Get tickets for the biggest shows in London including Richard II with Jonathan Bailey. Get tickets at LondonTheatre.co.uk - the original London Theatre Guide since 1995.
- Shows On This Month
Find Shows Performing This Month &
Buy Official Tickets Instantly
- London Theatre Tickets
Browse West End Tickets.
From Plays to Musicals.
- Top West End Shows
From The Lion King to Frozen to Les
Miserables. Browse Popular Shows.
- Smash-Hit Musicals
Discover All The Popular
West End Musicals.
- All Reviews
Get Trusted Opinions On All The Top
Shows - Read Them Before You Book!
- Immersive Theatre
Interact With The Cast & Become
Involved in The Story.
- Shows On This Month
Search results
Richard II (6 January 1367 – c. 14 February 1400), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward, Prince of Wales (later known as the Black Prince), and Joan, Countess of Kent.
Feb 17, 2011 · Richard II became the first king to visit Ireland since 1210 and the last to do so before the 1690s.
- Overview
- Early years
- Richard’s mature kingship
Richard II (born January 6, 1367, Bordeaux [France]—died February 1400, Pontefract, Yorkshire [now in West Yorkshire], England) king of England from 1377 to 1399. An ambitious ruler with a lofty conception of the royal office, he was deposed by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV) because of his arbitrary and factional rule.
Richard was the younger and only surviving son of Edward, the Black Prince, and his wife, Joan of Kent. Because his father died prematurely in 1376, Richard succeeded his grandfather Edward III as king in June 1377.
The king’s early years were overshadowed by the Hundred Years’ War, a prolonged struggle with France. The heavy cost of the war led to the introduction in 1377 of a novel, and highly regressive, tax, the poll tax. In November 1380 Parliament granted permission to impose the tax for the third time at a flat rate much higher than before. The tactless attempts the government made in the following year to enforce collection of the tax led to the outbreak of the Peasants’ Revolt. Richard’s role in ending the revolt was rightly acclaimed, but it should not be supposed that he was influential in making policy. Almost certainly, the confrontation with the rebels at Smithfield was engineered by a hard-line group of his counselors.
In the years after the revolt, Richard’s interest in the affairs of state intermittently increased. According to the chronicler Thomas Walsingham, a contemporary of Richard’s, the choice of Anne of Bohemia, the daughter of the Holy Roman emperor Charles IV, as his bride in 1381 was very much Richard’s own. By 1383 his personal initiative showed in the choice of his friends and counselors, including two figures of particular importance—Sir Simon Burley, his former tutor, and Burley’s ally, Sir Michael de la Pole, chancellor from 1383. Richard was also on close terms with some ambitious younger men, notably Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford, and the knights Ralph Stafford and James Berners. These younger men were deeply jealous of the power and prestige of John of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster. Their repeated criticism of the duke and their involvement in an attempt on his life led to an atmosphere of rancour and suspicion at court. By 1385 Richard’s relations with the higher nobility were quickly deteriorating.
Britannica Quiz
Medieval History Quiz: Part Three
In October 1386 there was a major crisis in Parliament. In the wake of Lancaster’s departure for Spain in July with a large fleet to pursue his claim to the Castilian throne, the French planned an invasion of England. De la Pole, hastily organizing the coastal defences, sought an unprecedentedly large grant of taxation from Parliament. The massive scale of his demand provoked resistance, and the House of Commons clamoured for his resignation. Richard, stung by the Commons’ effrontery, retorted that he would not remove one scullion from his kitchen at their behest. Eventually, however, he had to give way. De la Pole was replaced as chancellor and put on trial, and a commission of government was appointed to hold office for a year.
In a five-year period beginning in 1389, Richard went some way toward honouring his promises. Taxes fell sharply following a truce with the French in 1389, and from 1389 to 1391 no demands for a tax on “moveable” property were made. Richard also showed greater circumspection in his patronage. Previously he had concentrated favour on just a few, but he now rewarded a wider circle, though each in smaller measure.
Yet the seeming moderation of Richard’s rule was matched by a strong emphasis on the reassertion of royal authority. Richard was determined never again to suffer a humiliation of the kind inflicted upon him by the Appellants. Accordingly, in the 1390s he developed a program to strengthen the material foundations of his rule. In a novel initiative he built up a large baronial-style affinity, whose members wore the king’s badge of the white hart. At the same time, he attracted to the central offices of government a corps of hard-working ministers deeply committed to his cause, notably John Waltham, the treasurer (1391–95), and Edmund Stafford, the chancellor (1396–99). Richard also sought to enhance the dignity and mystique of his monarchy. He encouraged lofty new forms of address—for example, “your highness” or “your majesty,” instead of “my lord.” He also elaborated the ceremony and protocol of his court, making the rebuilt Westminster Hall the focus of a grand monarchical cult. He stressed the quasi-religious dimension to his kingship, and solemn crown-wearings in Westminster Abbey formed an increasingly important part of his kingly ritual.
May 5, 2023 · Shakespeare’s Richard II is a play that asks us, among other things, what it means to have power, what it means to take power, and what we’re left with when power is gone. It is also a play...
- Kit Macfarlane
Feb 17, 2011 · In the late 1370s, when Richard II became king, living standards were rising, and rising rapidly. In 1348 the Black Death had struck England, reducing the population by between a third and a...
Can the personal wickedness of a bad ruler contaminate the office? 1 These are the questions taken up by modern interpreters of Richard II, who focus—not surprisingly—on the relation between Richard’s view of the king’s divine right and his problematic behavior.
Richard II ruled England from 1377 to 1399. He was young when he became king, so he was greatly influenced by a number of powerful nobles in the beginning of his reign. Eventually Richard was forced to abdicate (give up the throne). He was secretly put to death while in prison.
