Why does Bolingbroke decide to execute Bushy and Green?
The decision to execute these two characters can be seen in two ways: what Bolingbroke wants people to think, and what his true intentions are.
The Execution- According to Bolingbroke:
Here is the direct speech we see in the beginning of Act 3:
“You have misled a prince, a royal king,
A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,
By you unhappied and disfigur'd clean;
You have in manner with your sinful hours
Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,
Broke the possession of a royal bed,
And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks
With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.
Myself, a prince by fortune of my birth,
Near to the King in blood, and near in love
Till you did make him misinterpret me,
Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries,
And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment;
Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
Dispark'd my parks and felled my forest woods,
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Raz'd out my impress, leaving me no sign
Save men's opinions and my living blood
To show the world I am a gentleman.
This and much more, much more than twice all this,
Condemns you to the death. See them deliver'd over
To execution and the hand of death.”
To sum this up, they are both being accused of misleading the prince; deliberately giving him bad advice. And how they assisted in wrecking the relationship of Richard and Isabella.
-The facade: I find this particularly interesting- he brings up how they have “misled” Richard, as if he is truly concerned for the well being of Richard and how he is ruling the country. By saying this, he is trying to prove that he is loyal—a quality that adds to his credibility of being a good ruler. Furthermore, he lays it on thick by saying "... a royal king, / A happy gentlemen in blood and lineaments, / By you unhappied and disfigured clean". This implies that he believes Richard is a good man who was simply led astray by evil advisers.
Bolingbroke’s true intentions: I think the main reason behind his action is to establish power (now doesn’t that sound familiar…). He wants to prove a number of things:
- Like we’ve said in class, this is a play that deals with “what makes a good king”. And in this context/world of the play, a good king is one who punishes people who deserve it.
- And by punishing Bushy and Green, he is setting an example. Essentially he is saying to society that people should take him seriously, since he is now an authority figure who has the right to punish someone if they commit a crime.
- Along with building himself up, he is attempting to bring Richard down. A huge factor of the motivation behind executing these two is to weaken Richard. To be a good king- it’s all about strength in numbers; advisers, an army, and a supporting society. Not only does the execution take away some of Richards power, but it takes his credibility as a “good ruler” away. Bolingbroke is implying that Richard is a bad king since he doesn’t know how to pick good advisers/how to distinguish from good and bad advice.
4 comments:
I also found this scene interesting. At first I had to re-read the speech a few times because Bolingbroke's "genuine concern" for Richard confused me; I thought to myself, "Aren't they enemies??" But then I recognized the falseness of his concern. All Bolingbroke is trying to do is seem like the "bigger man", but also he is literally diminishing Richard's support system by killing them off.
I have to agree with you, Jennifer. This play examines the effectiveness of a ruler. I find that Bolingbroke honestly does not care about Richard’s well being. He is only trying to make a name for himself, and one of the ways he does this is executing Richard’s followers: Bushy and Green. Bolingbroke does a great job at making Richard look weak.
Jennifer,
I'm with you on this. I'm not so certain how I feel about Bolingbroke any longer. While I still think that he was treated unjustly in that Richard kept him from inheriting what he deserved to, I also think that he goes well beyond what he deserves by taking the throne from Richard in the way that he does.
The execution of Bushy and Green seems to me to be a way for him to eradicate anyone who might question what Bolingbroke has done. He's not listening to arguments, he's killing them and in so doing he makes sure that there is no one around to question what he's doing or the path he's chosen in recovering what was rightfully his.
First, I really love the way you take on big questions like this, Jennifer, and analyze them in a very methodical and thoughtful way. It's a cool way to take on this assignment! And the particulars here are very interesting. Shakespeare seems to be presenting this issue to us as a kind of debate. With whom do we side? Is Bolingbroke overstepping his authority? Is this a sign of Richard's weakness that he wouldn't root out the bad guys--all great questions!
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