The New Murrey and Blue blog

“….[Richard II] would be forced to meet with the protesters again to discuss their demands. During negotiations, a skirmish broke out resulting in the death of Tyler. In order to urgently placate the protesters, Richard appeared to concede to every one of their demands. The King’s promises were enough to stave off more rioting, and the mob disbanded and was escorted out of London by the city’s militia. However, Richard characteristically never intended to keep his promises to the peasants, instead dispatching his soldiers to seek violent reprisal against the rebels and ruthlessly suppress any attempts to revive the movement. Without clear leadership and fear of violent retaliation, the Peasant’s Revolt would ultimately fizzle out and fail to result in the dramatic societal change made possible by the opportunities afforded by Black Death….”

My ire has been stirred by the article from whi,ch the above extract has been taken. You can read it all at https://tinyurl.com/3d35c3jr and I have more to say about it at the end. But in the meantime I have to gird up my loins in defence of Richard II, whose reputation is torn to shreds in the article.

Richard II may have displayed extraordinary courage when he faced the rebel army alone during the revolt of 1381, but it’s immensely unfair to say that he never had any intention of keeping his word. Richard always believed that he’d been chosen by God to be the king, and it was something he never ceased to believe. When he confronted the masses of angry rebels, I’s sure he did mean what he promised, but things were taken out of his hands by his uncles and the magnates who all wanted to hang on to power while they could. And who gets the blame? Why, the boy-king whose honour was demolished that day. I can only imagine the effect this betrayal had upon the impressionable boy who so wanted to be a good king. Crushed is the word that springs to mind.

“….However, Richard characteristically never intended to keep his promises to the peasants, instead dispatching his soldiers to seek violent reprisal against the rebels and ruthlessly suppress any attempts to revive the movement….”

Characteristically? If the failure of his promises that day in 1381 are an example of his slippery ways, then words fail me. The decision to break his word wasn’t his, it belonged to those so-called older and wiser lords around him! He  remained under their thumbs for years to come, to the extent that when he reached eighteen, he had to “spring” it on them that he was now assuming power. They didn’t like it one little bit, and of course posterity blames Richard for being petulant, childish, whatever-you-care-to-mention. Mad as a hatter, as well.

Ever after, Richard had trouble with those greedy, warlike lords, who found fault with absolutely everything he said or did. They even rose against him, murdering his friends and threatening to dethrone him. They’d have done it again years later in 1397 if he hadn’t pre-empted them by arresting the whole shebang. Posterity, of course, tells us this was the period of Richard’s “tyranny”. He was a lunatic, we’re told. Was he? I have to wonder how I’d have reacted in his place. Those he arrested and who’d persecuted him weren’t cute little bunnies, they were the tyrants and in the end one of them murdered him and stole his throne. Leading the entry of the Wars of the Roses, stage right….

Richard wasn’t emotionally suited to the turbulence of the late fourteenth century, and wanted peace. The nobility of England wanted war. I have great sympathy for him. He tried hard, but he was up against it at every turn. And like a certain Richard III, he is damned to a ridiculous extent.

In the end, of course, the parallel with Richard III was quite extraordinary. Richard II had a wife named Anne whom he apparently adored to distraction, but she died suddenly. Then he had a troublesome Lancastrian cousin, Henry, who invaded the country, captured Richard and murdered him in order to have the throne. Yes, yes, this is one of my hobby-horses, and while Richard III wasn’t captured at Bosworth, he was certainly murdered by a treasonous plot by turncoat friends.

Anyway, I wander from the point. The article at https://tinyurl.com/3d35c3jr likens today’s situation (COVID) with the Black Death, and the class struggle of 1381 with the class struggles of today. I don’t propose to argue one way or the other on these points because I’m too busy being incensed by yet another attack on Richard II.

OK, so my priorities are out of kilter….but I wouldn’t be writing for a blog like the New Murrey & Blue if I wasn’t pretty absorbed by history and famous figures from the past. Richard II is one of my favourites, not because he was perfect, because he wasn’t, but because his story is both exciting, sad and there is something about him that strikes a chord in me. As too does the story of Richard III!

by viscountessw