Shakespeare

To introduce this edition of Between Rivers we have a poem by David Selzer. And With A Little Pin was first published on this website in 2009.

And With A Little Pin

On liberty’s last morning, he said mass

in the Great Tower – the chapel was cold

as winter. August’s sun warmed the rebels

riding along the estuary shore,

their drums silent. He watched from the walls.

At his back, the seas breaking on Ireland. King

and Usurper, first cousins, exchanged

purple words in the base court, a surfeit of

epithets: bombast, self-pity. Serfs

were indifferent but Richard’s dog fawned

on new majesty. The epicure

who bespoke a coat of cloth of gold

rode captive from Flint to London in the same

suit of clothes. Through Chester he was jeered, stoned.

Twenty miles inland, a sandstone hill

– sheer to the west – rises from the plain.

Parliament’s army sacked the castle.

Westwards there is the estuary’s mouth,

the livid sea. Above twitching fern,

a hawk stoops. Stones, flung into the well’s blackness,

fall through the hill seawards and never sound.

The poem connects Flint castle, on the Dee estuary, with Beeston castle on the Cheshire sandstone ridge. Flint castle is now an eroded stump surrounded by recent development, and you can read about this in David’s poem The Optimism of Engineers. But in medieval times it was an important stronghold, guarding the principal ford across the Dee to Neston, and controlling major routes not only into Wales but onward to Ireland.

Selzer takes the title And With A Little Pin from a line in Shakespeare’s Richard II. The doomed Richard surrendered at Flint to his friend turned rival, Bolingbroke – the future Henry IV – and Shakespeare turns the surrender in the castle into the pivotal scene of the play. But first, on the way to Flint, Richard is given what must be one of the most remarkable speeches in all of Shakespeare’s writings, from which David takes his title. Richard’s attachment to his royal pomp has always seemed brittle, and now, following news of the desertion or death of supporters, he falls into a despairing monologue about the vanity of kingship. It veers between being an expression of maudlin self-pity – what Richard later calls ‘that sweet way I was in to despair’ – and a cynical review of the real position of the leader. Here it is, from Act 3 scene 2. It repays being read aloud. Excerpts from the play are from the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Of comfort no man speak.
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposèd bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings—
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,
All murdered. For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humored thus,
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence. Throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while.
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus,
How can you say to me I am a king?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard is briefly rallied by his retainers, but news of a further betrayal seems to prove the case for despair, and he proceeds hopelessly to Flint.

The historical Richard was born in 1367, during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III, who is usually portrayed as a competent monarch. Richard’s father was the charismatic Edward, otherwise known as the Black Prince, but he died in 1376, leaving Richard to inherit the throne at the age of 10 on his grandfather’s death. In the early years of his kingship he was much guided by his father’s brother, John of Gaunt. There was serious conflict about the influence of courtiers and also the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 – bloodily put down in the end – but Richard was able to keep the upper hand with the support of his uncle and other advisers. But as he grew older and began to rule in his own right, certain weaknesses emerged. He took an elevated view of his kingly status, chose the sun as his emblem, and held a grand court with much patronage of the arts. This may have encouraged a wider flowering of middle English culture. Chaucer, who was close to the court, was at work during his reign, but so were William Langland the author of Piers Plowman in Worcestershire; the unknown author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in Cheshire; the anchoress Julian of Norwich; and the mystic Margery Kempe in Kings Lynn. Richard himself is the subject of a contemporary portrait in Westminster Abbey, probably painted in the 1390s, which is unique in northern Europe as a surviving full-length portrait from the period:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yet Richard’s grandeur led him into conflict with the nobility at large. He was accused of depriving his nobles of their traditional rights and giving preference to court favourites. He does not appear to have had the ruthlessness or determination necessary to prevail, and Shakespeare’s play dramatizes this fatal weakness. Richard exiled John of Gaunt’s son, Henry Bolingbroke, in 1398 – the period of exile is exaggerated in the play – and took over John of Gaunt’s lands when the latter died in 1399, effectively disinheriting Henry, who returned from exile, rallied disaffected nobles against Richard, took him prisoner at Flint and usurped his throne.

The play turns on Act 3 scene 3. We see Bolingbroke arrive outside Flint castle, with Richard already within. He and his followers are torn between their respect for the king and their wish to defeat him.

Enter with Drum and Colours Bolingbroke, York, Northumberland, with Soldiers and Attendants.

BOLINGBROKE 

So that by this intelligence we learn
The Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury
Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed
With some few private friends upon this coast.

NORTHUMBERLAND

The news is very fair and good, my lord:
Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.

YORK 

It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
To say “King Richard.” Alack the heavy day
When such a sacred king should hide his head!

NORTHUMBERLAND

Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief
Left I his title out.

YORK

The time hath been, would you have been so brief with him,
He would have been so brief to shorten you,
For taking so the head, your whole head’s length.

BOLINGBROKE

Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.

YORK

Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
Lest you mistake. The heavens are over our heads.

BOLINGBROKE 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bolingbroke sends messages to Richard, ostensibly submissive but backed up with threats, and invites him to parlay. Then Richard himself appears high above them on the castle wall.

Bolingbroke’s Soldiers march, the trumpets sound.
Richard appeareth on the walls with Aumerle.

BOLINGBROKE

See, see, King Richard doth himself appear
As doth the blushing discontented sun
From out the fiery portal of the east
When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
To dim his glory and to stain the track
Of his bright passage to the occident.

