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My lord of Hereford here, whom you call King, is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king. And if you crown him, let me prophesy, the blood of English shall manure the ground, and future ages groan for this foul act. Peace shall go sleep with turks and infidels, and in this seat of peace tumultuous wars shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound. Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny shall here inhabit, and this land be called the field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls. Oh, if you raise this house against this house, it will the woefulest division that ever fell upon this cursed earth. Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so, lest child, child's children cry against you.

Woe.

So that is the Bishop of Carlyle, William Shakespeare's Richard II. That moment, Tom, comes at the fateful moment, doesn't it? The climax of Shakespeare's great play, a play that is not one of the most performed in the Shakespearean I bet it has some of the finest writing, some of the most beautiful passages.

I thought you did wonderful justice to it.

Well, that is kind.

I especially love the catch in your throat in the final few lines.

Well, that's what a great actor.

As you contemplate England turning to civil war. Very, very moving, Dominic.

It's not complicated, Tom. It's just acting. I know it is. That's the moment on the first of October 1399, when Richard II was deposed. He was kicked out and replaced by Henry Bolingbrooke, who became Henry IV. In Shakespeare's history plays, Tom, his great cycle goes all the way through to Richard III. Everything starts with that moment. That is the trigger for the Wars of the Roses, for the high drama of the 15th century, for the usipations and depositions and battles and murders of princes in the tower and all those kinds of things. It's a great moment. It comes in the midpoint of the Hundred Years War. You've done a mighty series on that. This is often seen as a turning point, certainly in English medieval history. The question is, was it?

Well, that's what we're going to explore today, Dominic, because we have done two episodes on the Great Revolt, the Peasants Revolt of 1381. But there are more tumultuous episodes in the reign of Richard II. We've given a massive spoiler alert as to what the most dramatic of all is, the deposition of Richard II. But as you say, the question is, how did Richard II come to be deposed? How significant is it for the history of the 15th century, which we'll follow through?

Tom, just to recap, for those people who are coming to the show after a big break or something, we're at the midpoint of the Hundred Years War. Edward III, who was Richard II's predecessor, had had this absolutely glorious reign, lots of victories, Cressy, Poitou, and so on. But the English had been effectively forced back. This is now halftime. They're not licking their wounds exactly.

They are a bit, I think. Right. Okay. They're in the dressing room and they've been hacked around.

Right.

People are trying to patch things up. But from the point of view of Richard II, the previous two episodes we did, the problem has been domestic, and specifically the Peasants' Revolt, the Great Revolt, as it's called in 1381. Let's just look at how that might have affected Richard. He had stood on the Tower of London, and he had seen London burning. I think it's probably not over-psychologizing to think that this must have imbued in him a visceral dread of civic disorder. I think he's also only a young boy at this point. He's 14 years old, and it must have given him a feeling of impotence that policy is still basically being decided for him by the people who effectively have the reins of government in their hands.

And yet the paradox is it gives him a massive sense of agency at the same time there, doesn't it?

Absolutely. Because, as we described in the previous episode, Richard is aware that as king, he has an incredible charisma, that the people love him. They may hate his ministers, but they love him. And this, of course, is also, I think, part of the swirl of influences that the Peasants' Revolt has on him.

So basically, the Peasants' Revolt bigs him up in his own mind.

It does. And it goes with the grain of the effect of his upbringing. He's not actually the only son of the Black Prince. So there'd been an elder brother, but he died in infancy. The Black Prince, he may have this glittering court in Bordeaux. He'd then come back to die in Kennington, near what today is the Kennington Oval. And Richard, I think, growing up, would have absolutely lived with the consciousness of what a tremendous dash his father had displayed as a great Lord in his court. I think that it provides Richard, through his childhood, up to the Peasants' Revolt, and then in the years that follow, with a sense that he must uphold his dignity and that it's incredibly important to put on a good show.

Because more than their predecessors, Edward III and the Black Prince, had been all about spectacle and glamor and chivalry and stuff. Is that right?

Absolutely, yes. And of course, achievement. And there's a slight problem for Richard, that he hasn't really achieved anything. I think that that's why perhaps he puts an extra premium on the dignity that he hasn't won it, but he has been given it by God as he sees it. So in Shakespeare's play, there's this famous couplet, not all the waters in the rough-rooed sea can wash the bomb off from an anointed king. The fact that Richard is anointed and that he has succeeded to the throne by right is incredibly important to him. In the previous episode, we talked about how Edward the Confessor is Richard's great patron. Richard has been crowned and anointed in Westminster Abbey, the shrine built by Edward the Confessor. Richard feels that this has set him aside from other mortals, that he, in a sense, is separate from his subjects. The key detail, it's announced by the Archbishop of Canterbury shortly after Richard had been crowned, that he's king not by election, nor by any such path, but by lawful right of succession. That's the key.

But why does that make him different from previous monarchs of whom the same could be said?

It absolutely doesn't. But for Richard, Edward III had demonstrated what a great king he was through military achievement. Richard is a boy, and as he's growing up, therefore, he needs to emphasize why he has the right to take over the reins of power. And this right is basically because God wants him to be king. He is the rightful heir to his grandfather. You also have this devotion to display and show which is also a crucial part of Richard's character. So he's not in any way wussy. He's very strong, loves hunting, in that sense, very much his father's son. But I think he has a slight metrosexual quality.

