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Richard II of England

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History 1500 and
before (including Roman Britain); Monarchs of Great Britain

                 Richard II
    By the Grace of God, King of England
   and France and Lord of Ireland
             Image:Richard2.JPG
   Reign       22 June 1377 - 29 September 1399
   Coronation  16 July 1377
   Born        6 January 1367
               Bordeaux
   Died        February 14, 1400 (aged 33)
               Pontefract Castle
   Buried      Westminster
   Predecessor Edward III
   Successor   Henry IV
   Consort     Anne of Bohemia ( 1366- 1394)
               Isabella of Valois ( 1389- 1410)
   Issue       Died without posterity
   Royal House Plantagenet
   Father      Edward, the Black Prince
               ( 1330- 1376)
   Mother      Joan of Kent ( 1328- 1385)

   Richard II ( 6 January 1367 – 14 February 1400) was the son of Edward
   the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan "The Fair Maid of Kent". He
   was born in Bordeaux and became his father's successor when his elder
   brother died in infancy. He was deposed in 1399 and died the next year.

Early life

   Richard II watches Wat Tyler's death and addresses the peasants in the
   background
   Richard II watches Wat Tyler's death and addresses the peasants in the
   background

   Because Richard was born at Epiphany and three kings were present at
   his birth, a legend arose that despite being a second son, he was
   destined for great things. Certainly he became heir to the throne of
   England, and was created Prince of Wales, when the Black Prince died
   after a wasting illness in 1376. The following year his grandfather
   King Edward III of England also died, making Richard king at the age of
   ten.

   During his minority, three 'continual councils' lasting from June 1377
   to January 1380 were responsible for the general governing of the
   country. In reality John of Gaunt, his uncle, exerted considerable
   influence on matters of importance (despite not being a member of any
   of the three councils) especially with regard to foreign policy. During
   that time, the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 brought Richard to prominence
   at the age of fourteen. It fell to him personally to negotiate with Wat
   Tyler, the other rebel leaders, and their massed armed ranks of several
   thousand. He promised pardon to the leaders of the rebellion, but this
   was not honoured - they were arrested and executed. Although it is now
   generally accepted that Richard was not sympathetic to the rebels'
   demands, it remains doubtful whether Richard intended the arrest to
   occur, or if he was forced to go against his word by militant sections
   of the English nobility. Either way, his tactics had the effect of
   dispersing the rebel forces from the streets of London back to their
   homes in the country, thus ending the disorder. The young king had
   shown great promise; but as he matured into adulthood he revealed an
   inability to make the deals and compromises essential to
   fourteenth-century politics and diplomacy, leading eventually to his
   deposition in 1399.

   On 22 January 1383, he married Anne of Bohemia, daughter of Charles IV,
   Holy Roman Emperor and Elizabeth of Pomerania; but they had no
   children, and she died on 7 June 1394. Richard is said to have been
   devoted to her. On 31 October 1396, he married the seven year old
   Princess Isabella of Valois, daughter of Charles VI of France and
   Isabeau de Bavière; that marriage was also without issue.

First crisis of 1387-88

                 English Royalty
               House of Plantagenet
   Armorial of Plantagenet
                    Edward III
       Edward, Prince of Wales
       Lionel, Duke of Clarence
       John, Duke of Lancaster
       Edmund, Duke of York
       Thomas, Duke of Gloucester
       Joan of England
       Isabella, Countess of Bedford
   Grandchildren
       Richard II
        Philippa, Countess of Ulster
        Philippa, Queen of Portugal
       Elizabeth, Baroness Fanhope and Milbroke
       Henry IV
        Katherine, Queen of Castile
        Edward, Duke of York
        Richard, Earl of Cambridge
        Constance of York
        Anne, Countess of Eu
                    Richard II

