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crafty usurper whose every move from the attack upon the King's Pawn, Mowbray, to the checkmating of the King, is as carefully planned as that of a master chess-player. There need be little hesitation in saying that a careful perusal of Richard II. alone gives insufficient warrant for this reading of Bolingbroke's character; and since the spectators of this play could not explain Bolingbroke's character by the aid of plays then unwritten, we have no right to read into the Bolingbroke of Richard II. the Bolingbroke of Henry IV. We have long ago,admitted that the Falstaff of The Merry Wives of Windsor is not the Falstaff of the "Henry" plays; it is no more difficult to admit that the later Bolingbroke differs from the earlier.

Now, if we grant that Shakespeare had in his mind when Richard II. was written, a complete and clear conception of Bolingbroke's character as he intended developing it in the "Henry" plays, then we must own that, all through this play, the writer has deliberately hoodwinked us. A dramatist may be justified in making his characters completely hoodwink their enemies; but he must, at first or at last, let his audience into the secret. If the key to Bolingbroke's character is crafty designing, then Shakespeare has in the play of Richard II. kept the secret better from us than he kept it from Mowbray or King Richard. Nowhere in any speech or action of Bolingbroke's do we find any hint of a deliberate plan to wrest the throne from Richard. The two clues in the play which are generally supposed to point that way will be dealt with in their places as we now trace Bolingbroke's actions in detail.

In the challenge scene and at Coventry Bolingbroke is but the usual braggart champion; when banished no word of resentment escapes him; he bows to the will of the King without protest and accepts the shortening of his period of exile with the same calm as he receives the original sentence. Mowbray's famous utterance :

But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know;
And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue,

is the first of the two clues referred to above, and is taken by
those who believe in the intriguing character of Bolingbroke
to be a deliberate indication of his deep-laid purpose. If this
be granted, then it is a pity from an artistic point of view that

Shakespeare let Mowbray into a secret which he kept fro audience. It is more probable that this is a natural word" of Mowbray's tinged by Shakespeare with a hi prophecy.1 Richard's speech in Scene iv., in which he s of Bolingbroke's courtship to the common people, is the s piece of evidence upon which the usual reading of Bolingb character is based; and it is only fair to point out that, Holinshed does not mention this conduct of Bolingbr Shakespeare must have had some deliberate intention he inserted it in the play. His conduct here is suppos be part and parcel of the subtle game he is playing. Bu patient underbearing of his fortune is not necessarily any of the kind; it is a characteristic of his in every situati which he is placed with the exception of his dealings wit caterpillars of the commonwealth. Here, indeed, he ass royal powers before the crown has been given him. L note, however, that these powers he does not use in his interest. Bushy and Green are Richard's worst enemies Bolingbroke's. Their execution is in the interests realm. Bolingbroke's action at the quarrel centring Bagot in Act IV. Sc. i. is exactly parallel to that in the of Bushy and Green. True, he deals with the quarrelling as if he were already King, but even as the mere head revolting faction he could hardly have acted otherwise. Richard's famous phrase in describing Bolingbroke's jo on his way to banishment

As were our England in reversion his,
And he our subjects' next degree in hope,

obtains its whole point from the fact that Richard is unaware of the prophetic nature of his remark.

We next meet Bolingbroke upon his march to Ber chatting courteously, but not in the least fawningly w supporters. With the Lord of Berkeley he firmly insists his right to be called Lancaster. To York he asserts te ately that he is but returning for his rights and ever

1 It is also possible that the two lines quoted are an actor's gag fo Shakespeare was not responsible. The execrable rhyme 'know-rue support this suggestion.

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wins over his invertebrate uncle; Northumberland meanwhile strengthens Bolingbroke's persuasions by pointing out to York that the banished man has sworn that he is only returning for his own; on that condition only are the nobles supporting him.1 Before Flint Castle, when Bolingbroke knows that Richard is utterly in his power, we find no hint of any claim beyond that already put forward :—

says York.

Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
Lest you mistake the heavens are o'er our heads,

I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself
Against their will,

is the reply, in keeping with the message sent to Richard;
Bolingbroke sends allegiance to King Richard, and lays his
arms and his power at the king's feet if his banishment be re-
pealed and his lands and rights be restored to him.
If not,
Bolingbroke will use the advantage of his power.

Methinks King Richard and myself should meet

With no less terror than the elements

Of fire and water,

Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water:

The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain

My waters; on the earth and not on him.

After the embassage, when Bolingbroke and Richard do at length meet, Bolingbroke commands all round him to show fair duty to his majesty, and himself kneels.