Well, he's often played that way in Shakespeare's play, right? So the classic The classic one that people may have seen is the TV version of David Tenet. Tenet has very long hair and he's very fey and a bit camp. That's how people normally think of Richard II, right? Well- They get him mixed up with Edward II, and they say, Oh, he's a bit camp and foppish.

I mean, it's not entirely Very inaccurate. The Monk of Eveshire reports that Richard does have long blonde hair, a very pale complexion, and says that his features are feminine. And a lot of the paintings, he's given quite feminine features. So that must have been Richard's own commission.

So that's not the same as Roman historians saying of emperors, Oh, they bleach their hair and they shave their legs with shells or whatever, those kinds of things. No. This isn't propaganda dissing him.

No, quite the contrary. I think it's Richard portraying himself. Essentially, he's a dedicated follower of fashion. He's very, very stylish. He loves his clothes. I mean, he rather despises the French king, Charles VI. They go and have a summit in 1396, and the French king wears the same robe three days in succession. Richard regards this with absolute contempt. So he's endlessly. One day, he's wearing a magnificent gown of white velvet and red sleeves, and the next, an outfit of blue velvet decorated with gold. His table is the best in Europe, most extravagant. Lots of spices, lots of ducks inside, turkeys inside whatever.

Turduckens.

Turduckens, all that thing. He's also the first English king to use a fork.

Oh, that's poor.

And supposedly to use a handkerchief.

I don't approve of either of those innovations.

Right. So you, as a rugged son of the shy as, might regard this with a measure of contempt. But Richard is doing it for political reasons. So again, it's just setting himself aside. It's about making people appreciate that he is someone distinctive. So that's it's all about. But you can imagine that this must make him a bit of a nightmare to handle as he's growing up.

Right. So he's a bit of a diva, basically.

A bit of a diva. A bit of a diva. Very, very self-conscious, very, very stylish. Probably an awkward teenager to have around. I think even more so when on the sixth of January, 1383, he celebrates his 16th birthday, comes of age, and he's now the same age as the Black Prince was when he won his spurs at Cressy.

Tom, I don't want to say what everybody's thinking, but you're Richard II, and I'm Henry Bolingbrooke. I mean, I'm just putting that out there.

I think that this is a parallel that we may reprise. Richard still has lots of uncles on the scene, specifically two. John Gauhnt, who we mentioned, very, very unpopular with the rebels in London who trashed his palace. But he remains by miles the richest and most powerful figure in England. And he's suspected of aspiring to the throne. This is unfair, actually. He's very, very loyal to his nephew, his much loved brother's son. And also we have on the scene Thomas of Woodstock, who had been, you remember in the previous episode, he'd been dashing off to Brittany periodically and not doing very well and then coming back. And he has now been elevated to a dukedom, the Duke of Gloucester. So these are the two guys who feel that basically they should be running the country. The problem is, Richard is very much the king who has favorites. So this is something that Edward II, Edward III's father, had been notorious for his favorites, and it had ended up bringing him down. Richard, he's got a gang of friends who he favors very, very strongly. So among them, there is a guy called Michael de la Pole, who is from a family of wool merchants from Hull.

Glamorous.

Not the person who John of Gord necessarily might approve of. But Richard loves him, and he sends him off on all kinds of diplomatic missions. And it's Michael de la Pole who finds him a very glamorous bride in the form of Anne of Bohemia, she's called. So she's the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor. He's brought They marry. Very happy marriage, although they don't have children. As a reward for this, Michael de la Pole is first appointed Chancellor, and then in 1385, Richard makes him the Earl of Suffolk. This is a guy who is on the make.

They're the same age?

He's a little bit older. No, he's older. And also older is a guy called Simon Burley. He was Richard's tutor, a very good friend of the Black Prince, had been involved again in the marriage negotiations and is seen by everyone as being incredibly common. So all the nobles regard him as beyond vulgar. Michael de la Pole and Simon Burley are older, but there is one guy in particular who is Richard's age, whom he adores, his best friend, who is a guy called Robert de Vier, the Earl of Oxford. Robert de Vier, I mean, that's a very, very epicene favorite name. There are people who suggest that Richard and De Vera are lovers. They may have been, we don't know. But actually, De Vera is a massive womanizer. There's a big scandal where he runs off with his wife's lady in Waiting, which is- That's not good. Yeah, very poor behavior. Richard lavishes him with all kinds of titles. He's the first guy to be made a Marquis in English history. He's made the Marquis of Dublin.

Marquis of Dublin. Why Marquis? Is this because it's a fancy title and it's a little bit different?

A little bit posh, a little bit foreign. Then in 1386, he gets made the Duke of Ireland, which is- The Duke of Ireland?

I didn't know such a title existed.

That's nice for our Irish listeners. You can imagine that this is really, really off all the great magnates, so the royal uncles, but also leading novenues. You got the Earl of Warwick, you got the Earl of Arindal, their cross about this. This obviously matters because Richard II, as king, he can go on about his anointing and how he's appointed by God and all this stuff. But he cannot rule without the backing of the magnates. And I think he's... Edward III, he had been a lad, and the magnates are basically lads, and it had been brilliant. So you compared me to Richard II. I mean, it's a bit like when we were on our tour of Australia, you and Theo and Dom chatting about the Champions League quarter finals in whatever, 2007, and I'm sitting there. So basically, Richard II And he's not hanging out with the magnates talking about the Champions League. He's sitting there with his fork and his handkerchief.

