he writes a deposition scene that is not in his sources, and omits a spectacular coronation that is.
V. i. 11. model where old Troy did stand. In this series of metaphors of departed greatness, this phrase seems to mean that Richard is to his former greatness as the now desolate traces of foundations (model = ground-plan) of Ilium are to its pristine state.
V. i. 15. alehouse guest. Another 'proportional' metaphor. Richard, with whom Grief lodges, is as an inn (i.e., hostelry of high class), while Bolingbroke, with whom Triumph is a guest, is intrinsically but an alehouse.
V. i. 20. sworn brother. In medieval chivalry, one knight formally pledged to comradeship in arms with another knight.
V. i. 52. Pomfret. Pontefract Castle, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, south of York and east of Leeds. Queen Isabel never actually had this meeting with her husband, and did not go to France until June 28, 1401. Richard was imprisoned in the Tower continuously from his arrival in London, August 31 or September 1, until he was sent out towards Pomfret, October 29, 1399.
V. i. 88. than near, be ne'er the near. The three near's sounded alike in Elizabethan pronunciation. The last is an old form of 'nearer.' The sense of the passage, as here punctuated, is, 'Better be far off than, being close at hand, be never the nearer.'
V. ii. 16. With painted imagery. Apparently merely attributive to 'walls,' with no reference to 'had said.' It was the custom to hang out tapestry and the cheaper painted imitations of it to decorate the fronts of houses on the day of a procession, as we use flags.
V. ii. 41. my son. Actually Aumerle's own mother, Isabel of Spain, died in 1394. This Duchess of York was the Duke's second wife. See App. F.