   As Richard began to take over the business of government himself, he
   sidelined many of the established nobles, such as Thomas de Beauchamp,
   12th Earl of Warwick, Richard Fitzalan, 11th Earl of Arundel, and
   Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester. Instead he turned to his
   inner circle of favourites for his council, men such as his beloved
   Robert de Vere, 9th Earl of Oxford and Michael de la Pole, whom Richard
   created Earl of Suffolk and made chancellor of England. It is possible
   that Richard had a homosexual relationship with de Vere; Thomas
   Walsingham called it 'obscene' and 'not without a degree of improper
   intimacy' . The nobles he had snubbed formed the head of a group of the
   disaffected who called themselves the Lords Appellant. The central
   tenet of their appeal was continued war with France against Richard's
   policy of peace, an aim that many of them pursued in the interests of
   personal gain rather than the interests of the nation.

   In 1387, the English Parliament, under pressure from the Lords
   Appellant, demanded that Richard remove his unpopular councillors. When
   he refused, he was told that since he was still a minor, a Council of
   Government would rule in his place. Richard had the Earl of Arundel,
   leader of the Lords Appellant, arrested; but Richard's small army led
   by de Vere was overpowered by the forces of the Lords Appellant outside
   Oxford, and Richard was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Subsequently
   Richard agreed to hold a parliament in order to resolve the Appellants'
   grievances; the unpopular councillors were forcibly disposed of (eight
   being executed for treason and the others exiled) in the Merciless
   Parliament of 1388. Richard was forced to accept new councillors and
   was temporarily stripped of almost all his authority.

A fragile peace

   In the years which followed, Richard appeared to have heeded the
   lessons of 1387, and he became more cautious in his dealings with the
   barons. In 1390, a tournament was held to celebrate Richard’s coming of
   age and the apparent new-found harmony since Richard's uncle John of
   Gaunt's return from Spain. Richard’s team of knights, The Harts, all
   wore the identical symbol – a white hart – which Richard had chosen.
   Richard himself favoured genteel interests like fine food, insisting
   spoons be used at his court and inventing the handkerchief. He
   beautified Westminster Hall with a new ceiling and was a keen and
   cultured patron of the arts, architecture and literature. In this
   sense, he can be seen as an early example of what was later held up as
   a model Renaissance prince. But many began to see him as another Edward
   II, somehow unworthy of his military Plantagenet heritage, given his
   delicate 'unkingly' tastes. Richard also lacked the thirst for battle
   of his grandfather: his Scottish campaign in 1385 was not decisive, and
   he signed a 28-year truce with France in 1396 which was hugely
   unpopular at home in spite of the dividends that peace brought to the
   kingdom.

   Richard's commitment to peace rather than war can also be seen in his
   first expedition to Ireland in 1394. He put forward a sensible policy
   based on the understanding that the Irish rebels were motivated largely
   by the grievances they had against absentee English landowners and that
   they were perhaps entitled to some redress in this regard. Those whom
   he labelled the "wild Irish" - native Irish who had not joined the
   rebel cause - he treated with kindness and respect.

   In spite of his forward-thinking attitude toward culture and the arts,
   Richard seems to have developed a passionate devotion to the old ideal
   of the Divine Right of Kings, feeling that he should be unquestioned
   and unfettered in the way he ran the kingdom. He became a stickler for
   tradition, insisting on being addressed as ‘majesty’ and ‘highness’ and
   sitting alone for hours wearing his crown; those addressing him were
   required to direct their eyes downwards in deference. In The Wilton
   Diptych he was portrayed alongside the Anglo-Saxon saint-kings St
   Edmund and Edward the Confessor, which reflected not only his attitude
   toward his own kingship but his genuine religious devotion.

Second crisis of 1397–99 and Richard's deposition

   In 1397 Richard decided to rid himself of the Lords Appellant who were
   confining his power, on the pretext of an aristocratic plot. Richard
   had the Earl of Arundel executed and Warwick exiled, while Gloucester
   died in captivity. Finally able to exert his autocratic authority over
   the kingdom, he purged all those he saw as not totally committed to
   him, fulfilling his own idea of becoming God’s chosen prince.

