Richard II

King of England (1367–1400); reigned from 1377 until his deposition in 1399, the first English king removed from the throne by a formal parliamentary process. Grandson of Edward III, he came to the throne aged ten and was overthrown by his cousin Henry IV, dying in captivity soon after.

Richard’s reign became the medieval test case for the boundary between kingship and tyranny. The working definition of the day held kingship to be rule according to law in the interests of the people, and tyranny to be arbitrary will against them; Richard, who reportedly claimed the law was ‘in his own mouth’ and his subjects’ lives and property his to command, supplied Henry IV’s committee with the material for the 33 Articles of Deposition drawn up to justify removing him in 1399. The historian Helen Castor treats his fall as driven by personal choice as much as structure: his decision to sail to Ireland in person in 1399 — repeating an enjoyable 1394–95 expedition where the Gaelic chiefs had performed homage and let him leave satisfied — left England undefended for Henry’s return from exile, to a people who flocked to him.

Richard is also remembered for exceptional visual taste. Castor credits him with a superb eye — the Westminster coronation portrait, the first-ever double royal tomb, and above all the exquisite Wilton Diptych, each placing a stunning image of himself at the centre — though she judges he was probably no reader, despite having Chaucer in his service. His story acquired a long political afterlife: Shakespeare’s Richard II (mid-1590s) ran to several printed editions but had its deposition scene omitted from print as too dangerous, the parallels with an ageing, childless Elizabeth I too close; on the eve of the 1601 Essex rebellion, supporters paid for a performance at the Globe, and Elizabeth reportedly said, ‘I am Richard II. Know ye not that?‘

In the wiki

• Helen Castor on Medieval Power and Personalities — Helen Castor reads Richard’s deposition as a double-edged constitutional precedent (removing a tyrant might require going beyond the constitution — cited by the men against Charles I in the 1640s) and his Ireland voyage as a decisive personal blunder; she likens him to Dune’s Paul Atreides, the chosen one who expects to speak and be obeyed, ‘except Richard is not in Dune, he is in England, and it does not work’.

See also

• Henry IV — his cousin, who deposed and succeeded him
• Helen Castor — historian of the period