Thinking about Christianity, talking about the history of Christianity.

All that stuff. And so this means that tensions are created, and tensions are further created by the fact that the Hundred Years Overs war, which is still rumbling on, it isn't going well. Richard II isn't a very good war leader. The French are massing a huge army on the channel. Richard goes off to try and defeat the Scots. That doesn't go well either. And the result is that basically, The result is that basically, the number of people whom Richard can rely on is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking the whole time. This crisis is then accelerated by two developments in 1386.

Just before you get onto those two developments, Tom, a quick question for you, an obvious question. Everything What you're describing, Richard II, is medieval politics 101. Manage your magnates, be nice to the big power brokers, all that stuff. He has an example in his own family of Edward II. Yeah, he does. Just two kings earlier who'd made a terrible haulage of this and ended up supposedly having an encounter with the Red Hot Poker, although that probably didn't happen. Why on earth does he not learn the lesson from that? It's not that long ago.

Because I think he doesn't know how else to rule. He's trying to rule as best he can. The fact that he starts to make some of the same mistakes that his great grandfather had made is irrelevant to him. He's not looking back to the example of Edward II. He's trying to do the best that he can. And the fact that he is replaying some of these mistakes, it just points to certain structural deficiencies, I think, in royal government in the 14th century.

So it's a structural issue as much as it is a temperamental one, do you think?

I think it's a structural issue if you are not a successful war leader and if you lack the easy charm that Edward III had Yeah.

Okay.

I think being a lad is a requirement for being a successful medieval king. And that's why basically in 1386, two things happen that really accentuate the crisis. The first is that John of Gaunt leaves England. Turned out to be for three years. He's gone off to Spain to try and make himself the king of Castile. So this is a as you do. And this is a problem for Richard because John of Gaunt, he's the greatest man in the kingdom and had been very supportive of his nephew. And now he's gone, there is a void at the center. There is also an absolutely massive invasion scare. So you have 30,000 men massed on the French Coast. A contemporary chronicler compares it to the Greek army, which had destroyed Troy, which is not the detail that you want. This is up there with the Spanish Armada and Napoleon in 1805 as one of the great invasion scares. I mean, we don't remember it because in the event, it doesn't happen. But at the time, it causes massive panic. And So Michael de la Pole, who is Chancellor, he's the guy who's charged with raising the money that would enable England to see this threat off.

And so he summons Parliament. Parliament is furious because Parliament is getting fed up with being summoned and asked for money. And the MPs demand that Richard sacks de la Pole. And Richard has a hissy fit about this and famously says that he would not dismiss so much as a kitchen scullion from office at the request of mere commoners.

Wow.

Okay. And this is when Gloucester and the Earl of Arindal, they go to Richard, and they specifically remind him of the fate of Edward II. They say, Listen, you are skirting with danger here. Richard is sufficiently alarmed at this that he agrees to dismiss de la Pole. It's a victory for Parliament, and it's a victory for the Duke of Gloucester.

For the big magnates, the big landowners.

Yeah. And further humiliations are heaped on Richard. De la Pole is impeached, so he's charged by Parliament on charges of negligence and of embezelment. But everyone knows that it's really Richard himself who is being attacked. Parliament sets up a council that has powers to go through all the Royal accounts to check that money hasn't been embezzled. This Parliamentary Commission, by November 1386, is basically in charge of the entire government. And it's an incredible humiliation.

So that's almost like political land grab by Parliament, by the Commons and the Lords working together Tom, I guess?

Yes. And so this is very popular. And so this Parliament is called the Wonderful Parliament. We've talked about how parliament in Richard's reign have brilliant names. But Richard obviously doesn't regard it as wonderful at all. He thinks it's awful. In 1387, he's trying to think, How can I call the situation back? The problem for him is that he doesn't have access to the leavers of government anymore. And also the Earl of Arundel, who's one of the magnates who's moved against him, in March 1387, he He wins a spectacular victory at sea over the French, which destroys the invasion threat, and basically means that England will be free from invasion threats for decades. So it's a great victory. So it looks as though Richard doesn't really have any leavers to pull at all. So So what he does instead of remaining in London and fighting his corner there, is he goes out into the country, and he tries to build power bases out in the shires. And one place where he particularly tries to build a power base is Cheshire. And he also pursues a legal route, which is to summon the leading judges in the country.

And he's basically asking them, as king, can I do whatever I like?

And they say yes, presumably, do they?

And they basically say, yes, you can. You can do what you like.

Is that because they are royal appointees and they are therefore loyal to him rather than to Parliament?

No, I think they're looking at the law. I think the King can basically do what he likes. Their ruling is that the King can, if he wants, dissolve Parliament whenever he wants, and that the lords in the Commons do not have the right to put forward motions and articles that can overrule his. They are stating what is constitutional propriety. Richard thinks, Okay, brilliant. This is then fed back to the great magnates. It's obvious that the threat of civil war is brewing. On the 14th of November, there is a meeting between Richard's councilors and the three leading magnates in the country, which is the Duke of Gloucester, the Earl of Arundel, and the Earl of Warwick.

