Act 3, Scene 1

Bristol. BOLINGBROKE'S camp.

[Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, HENRY PERCY, WILLOUGHBY, ROSS; Officers behind, with BUSHY and GREEN, prisoners.]
Henry Bolingbroke
1308 Bring forth these men.
1309 Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls—
1310 Since presently your souls must part your bodies—
1311 With too much urging your pernicious lives,
1312 For 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood
1313 From off my hands, here in the view of men
1314 I will unfold some causes of your deaths.
1315 You have misled a prince, a royal king,
1316 A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,
1317 By you unhappied and disfigur'd clean;
1318 You have in manner with your sinful hours
1319 Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,
1320 Broke the possession of a royal bed,
1321 And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks
1322 With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.
1323 Myself, a prince by fortune of my birth,
1324 Near to the King in blood, and near in love
1325 Till you did make him misinterpret me,
1326 Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries,
1327 And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,
1328 Eating the bitter bread of banishment;
1329 Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
1330 Dispark'd my parks and felled my forest woods,
1331 From my own windows torn my household coat,
1332 Raz'd out my impress, leaving me no sign
1333 Save men's opinions and my living blood
1334 To show the world I am a gentleman.
1335 This and much more, much more than twice all this,
1336 Condemns you to the death. See them deliver'd over
1337 To execution and the hand of death.
Bushy
1338 More welcome is the stroke of death to me
1339 Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.
Green
1340 My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,
1341 And plague injustice with the pains of hell.
Henry Bolingbroke
1342 My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.
[Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, and Others, with BUSHY and GREEN.]
Henry Bolingbroke
1343 Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house;
1344 For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated:
1345 Tell her I send to her my kind commends;
1346 Take special care my greetings be deliver'd.
Duke of York
1347 A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd
1348 With letters of your love to her at large.
Henry Bolingbroke
1349 Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,
1350 To fight with Glendower and his complices.
1351 Awhile to work, and after holiday.
[Exeunt.]

Notes

TLN 1312biblical allusion

“to wash your blood / From off my hands”

Bolingbroke frames his speech as a public explanation so that executing Bushy and Green will not leave the guilt of their deaths on his own hands. The image of washing blood from one's hands echoes Pontius Pilate, who literally washed his hands before the crowd to disclaim responsibility for ordering Christ's crucifixion (Matthew 27:24). Here, however, Bolingbroke reverses the gesture: rather than washing to deny involvement, he unfolds charges to justify it.

biblical Pilate washing his hands

TLN 1328archaic vocab

“bitter bread of banishment”

'Bitter bread' evokes a conventional biblical phrase for the hard, degrading food eaten in captivity or exile -- the opposite of the fine food enjoyed at a king's table. Bolingbroke uses it to describe the hardship of his years living abroad after Richard banished him. The alliteration ('bitter bread... banishment') heightens its rhetorical force as part of his public indictment of Bushy and Green.

TLN 1330archaic vocab

“Dispark'd my parks and felled my forest woods, / From my own windows torn my household coat, / Raz'd out my impress”

Three archaic terms in quick succession spell out that Bushy and Green systematically stripped Bolingbroke of every sign of noble identity. 'Dispark'd' means opened up or dismantled a private deer-park (parks were enclosed hunting grounds that only wealthy landowners could maintain). 'Household coat' means coat of arms -- the hereditary heraldic device that identified his family and was displayed on windows and furnishings. 'Impress' (also 'imprese') was a personal device or motto, distinct from the coat of arms, that a nobleman chose as his own badge.

TLN 1350historical topical

“fight with Glendower and his complices”

Owen Glendower (Welsh: Owain Glyndwr) was a powerful Welsh nobleman who, beginning in 1400, led a major rebellion against English rule that would drag on for over a decade. 'Complices' is an archaic word for accomplices or confederates. Bolingbroke's throwaway last line -- executed two men, received instructions about the Queen, now off to fight a Welsh revolt -- captures the relentless demands on the man who has just seized power: ruling is never done.

historical Holinshed's Chronicles