Richard II: The Art of Kingship

by Anthony Goodman (Editor), James Gillespie (Editor)

Richard II (1377-1399) was deposed and probably murdered at the end of a dramatic kingship characterized by the struggle between royal authority and the power of the great magnates of the land. Richard faced down the leaders of the Peasant Revolt of 1381 when aged only 14 but found the magnates much harder to vanquish. 1399 saw the nadir of his royal power in the Merciless Parliament. This attempt to oust power from the king seems to have spurred Richard into recovering the royal prerogative but the king went so far beyond 'good governance' that his final two years in power became known as the 'tyranny'.

The record of his reign was muddied by hostile chroniclers such as Walsingham and the anonymous monk of Evesham, and these distortions went on to be propagated by Shakespeare, leading Henry Hallam to write, in 1818, that 'the reign of Richard II is, in a constitutional light, the most interesting part of our earlier history; and it has been the most imperfectly written.' This collection of essays by leading historians aims to redress this balance and present a more accurate version of the king's 'governance'.

Drawing on scholarship from both sides of the Atlantic, the re-evaluation of Richard's reign begins by deconstructing the distortions of chroniclers and the myth of the king's insanity. It goes on to examine the personal rule of the king, the role of his council and the court, and his relations with Londoners and the provinces, with the Church and the higher nobility. Other essays go beyond England's borders to look at the European perspective on trade and warfare, and on the marriage alliance between Richard and the house of Luxembourg. Finally, scholars of literature and the fine arts examine Richard's role as the chivalrous royal patron of culture. The combined result gives a rounded portrait of this fascinating and much maligned king.

Genres: History, Medieval

312 pages, Paperback

First published May 20, 1999

About the author

Anthony Goodman (1936-2016) was an English professor emeritus of medieval and renaissance history at the University of Edinburgh. His main field of interest was late medieval England, and he published books on subjects such as John of Gaunt and the Wars of the Roses.

See also Anthony A. Goodman for the author of The Shadow of God

Reviews

[Heather Domin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of essays. These are academic papers, so if you're not into that sort of thing you might find them dry, but I thought they were very well done. (I was a history major - I know from dry research books.) What I liked best was the distinct lack of hyperbole; nobody here is interested in either canonizing or demonizing Richard, which is quite refreshing.

[Mercedes Rochelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of academic articles, so it is not for the general reader. The Amazon “look inside” feature gives the table of contents, so I don’t have to recreate it here. The contributors are established historians, so you know you are getting well-researched material. I would say the general history is pre-supposed, so here we are getting down to the nitty-gritty. For instance, I learned a lot of useful tidbits in the “Richard II and London” chapter which is generally glossed over elsewhere. As one would expect, some of the articles are more interesting than others, depending on the reader’s level of interest. I made a lot of bookmarks, so I did find this volume useful but I didn’t particularly enjoy reading it.