So this is 1387, Tom? Thirteen 87. The autumn of 1387. Yeah.

And these three magnates, they bring an appeal, which is namely a prosecution, against Richard's favorite, so including Delapole and also including De Vera, Richard's great friend.

And the targeting of the favorites is basically a way of hitting at Richard. Yes. You can't hit the king, so you target the favorites.

It is. So they come to be called the Lord's Appellant, the lords who are bringing an appeal, a prosecution against the king's favorites. Three days later, they repeat this appeal before Richard himself. Richard plays for time because he knows that up in Cheshire, De Vier is raising an army.

All right, De Vier, the guy who he was accused of sleeping with. Yeah.

His great pal. The lad who's been running off with his wife's lady in waiting. Yeah. Richard is waiting for De Vier to come to the rescue. But meanwhile, the three lords appellant have been joined by two further lords appellant. These are contemporaries, again, of Richard. So one of them is a guy called Thomas Mowbray, who's the Earl of Nottingham, who had been a good friend of Richard's, but has now switched sides. And the fifth Dominic is Richard's cousin, Henry Bollingbrooke, so named after the castle in which he was born. He also becomes one. So there are now five lords appellant.

His own cousin, Tom. His own cousin. And Henry Bollingbrooke is the son of John of Gaunt, the most powerful man in the world or whatever he's regarded as.

But he's off in Spain. So I I think if John of Gaunt had been in England, he would absolutely have stamped his foot down. But Henry Bollingbrooke has agency, and so he can see the way the wind is blowing. And so he joins the other lords appellant. And Henry Bollingbrooke is at the head of the army that marches from London into Oxfordshire to meet De Vier's army, which is marching down from Cheshire. And they meet at a place called Radcat Bridge, and De Vier is trounced. And he flees abroad, and the Lord's Appellant are absolutely triumphant. And Richard is now completely screwed. So he retreats to the tower, as he had done in 1381 in the great revolt. And basically, he's forced into total surrender. And all kinds of rumors circulate that the Duke of Gloucester had wanted to make himself King, and that for two days, actually, this had been seriously proposed. So Nigel Saul, who's written the definitive biography of Richard II. He said, subsequently, I mean, everyone has a stake in denying that this had happened. But he said, In the circumstances, there can be little doubt that for a period of some two or three days, Richard ceased to rule.

Tom, I know you've got to go to a break in a second, but just before we do that, if this was happening in Constantinople or something, Richard would have been blinded and sent off to a monastery, and he absolutely would have been deposed. Somebody would have replaced him. Why doesn't somebody replace him at this point? He's made a haulage of things. It's impossible to work with. Sure, he's an anointed king, but we've heard that a million times, and people do get deposed.

No, it really matters. It really matters. People People really seriously believe it. I mean, it's not just Richard who's hyping it up. It is profoundly believed. It's a sacrament. So to go against God's anointed is to go against God.

But people do sometimes get deposed, though.

It's very, very difficult to do. Very, very difficult, as we will see. And so this is why Richard is not deposed. But of course, they can attack his favorites. So in February 1388, a new parliament is summoned, and this is called the Merciless Parliament. Great name. And that's because they show No mercy to Richard's favorites. So De Vera and de la Pole, who have both escaped to France, they are sentenced to death in their absence. Others of Richard's favorites who have not fled are captured and put to death. And among them is Richard's tutor, Sir Simon Burley, the friend of the Black Prince, the guy who everyone had laughed at for being common. And Richard is so upset about this that he goes to his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, with his Queen, and the pair of them fall on their knees and beg for Simon Burley to be spared, and Gloucester refuses point blank.

No, he's got to go.

He's got to go. It looks as if it's all over for Richard, basically. He may still be king in name, but his authority seems completely shot to pieces.

Yeah, he's been totally humiliated, Tom. How can he possibly come back from this? Well, we'll find out, won't we? Well, go to a break right now, but we will leave on this cliffhanger. Can Richard turn this around? Spoiler alert. He can. And then there's another twist. So we'll see after the break. Welcome back to The Rest is History. Things are looking very bleak for Richard II. His tutor has been executed. Richard fell on bended knee, but it availed him nought.

Tom- That's exactly right. It did avail him nought.

Take us back into the story. What happens next?

Well, basically, Richard, to begin with, has no choice but to suck it up. I mean, for him, it's a shot like the Great Revolt. And as in the Great Revolt, it confirms him in his essential character traits, one of which is the less power he has, the more he insists on his dignity as an anointed king, and the more he goes for the metrosexual option. More show, better clothes, more ducks in turkeys, all that thing.

Yeah. Because he has no power. He has no power. And he's trying too basically.

But I think he has also learned a lesson, which is that he has to play the long game. So basically, what he does is to just sit back and wait for the Lord's Appellant to screw things up. Because I suppose Richard, by this point, he's had a sense of how challenging it is to rule England, because the essential problem that England is trying to fight a war that it can't really afford, it hasn't gone away. This is a challenge that will face the Lord's Appellant. It proves. So Arundal, who'd won this great naval victory, he leads a chevachet into France, and it's a complete damp squid. It doesn't work. So that's loads of money that's been blown.

