Richard II Act 3 - "Our hands, our lives and all, are Bolingbroke's."

Bolingbroke has captured Richard's men Bushy and Greene (aptly named considering their lack of military or political intelligence). Bolingbroke seems surprisingly loyal to the king at this point and accuses them of hypocrisy and having led the king astray. He puts them to death.

Meanwhile, as Richard receives the news that the Welsh force which he depended on have dispersed because they thought that he had died, he sinks into the verse of melancholic despair.
" ... You have mistook me all this while,
I live with bread like you, feel want
Taste grief, need friends..."

It is at this point in Act III Sc2 that probably the most famous speech from this play is uttered by Richard. While Aumerle and others search for the last crumbs of hope, Richard sinks into a contemplative melancholy as he thinks about mortality and the purpose of existence:
"... of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of grave's of worms and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bossom of the earth...
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings..."
Shakespeare here gives more than a glimmer of the greatness which is promised (to) him in speeches like those he writes for Juliet later in 1595 or for Hamlet in 1599 or 1600.

With the Duke of York at his side, Bolingbroke knows the scale of power weighs in his favour and yet his mind and conscience turns to the morality of what he is about to do. He is worried that divine intervention will intercede and prevent him from usurping a God-chosen king. He decides he will surrender to the king if he gives him, Bolingbroke, all his lands and titlesback. When King Richard appears he will not accept the offer and thinks that heaven will suddenly rain down vengeance and the image of England's "... pastures' grass stained with faithful English blood..." becomes a omen of the blood still to be spilled in the War of the Roses. Richard is captured and taken to London.

Meanwhile, the cloud of melancholy has shifted to the Queen and no suggestion of games, singing, dancing, storytelling or any other folly seems to help. The Queen and her ladies hide when a Gardener and a Servant enter. The Gardener and the Servant speak not in prose but in the well tilled soil of rich verse laden in the fertile mulch of gardening metaphors. When it is revealed that the king is overthrown, the Queen reveals herself, sheds tears and curses the Gardener as she leaves for London.
"Pray God the plants thou graff'st may never grow..."
The Gardener decides to plant in the place the Queen's tears fell, the herb of sorrow, rue.