his uncle, John of Gaunt, is "grievous sick," cries out:

"Now put it, God, in his physician's mind,
To help him to his grave immediately!
The lining of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him:
Pray God we may make haste and come too late."

This mixture of greed and cold cruelty decked out with blasphemous
phrase is viler, I think, than anything attributed by Shakespeare to the
worst of his villains. But surely some hint of Richard's incredible
vileness should have come earlier in the play, should have preceded at
least his banishment of Bolingbroke, if Shakespeare had really meant to
present him to us in this light.

In the first scene of the second act, when Gaunt reproves him, Richard
turns on him in a rage, threatening. In the very same scene York
reproves Richard for seizing Gaunt's money and land, and Richard
retorts:

"Think what you will: we seize into our hands
His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands."

But when York blames him to his face and predicts that evil will befall
him and leaves him, Richard in spite of this at once creates:

"Our uncle York, Lord Governor of England;
For he is just, and always loved us well."