So just on the war, we talked about this as halftime in the Hundred Years War, but campaigning is still going on. It's a bit of a stalemate and it's a bit of a sultry, is it? There are no big battles.

No big battles, no. But there's a need to keep England in state of arm preparation. And there remains an expectation that great victories should be won in France. The three elder lords of Pellant are from the generation that had won victories in France. And so this is why people are willing to back them on the expectation that they will go and get victories in France, and then they don't. And so that starts to shred their prestige. And what Richard also does rather cleverly is to bribe Mowbray and Bollingbrooke, the younger ones, by giving them fancy jobs. So anyone who has played Kingmaker, the board game about the Wars of the Roses, will remember the warden of the Northern Marches, which is a tremendous post you can get. So Mowbray gets appointed warden of the Northern Marches. He goes off to lead English forces against the Scots. Bollingbrooke, likewise, is given new posts, new honors. And the result of this is that by spring 1389, the alliance between the elder generation of Lord's Appellant and the two younger ones has broken up, and Richard feels that he can seize control back. And so on the third of May, he announces publicly that he is The boy is back in town, and he dismisses all his ministers the next day.

Actually, Dominic, among his ministers, he dismisses is William of Wyckham, who we talked about in the public schools episode.

The real Harry Potter episodes. Yeah, the founder of Winchester.

Richard is now basically in control. He's taking the reins of power back into his hands, and he pursues various policies. In the field of foreign affairs, the French War is grumbling on. Richard really wants to try and end it. He can't because there's the same problem that he is Duke of Aquitaine. As Duke of Aquitaine, does he pay homage to the French king or not? Richard says no. The French king says yes. And so they can't square that circle, but they do agree a truce. And this is to run for 28 years, signed in Paris in 1396. And so that frees Richard up to concentrate on domestic affairs. And by domestic affairs, Richard includes Ireland. So you remember he appointed his favorite, the Marquis, and then the Duke of Ireland. Ireland is still very much there. Richard is the first English king since John, and indeed, will be the last English king until William III to go to Ireland, and he goes there twice. And his stated aim in doing so is to establish good government and just rule over our faithful leeges. That's very nice for the Irish to have Richard going over and taking.

I think a bit like when the English got thrown out of Normandy back in the XII century and Edward Ist decided that he was going to rush around conquering Wales and hammering the Scots. I think, again, this is a slight element of displacement activity.

Right. This is compensation. Yeah.

But if Richard can't throw his weight around in France and he'll go and do it in Ireland. Yeah.

Does it work?

Kind of. The presence of a king with a fair number of people. I mean, it does enable Richard to stabilize Ireland from an English point of view. I mean, let's say from the Irish point of view. At the same time, back in England, Richard is massively cranking up this whole, I'm the chosen one of God God, lots more clothes, lots of portraits of him. People may have seen the famous painting of him with his patron saint kneeling before the Virgin and the Infant Christ. It's in the National Gallery in London.

That's the Wilton Dyptych, Tom? Yes. A very famous painting. I once went to a lecture by Maurice Keen. Great media with a story about the Wilton Dyptych.

Yes, of course.

Very interesting. Great book on chivalry. Yeah, people can look it up. It's a tremendous painting, actually. It captures that slightly gilded, spectacular, the of desperation to be noticed. This guilt obsession that I equate with Richard II, which also equates actually with men with long hair, but that's by the by.

But it's not just show because Richard is also very effectively making sure that he can raise money in the teeth of protests from Parliament. He's absolutely determined to become financially self-sufficient because he's realized that this is the Royal Achilles heel. So he's having endless rouse with Parliament. He's basically ignoring them. He's extorting huge loans from the wealthy capitalists in London. Essentially, he's now employing ministers who are overtly, brow beating parliamentary opposition. In 3097, his Chancellor, he has an address where he tells the Commons that their duty is complete obedience, that the King governs, and their role is simply to enable the King to govern. This is sufficiently intimidating that the Commons do vote Richard to huge grants. Richard is now... I mean, he's got a lot more money than, say, his regime had had earlier when he was a child. But of course, it comes at cost because he's alienated London, he's alienated Parliament. There's popular discontent as there had been in 1381, the year of the Great Revolt. And even with all this money that he's screwing out, Richard is still overspending because those robes, they don't come cheap. And it probably reminds you, Dominic, and I'm sure we'll remind listeners of Charles I, who likewise has a personal rule, alienates London, alienates Parliament, is coming up with all kinds of wheezes and schemes to screw money out, and it's the same problem.

And loves art.

And loves art, yeah.

It's a problem with Artistic Kings. What's fascinating about it is it's a structural problem with the English monarchy, but I suppose with so many European monarchy that last for centuries. I mean, that's the extraordinary thing.

Well, I think it's heightened for the English one because Because of what's happened over the reign of Edward III, that Parliament has seized control of the right to grant money to the king. And so this has now been institutionalized by all those parliaments with various groovy names.

The merciless Parliament.

