Go with me, like good angels, to my end;
And, as the long divorce of steel falls on me,
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,
And lift my soul to heaven.

These lines are spoken by King Richard II near the end of Shakespeare’s history play, after Richard has been deposed by Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV) and imprisoned. In Act V, Scene 5, Richard is attacked in his cell by Sir Piers Exton and his men. As he is about to be killed, Richard addresses the assailants (and, by extension, those present at his death) with a final, quasi-devotional appeal: that they accompany him “like good angels” and turn their prayers into a “sweet sacrifice” that might raise his soul to heaven. The moment fuses political downfall with a ritualized, spiritualized death.

Richard’s plea casts his violent end in religious and ceremonial terms. Calling his killers “good angels” is bitterly ironic—he asks for spiritual escort from those who bring death—yet it also reflects Richard’s persistent tendency to aestheticize and sacralize his kingship and suffering. The phrase “long divorce of steel” imagines the sword’s blow as a final separation of body and soul, a grim “divorce” that ends earthly identity and power. By requesting prayers as a “sweet sacrifice,” Richard seeks redemption and dignity at the moment his political authority is gone, suggesting that spiritual legitimacy may outlast worldly rule.