BOLINGBROKE Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?
CARLISLE As surely as I live, my lord.
BOLINGBROKE Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
Of good old Abraham. Lords appellants,
Your differences shall all rest under gage
Till we assign you to your days of trial.
Enter York
YORK Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee
From plume-plucked Richard, who with willing soul
Adopts thee heir and his high sceptre yields
To the possession of thy royal hand.
Ascend his throne, descending now from him,
And long live Henry, of that name the fourth!
BOLINGBROKE In God’s name I’ll ascend the regal throne. (4.1.102-114)
Whether the news is a surprise to Bolingbroke or not (and the slight hiccup in the versification in his exchange with Carlisle, two short lines, suggests it might be, although it’s not impossible that ‘the Duke of’ might simply have dropped out) the focus of the scene has thus far been tilted away from any thought of Richard and the crown, first in the sparring between Bagot, Aumerle and the other lords, with accusations and counteraccusations flying around (also gloves). And now the news of Mowbray’s death: Bolingbroke responds to the news, and to Carlisle’s vivid, medievalised vignette of its circumstances, in a way that seems both slightly inappropriate and out of character: sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom of good old Abraham, that is, heaven, a benign, old-fashioned and slightly whimsical way of emphatically not speaking ill of his sworn enemy now he’s dead. The repeated sweet perhaps ironises it, and Bolingbroke only manages to be sentimental and magnanimous for a line and a half after all, then it’s back to reminding everyone who’s in charge: lords appellants (that is, everyone who’s issued a challenge), your differences shall all rest under gage till we (that plural again) assign you to your days of trial.
And then, enter York. In all the commotion, perhaps it’s not even been apparent that he’s not been present. But he comes with news: Richard has abdicated. (Or so it appears.) The address is formal: Great Duke of Lancaster, the identity and title which will, it seems, have become redundant by the time that York finishes speaking, when he addresses Bolingbroke by a different title altogether. York comes directly from Richard himself, plume-plucked as he describes him, stripped (whether literally or metaphorically) of his fine feathers, his wings clipped, crest-fallen. (Again, and the rest of this speech is no exception, the tropes of flight, fall, ascent, and descent are so characteristic of this play.) It all sounds so straightforward, saying that Richard with a willing soul adopts thee heir and his high sceptre yields to the possession of thy royal hand. A nice smooth handover, quite literally, going through on the nod. To say that Bolingbroke is adopted as Richard’s heir, that the throne descends now from him makes it sound logical, orderly, seamless, a form of primogeniture. Long live Henry, of that name the fourth! (No longer Duke of Lancaster, the title that was, Bolingbroke swore, the only thing he came to claim.) In God’s name I’ll ascend the regal throne, replies Bolingbroke, formal as ever, respectful, perhaps already glancing at Carlisle and the terms of godliness, divine right and favour he’s just introduced, and attempting to gloss over the irregularity, by some interpretations the sacrilege of what is happening here. How will the assembled company respond?