Richard is basically the first King to wrestle with a problem that will haunt his successes throughout the 15th, 16th, and of course, into the 17th century. How can a King raise money without having his power eroded by Parliament? And of course, by magnates, because the magnates are still very much on the The Lord's appellant still, Richard hasn't been able to deal with them. He wants to. Richard is very much the man who, when he gets insulted or humiliated, he wants to have his vengeance. But he holds his hand because he's learned to play the long game. Also, John of Gaunt has come back from his abortive venture to make himself king of Spain. This is good news for Richard because Gaunt is a very loyal servant of him. It stabilizes the regime. But I think it means that Richard doesn't rush into dealing with the Lord's appellant. But by 1397, he decides that he is ready to make his move. And on the 10th of July in that year, very abrupt, completely without warning, taking everyone by surprise, he orders the arrest of Gloster of Arindal, and Warrack, so the three leading more elderly magnates, so not Bolingbrooke and not Mowbray.

And on the 15th of July, he goes to Parliament and he tells the Commons that these three great lords have been arrested, and I quote for the great number of extorsions, oppressions, and grievances committed against the king and people, and for other offenses against the king's Majesty. That, of course, is turning on its head the charges that the lord's appellant had brought against his favorites. So very, very sweet vengeance. They're very rapidly dispatched. So Arundel is executed. His brother, who is the Archbishop of Canterbury, is sent off into exile. Warwick is brought before the court, and to everyone's contempt, breaks down. It's said he sobbed and whined like a wretched old woman. Oh, no. Can't he? So he's sentenced to life imprisonment, and Gloster dies in very mysterious circumstances. So he is arrested. He's sent to Calais, and there it is reported that he's died. He died of a cold or something. Although his valet later reports that he'd been suffocated beneath the mattress. Beneath a mattress?

That requires multiple people to hold the mattress down, surely.

It's complicated. Right. So you talked about how this is setting up echoes that will reverberate throughout the 15th century. Of course, he's not the first member of a royal family to be suffocated by bedlinen. So the princes in the tower will suffer a similar fate.

Oh, right. You think they were suffocated beneath bedlinen?

Beneath pillows, wasn't it? Supposedly.

Yeah, that's the claim. Philip Langley would not be happy with you, Tom.

But I think that Gloster has basically got rid of because Richard doesn't want the embarrassment of his own uncle being brought to trial. So he takes all their lands. This is great. He distributes them among his followers. He also uses money to raise basically a private army. So lots of archers, lots of men at arms. And this is something new. No king has ever done this before. You can imagine that watching this, Mowbray and Bollingbrooke are very nervous.

So they're the two younger men.

The two younger men.

But they had become reconciled to the king. He had bought them off with offices and titles and things. So why should they be so nervous if they're back on his side?

Because they know that he's a very vengeful man. And having seen what he's done to the three other lords appellant, they are nervous that the ax is offering. And so both of them start accusing the other of plotting against the king.

And isn't this, Tom, a key thing, the vengefulness? I mean, we haven't massively brought that out in Richard's character. I mean, you can be showy and flamboyant, and you can be a bit prickly and proud and all those kinds of things. But there's not the key to him that he is so spiteful. He's a vengeful man who will not forgive and forget and compromise. And that's what's going to be his undoing.

Right. And Mowbray is a childhood friend of his, and Bollingbrooke is his cousin. So they know him very, very well on a personal level. So this is why each one accuses the other of plotting against Richard to try and get in Richard's good books. It's a quarrel that over the winter of '97 to '08 comes out into the open. It goes to court. It proves impossible for Parliament to decide between them. So it's decreed that they should settle it by fighting each other. Trial by combat. Massive excitement. Trial by combat.

Oh, that's very Hollywood.

So this is the big sporting event of the year. Everyone is looking forward to it. They're counting down the months, they're counting down the weeks, they're counting down the days. The great day arrives, Mowbray and Bollingborough come, they get on their armor, they're ready to fight. And then Richard says, Stop, you're not going to fight. And this is the moment at which Shakespeare's Playrich II begins. So we are now into Shakespeare's Matter of England with our narrative. And he orders Mowbray and Bollingbrooke to retire to their respective pavilions. A couple of hours pass, and then Richard announced his judgment that Mowbray is exiled for life and Bollingbrooke is exiled for 10 years. So both of them have no choice but to leave. Huge disappointment across England that they've been denied this great spectacle.

Disappointment, not relief?

No. Everyone had been looking forward to a- Clash of the Titans. Clash of the Titans, exactly. And then in the new year, so we're now into 1399, John of Gaunt dies.

And he had just allowed his son to be exiled?

He's very old by this point. Okay. And not really in a position to oppose Richard, which is why Richard had moved when he did against all the lords appellant. So with the death of John of Gaunt, there is now an awkward question because should Bolingbrooke, who is John of Gaunt's son and heir, and therefore Duke of Lancaster, should he be allowed to come back to England to claim his lands, which are presumably enormous, right?

I mean, John of Gaunt is the great magnate. Yeah.

And Richard says, no. He says, you're exiled for life. And this means effectively that Richard is clearly eyeing up the lands of the Dukedom of Lancaster and everything that pertains to that, which would give him a overweening financial security and degree of authority over the rest of the kingdom. So he's effectively verging on an absolute monarchy by this point.

And if that works for Richard, he's done. That's going to leave him completely sorted out for the rest of his reign, and indeed for his successes as well.

