the design of this play, as of a number of others by Shakespeare, is what might be called “chiastic”—that is, X-shaped. One protagonist rises as another falls. The man who rises in this play is, of course, Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV—as York will acknowledge explicitly at the time of the deposition: Ascend his throne, descending now from him, And long live Henry, of that name the fourth! 4.1.102–103
