friends. He wasn’t profligate: he spent only the money that he won (as tribute, by conquest); he didn’t spend his father’s money, he didn’t deplete the coffers of his family, let alone the state. And his hands were guilty of no kindred blood (unlike Richard, ultimately to blame for the murder of his uncle the duke of Gloucester) but rather bloody with the enemies of his kin. He only shed the blood of enemies—the French, above all—not family.

Here again there are patterns of likeness and not-likeness, especially of fathers and sons. York echoes Gaunt. Gaunt and York both have sons, Bolingbroke and Aumerle respectively. Aumerle is probably present (but silent); Bolingbroke is not. Richard’s father is absent, dead (which is why he’s king at all) but is constantly being invoked and evoked, like the common ancestor of them all, Edward III. Both Gaunt and York speak as surrogate father-figures to Richard, but they tell him, over and over, explicitly or implicitly, you’re not like your father (or your grandfather) even though you look like him. (And, perhaps, you are young, childish, a son without a father, but also a man without a son.) This is not the way to make Richard calm down, listen, and start behaving in a more responsible and royal fashion… This is one of the moments that sets up the Henry IV plays, with their fraught father-son relationship and surrogate father figures, and their continuing interrogation of what it means to be a (to play the) king.