Yes. So it's a key moment in the history of the monarchy because it would have provided scope for a much more iron-fisted kinship than Richard had been able to exercise. Now, the risk for Richard, of course, is that, is Bollingbrooke going to take this lying down, or the Duke of Lancaster, as we should now call him?

Can you tell us, Tom, about what Bollingbrooke is like? Because Bollingbrooke is Richard's age-ish, isn't he? Richard is about 30 at this point.

He's a hard man, and he's ambitious. And as it turns out, he is not willing to allow this humiliation and permanent term of exile to stand. So late June 1399, he gets together a very, very small squadron of ships. He's got a force of men at arms, various Lancasterian banner men who've come to join him in France. And he's got the exiled Arundel, so the former Archbishop of Canterbury. And they sail into the North Sea, and they land at Ravensper on the Hummer estuary. The reason that they land there is because this is where Bollingbrooke's lands are. And so he is saying at this point, I've only come back to claim my Duchy. And with that understanding, the leading magnate in the north, who is a guy called Henry Percy, who has been made the first Earl of Northumberland, and the Persies, of course, will become a massive, massive force in Northern politics, the But the Persies agree not to oppose him. So they believe him.

They really believe him that he's just after his own.

Well, unclear. And this is something that will be a topic of much debate in Henry IV's reign. Meanwhile, Richard is in Ireland on the second of his two trips there. This is a problem because he can't get enough shipping to get all his troops back. He's stuck there, and the delay is fatal because support for him hemorrhages away. Large numbers of magnates who are fed up with Richard's personal rule and the threat of tyranny that they identify with him start to swing behind Bolingbrooke. And by the end of July, Henry has effectively secured control of pretty much the whole of England. And on the 29th of July, this is symbolized by the fact that three of Richard's most hated councilors are brought into Market Square in Oxford and publicly executed. And everyone cheers and goes hurrah and tosses their caps in the air and says, hooray for Bolingbrooke.

Which suggests there's a lot of latent opposition to Richard, presumably because of high taxes.

High taxes and because of the sense that he's establishing a tyranny. So people don't like that. Meanwhile, Richard has finally managed to rustle up enough ships. He's landed in Wales, which is not a good place, really, to try and strike at London from, and he has no support. And so by August, he's recognizing it's all over. So he meets in Conway Castle with Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland, who by now has absolutely swung behind Bollingbrooke. And he negotiates his surrender. And on the 19th of August, Richard has moved to Flink Castle, just along the Coast in Wales, where he surrenders to Henry Bollingbrooke, his cousin. And Henry speaks to Richard and he says, My Lord, I have come sooner than you sent for me, and I shall tell you why. It is said that you have governed your people too harshly and that they are discontented. If it is pleasing to the Lord, I shall help you to govern them better. Richard replies to Henry, If it pleases you, fair cousin, then it pleases us well.

Those words must have stuck in his crore.

He is saying that through gritted teeth, absolutely gritted teeth. And of course, he knows that Richard is lying. He knows that his cousin is bitter and vengeful and too dangerous, basically, to allow to live.

So Henry is in so deep. But the interesting thing is that this is always presented or often presented as Henry being ambitious, being conniving, striking for the throne. But you could argue, as Tom, I would argue with Richard III, that the deadly nature of medieval politics of, dare I say, the Game of Thrones means that if Henry didn't strike now against Richard, he might as well just slit his wrists. He's be assumed, right?

Yeah, because that's the lesson of the Lord's Appellant. If you're going to strike at Richard, you got to finish him off, because otherwise, he'll be back at you.

You don't want to be Ned Stark, right?

Right. So I think that this is basically it's self-defense rather than ambition that prompts Henry to aspire to the Crown. But of course, the reason why Richard is still latently very, very powerful is that he is an anointed king. No one can dispute that. He rules by right. And so this is a huge problem for Henry. How is he going to claim the throne? On the first of September, the pair of them finally reach London. Richard is sent to the tower. So the tower, again and again, is punctuation point in his life. He'd been there during the Peasants' Revolt. He'd been taken there by the Lord's Appellant at the great moment of crisis, and now he's back there, and he's a prisoner. Henry summons Parliament, and on the 10th of September, he stops using Richard's regnal year to date his proclamations. And So this is essentially saying Richard is going to be deposed. But how do you justify it? Because the problem is, it's not just getting rid of Richard, it's the fact that Richard's next heir isn't Henry Bolingbrooke. It's a guy called Edmund, who's the Earl of March, who is descended from Edward III's third son Lionel, so ahead of John of Gaunt, but via the female line.

People who listened to our episode on the Hundred Yearss War, the very first one, may remember that this is how the French stop Edward III succeeding to the French throne. They say that the French Crown can't pass down the female line. This is basically what Henry does now. It's very, very ironic that the English having gone to war on the basis that Edward III was illegitimate heir to the French throne by right of female descent. Now they're saying, actually, it's illegitimate. And so this is how Henry is able to claim the throne. But obviously, it's very, very legally dubious. Richard knows this. And so he keeps insisting, I'm the The rightful king. I mean, he is the rightful king. But finally, on the 29th of September, he's visited by Henry, and Richard recognizes that he has no choice. He takes the crown off his head, puts it on the ground, and he resigns his right to God.

