Shakespeare's Kings (31 page)

To
Richard,
however,
these
cheers
carried
a
note
of
menace.
He had
never
liked
his
cousin
or
trusted
him;
if
he
were
to
win
the
coming contest,
he
would
be
the
most
popular
man
in
the
kingdom.
On
the other
hand
-
since
the
outcome
of
all
such
contests
was
generally believed
to
be
divinely
ordained
-
a
victory
for
the
Duke
of
Norfolk would
be
taken
by
many
as
a
sign
that
his
charges
were
justified.
It followed
that
neither
should
be
allowed
to
win;
besides,
why
should he,
the
King,
who
possessed
neither
the
physique
nor
the
temperament necessary
to
wield
a
lance,
preside
over
what
promised
to
be
a
dazzling exhibition
of
military
skill?
Without
warning,
he
suddenly
flung
down his
staff
—
a
sign
that
the
contest
must
stop
before
it
had
begun.
There

1
According at least to Shakespeare. Holinshed is less certain of the date.

would be no trial of strength; neither of the contestants would be seen to have God on their side:

Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,

And both return back to their chairs again . . .

For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd

With that dear blood which it hath fostered;

And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect

Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword,

And for we think the eagle-winged pride

Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,

With rival-hating envy, set on you

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle

Draws
the sweet infant breath of gentl
e sleep . . .

Therefore we banish you our territories.

Bolingbroke was exiled for ten years; Mowbray for life.

For all those present, the sense of anticlimax must have been almost unbearable; the King's popularity, such as it was, had sustained another devastating blow. From Richard's own point of view, however, his decision was by then the only possible one. As to the discrepancy between the two sentences, the most probable explanation is that he would have sentenced both men to perpetual banishment if he dared to do so, but that Bolingbroke was too popular and too powerful. He may also have spared a thought for John of Gaunt, to whom he owed much. It is worth remembering that only six months later, with Gaunt safely in his grave, the King sentenced his son to banishment yet again - this time for life.

Richard's actions at Coventry suggest, on the whole, a considerable degree of wisdom and moderation; by the beginning of
1399,
however, both these qualities seem to have deserted him. In his progresses through the country he was now invariably accompanied by his
400
Cheshire archers, together with considerable numbers of knights and squires retained in specific locations; his taste for pomp and ostentation was becoming ever more uncontrolled, as was his expenditure on buildings, clothes, furniture and luxuries of every kind. Such things could legitimately be paid for only by a successful war; since England had long been at peace, there was but one alternative - to bleed the country
white.
All
those
who
had
been
in
any
way
implicated
in
the
events of
ten
years
before
were
ordered
to
seek
individual
pardons
before mid-summer;
and
these
pardons
did
not
come
cheaply.
Moreover
the seventeen
counties
-
they
included
London
and
more
than
half
the entire
population
-
which
were
said
to
have
supported
the
original Appellants
were
obliged
to
pay
up
to
£1,000
each
to
regain
the
King's favour.
At
worst
it
was
blackmail;
at
best,
protection
money.
Meanwhile Richard
maintained
his
old
habit
of
demanding
forced
loans,
both
from communities
and
from
individuals.
By
the
time
he
left
on
his
second expedition
to
Ireland
in
May
1399
he
owed
£6,570
to
the
people
of London,
£5,550
to
seventy-one
other
cities
and
towns,
£3,180
to
the Church
and
£1,220
to
thirty-six
individual
commoners.
Hostility
to him
was
no
longer
confined
to
a
few
discontented
nobles
and
their followers;
the
whole
country
was
now
ripe
for
revolution.

On
3
February
1399
John
of
Gaunt
died
at
the
Bishop
of
Ely's
palace in
Holborn,
in
his
sixtieth
year.
He
had
made,
so
far
as
we
can
tell,
no protest
at
the
murder
of
his
brother
Gloucester
-
a
fact
which
Shakespeare
considers
important
enough
to
warrant
a
scene
to
itself
(I.ii)
— nor
at
the
banishment
of
his
son.
There
is
certainly
no
documentary justification
for
his
robust
yet
moving
farewell
to
Bolingbroke
(I.iii) after
the
King
had
pronounced
sentence;
as
we
have
seen,
he
was
not even
present
at
the
lists.
But
then
Shakespeare's
Gaunt
-
the
grand
old man
of
his
time,
full
of
years
and
wisdom,
the
father
of
his
country whose
dying
speech
on
England
(II.i
.4off.)
figured
until
half
a
century ago
in
every
school
anthology
—
bears
little
enough
resemblance
to
the picture
we
are
given
by
Holinshed,
who
sees
him
as
just
another turbulent
and
ambitious
troublemaker;
more
powerful,
perhaps,
because he
is
the
King's
senior
uncle,
but
otherwise
no
better
than
his
fellow nobles.
Alternative
sources
for
Shakespeare's
character
have
been
suggested:
Froissart
is
one,
and
an
anonymous
play,
Woodstock,
built
around Thomas
of
Woodstock,
Duke
of
Gloucester,
is
another.
But
the
arguments
are
unconvincing.
By
far
the
likeliest
possibility
is
that
he
is
the playwright's
own
creation,
the
ideal
-
and
dramatically
necessary
-counterpart
to
the
vapid,
feckless
King.

For
Richard,
Gaunt's
death
spelt
the
beginning
of
the
end.
Despite their
many
differences,
the
Duke
of
Lancaster
had
done
everything
in his
power
to
hold
the
kingdom
together
and
maintain
the
prestige
of the
crown;
his
loss
was
a
bitter
blow,
not
least
because
it
instantly polarized
the
situation
-
the
King
on
the
one
side,
Henry
Bolingbroke on
the
other.
Not
that
a
reconciliation
between
them
was
even
now impossible.
Had
Richard
recalled
Henry
from
exile,
as
many
believed he
would;
had
he
permitted
him
to
attend
the
funeral
of
the
father
he loved;
had
he
ensured
his
proper
inheritance
of
the
immense
estates that
were
his
birthright,
then
war
might
yet
have
been
avoided
and England
spared
the
second
deposition
of
a
monarch
in
less
than
a century.
Alas,
he
did
none
of
these
things.
Far
from
recalling
Henry, he
increased
his
period
of
banishment
to
life;
and
while
he
allowed several
of
the
minor
bequests
and
provisions
of
Gaunt's
will,
he
ordered the
vast
majority
of
the
Lancastrian
estates
-
those
which
should
rightly have
devolved
upon
his
cousin
-
to
be
divided
among
his
own
chief supporters,
the
Dukes
of
Exeter,
Albemarle
and
Surrey.
To
every landowner
in
the
kingdom,
the
lesson
was
plain:
in
Richard's
England that
most
fundamental
law,
the
law
of
inheritance,
could
no
longer
be relied
on.