YORK

Yet looks he like a king. Behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth
Controlling majesty. Alack, alack for woe
That any harm should stain so fair a show!

KING RICHARD, to Northumberland, below

We are amazed, and thus long have we stood
To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,
Because we thought ourself thy lawful king.
An if we be, how dare thy joints forget
To pay their awful duty to our presence?
If we be not, show us the hand of God
That hath dismissed us from our stewardship,
For well we know no hand of blood and bone
Can gripe the sacred handle of our scepter,
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
And though you think that all, as you have done,
Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
And we are barren and bereft of friends,
Yet know, my master, God omnipotent,
Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf
Armies of pestilence, and they shall strike
Your children yet unborn and unbegot,
That lift your vassal hands against my head
And threat the glory of my precious crown.
Tell Bolingbroke—for yon methinks he stands—
That every stride he makes upon my land
Is dangerous treason.

Richard regains his regal self-assurance, but not for long. The loyal Aumerle urges him to play for time. He cannot, and we learn this from another passage of memorable poetry.

KING RICHARD  To Aumerle. 

We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,
To look so poorly and to speak so fair?
Shall we call back Northumberland and send
Defiance to the traitor and so die?

AUMERLE

No, good my lord, let’s fight with gentle words,
Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.

KING RICHARD

O God, O God, that e’er this tongue of mine
That laid the sentence of dread banishment
On yon proud man should take it off again
With words of sooth! O, that I were as great
As is my grief, or lesser than my name!
Or that I could forget what I have been,
Or not remember what I must be now.
Swell’st thou, proud heart? I’ll give thee scope to beat,
Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.

AUMERLE

Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.

KING RICHARD

What must the King do now? Must he submit?
The King shall do it. Must he be deposed?
The King shall be contented. Must he lose
The name of king? I’ God’s name, let it go.
I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown,
My figured goblets for a dish of wood,
My sceptre for a palmer’s walking-staff,
My subjects for a pair of carvèd saints,
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little, little grave, an obscure grave;
Or I’ll be buried in the King’s highway,
Some way of common trade, where subjects’ feet
May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head;
For on my heart they tread now whilst I live
And, buried once, why not upon my head?

At this point the play makes use of the castle setting and the opportunities afforded by the Elizabethan playhouse to depict Richard’s descent from his elevated station to ground level. Modern stagings have expended much ingenuity as to how this is done. The photograph below shows Richard Pascoe as Richard II, descending ‘like glist’ring Phaëton’ in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of 1973.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KING RICHARD

Well, well, I see
I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.
Northumberland approaches the battlements.
Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,
What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.

NORTHUMBERLAND

My lord, in the base court he doth attend
To speak with you, may it please you to come down.

KING RICHARD

Down, down I come, like glist’ring Phaëton,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
In the base court—base court, where kings grow base,
To come at traitors’ calls and do them grace.
In the base court come down—down court, down king,
For nightowls shriek where mounting larks should sing.
Richard exits above and Northumberland returns to Bolingbroke.

BOLINGBROKE

What says his Majesty?

NORTHUMBERLAND

Sorrow and grief of heart
Makes him speak fondly like a frantic man,
Yet he is come.

Richard enters below.

BOLINGBROKE

Stand all apart,
And show fair duty to his Majesty. 

He kneels down.

To the end, Bolingbroke conducts himself as a faithful subject who only seeks redress of wrongs, while keeping the threat of force close to hand. In the wider play there is the sense that, although much steelier and more determined than Richard, he is keenly aware of the blasphemous rupture in the order of things entailed in displacing an anointed king. Richard’s refusal of Bolingbroke’s protestations of loyalty seem to take the place of any effective assertion of his own kingship.

KING RICHARD

Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee
To make the base earth proud with kissing it.
Me rather had my heart might feel your love
Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy.
Up, cousin, up. Your heart is up, I know,
Thus high at least indicating his crown, although your knee be low.

BOLINGBROKE, standing

My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.

KING RICHARD

Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.

BOLINGBROKE

So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
As my true service shall deserve your love.

KING RICHARD

Well you deserve. They well deserve to have
That know the strong’st and surest way to get.—
Uncle, give me your hands. Nay, dry your eyes.
Tears show their love but want their remedies.—
Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
Though you are old enough to be my heir.
What you will have I’ll give, and willing too,
For do we must what force will have us do.
Set on towards London, cousin, is it so?

BOLINGBROKE

Yea, my good lord.

KING RICHARD  Then I must not say no.

They exit.

So Richard gives himself up to Bolingbroke’s custody, evidently before he needs to. As in David’s poem, they travel from Flint via Chester to London, where Richard is imprisoned. At the end of the play, Bolingbroke has Richard killed; and then kills the man he hired to do it, seemingly out of hatred for his own regicidal action. Richard’s actual fate is unclear, but he appears to have died in Bolingbroke’s custody.

There are a series of excerpts from the 2013 RSC production of the play with David Tennant as Richard which are well worth viewing. Tennant’s comic gift seems to have given the production a real twist.

 

I hope that you have enjoyed David’s poem and the selections from Shakespeare’s play. Shakespeare was not the only major artist to base work around Flint Castle. The painter JMW Turner visited it repeatedly over his lifetime and made many artworks depicting the area, which we will look at in a future edition.

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BETWEEN RIVERS is a quarterly series edited by Alan Horne. It is focused on the area bounded by the rivers Alun, Dee and Gowy, on the border between England and Wales in Flintshire, Denbighshire and Cheshire. You can read about the background to Between Rivers in the Introduction.