YORK              Gentlemen, will you go muster men?

If I know how or which way to order these affairs,

Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,

Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen:

Th’one is my sovereign, whom both my oath

And duty bids defend; th’other again

Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wronged,

Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.

Well, somewhat we must do. [To Queen] Come, cousin, I’ll dispose of you.

Gentlemen, go muster up your men

And meet me presently at Berkeley Castle.

I should to Pleshey too,

But time will not permit. All is uneven

And everything is left at six and seven.      Exeunt York and Queen         (2.2.108-122)

Don’t just stand there, York (more or less) says to Bushy, Bagot, and Green: go muster men. Rally some troops; gather your servants and friends and hangers-on. (It’s a pretty forlorn hope; these are unpopular men, without great estates or networks, and in the circumstances of this rebellion, as York surely knows, they are vulnerable, a key cause of the King’s unpopularity.) I really don’t know what I’m doing, he continues, and if at any point it looks as if I know how to order these affairs, thus disorderly thrust into my hands, then don’t believe it; I haven’t got a clue. (It’s interesting to note how metrically dodgy these lines are; the blank verse strains and bulges to accommodate York’s indecision and stress.) And, at a deeper level, I don’t know what to do, how I can act in this terrible situation. Both King Richard and Bolingbroke are my kinsmen (they are both his nephews). I’ve sworn an oath of fealty to Richard as my king, and it’s my duty to defend him—but the King has wronged my other kinsman, no question, and my conscience, as well as the bonds of family, tells me that wrong should be put right. Duty or conscience? Public oath or private moral compass? York’s dilemma is a terrible one. Well, somewhat we must do—might as well get on with some practicalities in the meantime. Conveying the Queen to a place of safety is straightforward and uncontroversial, as is (one would think) again asking Green, Bushy, and Bagot to muster up their men. They’ll meet at—and here York might visibly think on his feet, scroll through some possibilities in a brief pause—Berkeley Castle. (Editors point out that Berkeley Castle is where Edward II was murdered; Shakespeare’s play, and its interpreters, gestures at parallels with Marlowe’s play at times. It might strike audiences as ominous here.) Another thought strikes him: I should to Pleshey too, to pay my respects to my dead sister-in-law, the Duchess of Gloucester. But time will not permit. All is uneven, concludes York, and everything is left at six and seven. Now more common in the plural—at sixes and sevens—it’s originally a dicing metaphor, meaning confusion, left to chance, to hazard, in a state of disorder. And the failed attempt at a couplet reinforces the point, with its half-rhyme.

York doesn’t get A Big Anthologised Speech like his brother Gaunt, but he’s a seriously underrated character, and there’s lots more to come. There are seeds of Polonius here, and a poignant study of a man thrust into a role for which he has no appetite, and for which he fears he has little aptitude. Because he is old, and tired, and because there is no right side in this dispute.