(To the Lord Marshal) My loving lord, I take my leave of you;

(To Aumerle) Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;

Not sick, although I have to do with death,

But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.

Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet

The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.

(To Gaunt, ⌈kneeling⌉ O thou, the earthly author of my blood,

Whose youthful spirit in me regenerate

Doth with a two-fold vigour lift me up

To reach at victory above my head,

Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers,

And with thy blessings steel my lance’s point,

That it may enter Mowbray’s waxen coat

And furbish new the name of John a Gaunt

Even in the lusty haviour of his son.

JOHN OF GAUNT

God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!

Be swift like lightning in the execution,

And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,

Fall like amazing thunder on the casque

Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.

Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.

BOLINGBROKE ⌈standing⌉

Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!

MOWBRAY ⌈standing⌉

However God or fortune cast my lot,

There lives or dies, true to King Richard’s throne,

A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.

Never did captive with a freer heart

Cast off his chains of bondage and embrace

His golden uncontrolled enfranchisement

More than my dancing soul doth celebrate

This feast of battle with mine adversary.

Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,

Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.

As gentle and as jocund as to jest

Go I to fight. Truth hath a quiet breast.

KING RICHARD

Farewell, my lord. Securely I espy

Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.—

Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.

LORD MARSHAL

Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,

Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!

⌈An officer bears a lance to Bolingbroke⌉

BOLINGBROKE

Strong as a tower in hope, I cry ‘Amen!’

LORD MARSHAL (to an officer)

Go bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.

⌈An officer bears a lance to Mowbray⌉

FIRST HERALD

Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby

Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,

On pain to be found false and recreant,

To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,

A traitor to his God, his king, and him,

And dares him to set forward to the fight.

SECOND HERALD

Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,

On pain to be found false and recreant,

Both to defend himself and to approve

Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby

To God his sovereign and to him disloyal,

Courageously and with a free desire

Attending but the signal to begin.

LORD MARSHAL

Sound trumpets, and set forward combatants!

⌈A charge is sounded.⌉

King Richard throws down his warder

Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.

KING RICHARD

Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,

And both return back to their chairs again.

⌈Bolingbroke and Mowbray disarm and sit⌉

(To the nobles) Withdraw with us, and let the trumpets sound

While we return these dukes what we decree.

A long flourish, during which King Richard and his nobles withdraw and hold council, ⌈then come forward]. King Richard addresses Bolingbroke and Mowbray

Draw near, and list what with our council we have

done.

For that our kingdom’s earth should not be soiled

With that dear blood which it hath fostered,

And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect

Of civil wounds ploughed up with neighbours’ swords,

Which, so roused up with boist’rous untuned drums,

With harsh-resounding trumpets’ dreadful bray,

And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,

Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace

And make us wade even in our kindred’s blood,

Therefore we banish you our territories.

You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,

Till twice five summers have enriched our fields

Shall not regreet our fair dominions,

But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

BOLINGBROKE

Your will be done. This must my comfort be:

That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,

And those his golden beams to you here lent

Shall point on me and gild my banishment.

KING RICHARD

Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,

Which I with some unwillingness pronounce.

The sly slow hours shall not determinate

The dateless limit of thy dear exile.

The hopeless word of ‘never to return’

Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

MOWBRAY

A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,

And all unlooked-for from your highness’ mouth.

A dearer merit, not so deep a maim

As to be cast forth in the common air,

Have I deserved at your highness’ hands.

The language I have learnt these forty years,

My native English, now I must forgo,

And now my tongue’s use is to me no more

Than an unstringèd viol or a harp,