Richard II of England

“ Enter King Richard and Queen; Aumerle, Bushy, Green, Bagot, Ross and Willoughby.
YORK.
The King is come. Deal mildly with his youth,
For young hot colts, being raged, do rage the more.
QUEEN.
How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?
KING RICHARD.
What comfort, man? How is’t with aged Gaunt?
GAUNT.
O, how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old.
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast,
And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
For sleeping England long time have I watched;
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt. ”

“ In Richard the world now sees a destroying "hero," one of the scourges of mankind. The son of Henry II, Richard became King of England in 1189. His chief ambition appears to have been the spread of his own renown, and this aim he sought to achieve in Palestine. He raised moneys by the sale of titles, lands, etc., and then started for the Holy Land. Modern history presents him, as well as his colleagues and followers, divested of the glamour which for centuries hung about the Third Crusade, of which the only heroic figure on the Christian side is the likewise pitiable Barbarossa. ”

“ Richard II. was the son of Richard I., and as his father had been engaged during his reign in contentions with his sovereign lord, the King of France, he, in his turn, was harassed by long-continued struggles with his vassals, the barons and nobles of his own realm. He, too, sent for Northmen to come and assist him. During his reign there was a great contest in England between the Saxons and the Danes, and Ethelred, who was the Saxon claimant to the throne, came to Normandy, and soon afterward married the Lady Emma, Richard's sister. ”

“ The Beauforts came to an end, and the Tiptoft peerage lapsed, the accomplished Earl of Worcester being childless. The lay peerage, including peers temporarily under attainder, numbered fifty-four on the accession of Richard III., quite as numerous as it was before the war.
We have not, therefore, to contemplate a devastated country and a decimated peerage at the time when our last Plantagenet King ascended the throne. England was fairly prosperous, and the numbers and wealth of the nobility had not been reduced. ”

“ While the barons and knights were thus amusing themselves at the beginning of Richard's reign with fighting for castles and provinces, either for the pleasure of fighting, or for [Pg 223] the sake of the renown or the plunder which they acquired when they were fortunate enough to gain the victory, the great mass of the people of England were taxed and oppressed by their haughty masters to an extent almost incredible. The higher nobles were absolutely above all law. ”

“ You stand by the tomb of Richard and Anne, united at last, and do not you think, "Oh, the pity of it," when you remember how Richard might have been strong and brave, had only he kept true to his best self? And then, do you not turn with a thrill of pride to the lofty chantry which encircles the grave of Henry V., the best loved king England ever had, the king who set a glow of patriotism alight in his realm, who rose above his failings and his faults, and gave to his people the fine example of a man who was victor over himself as well as victor over his foreign foes? ”

“ For five years Richard was away from his dominions as a crusader or a captive. There was plenty of trouble during his absence, but less than might have been expected. The strong governance set up by Henry II. proved competent to maintain itself, even when Richard’s John’s treachery. ministers were tactless and his brother treacherous. A generation before it is certain that England would have been convulsed by a great feudal rising when such an opportunity was granted to the barons. ”

“ England got no benefit from Richard's great daring and expensive picnics in Palestine; but of course he advertised Great Britain, and frightened foreign powers considerably. The taxation necessary to maintain an army in the Holy Land, where board was high, kept England poor; but every one was proud of Richard, because he feared not the face of clay.
John, the disagreeable brother, succeeded Richard, and reigned seventeen years, though his nephew, Arthur, the son of Geoffrey, was the rightful heir. ”

“ When Richard was about to leave Normandy and go on his crusade he caused John to swear at the council which he held in March that he would not enter England for the next three years without his leave, but the queen-mother persuaded the king to release him from this oath. This was a mistake, for Richard had made him so powerful that his presence in England was dangerous to the peace of the kingdom when the king was not there to overawe him. ”

“ And as it fareth with smoke, that never loseth itself till it be at the highest, he did now before his end raise his style, entitling himself no more Richard, Duke of York, but Richard IV, King of England. His council advised him by all means to make himself master of some good walled town; as well to make his men find the sweetness of rich spoils, and to allure to him all loose and lost people, by like hopes of booty as to be a sure retreat to his forces in case they should have any ill day or unlucky chance of the field. ”

“ The duke was imboldened by this success to take a farther step. He told the Parliament that the [Pg 292] government would never be on a good footing until they themselves appointed a council to manage in the king's name.
When Richard heard of this plan, he declared that he would never submit to it.
"I am the King of England," said he, "and I will govern my realm by means of such officers as I choose to appoint myself. I will not have others to appoint them for me." ”

“ Buckingham indeed was beheaded, but the bulk of his followers were pardoned, and the overthrow of her hopes reconciled the queen-mother to the king. She quitted the sanctuary with Elizabeth, and thus broke up the league on which Henry's hopes hung. But Richard was too wary a statesman to trust for safety to mere force of arms. He resolved to enlist the nation on his side. During his brother's reign he had watched the upgrowth of public discontent as the new policy of the monarchy developed itself, and he now appealed to England as the restorer of its ancient liberties. ”

“ The support of the nobles had been partly won by a hope hardly less fatal to the peace of the realm, the hope of a renewal of the strife with France. The peace of Richard's later years had sprung not merely from the policy of the English king, but from the madness of Charles the Sixth of France. France fell into the hands of its king's uncle, the Duke of Burgundy, and as the Duke was ruler of Flanders and peace with England was a necessity for Flemish industry, his policy went hand in hand with that of Richard. ”

“ Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had no further obstacle in assuming the purple, and was crowned King of England with all pomp and ceremony, and known to unenviable fame as Richard III.
This account has come down to us with all the authority of historical verity, and subsequent evidences of its accuracy have been discovered. The age was characterized by inhumanity of the most barbarous kind, and this crime was in keeping with it.
The English people in this nineteenth century rejoice in a sovereign who is noble in the highest sense ”

“ The Black Prince did not live to succeed his father and inherit the throne, for he lost his health in his campaigns on the Continent, and came home to England, and died a few years (p. 019) before his father died. His son, whose name was Richard, was his heir, and when at length old King Edward died, this young Richard succeeded to the crown, under the title of King Richard II. In the history of Richard II., in this series, a full account of the life of his father, the Black Prince, is given, and of the various remarkable adventures that he met with in his Continental campaigns. ”

“ The soldiers, less informed, gazed idly on, and Richard now regained Edward's side.
"Reflect," he said, as he drew him apart, "that, when on this spot landed Henry of Bolingbroke, he gave not out that he was marching to the throne of Richard II. He professed but to claim his duchy,—and men were influenced by justice, till they became agents of ambition. This be your policy; with two thousand men you are but Duke of York; with ten thousand men you are King of England! ”

“ Some of the magnates seem to have thought that jealousy and rivalry among themselves might be best appeased by setting, or at least proposing to set, over all of them a sovereign of another nationality; certain of them nominated King Richard of England. It was probably merely in opposition to this party that some others—“but they were few”—proposed Philip of France. [1242] The majority inclined to Duke Henry of Saxony, Richard’s sister’s son, who by birth was head of the most illustrious of the princely houses of Germany, and had in 1196 succeeded his father-in-law as Count Palatine. ”

“ I am young enough myself to wait till she grows up, and, in the mean time, I can have her trained and educated to suit me exactly."
Richard opens negotiations with the King of France.
So, after a great deal of debate among the king's counselors and in Parliament, it was finally decided to send a grand embassage to [Pg 312] Paris to propose to the King of France that he should give his little daughter Isabella in marriage to Richard, King of England. ”

“ Another story of the time of Edward III that you will like, is to be found in Maurice Hewlett’s “New Canterbury Tales.” It is called “The Countess Alys,” and is about the “at-home” England of that day, and not the adventuring prince, who, after all, was not the whole of England,though he lends himself so well to adventure stories that the writers like him for hero.
Richard II was only a baby when he became king, so that his uncles undertook to do the ruling for him, and it was not until he was twenty-four years old that he finally asserted himself, really becoming England’s ruler. ”

“ While he was there, and before the re-enforcements came, the queen, at the head of her army from Scotland, which was strengthened, moreover, by the troops which she had obtained in the north of England, came marching on down [Pg 51] the country in great force. When she came into the neighborhood of York, she encamped, and then sent messengers to Prince Richard, taunting and deriding him for having shut himself up within fortified walls, and daring him to come out into the open field and fight her. ”

“ The trappings of the champion's horse were of white and red silk, and the armor of the knight himself was bright and glittering. As he rode forward into the area in front of the dais, he called out, in a loud voice, demanding of all present if there were any one there who [Pg 289] disputed the claim of King Richard the Third to the crown of England. ”

“ No man knew better than himself that he sat in the royal place, not by any affection for him in the people, but by force and terror alone. There have not been wanting historians who have coolly declared that Richard would have made a good monarch if the people could have thought so; that he was a very brave and a very clever fellow, and had only committed the crimes which were necessary to raise him to the desired throne. Those crimes were only murder of his nearest kindred ”

“ He could spare and reinstate Richard II's memory, as much as in him lay, though he owed the crown to his overthrow. That he furthered and advanced also in France the municipal and parliamentary interests, which were his mainstay in England, procured him the obedience which was there paid him, and a European influence. In his moral character Henry ranks above most of the Plantagenets. He had no favourites and let no unjust acts be imputed to him. He was stern towards the great and careful for the common people; at his first word men could tell what they had to expect from him. ”

“ No nobleman could feel his life secure if he crossed Richard's path. The first to revolt was Buckingham, who had played the part of a king-maker, and who was disappointed because Richard did not reward him by conceding his claim to estates so vast that if he possessed them he would have been master of England. ”

“ The young prince was received with great honor. A solemn oath of [Pg 171] allegiance was taken by all present, including the members of the Parliament, the great officers of state, and a number of nobles of high rank, including the Duke of Lancaster himself. In this oath, the claims of Richard to succeed his grandfather as King of England were recognized, and those taking the oath bound themselves forever to maintain his rights against all who should ever call them in question. ”

“ Of course, this movement revived, in some degree, the spirit of his army, and awakened in them new hopes. Still, Richard himself was extremely uneasy, and his mind was filled with solicitude and anxiety. Messengers were continually coming from Europe with intelligence which was growing more and more alarming at every arrival. His brother John, they said, in England, was forming schemes to take possession of the kingdom in his own name. In France, Philip was invading his Norman provinces, and was evidently preparing for still greater aggression. ”