Your
uncle York is join’d with Bolingbroke, And all your northern castles yielded
up,
And
all your southern gentlemen in arms
Upon
his party.
Sir Stephen Scroop
King Richard The Second Act
III, scene ii Line 201
Yes, that’s right, Scroop is basically saying to King
Richard ‘You’re screwed, pal.’ Bolingbroke is the guy who’s about to become
Henry IV. He’s returned from exile while Richard was over in Ireland and he’s
managed to get pretty much all of England on his side. Now Richard has returned
from Ireland, he’s just landed on the west coast of England, and he’s asking
his buddy Scroop what the situation is.
Uncle York is the guy that Richard left in charge while he went on his
Irish expedition. And if Uncle York, and everybody in the north and the south has gone over to
Bolingbroke’s side, well then… that doesn’t leave too much left for Richard.
About ten lines further down Richard ends the scene with a
rhyming couplet that pretty much sums it up.
Discharge my followers: let them hence away,
From
Richard’s night to Bolingbroke’s fair day.
This was a very fair day, and it's me on my Irish expedition. That's Howth Castle there in the background and I think the Irish Sea beyond that, and yes, that's a golf club I'm holding. I'm golfing with my buddy Garrett just outside Dublin. I wasn't in Ireland to subdue a rebellion like Richard was. And fortunately I didn't come home to a country turned against me. That would have really sucked!
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