Okay, so I know Shakespeare wrote about this guy, and I know he also wrote about Richard’s successors, Henry IV and Henry V – but I’m going to bypass him (forgive me) with my own quick rendering of this History. It is a sad tale about a boy who becomes king, and it is a tragedy of sorrow and betrayal by a young man’s male lovers. It is a tale about family, and the betrayal of a cousin who had Richard put in chains and later starved to death in the Tower of London. It is the story of murder, and how Richard outlived, perhaps, those who had sought to take his life.I’ll try to keep it short, how’s that?
In 1367 Richard was born; he was the son of Edward, “The Black Prince,” who was himself the oldest surviving son of King Edward III. Without getting too much into the upcoming *Wars of the Roses* (the lineage there is very hard to follow) I will say that Edward III had five sons – they were Edward (The Black Prince), and then Lionel, John of Gaunt, Edmund, and Thomas. Desendants from four of these five would later make claims to the throne, and England would be thrown into a very complicated civil war.
For this story, we can concentrate on Richard II and his cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke who was the son of John of Gaunt.
In 1377 Richard’s father died, and young Richard assumed England’s throne. He was first in line for the job, but he was only ten, and so he was surrounded by a group of “advisors” who tried to rule England, themselves. This didn’t sit well with many of the nobles in England, and neither did Richard’s very flamboyant and gaudy escapades with his two male lovers. A marriage to Anne of Bohemia proved (ahem) fruitless, and after her death Richard II fell under the whim of his first lover, Richard. I suppose we could call them “Dick” and “Dick,” but I’m not sure that would be appropriate. In any case, both Dicks (sorry, I mean both Richards) lived a life of luxury and spent a king’s wealth with lavish abandon. The king was not popular with the people, he was not respected at all, and the nobility tended to snicker at him behind his back.
The proposed “marriage” to six year old Isabella of France (Richard II was nearly 30) signaled the King’s downfall – he was not unaware of his cousin Henry’s desires for the throne, but he seemed powerless to stop him. By 1397 Richard II suffered the death of his male lover (can you believe it? he was mauled by a wild pig?) and he slid into massive bouts of depression and madness. Oh, yeah. Madness. Poor Richard was a mess. He gathered people around the throne and then sat in silence for hours at a time. He dismissed Parliament. He tried to kill his uncle Thomas. And then he exiled anyone who tried to reason with him.
Hmm, yeah. That doesn’t look good when you’ve got Henry amassing a small army outside of Ireland, now does it? And when Richard took another lover, this time a courtier named “Rutland,” he would find himself fatefully betrayed. Rutland would switch sides in the upcoming battle between Richard and Henry, and this desertion, along with the troops Rutland (the courtier) had under his thumb, would prove disastrous to the King. (Why would you give Rutland any trooops at all? Seriously? Think about it, man.)
As Henry was moving south toward London, Richard was moving north to meet him. Along the way Henry was gaining a swell of support while Richard was seeing even his closest friends abandon him. Richard was not popular, he was in some ways despised, and his policies and peculiar personality worked to alienate his counrty at large. In fact, most people inside London would welcome Henry as he swept into the city. Richard, in the meanwhile, had been forced to disguise himself in monk’s clothing and he tried to hide himself inside the walls of an abandoned castle during. He hunkered down during the middle of a summer storm. Once found, he tried to escape by throwing himself from a stone wall – unfortunately the fall did not kill him. I almost feel bad for him. Poor Richard. It would have been an easier death.
Back in London – oh, wait. I forgot. Henry’s army captured Richard and the King was marched, in chains, back to his throne. Once there, Henry had his cousin imprisoned in the Tower of London. Now, during this time the “Tower” was actually more of a fortification and not yet a dark dungeon of imagination and for a time Richard was treated fairly well. Henry was making moves to become King (it is interesting that he tried to make “legal” his usurping of the throne) and it was in his interest to keep, for display, the humbled, weakling man who was Richard. I wonder if Rutland came to see him – but you know what? I think he did not.
I’ll interject my own opinion for a moment and say that I’m not particularly fond of Henry IV. (Apologies to the Bard) Henry was actually THIRD in line for the throne behind Richard II and then Edmund Mortimer. He took the throne from Richard (and later kept it from Edmund) and this set a very dangerous precedent that would later lead to English civil war. And you know what else? Henry IV had smelly feet. That is a fact.
It is a sure thing that Henry did not go to see his cousin. The two had actually been very close when they were youngsters. They were first cousins, after all. Regardless, Henry soon realized that it was a weakness to have Richard remain alive. Henry had all the support of England (well, most of it, anyway) and he was a strong, charismatic figure. Richard, meanwhile, was struggling with his own madness. And soon he would be struggling with hunger. At the moment Henry of Bolingbroke became Henry IV, Richard’s death note was signed. He was left to starve to death – and you can say that, and picture it, but just imagine how horrible a fate that really is – and was not seen in England again.
I say not seen in “England” because the tale gets dicey after Richard’s death. And that’s because many people did not really believe him to be dead. Richard II still had many supporters, and there were whispers that the “real” King had been spared, or had escaped, and such rumors persisted long after the coronation of the “less-real” King Henry IV. There were reported sightings of Richard II in Ireland and Scotland, and people went so far as to actually impersonate him in the hopes of restoring a fallen king to his throne. Richard II was more popular in death than he had ever been during his life. I'm telling you, he was like Jim Morrison, you know?
So there you have it, and I mean the SHORT version of it – the sad, tragic tale of a young boy placed on the throne way too early; the sad story of the death of one lover and the betrayal by another; the drama of a conflict for the throne and the betrayal by a King’s own kin; the terrible death by starvation; and the long-lived appearances of a dead man for years after his throne was taken. You like it? It is interesting, right? If you want more check out Shake’s version. He’s written a couple of plays, I think.
