Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories

by Leon Garfield

  “Tomorrow next we will for Ireland,” announced King Richard, shrugging off his doddering old uncle’s disapproval; and then, as if regretting the harsh words that had passed, and wishing to make amends, he declared that he would make the Duke of York Lord Governor of England while he, the King, was absent from the realm. “For he is just,” he added, with something of wistfulness in his air, like a child suddenly left in a great mansion all alone, “and always loved us well . . .”

  The Queen was in the castle at Windsor, while her husband was far away in Ireland, with all the soldiers his dead uncle’s wealth could buy. She was melancholy, but from no cause she could determine. Bushy and Bagot, who attended her, supposed she was sad on account of parting from the King.

  “It may be so,” sighed the Queen, thinking of her Richard, her gentle, charming Richard, “but yet my inward soul persuades me it is otherwise . . .”

  “ ’Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady,” said Bushy; but the Queen shook her head. Her premonition of sorrow was too strong to be reasoned away.

  Suddenly Greene entered the chamber; and, from his pale and frightened looks, the Queen knew that he had come to give her fear its name. Bolingbroke! He had returned! Already he was in England with many men under arms. Already the great Duke of Northumberland had joined him; and others, too. If the news was to be believed, half of England had gone over to Bolingbroke.

  “Here comes the Duke of York!” cried Greene, as the aged Lord Governor of England came bustling in to the presence of the Queen.

  “Uncle, for God’s sake,” she pleaded, “speak comfortable words!”

  “Comfort’s in heaven,” he replied, “and we are on the earth . . .” and he went on to confirm the worst of the news.

  The poor old man was confused and distracted, and knew not which way to turn. His duty was to his nephew, King Richard; yet he could not help feeling deeply for his nephew Bolingbroke, whom the King had wronged and robbed.

  “If I know how or which way to order these affairs, thus thrust disorderly into my hands,” he wailed, fidgeting about the chamber, peering unhappily behind furnishings and out of the tall thin windows, as if there was a Bolingbroke in every corner and in every cloud.

  “Come, cousin,” he cried, extending a frail arm to the frightened Queen, “I’ll dispose of you.” Then, bidding the King’s favourites muster what arms they could he led the Queen away.

  The three looked at one another. They knew the time had come to part.

  “Farewell at once,” said Greene, “for once, for all, and ever.”

  “Well, we may meet again,” said Bushy, though with little hope.

  “I fear me, never,” said Bagot; and the three friends stared at one another with smiles as pale as bone.

  The aged Duke, the Lord Governor of England, journeyed to Gloucestershire to hold Berkeley Castle against the onward march of his nephew Bolingbroke. Fierce as an old lion, he would do his duty and defend the realm. Then, with clanking of steel and gasping of horses, came Bolingbroke; and the Lord Governor of England tottered out to confront him. In warlike armour, so that his wrinkled head poking out looked like a withered kernel in a sound shell, the old man frowned at his rebellious nephew.

  Bolingbroke, with all eyes upon him, knelt before his uncle. It was his duty to do so; and Bolingbroke was a man who always wanted to seem to be in the right.

  “Show me thy humble heart and not thy knee,” demanded the old man, a little confused by his great nephew’s show of humility.

  “My gracious uncle—”

  “Tut, tut, grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle!”

  “My gracious uncle,” protested Bolingbroke, “let me know my fault—”

  “Thou art a banished man, and here art come before the expiration of thy time . . .”

  But Bolingbroke, still kneeling, explained matters otherwise. He had been banished as Duke of Herford; he returned as Duke of Lancaster. He came only to claim his rightful inheritance . . . The old man faltered.

  “You are my father,” urged Bolingbroke, “for methinks in you I see old Gaunt alive . . .”

  The old lion sighed. He had scarce enough teeth remaining to chew gruel. Before him was Bolingbroke, the Duke of Northumberland, and a forest of steel. Behind him, there was nothing.

  “I do not remain as neuter,” he said; and gave up the castle and himself to Bolingbroke.

