The New Murrey and Blue blog

Please have patience with me now, because I’m about to remount yesterday’s hobby horse, but as it concerns the arrival of the usurping House of Lancaster on the throne of England, it’s relevant to Ricardians—by that I mean we supporters of Richard III. There are other Ricardians too, of course, and they are loyal to Richard II. I’m a Ricardian of both persuasions. Richard I you can keep. He hardly knew where England was, only how to drain it of money.

On 3 October 2024 I wrote about a then unpublished book, The Eagle and the Hart, see here https://murreyandblue.org/2024/10/03/a-book-ill-be-giving-a-miss/. The author of the book is Helen Castor, see here https://rsliterature.org/fellows/helen-castor/ . My post was prompted by her book’s clearly heralded anti-Richard II (the Hart) slant. Bolingbroke (the Eagle), on the other hand, is a marvel of chivalry and gallant manhood who, after disposing of Richard and stealing his realm, had himself crowned Henry IV.  Oh, such chivalry, you’ll agree! For a balanced account of what happened when Bolingbroke made his cynical move on his royal cousin, see here https://murreyandblue.org/2024/08/19/june-july-august-1399-how-england-fell/.

Well, needless to say I disagree entirely with The Eagle and the Hart, but have admitted that I haven’t read it and have no intention of doing so. To me Ms Castor was taking a stance on a par with mopping the floor with Richard III while licking the boots of Henry Tudor!

Well, someone has read the book and reviews it here https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20241122/282368340191512. He is Christopher Hart (https://www.thetimes.com/profile/christopher-hart). My suspicions are now confirmed. The Eagle and the Hart gives Richard a thorough kicking. Putting the boot in him is becoming as bad as the treatment doled out to Richard III!

The word “prissy” crops up because Richard II “invented” the handkerchief and had a bathhouse plumbed for hot water! Presumably Bolingbroke kept wiping his nose on his increasingly filthy sleeve and only washed when his late wife wouldn’t come near him otherwise! Richard’s approach to cleanliness was more in tune with today than the 14th century.

There are nudge-nudge-wink-winks that Richard was gay and in love with his close friend Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford. (https://luminarium.org/encyclopedia/robertdevere.htm) Hmmm… As de Vere caused a huge scandal by running off with one of Richard’s queen’s Bohemian ladies, one Agnes Launcecrona, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_de_Launcekrona) he certainly doesn’t sound 100% gay! AC/DC? Who knows. Please see the comment below by Nick Fa, in which he tells of a new biography of Robert.

Richard and Robert de Vere were very close, that’s true, but I believe it was simply a very strong friendship. Best buddies and all that. Such confidential male-male friendships were the norm back then, and if some of them turned out to be homosexual, most did not. When their lives depended on it—for instance on a battlefield or campaign in enemy territory—they needed to be able to trust and anticipate each other completely. And I mean completely!

Richard is also suggested to have been asexual. Sez who? He was in love with his first wife, Anne of Bohemia (https://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/plantagenet_61.html), but they were destined to be childless. He was distraught when she died (probably of the plague). His second wife was a child, Isabella of Valois, https://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/plantagenet_62.html), chosen because he wished to secure peace with her homeland, France. He was prepared to wait until she was old enough to be a true wife and in the meantime treated her very kindly. She mourned his loss openly. I have no doubt that when she was old enough and they shared a marriage bed, they would have consummated their union.

To make Richard II seem less of a man, it’s often claimed that he and Anne of Bohemia had a celibate marriage; that they were more brother and sister than husband and wife. But a letter exists from Anne to her brother Wenceslas IV, King of Bohemia, (https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wenceslaus-iv-king-bohemia) that proves otherwise.

Kristen L Geaman (https://scholars.utoledo.edu/display/person-kristen-geaman) has written about the letter, a complete copy of which appears in A Personal Letter Written by Anne of Bohemia, in The English Historical Review, Vol. 128, No. 534 (OCTOBER 2013), pp. 1086-1094 (9 pages). I was able to read it at https://www.jstor.org/stable/24474670.

Here are extracts from the letter:

“….The penultimate sentence expresses Anne’s regret that she had not yet borne a child and her hope that she will soon do so….[this letter] offers proof that Richard II and Anne had a sexual union….Richard and Anne were married for twelve years, from January 1382 to Anne’s death in June 1394, and both were of reproductive age throughout the marriage Their union was a happy one—so much so that according to Thomas Walsingham, Richard ‘rarely or never permitted Anne to be absent from his side. Given that they were young, could be presumed to be fertile and spent most of their time together, Richard and Anne—and their contemporaries—had good reason to hope they would have children….We thus describe our position to your highness as lacking nothing that could be desired, except that we write grieving that still we are not rejoicing in our puerperio, but, concerning this, hope of health works in the near future, if the Lord permits….In any case, whether puerperium indicated pregnancy or miscarriage in Anne’s letter, the clause speaks to Anne’s as-yet frustrated expectation that she would have a child; her expectation indicates that her marriage was consummated, not chaste….she speaks in her letter of childlessness as the only bar to her happiness and of herself as grieving (dolentes), revealing the emotional anguish a childless queen might feel….”

