BOLINGBROKE          Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house—

For God’s sake fairly let her be intreated,

Tell her I send to her my kind commends.

Take special care my greetings be delivered.

YORK                          A gentleman of mine I have dispatched

With letters of your love to her at large.

BOLINGBROKE          Thanks, gentle uncle. Come lords, away,

To fight with Glendower and his complices—

A while to work, and after, holiday.            Exeunt.           (3.1.36-44)

Bolingbroke, apparently supremely unconcerned by having just sent two men to their deaths; he’s taking care of business and already on to the next item on his to-do list. Northumberland’s gone off to oversee the execution, and so now he turns to York, and to the question of Richard’s wife, the Queen. As was arranged in 2.2, she’s taken refuge at one of York’s houses, and is under his protection: make sure she’s treated well, Bolingbroke instructs. And, not just that, make sure that she knows that I send to her my kind commends, my warmest greetings; take special care that she receives that message. And York’s reply suggests that Bolingbroke is perhaps merely repeating an instruction he’s previously given: he has already sent a messenger to the Queen, with letters of your love to her at large, assuring her of Bolingbroke’s good intentions and affection towards her, in full. (Like Northumberland, York too is proving and performing his loyalty.) Part of the point here, perhaps, is Bolingbroke making clear to his hearers on stage, and to the audience, that he intends no harm to the Queen.

So that’s dealt with. On to the next thing: time for some more fighting. The implication is, perhaps, that Glendower here is the Welsh Captain from the previous scene, and possibly a later identification and addition, to make the connection with 1 Henry IV; editors suggest that this might be the case in part because the line interrupts a rhyming couplet. Whatever, Bolingbroke and his supporters are off to Wales. A while to work, and after, holiday; it’s a slightly flippant note on which to conclude, as if fighting (and also the execution of Bushy and Green) is indeed just business, the necessary prelude to better times. And that’s the end of this short, sharp, not to say brutal, scene.