by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2020

Richard II, King of England was deposed by his first cousin Henry of Bolingbroke who then reigned as Henry IV, King of England. Held in captivity at Pontefract Castle in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England, Richard is thought to have starved to death and died on or around February 14, 1400.

Richard II, King of England

King Richard II of England was born in the Archbishop’s Palace in Bordeaux, then in the English-held Duchy of Aquitaine (now in France) on January 6, 1367. He was the second son and second of the two children of Edward, Prince of Wales (known as the Black Prince), eldest son and heir of King Edward III of England, and Joan of Kent, 4th Countess of Kent in her own right. Joan was a grandchild of King Edward I of England. Richard’s elder brother died young of the plague.

Nine-year-old Richard’s life changed when his father died at the age of 45 on June 8, 1376. Richard was now the heir to his grandfather’s throne. Because it was feared that Richard’s uncle John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster might usurp his place in the succession, Richard was quickly invested as Prince of Wales and given his father’s other titles. On June 21, 1377, King Edward III died and his ten-year-old grandson was then King Richard II.

When Richard was fifteen, he married another fifteen-year-old, Anne of Bohemia, the eldest child of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia. Richard and Anne had no children and Anne died of the plague when she was 28-years-old. Four years later, Richard married seven-year-old Isabella of Valois, daughter of King Charles VI of France. The marriage was never consummated due to Isabella’s young age.

• Unofficial Royalty: Richard II, King of England

Henry versus Richard

Many had thought the succession of ten-year-old Richard II, a child king whose father had not been the king, was controversial. Some believed that one of King Edward III’s younger sons – there were three still alive: John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; Edmund of Langley, Duke of York; and Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester – should be king. Parliament, which was in a dispute with John of Gaunt at that time, supported Richard’s accession to the throne. John of Gaunt and his two brothers were excluded from the councils which ruled during Richard’s minority but as the uncles of the king, they still held great informal influence over the business of government. Richard II was childless. Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence had been the second son of King Edward III so his heirs had a superior genealogical claim to the throne over that of Edward III’s third son John of Gaunt. Despite the fact that Richard II officially recognized the claim of Lionel’s grandson Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, the claim was unlikely to remain uncontested.

In 1387, Henry of Bolingbroke, the son of John of Gaunt and the future King Henry IV, participated in the rebellion of the Lords Appellant, a group of nobles who wanted to restrain some of King Richard II’s favorites from the power they held. The Lords Appellant were successful for a time until John of Gaunt, Richard’s uncle, threw his support behind Richard who was able to rebuild his power gradually. Richard never forgave the Lords Appellant and many of them paid a price. His uncle Thomas of Woodstock, Duke Gloucester was murdered in captivity in Calais, France, probably on Richard’s orders. Richard FitzAlan, 4th Earl of Arundel was beheaded. Thomas de Beauchamp, 12th Earl of Warwick lost his title and his lands and was imprisoned on the Isle of Man until Richard was overthrown by Henry of Bolingbroke.

In 1398, Henry of Bolingbroke quarreled with Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, who accused him of treason. The two men planned to duel, but instead, King Richard II banished them from England. In addition, Richard revoked the permission he had given them to sue for any inheritance that fell due, as it did in relation to Mowbray’s grandmother and, more significantly, of Henry’s father, John of Gaunt. The actions Richard took against his first cousin would ultimately result in his downfall.

Henry went to France, and on a visit to the court of Brittany, he met his future second wife Joan of Navarre, the widow of Jean V, Duke of Brittany. When John of Gaunt died on February 3, 1399, Richard did not consider pardoning his cousin Henry instead, he confiscated the estates of his uncle and much of what Henry would have inherited was given away to his favorites. This caused Henry to make plans for a return to England so he could claim his rights to the Duchy of Lancaster and the properties of his father.

