Further I say and further will maintain
Upon his bad life to make all this good,
That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,
Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
And consequently, like a traitor coward,
Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood:
Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
To me for justice and rough chastisement;
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.
(I.i.98-108)
This is the first mention in the play of Gloucester's death. Here it is the Duke of Hereford, Henry Bolingbroke, who accuses Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk of his murder. Mowbray, for his part, denies it: "For Gloucester's death, I slew him not; but to my own disgrace neglected my sworn duty in that case" (I.i.132-134). It's not clear what Mowbray means when he says that he neglected his duty, but perhaps it has to do with failing to provide Gloucester adequate protection while awaiting his trial for treason. (Mowbray was in command at Calais, where Gloucester was imprisoned).
Historically, there may be something to Bolingbroke's accusation, but with a twist. May McKisack suggests that it was King Richard himself, "not daring to have [Gloucester] produced in Parliament," who was responsible for ordering Gloucester's murder--and Norfolk "was party to the crime" (The Fourteenth Century, 482). In the next scene, we see that this is, in fact, the view that Shakespeare takes of Gloucester's death.
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