That's madness, though, Tom. The moment you take the crown off and say, That's it, I'm done, you're dead.

Well, he's effectively nothing. He goes back to being Richard of Bordeaux.

He was a fool to do that because it was obvious at that point he'd have to be killed. Do you know what I think?

I mean, who knows what menaces Richard faced.

Yeah.

Okay. He probably knows he's going to be killed anyway. So the 30th of September, Parliament approves Richard's deposition. And on the 13th of October, which is the feast day of Edward the Confessor, so Richard's great patron, Henry is crowned in Westmister Abbey, and there's all kinds of attempts to burnish this coronation. So people who listen to our coronation episodes may remember Henry IV is the first to wear what's called the Imperial Crown. So a crown wear metal struts go over the head. There's also a special oil that is supposed to have been given by the Virgin to Thomas Beckett. That definitely happened. Basically, they're pulling out all stops. But it's a real problem. Henry is plainly an illegitimate king. And so there are people who can never accept him as king. Henry is aware of this, is aware that Richard basically can't be allowed to hang around on the scene. So first of all, he's sent to the castle of Leeds in Kent, and then he's sent to the great Lancastery stronghold of Pontefract in the north, which is absolutely secure. In January 1400, there is a Ricardian uprising. It's not very good. It's crushed.

Henry now knows he has no choice. And so the following month, Richard is killed. So there are two versions of this in Shakespeare's play. He's hacked to death by a group of guards led by a guy called Sir Pears of Exton. But it seems from contemporary sources, it's likely that he was just starved to death so that no one would have responsibility for killing an anointed king.

And a remarkable thing to me, looking at this story, is how closely it anticipates the position in 1483. I mean, this is the story of the Princes in the Tower. It's one of the reasons I think it's pretty obvious to me anyway, that they were killed by Richard III. Is that that is an action repair, the same story. The powerful guy, the relative who's in an impossible position, and basically, if he doesn't take the crown himself, he'll be killed. But then that raises This is the issue of what you do with the person you've deposed. Basically, you have to get rid of them. Otherwise, there'll be a focus for rebellions.

That's why Shakespeare's great suite of history plays that goes from Richard II to Richard III do form this incredible unity. Although they're written at very different periods in Shakespeare's life, the deposition of Richard II and Richard III's coup d'État in the Richard III play, they do bookend this extraordinary narrative. Henry Bolingbrooke, unlike Richard III, does not try and disguise what has happened. Richard II's body is in state from Pontefract down to London, stops along the way. Henry wants everyone to know that Richard is dead so that there won't be pretenders popping up left, right, and center. There's a Requiem mass held in Westminster, and then the body is sent off to a Dominican friery in Hartfordshire. And because Richard, he was a great patron of architecture, as you could imagine, with his metrosexual tastes, he built himself an absolutely sumptuous tomb, but he doesn't end up buried in it. And all kinds of moralists It's Marvel on this. Fortune ordered it otherwise, all this thing. Although, to be fair, to Henry V, who I've often dissed, he does put Richard in the tomb that he prepared in Westminster Abbey.

That is kind. That's typical of Henry V. What a great man.

Richard is clearly a massive failure. There's no other way of judging him but as a failure. But I do think that he's fascinating because the problems that he faces and the solutions that he attempts do look forward to the problems that face King throughout the 15th century, and the Tudors, and the stewards. I think that Shakespeare is not wrong that the deposition does generate a crisis of authority, certainly for the Lancasterian monarchy, it does undermine the legitimacy of Henry IV, of his son, Henry IV, and of his son, Henry VI. That will, in the long term, lead to the instability that will result in the Wars of the Roses. I think that it's not a completely mad position, the one articulated.

From that point onwards, Tom, am I right in thinking there's a cloud in the English sky, and that cloud is the storm cloud of civil war?

The storm cloud of civil war. I think you're right. That is beautifully and poetically Well, that's what we're basically put. But I don't think that we can end this episode with your poetry. What? When we have Shakespeare's poetry to hand, Dominic. Really?

Oh, that's shocking. Would you like me to read it? Would you enjoy that?

I would love you to read because this is Richard II contemplating his deposition, and it's one of the great messages in the whole of Shakespeare, and it's one of the great pieces of commentary on Kingship, full stop.

Unfortunately, we have a great performer to do it justice, Tom.

We do. But Dominic, just before you give us some Shakespeare, just to mention There will be more poetry in our next episode, which will be on Chauser and the Cantryby tales, which was written in Richard II's reign, and will be the final part of our four-part, Swing through the Rule of Richard II. If you want that immediately, you can, of course, access it by joining the Restless History Club. Otherwise, this will be going out on Thursday. Now, Dominic Shakespeare, take it away.

Okay, here we go. For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of Kings. How some have been deposed, some slain in war, some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping, killed, all murdered. For within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king, keeps death his court. And there the antic sits, scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, allowing him a breath, a little seen to monarchyise, be feared and kill with looks, infusing him with self and vain conceit, as if this flesh, which walls about our life, were brass impregnable, and humored thus, comes at the last, and with a little pin, boars through his castle wall, and 'farewell, king. Goodbye.

Goodbye..