  Bolingbroke marched on. Strongholds fell, castles opened their gates, and the common people, whom he had always courted, came running from cottage, farm and town, to join him. All England was for Bolingbroke; then England’s King came back.

  The crossing from Ireland had been rough; but the fury of the elements had done no more than make him bright with anger. That Bolingbroke should so much as set his foot upon the kingdom was a crime; and that he should come in arms was treason against God. But he would fall, as all bad men must fall, before the divine splendour of the King. Bolingbroke could never succeed. Though all the world might fight for him, God and His angels were for Richard, and theirs was the power that must conquer all. King Richard knew, as he had always known, since he was a little boy, that there was a sacred mystery in kingship before which all men must bow.

  Then the blows began to fall; and when they fell they were like thunderbolts upon King Richard’s defenceless head. Twenty thousand Welshmen, on whose help he had counted, had dispersed and fled; his beloved friends, Bushy and Greene, had been dragged from Bristol Castle and put to death; and the old Duke of York—that uncle who had loved him well—had abandoned him and joined with Bolingbroke.

  As, one by one, these cruel calamities were told to him, he faltered and staggered, in bewilderment and pain. He could not believe that such things could happen to a king. His friends—he still had friends who loved him—tried to comfort him, and rouse him back to glory. For a time, they seemed to succeed, and he was royal Richard again; but all too briefly. In the twinkling of an eye, the golden King had turned to lead, and he sank, fathoms deep, into a grave of dreams.

  “For God’s sake,” he pleaded, “let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings . . .”

  The mansion of majesty in which he’d always dwelt, secure and happy, had cracked at last, and no matter where he hid, cold winds kept blowing in. Together with his companions—now pitifully few—he fled to Flint Castle; for the very earth on which he stood, seemed to shake and tremble under the advancing tread of Bolingbroke.

  A trumpet sounded. Its thin sharp note pierced the castle’s crumbling walls, echoed in its ancient courtyards, and fled, shrieking, down its winding stairs and along its stony veins. The few friends within, whirled hither and thither, like cornered autumn leaves. The trumpet was Bolingbroke’s. His herald was at the gate.

  King Richard, pale as ivory, attired himself in cloth of gold and every last device of royalty. He set his crown upon his head; and when he looked into a mirror, he seemed to blaze with majesty. And yet he wondered, was it enough? It must be enough, because there was nothing else. Together with his companions, he stepped out on to the battlements. The ground before the castle had grown a crop of armed men. As far as the eye could see, there stretched and swayed a huge iron harvest, speckled with pennants and banners, like poppies, under the morning sun.

  Bolingbroke, grim with rebel barons, looked up and noted that the bright King faltered.

  “Yet looks he like a king,” sighed the old Duke of York, who had been carried along on the tide of Bolingbroke’s success like a battered piece of furnishing from some wrecked ship. “Behold his eye, as bright as is the eagle’s . . .”

  King Richard became aware that Bolingbroke’s messenger, the Duke of Northumberland, was waiting below. He saw, through a veil of tears, that the messenger was standing. He should have knelt. Bitter anger seized the King. He raged against the Duke below for not granting him due respect. He could see Bolingbroke himself, and misty sight refracted him into a thousand Bolingbrokes. Anger fed upon anger.
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br />   “Tell Bolingbroke,” he shouted shrilly, “for yon methinks he stands, that every stride he makes upon my land is dangerous treason.”

  The Duke below protested that Bolingbroke had come only to claim what was lawfully his own. If this was granted then Bolingbroke would be content.

  Could it really be so? The King’s anger wavered; and he clutched at a straw.

  “Northumberland,” he called down, “say thus the King returns: his noble cousin is right welcome hither.”

  Northumberland went back to his master, bearing the King’s meek reply. The King stared after him; saw him speak with Bolingbroke; saw Bolingbroke grimly nod . . . At once King Richard wished with all his heart that he had sent fierce defiance instead of feeble submission. He should have played the fiery dragon in his wrath, instead of the shining dragonfly, with broken wings. But it was too late. Northumberland was coming back. He could see Bolingbroke and all his barons staring up. He tried to read what was in their harsh faces, before the harsh message was delivered.