Richard II had been on a military campaign in Ireland and left in May 1399 to deal with the unrest his cousin Henry might cause. On July 4, 1399, Henry arrived by boat in Yorkshire with a small army. As Henry made his way south, his army grew larger. King Richard II was eventually abandoned by his supporters and was forced to surrender to Henry at Flint Castle in Flint, Flintshire, Wales on August 16, 1399. He was then taken to London where he was held at the Tower of London.

Henry used the precedent established when King Edward II was forced to abdicate by Parliament in favor of his son King Edward III. However, Henry had a complication that his grandfather Edward III did not have. Henry was descended from Edward III’s third son and so, unlike Edward III, he was not the direct heir. Because Richard II was childless, the heir presumptive was eight-year-old Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, the great-grandson of King Edward III’s second son Lionel of Antwerp. Because Edmund was a young child, Parliament saw no benefit in his succession and agreed Henry should succeed. On September 29, 1399, Richard was forced by Parliament to abdicate the crown to his cousin Henry. King Henry IV was crowned in Westminster Abbey on October 13, 1399.

What happened to Richard II?

Sometime before Christmas of 1399, Richard was moved to Pontefract Castle in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England which had been the personal residence of his uncle John of Gaunt and was now the possession of John’s son King Henry IV. In January 1400, some supporters of Richard plotted a failed rebellion against Henry IV called the Epiphany Rising. Henry realized that left alive, Richard would remain a threat and it is probable that the deposed king was left at Pontefract Castle to starve to death.

Although Henry IV has often been suspected of having Richard murdered, there is no substantial evidence to prove that claim. It can be positively said that Richard did not suffer a violent death. After his death, Richard’s body was put on public display for three days at Old St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, both to prove to his supporters that he was truly dead and also to prove that he had not suffered a violent death. Whether Richard did indeed starve himself or whether that starvation was forced upon him is still up for speculation.

Henry IV had Richard quietly buried in the King’s Langley Priory Church in King’s Langley, Hertfordshire, England. In 1413, King Henry V of England, son of King Henry IV, to atone for his father’s actions and to silence the rumors of Richard’s survival, had Richard’s remains moved to Westminster Abbey in London, England where they were placed in an elaborate tomb Richard had constructed for himself and his first wife Anne of Bohemia.

The tomb, with bronze effigies of Richard and Anne, is in the Chapel of Saint Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, at the foot of the tomb of Richard’s grandfather King Edward III. On October 13, 2018, this writer had the experience of attending the National Pilgrimage Day, which celebrates the life of Saint Edward the Confessor, King of England. The Chapel of Saint Edward the Confessor is usually not open to tourists but it is open on the National Pilgrimage Day and this writer had the awe-inspiring experience of seeing Edward the Confessor’s shrine surrounded by the tombs of kings and queens, including the tomb of King Richard II and Anne of Bohemia.

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The shrine of Edward the Confessor in the middle, Richard and Anne’s tomb is on the right

The Aftermath

The Wars of the Roses, fought between 1455 and 1487, was a series of English civil wars for control of the throne of England fought between supporters of two rival cadet branches of the  House of Plantagenet, the House of Lancaster and the House of York. The House of Lancaster and the House of York have their roots in the sons of Edward III. The House of Lancaster descended from Edward III’s son John of Gaunt, and the House of York descended from two of Edward III’s sons, Lionel of Antwerp and Edmund of Langley. Previously, for the most part, the sons of English kings had married foreign princesses. The sons of King Edward III married into the English nobility, and their descendants later battled for the English throne in the Wars of the Roses. The usurpation by Henry IV, the first of the House of Lancaster, of the throne of his first cousin Richard II, was the first step toward the Wars of the Roses.

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Works Cited

• Ashley, M. and Lock, J. (1998). The Mammoth Book of British Kings & Queens. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers.
• Dodson, A. (2004). The Royal Tombs of Great Britain. London, p.Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd.
• En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Richard II of England. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_II_of_England [Accessed 28 Dec. 2019].
• Flantzer, Susan. (2016). King Richard II of England. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/king-richard-ii-of-england/ [Accessed 28 Dec. 2019].
• Williamson, D. (1996). Brewer’s British Royalty. London: Cassell.