The Tragedy of King Richard II

Theatre 250/376 Seminar Fall 2008
From Britain's Kings and Queens
by Sir George Bellew

Richard II (of Bordeaux) 1377-1399
Born at Bordeaux 1367
Crowned at Westminster 16 July 1377
Deposed 1399
Died 1400
Buried at Langley, but translated to Westminster

King Richard was the son of the Black Prince, and his character has always been something of a puzzle to historians. He was handsome but effeminate, fond of the arts and of personal display (“his dress was stiff with gold and gems”), hot tempered and capable of great cruelty. But there were occasions, such as that on which he sent back the peasants who rose under Wat Tyler, when he showed great courage.

After considerable civil struggle, King Richard eventually wrested the power from Parliament and the barons; but an unfavored marriage with Isabella, the very young daughter of Charles VI of France, turned opinion and loyalties against him (he had previously married Anne of Bohemia, to whom he had been devoted, but she had died in 1394). From then onwards he seemed to have pursued a policy of revenge and high-handed despotism which was as ruinous as it was foolish. Finally it brought Duke John of Lancaster’s son, Henry [Bolingbrook], to England, where he gained enough support to take King Richard prisoner and force him to abdicate in his favor. The fallen king was imprisoned, first in the Tower, and then at Pontefract Castle, where he was either murdered or starved to death, though a legend persisted that he had escaped. His queen, Isabela, but thirteen years old at her husband’s death, returned home to France.

Henry IV (of Bolingbroke) 1399-1413
Born at Bolingbroke, Co. Lincoln 1367
Crowned at Westminster 13 October 1399
Buried at Canterbury

King Henry IV, though his reign was founded on a broken pledge, for he had sworn that he had no intention of displacing his cousin Richard, started his term of regal office mildly and quietly. He was the first Plantagenet king of the Lancastrian branch: the true heir by primogeniture was the young Earl of March, representative of John of Gaunt's elder brother, Lionel, Duke of Clarence.

The northern barons rose against him but were defeated, and Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, was executed. This action was universally condemned and his popularity waned.

This active, daring, capable king was a bad administrator, and he had to suffer an almost always empty treasury, for Parliament demanded a redress of grievances before it would grant him money. Towards the end of his life his health deteriorated and he became prey to morbid fancies; the sins of his usurpation, the fate of King Richard, and execution of 'Saint' Richard Scrope, all weighed heavily upon him: "I, Henry, sinful wretch," he wrote in his will, showing that he possessed a conscience and was not beyond the hope of redemption.

His first wife was an English heiress, Mary de Bohun; his second was Joanna, daughter of Charles the Bad, King of Navarre. The latter bore him no children and was not well liked: after her husband's death she was accused of and imprisoned for witchcraft.

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