  “What must the King do now?” he wondered, having cast away his greatness. He shrugged his shoulders. “The King shall do it. Must he be deposed? The King shall be contented. Must he lose the name of King? a God’s name let it go! I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads, my gorgeous palace for a hermitage . . .”

  So he plunged, with the sinking of his heart, from the top of the world, to the very bottom. If he could not be the highest in the land, he would be the lowest. He could not endure the middle way.

  “What says King Bolingbroke?” demanded King Richard, as the messenger waited once more below. “Will His Majesty give Richard leave to live till Richard die?”

  “My lord,” returned the Duke of Northumberland coolly, “may it please you to come down?”

  “Down, down I come,” sighed King Richard, overcome by the meek sadness of his end. “Down, King.”

  He descended into the court below, where Bolingbroke already awaited him. Always careful to seem to be in the right, Bolingbroke knelt before his sovereign.

  “Up, cousin, up,” said King Richard wearily; “your heart is up, I know, thus high at least.”

  He touched his golden crown. Bolingbroke disclaimed. But King Richard knew better. He smiled and shook his head.

  “Set on towards London, cousin, is it so?” he asked.

  Bolingbroke nodded.

  “Then I must not say no,” sighed the King.

  Bolingbroke had come only to seek redress for his wrongs. But his wrongs were more than the loss of his title and estates; they were the wrongs of all England. They were the wrongs his father, old John of Gaunt, had died lamenting; they were the wrongs inflicted upon the kingdom by a bad king and his bad favourites—those gilded butterflies of Richard’s, which, to Bolingbroke, were “the caterpillars of the commonwealth”.

  He plucked them out and destroyed them, he subdued quarrels between lords, and was, in all respects but one, the King. He was wise, patient and lawful; he had every quality that Richard lacked, but one. He lacked the name of King.

  Then, in Westminster Hall, where Bolingbroke sat in half majesty, with a treasury of Dukes and barons in attendance, the old Duke of York came with welcome news. Richard was willing and ready to give up the crown, to his cousin Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke rose to his feet. He was profoundly relieved. His victory had been achieved by consent.

  “In God’s name I’ll ascend the regal throne!” he cried out in ringing tones, so that all might know he acted in agreement and accordance with the law.

  “Fetch hither Richard,” he commanded, “that in common view he may surrender; so we shall proceed without suspicion.”

  King Richard came, and Bolingbroke was shocked to see him. The fallen King was dressed in a plain coarse gown, like a beggar, or a monk. Everything about him, his bewilderment, his dismal complaints, proclaimed his abject ruin. The gay and glittering Richard was no more.

  Why had he done this, when he might have come with the dignity of the high office he still held? To shame Bolingbroke? To excite pity? To show the world how cruel was his fall? To play out his last scene before a mighty audience with pathos, because he lacked grandeur?

  Not unkindly, Bolingbroke let him have his say, which was long and full of sad philosophy, with small resentments, like the nips and pinches of a punished child, creeping in. To Bolingbroke, Richard was indeed a child, who had been fetched into the harsh world of men; and his loss was more than the loss of kingship; it was the loss of childhood, too.

  At last it was over, and Richard was no longer King. “I’ll beg one boon,” he said in parting, “and then be gone.”

  “Name it, fair cousin.”

  “And shall I have?”

  “You shall.”

  “Then give me leave to go.”

  “Whither?”

  “Whither you will, so I were from your sights.”

  Bolingbroke sighed. Though there was nothing in Richard himself to be feared, he could not permit him to wander the highways and appear in the streets. An uncrowned King, even such a King as Richard, might all too easily be crowned again in discontented hearts. Sombrely he ordered Richard to be taken to the Tower; then had second thoughts, and sent him further off, to be hidden away and forgotten in far-off Pomfret Castle.