   Richard was still childless. The heir to the throne was Roger Mortimer
   the Earl of March, grandson of Lionel of Antwerp, and after his death
   in 1398, his seven-year-old son Edmund Mortimer. However, Richard was
   more concerned with Gaunt's son and heir Henry Bolingbroke, whom he
   banished for ten years on a spurious pretext in 1399. After Gaunt's
   death, Richard also confiscated Bolingbroke's lands. Some historians
   have seen this as an act designed to bring greater harmony to England.
   Bolingbroke's inheritance was huge, large enough to be seen as a small
   state within the greater state of England and thus an obvious obstacle
   on the path of a unified and peaceful England. In any event, Richard
   was only following the policy of his forebears Henry II and Edward I in
   seizing the lands of a powerful noble to centralize power in the crown.
   Arms of Richard II
   Arms of Richard II

   At this point Richard left for a campaign in Ireland, allowing
   Bolingbroke the opportunity to land in Yorkshire with an army provided
   by the King of France to reclaim his father's lands. Richard's
   autocratic ways, deeply unpopular with many nobles, facilitated
   Bolingbroke's gaining control quickly of most of southern and eastern
   England. Bolingbroke had originally just wanted his inheritance and a
   reimposition of the power of the Lords Appellant, accepting Richard's
   right to be king and March's right to succeed him. But by the time
   Richard finally arrived back on the mainland in Wales, a tide of
   discontent had swept England. In the King's absence, Bolingbroke, who
   was generally well-liked, was being urged to take the crown himself.

   Richard was captured at Flint Castle in Wales and taken to London,
   where crowds pelted him with rubbish. He was held in the Tower of
   London and eventually forced to abdicate. He was brought, on his
   request, before parliament, where he officially renounced his crown and
   thirty-three official charges (including ‘vengeful sentences given
   against lords’) were made against him. He was not permitted to answer
   the charges. Parliament then accepted Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV) as
   the new king.

   Richard was placed in Pontefract Castle, and died there in 1400. He is
   believed to have been killed by starvation (perhaps he refused to take
   nourishment and starved himself) or otherwise murdered. Richard was
   dead by 17 February.

   Richard's body was displayed in the old St Paul's Cathedral for all to
   see that he was really dead, and he was then buried in Kings Langley
   Church. His coffin was badly designed, however, and it proved easy for
   disrespectful visitors to place their hands through several openings in
   the coffin and interfere with what was inside. It is said that a
   schoolboy walked off with Richard's jawbone. Rumours that Richard was
   still alive persisted well into the reign of Henry V, who decided to
   have his body moved to its final resting place in Westminster Abbey
   with much ceremony in 1413.

Richard as a collector

   Richard was a keen collector of precious objects. We know about many of
   these objects because in 1398/9 they were recorded on a treasure roll,
   and the treasure roll has survived. It is now held at the British
   National Archives, Kew, London (reference TNA: PRO, E 101/411/9).

   The roll lists 1,026 items of treasure, how much each item weighed, and
   how much it was worth. We learn, for example, that Richard had eleven
   gold crowns, 157 gold cups, and 320 precious religious objects
   including bells, chalices and reliquaries.

   Each item also has a brief description. The only object listed on the
   roll that certainly survives is a crown now held in the Schatzkammer
   der Residenz, Munich, Germany. The roll describes the crown as "…set
   with eleven sapphires, thirty-three balas rubies, a hundred and
   thirty-two pearls, thirty-three diamonds, eight of them imitation
   gems".

Association with Geoffrey Chaucer

   Geoffrey Chaucer served as a diplomat and Clerk of The King's Works for
   Richard II. Their relationship encompassed all of Richard's reign, and
   was apparently fruitful. In the decade before Chaucer's death, Richard
   granted him several gifts and annuities, including: twenty pounds a
   year for life in 1394, and 252 gallons (or, one tun) of wine per year
   in 1397. Chaucer died on 25 October 1400.

In literature

   Richard is the main character in Richard II, a play written by William
   Shakespeare around 1595.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_II_of_England"
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