Richard, however, has, with his usual lack of judgment, jumped to a conclusion quite unwarranted as yet. He yields abjectly, and suggests to Bolingbroke that he is ready to give up everything. After the quarrel between Aumerle and the other nobles, York enters with the news that Richard of his own free will adopts Bolingbroke as his heir. Bolingbroke now suddenly makes up his mind to seize the glory thrust upon him. "In God's name," he cries, "I'll ascend the regal throne." Carlisle protests, but cannot wring a word from Bolingbroke, who tacitly consents to the Bishop's arrest by the officious North

1 Holinshed (ed. Boswell-Stone, p. 96) declares that Bolingbroke was invited to England by the nobles in order to seize the crown. Shakespeare does not go so far. This fact curiously balances the difference between Shakespeare and Holinshed regarding the "courtship of the common people ".

C

umberland. Richard is ordered in to surrender his crow the common view; "so shall we proceed without suspic There is nothing to indicate here or anywhere else that pressure has been brought to bear upon Richard, and the reading of the whole situation justified by the play is Bolingbroke returned to claim his own, found Richard fr less and helpless owing to his previous misgovernment almost eager to play the part of a deposed king, whereupo decided to accept the crown thrust upon him. Nowhe there to be found the slightest trace of Bolingbroke's co ling power behind the decisive events. It was not Bolingbr policy or strength that dispersed Richard's Welshmen; no we, so far as the play goes, put down the defection of Rich nobles to anything but disgust with Richard's misdeeds. who brings the message to Bolingbroke that Richard wish resign the crown, could hardly have lent himself to brin pressure of any kind to bear upon his king. To imagine t fore that Bolingbroke was, without the knowledge of his partisans for even Northumberland lays stress on Bo broke's oath regarding his intentions-deliberately and u ingly "compassing the crown" by the aid of events whi had no power to bring about, is to invest him with a go omniscience far beyond the bounds of dramatic reasonable

We repeat therefore that Shakespeare's conception of ingbroke's character changed between Richard II. and IV.

The self-control of Bolingbroke during the resign scene is in marked contrast to Richard's unrestrained bility. He checks Northumberland's pitiless aggravati Richard's woe, while at the same time he is perfectly that the Tower (or, later, Pomfret) will be the safest pla the focus of inevitable disaffection. He can afford t magnanimous in the case of Aumerle's treason, because h strike at the really dangerous conspirators; Carlisle he to appreciate at his proper value, and forgives him too. Exton enters with the corpse of Richard, the new King accepts responsibility for the hasty words which sent I on his ugly mission; he makes no paltering excuses for self, but deals out poetic justice to Richard's murderer.

To sum up, the salient points of Bolingbroke's character as revealed by the play of Richard II. alone, are self-control, V quiet strength, and the power of quickly meeting a situation and profiting from it. The Bolingbroke of history may have intrigued subtly and cleverly, and by the time the "Henry" plays were written Shakespeare was prepared to accept him for the dramatic purposes of those plays as a man who had by indirection compassed the crown. In Richard II., at any rate, Shakespeare has most carefully hidden any trace of deliberate intrigue. One more point which makes against the traditional reading of Bolingbroke's character is this: that it presents us with the edifying spectacle of a weak, extravagant, shallow King overthrown, not by a natural revolt on the side of justice, patriotism, and sanity, but by the most consummate piece of hypocrisy ever portrayed in drama, and portrayed, moreover, in such a way that even the audience cannot seize upon any adequate indication of its existence. It is impossible to fit into our conception of Shakespeare's dramatic methods a play which is the exhibition of one frailty being exposed and overcome by traits of character still more repulsive.

The other characters require but brief mention.

The woeful Queen whose real age has been added to by Shakespeare; the equally woeful wife of the murdered Gloucester; and the brave old Duchess of York, whose strength is in sharp contrast with her husband's weakness, make up the almost negligible total of feminine interest admitted into the play.

The interest in Gaunt centres round his famous patriotic harangue. York's character is more fully developed. Aged and incompetent, he is all at six and seven when any real strength of purpose and action is required; but with the usual irresponsibility of such weak creatures he unexpectedly develops a surprising activity and stubbornness in the persecution of his own son. Mowbray is somewhat of a puzzle. Although perhaps more of a real friend to Richard than Bolingbroke, his longer term of banishment was due to Richard's desire to get out of the way an incriminating tool in the matter of Gloucester's death. The officious Northumberland is engrossed in doing the best for himself in the new world by fetching and carrying