BOLINGBROKE          Bagot, forbear, thou shalt not take it up.

AUMERLE                  Excepting one, I would he were the best

In all this presence that hath moved me so.

FITZWATER               If that thy valour stand on sympathy,

There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine.

By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand’st,

I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak’st it,

That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester’s death.

If thou deny’st it twenty times, thou liest,

And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart

Where it was forgèd, with my rapier’s point.         (4.1.31-41)

Bolingbroke’s in charge. He’s not going to say much, but he intervenes when it matters: here, Bagot has gone to pick up Aumerle’s gage, his glove ( or perhaps Bolingbroke wants to forestall the possibility that he might); either way, no, thou shalt not take it up. Another moment of insulted aristocratic pride from Aumerle: excepting one (that is, with the exception of Bolingbroke himself) I would he were the best (that is, the second highest-ranking, second-best, Bolingbroke being the best) in all this presence that hath moved me so. Aumerle would certainly like to defend his honour; he’d do so against anyone in all this presence, in this gathering, this assembly, that had insulted him, angered him, moved him in the way that Bagot has.

But now Fitzwater (who he?) quite literally gets his moment in the sun. This is his first speaking appearance in the play and not quite his last, but almost; Shakespeare’s sticking to Holinshed here, and Walter Fitzwalter did indeed intervene in this way. Fitzwater (Fitzwaters in the quarto) probably reflects the Elizabethan pronunciation of the name (as in Walter Raleigh, called ‘Water’ by the Queen and so punning on his own name in his long poem to her, ‘The Ocean to Cynthia’, that is the moon, controlling the tides; his West Country accent probably emphasised the word, too). A faction is emerging, the Gloucester/Woodstock faction, going after Aumerle: if that thy valour stand on sympathy, if you’re only going to engage with men of your own rank (that is, sympathetic to you in terms of status) on questions of honour, then I’ll be Bagot’s proxy. (Fitzwater’s not of royal blood, but he’s still a noble, a baron, to be precise.) There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine, and Fitzwater probably throws his glove to the ground. But there’s more; this isn’t just an outraged intervention on behalf of Bagot, the little (or at least littler) man. I swear by the sun, that fair sun which shows me where thou stand’st, that I heard you boast, vauntingly, that thou wert cause of noble Gloucester’s death. (Much more direct than Bagot has been about Aumerle’s guilt.) You can deny it all you like, but even if you deny it twenty times, you’re still lying. And I will prove it, by returning your falsehood to your heart, where that lie originated, where it was forged, with my rapier’s point. The metal of the blade picks up the dual meaning of forge, metalwork as well as counterfeit; the rapier is anachronistic (long thin rapiers only arrived in England in the later sixteenth century) but this is, even more than Aumerle’s initial response, taking this quarrel into the language and accoutrements of late sixteenth-century duelling and fights over honour. Two gloves down…