The New Murrey and Blue blog

This article Thomas of Woodstock and Shakespeare’s Twisted History | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net) begins as follows:-

“….William Shakespeare wrote ten history plays. Of these, one of the most famous is  Richard II . The play  Richard II , written around 1595, is based on the rule of King Richard II (reign 1377-1399), but one of the main characters in the play is Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, despite the fact he is dead for its entirety….”

I should imagine that the unfortunate Richard II often wished the awful man had never been born. Richard was plagued by powerful uncles, and the youngest, Thomas of Woodstock, the first Duke of Gloucester, was a nasty piece of work. He was an unpleasant, supposedly pious bully who clearly suffered from the ‘youngest son syndrome’, if there is such a thing. And today’s Prince Harry thinks he’s always been a mere second best?  He should try having the Black Prince, Lionel of Clarence, John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley ahead of him in the pecking order. Harry has had it easy in comparison. As the article says, Thomas “had a rather sizable chip on his shoulder”.

But not all Dukes of Gloucester were admirable, and Thomas was certainly determined to be as powerful as he possibly could. In Richard’s best interests, of course. Oh, of course. Thomas was also very pious. Hmm. I can never accept that someone is truly pious when they commit awful crimes. It’s all a front. In my opinion.

He was born 7 January 1354/5 at Woodstock, and was the sixth surviving son of Edward III (who could certainly churn out spare after spare after spare….) Thomas grew up to be a relatively effective military man, and eventually married Eleanor de Bohun, an exceedingly wealthy heiress….except that she, most annoyingly, had a sister, Mary, who was the co-heiress. Thomas, dear fellow, did all he could to force Mary to take the veil (perhaps that’s where George of Clarence got the inspiration to try the same with Anne Neville?) But Thomas’s own brother, John of Gaunt, outwitted him, had Mary abducted and married to his, Gaunt’s, son and heir, Henry of Bolingbroke. (Boooo!) She died before Bolingbroke usurped Richard II and then murdered him at Pontefract.

However, I digress. Thomas didn’t take this financial setback very well, and needless to say his relationship with Gaunt deteriorated somewhat. In fact, Thomas’s relationships with a number of people deteriorated, including his ill-fated nephew, Richard II. I don’t think Thomas liked anything about Richard. Certainly he set out to nit-pick and complain, conspire and thwart at every turn. Ultimately he headed a powerful group of magnates, the Lords Appellant, who opposed the advisors and friends around the king. The Battle of Radcot was won by the Appellants, who set about teaching Richard a lesson and executing his friends and advisors. As you do.

When, eventually, Richard regained the upper hand, he in turn set about punishing the Appellants. Heads rolled. Thomas was arrested and imprisoned at Calais where surprise surprise, he died (it’s believed on 8 September 1397). To put it plainly, he was murdered. Strangled probably. As far as Richard was concerned, this particular uncle was no great loss. If I were Richard, that’s certainly how I’d feel.

Anyway, you can read much more in the above article, and at a lot of sites on the web.  The demise of Thomas of Woodstock is, after all, a very well-known case. But, strangely, it’s Richard who usually gets the blame. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s something to do with kings called Richard, because the third monarch of that name hasn’t fared well in the blame game either. But Thomas of  Woodstock deserved what he got, and I for one have no sympathy for him, He was a right royal rat.

I suppose I ought to apologise for being flippant with my illustrations, because the subject is serious enough, but I fear I cannot. In case you hadn’t noticed, I just dislike Thomas of Woodstock!