Richard II: tyrant king and inventor of the pocket handkerchief

After turning London upside down, the group of protesters, led by Wat Tyler, demanded to speak to the king, who, despite the reluctance of his advisors, had to travel to Smithfield in person. During the meeting, Tyler, who was armed with a knife, was surprised by one of the king's soldiers and ended up dead. Outraged, the rioters demanded justice. In a rare moment of lucidity and great courage, Richard II, then 14, addressed the people and assured them that all their demands would be met, including the abolition of serfdom (which ultimately did not happen). In the opinion of several authors, including Helen Castor, author of the most recent book on Richard II, *The Eagle and the Hart*, published in October 2024, the meeting at Smithfield was a turning point for Richard II, who thus experienced, for the first time, the power of the royal prerogative, to which he attached great importance.

In 1382, Richard II married Anne of Bohemia, daughter of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, and Elizabeth of Pomerania, and sister of Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia. Her grandfather was John of Bohemia, the blind king who preferred to die in a final charge, his horse tethered to his knights, rather than survive dishonored at the Battle of Crécy, fought in 1346 and won by the English. Impressed by the Bohemian king's courage, the Black Prince, one of the heroes of the battle, adopted his insignia—an ostrich feather. Richard and Anne had no children. Despite the lack of descendants, a situation that could be used to request an annulment of a marriage in the Middle Ages, the king always demonstrated unwavering devotion to his queen. When Anne died in 1394, at just 28, Richard was deeply shaken. The Queen was buried in Westminster, in a double tomb erected in the chapel of Edward the Confessor, an 11th-century Anglo-Saxon monarch and saint, patron saint of England until the 14th century, when he was replaced by Saint George.

With a sensitive personality and refined taste, Richard was very different from his father and grandfather—he never showed any interest in war, preferring the luxury and culture of court to the discomfort of armor and the heat of battle. In an effort to end the conflict with France, in 1396, he married Isabella of Valois, daughter of the French king Charles VI, who was only six years old (Richard was 29). Richard II was a firm believer in royal prerogative and preferred to seek support from those closest to him rather than listen to Parliament, whose action he attempted to restrict. His dependence on a group of influential friends spurred a group of aristocrats into action, including his uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, and his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, heir to the duchy of Lancaster, the richest in England. In 1388, following the so-called Merciless Parliament, they came to control the kingdom. In 1391, the king managed to regain control. After eight years of seemingly peaceful rule, Richard decided to take revenge on all who had conspired against him, exiling most, including his cousin, and arranging the assassination of his uncle. After the Duke of Lancaster's death, Richard II disinherited Henry, forcing him to act. In June 1399, John of Gaunt's eldest son returned from exile and seized the kingdom.

Richard was in Ireland when Henry landed in England from the continent. He hurried back but was captured in the city of Chester and imprisoned in the castle of the Earl of Arundel, after most of his companions abandoned him. He was then taken to the Tower of London, where, in September 1399, he was forced to abdicate in favor of his cousin, the future Henry IV. He was the second English king since the Norman Conquest in 1066 to do so. The first was his great-grandfather, Edward II, who also surrounded himself with favorites, neglecting his duty to the kingdom and the English. The attempts to control the king likely made Richard II feel a special connection with his ancestor, and he attempted to promote his canonization with the Pope.

In January 1400, a group of former courtiers led by John Montagu, Earl of Salisbury, conspired to restore Richard II to the throne. The rebellion was quickly crushed, but it became clear that the former king could not live. Thus, in February of the same year, Richard, son of the Black Prince, was assassinated at Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire, where he had been held since the end of the previous year. The former king had wanted to be buried in Westminster—a cathedral to which he had given special attention, sponsoring the reconstruction of the north entrance and part of the nave—alongside Anne of Bohemia, but his wish was denied. As Alfred Thomas noted in a book about Richard II's court, "his burial in a highly visible royal mausoleum (...) would have posed too great a threat to the new Lancastrian regime." It was then necessary to reach a compromise that, on the one hand, fulfilled “the pragmatic need to publicly display the body of the former king, so that rumors of his survival could be eliminated (as far as possible)” and, on the other, that negated “Richard’s wish to be reunited with his deceased wife”.

Richard II's body lay in state at St. Paul's Cathedral in London before being transported to King's Langley in Hertfordshire, where he was buried in the Dominican convent founded by Edward II, the great-grandfather he so admired. In 1413, Henry V, son of Henry IV, ordered the monarch's body transferred to Westminster and buried in the tomb that had been built in Edward the Confessor's chapel, alongside Edward III and his queen, Philippa of Hainault.