Richard II, also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard is thought to have been starved to death in captivity, although questions remain regarding his final fate. His posthumous reputation has been shaped to a large extent by William Shakespeare, whose play Richard II portrayed Richard’s misrule.
About Richard II of England in brief
Richard II, also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard’s father, Edward, Prince of Wales, died in 1376, leaving Richard as heir apparent to his grandfather, King Edward III. During Richard’s first years as king, government was in the hands of a series of regency councils, influenced by Richard’s uncles John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock. Richard is thought to have been starved to death in captivity, although questions remain regarding his final fate. His posthumous reputation has been shaped to a large extent by William Shakespeare, whose play Richard II portrayed Richard’s misrule and his deposition as responsible for the 15th-century Wars of the Roses. While probably not insane, as many historians of the 19th and 20th centuries believed, he may have had a personality disorder, particularly manifesting itself towards the end of his reign. Most authorities agree that his policies were not unrealistic or even entirely unprecedented, but that the way in which he carried them out was unacceptable to the political establishment, leading to his downfall. The next two years have been described by historians as Richard’s \”tyranny\”. In 1399, after John of. Gaunt died, the king disinherited Gaunt’s son, Henry Bolingbroke, who had previously been exiled, and had himself crowned king. Richard was born in Aquitaine on 6 January 1367.
According to contemporary sources, three kings were present at his birth. This anecdote, and the fact that his birth fell on the feast of Epiphany, was later used in the religious imagery of the Wilton Diptych, where Richard is one of three kings paying homage to the Virgin and Child. His elder brother, Edward of Angoulême, died near his sixth birthday in 1371. The Commons in the English Parliament genuinely feared that Richard’s uncle, John Gaunt, would usurp the throne. On 21 June the next year, Richard was invested with the title of King of Wales and his father’s other titles. This resulted in the 10-year-old Richard succeeding to the throne of England. He was crowned on 16 July 1377 at Westminster Abbey at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral. In 1387 control of government was taken over by a group of aristocrats known as the Lords Appellant. By 1389 Richard had regained control, and for the next eight years governed in relative harmony with his former opponents, many of whom were executed or exiled. He took his revenge on the Appellants in 1397, and in 1398 he deposed Gaunt. The king was nominally to exercise the kingship with the help of his younger brother Thomas, together with his brother, John, and his younger son, Richard of. Woodstock, who was excluded from the king’s unency councils together with the younger brother of Thomas. Richard died in April 1399 at the age of 50.
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