  But though kings may be hidden from men’s eyes, they cannot be hidden from men’s minds. No sooner was Bolingbroke crowned, than Richard’s friends conspired to kill the new King and restore the old. The Duke of York’s only son was one of the conspirators, and should, by rights, have died for it. But Bolingbroke was merciful and pardoned him. He was king enough to know that mercy secures the crown more surely than does the axe. Yet he was also man enough to know—and mortal man at that—that as long as harmless Richard lived, he, King Bolingbroke, wore a borrowed crown. He longed for Richard’s death, but would do nothing to bring it about. To stain his hands with royal blood would be to stain his soul, and tarnish the brightness of his reign. Yet he longed for Richard’s death . . .

  There was a man in Windsor Castle, a grim, lean fellow always in dark attire. His name was Exton, and he lingered about the King, attended his every word, and watched his every look, as if to read his innermost thoughts. He was like the King’s shadow, or the dark side of his soul. Then, one fatal day, the King let fall an unguarded word; and his shadow stooped to catch it up . . .

  “Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?” muttered Exton to his servants. “Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?” he whispered, repeating the King’s words. “Was it not so?”

  “Those were his very words.”

  “He spake it twice,” said Exton, eagerly.

  “He did.”

  “I am the King’s friend,” murmured the shadow, “and I will rid his foe.”

  Death came to King Richard in Pomfret Castle, in a dark room, barely furnished, with stone walls, a barred door and a narrow bed. Such a place he had imagined, when he had been about to fall from his high estate. Now he had fallen, and was as low and unconsidered as the least of his subjects, he tried to draw some comfort from his state. But there was no one to see him, no one to hear him; and time ticked away his life.

  “I wasted time,” he sighed forlornly, “and now doth time waste me . . .”

  A strange man entered and bowed low.

  “Thanks, noble peer,” smiled Richard, grateful for the show of respect. “What art thou?”

  “I was a poor groom of thy stable, King,” answered the man, “when thou wert King . . .” And he went on to tell of Bolingbroke’s coronation and how Bolingbroke had ridden King Richard’s favourite horse.

  “Rode he on Barbary?” wondered the King sadly. “How went he under him?”

  “So proudly as if he disdain’d the ground,” answered the groom reluctantly; and King Richard cursed the horse for ingratitude and mindless treachery.

  Great matters—the loss of his kingdom, the loss of his crown, the loss of his freedom, even—moved him
only to melancholy philosophy; but little things, such as his horse obeying Bolingbroke, bored into his heart like needles, and made it sting.

  The prison keeper entered with a plate of meat. The groom departed.

  “Taste of it first as thou art wont to do,” commanded King Richard. But the keeper would not. He had been ordered otherwise by one Sir Pierce of Exton, who had come from the King.

  This trifling denial of his royalty was yet another needle in King Richard’s heart.

  “The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee!” shouted King Richard, with all the pent-up fury and bitterness of his soul. “Patience is stale and I am weary of it!”

  He struck the man; then, black as night save for a glinting of daggers and eyes, Death rushed into the room. For the first and the last time in his life, King Richard defended himself like a king. He killed two of his attackers before he himself was struck down.

  “Exton,” he whispered, as he lay dying, “thy fierce hand hath with the King’s blood stained the King’s own land . . .”

  The murderer looked down upon the dead King, and, for a moment, was filled with horror at the deed he had done.

  Bolingbroke, the King, was at Windsor, occupied in affairs of state, when shadowy Exton, pale of face and with burning eyes, came before him, with servants bearing a nameless, black draped coffin. Even before Exton spoke, Bolingbroke knew that the coffin contained a murdered king.

  “Exton, I thank thee not,” he muttered.

  “From your own mouth, my lord,” said the murderer, “I did this deed.”

  “They love not poison,” whispered Bolingbroke, pale with dread, “that do poison need . . .”

  Though he had always striven, and would always strive, to be in the right, he knew that his soul was stained and his reign was tarnished with the blood of the murdered King.

  King Henry IV. Part One

  Though murdered kings, like all dead men, lie quiet and unoffending in the ground, they rot and spread contagion in men’s minds. King Richard was in the earth, and nibbled clean by worms; but the kingdom festered with the consequences of his violent end.