Indeed so, and one is left with the impression that, like many couples even today, they were simply unlucky. There were no modern techniques back then that might have rectified the problem. It was accepted as God’s will that the marriage was to be barren.

So, if the Eagle and the Hart takes the stance that Richard was gay, bisexual, asexual or celibate, it’s on thin ice. He and Anne were lovers and were together for as much of the time as possible. Fate robbed them of children. One of the comments below has now jogged my memory about a previous post on this blog, by Sighthound. It concerns a lady (Margaret, Lady Sarnesfield) who may have been more to Richard II than a mere nodding acquaintance. See here https://murreyandblue.org/2023/06/01/a-woman-friend-of-king-richard-ii/).

Reading the review of The Eagle and the Hart led me to conclude that Ms Castor set out to belittle and criticise Richard II in favour of his lousy cousin. I use the word “lousy” advisedly, since Bolingbroke’s head crawled with lice at his coronation! See https://murreyandblue.org/2018/10/13/and-the-king-seethed-with-head-lice-at-his-coronation/.

I will never see Richard II in a derogatory light. I’m not saying he was a wonderful king, only that his peace-seeking, art-loving character was at odds with the bloodthirsty, warmongering nobles around him. So too was his fervent belief that he was king because he had been chosen by God. But his was a devout age, with strong tenets and practices that we today might find difficult to accept. But coronation oaths were sacred and still are today, as we witnessed when King Charles III was crowned.

King Charles is a constitutional monarch (https://www.thoughtco.com/constitutional-monarchy-definition-examples-4582648), and whether we of the 21st century approve or not, Richard II was an absolute ruler (https://www.thoughtco.com/absolute-monarchy-definition-and-examples-5111327). Well, absolute except for the existence of Parliament which could certainly hamper a monarch at times.

Such power was envied by the unfriendly magnates around Richard, and they formed themselves into the so-called Lords Appellant. Their purpose was supposed to be to run the country until Richard was mature enough to reign wisely. Or words to that effect. While this might seem a noble enough objective, they continued to rule even when he was of age to govern for himself. And they punished him and executed his friends! At one point his chivalric Eagle of a cousin Bolingbroke numbered among them.

When Richard finally caught them unawares by taking control of his realm they didn’t like it one little bit! They wanted to hang on to his power. Is it really surprising that he eventually gathered new friends around him and turned upon his remorseless foes? Yet he, the Hart, is the vicious despot, and they his unfortunate, blameless victims! Bah!

Poor Richard. He’d tried hard from childhood. In 1381, when he was only fourteen, it was the real Richard who so bravely and instinctively quelled the dangers of the Peasants’ Revolt (https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/your-guide-peasants-revolt-facts-timeline/. He was God’s anointed king, it was his responsibility to save the situation, no matter what the danger to himself. This is the Richard who emerged at a hazardous moment with promises to meet the rebels’ grievances and offered himself as their leader. He believed in his destiny.

Yet when all his promises and reassurances were promptly quashed by the bullying royal uncles and other magnates around him, he was the one accused of reneging upon his word! And so it went on, Richard, not his self-seeking enemies, received the blame for anything that went wrong.

For Richard this whole incident in 1381 was a cruel lesson in humiliation. His honest display of concern and courage had been seized and turned upon him. He was the king, but he was helpless.

As the years passed, continual opposition wore through his defences. He became more and more convinced of his own virtual divinity and right to rule as he saw fit, whether his decisions were wise or not. If ever a man’s character and integrity was ruined by years of childhood oppression, that man is Richard II. It wasn’t his fault, it was his enemies’ for their tyranny.

So there should always be even-handedness when writing about him, and I doubt very much there is any between the pages of The Eagle and the Hart. Continually praising Bolingbroke and denigrating Richard is not even-handed.  

I’d be more even-handed about Bolingbroke if there was anything to be even-handed about! He was a treacherous usurping regicide whose reign was indifferent. If he, like Henry VII, always suffered a guilty conscience and fear of being usurped in turn, then so be it. Neither of them was mourned on passing. It’s a shame that either came to the throne in the first place. There, that’s this Ricardian’s even-handedness for you! 🙂

OK, OK, I’m sorry for trotting out my hobby horse again, but unfair criticism of Richard II has the same effect upon me as criticism of Richard III. I don my armour and ride into battle for them both every time!

PS: Since writing this post I have come upon another review of The Eagle and the Hart. Richard is again accused of confiscating Bolingbroke’s lands forever. Which he didn’t. In it the author compares this book and Dan Jones’s Henry V. which necessarily covers a great deal of the same historical ground. A comparison is drawn between Richard’s “unfitness to rule”, deposition and murder by Bolingbroke, and Henry VI’s similar unfitness, deposition and murder. One could almost say what goes around, comes around. Here is the link to the review: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-eagle-and-the-hart-and-henry-v-kings-cousins-enemies/ar-AA1vP1ZA.

PPS: I have now come upon yet another review of this book, which follows the book’s theme of useless Richard/heroic Bolingbroke. Same old, same old. When is it going to sink in that Richard did NOT confiscate Bolingbroke’s lands forever? Bah! Humbug! https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/dec/19/the-eagle-and-the-hart-by-helen-castor-review-the-tragic-lives-of-richard-ii-and-henry-iv