Miscalculations in the Court of Richard II (with Helen Castor)

Summary

Noble Blood: Miscalculations in the Court of Richard II (with Helen Castor)
Hosted by Dana Schwartz | Release Date: October 1, 2024

In this compelling episode of Noble Blood, hosts Dana Schwartz and historian Helen Castor delve into the tumultuous reign of King Richard II of England. Drawing from Castor's newly released book, The Eagle and the Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV, the conversation unpacks the critical missteps and political intrigues that led to Richard II’s downfall and the rise of Henry of Bolingbroke.

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1. Ascension and Early Reign of Richard II

Helen Castor begins by setting the stage for Richard II's accession to the throne. Richard became king in 1377 at the age of ten, following the deaths of his father, the Black Prince, and his grandfather, Edward III, both pivotal figures in the ongoing Hundred Years' War with France. This premature ascension created a power vacuum and a crisis for England as the crown skipped a generation.

[01:36] Helen Castor: "He became king in 1377 at the age of 10...the crisis only really develops and gets worse as Richard grows up because it turns out that he has completely misunderstood what being a king is all about."

Richard's upbringing was devoid of direct royal governance, leaving him unprepared for kingship. He believed his authority was divinely sanctioned, neglecting the responsibilities that came with his position. This fundamental misunderstanding sowed the seeds for his eventual deposition.

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2. The Role of Richard’s Uncles and the Power Struggle

With Richard ascending the throne as a child, his uncles stepped into roles of power. John of Gaunt, the eldest surviving uncle, aimed to stabilize the kingdom until Richard was capable of ruling independently. Unlike Richard’s perception, Gaunt was not seeking to usurp the throne but was focused on maintaining order during a period of instability.

[05:01] Helen Castor: "John of Gaunt...is trying to keep everything going...trying to stop the war spiraling out of control."

Conversely, Thomas of Woodstock, the Duke of Gloucester, was portrayed as ambitious and resentful, feeling marginalized despite his proximity in age to Richard. His strained relationship with Richard culminated in a power struggle, highlighting the internal conflicts that plagued Richard’s reign.

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3. The Downfall of Thomas of Woodstock

The tension between Richard and Thomas escalated in the late 1380s amidst a crisis in the Hundred Years' War. Thomas pushed for continued military action against France, which Richard opposed, favoring peace. Their clash led to Thomas leading a campaign to remove Richard’s close advisors, signifying a direct challenge to the king's authority.

In 1397, Richard perceived Thomas's actions as a second plot against him, resulting in Thomas’s arrest and mysterious death in Calais. The lack of transparency surrounding his death fueled rumors and eroded trust in Richard’s leadership.

[12:44] Helen Castor: "Thomas of Woodstock, the Duke of Gloucester, was given a few minutes to make his last confession of his sins...and then he suffocated to death."

This event marked a turning point, showcasing Richard’s tyrannical tendencies and weakening the nobility's confidence in his rule.

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4. The Field of the Cloth of Gold: A Diplomatic Endeavor

Richard’s attempt to solidify peace with France culminated in the lavish Field of the Cloth of Gold summit in 1396. This grand assembly aimed to end decades of conflict through ceremonial grandeur and royal diplomacy. Richard married the six-year-old daughter of the King of France, symbolizing the intended alliance.

[25:51] Helen Castor: "The summit meeting...filled with elaborate pavilions made of cloth of gold...an extraordinary choreography of a diplomatic dance."

Despite the opulence, the summit highlighted Richard’s misplaced priorities, focusing on personal glory and symbolic gestures rather than addressing underlying political tensions. This miscalculation further alienated key nobles and set the stage for his eventual downfall.

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5. Missteps Leading to Deposition

Richard’s inability to effectively manage his kingdom's affairs and his tyrannical actions eroded the support of the nobility. His reversal of pardons and unchecked use of royal power created an environment of fear and uncertainty.

[18:12] Helen Castor: "He thinks he can impose whatever laws he likes...but he is outside the law, so he can do whatever he wants."

These actions undermined the governance structure, leading to widespread disillusionment among the nobles and the populace. The consistent pattern of abuse of power and elimination of opposition showcased Richard’s failure to embody the responsible stewardship expected of a monarch.

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6. The Rise of Henry of Bolingbroke and Richard’s Deposition

Henry of Bolingbroke, Richard’s first cousin, emerged as the primary challenger to Richard’s throne. Initially exiled, Henry returned following the death of John of Gaunt in 1399, when Richard reneged on promises allowing him to inherit Gaunt’s lands.

[37:00] Helen Castor: "Henry arrives on the shores of England and finds the country rallying to his banner...England has already lost."

Henry’s timely return and the nobles' support facilitated a relatively swift deposition of Richard II. Parliament orchestrated Richard’s abdication, and Henry ascended to the throne as Henry IV, marking the end of Richard’s reign.

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7. Aftermath and Legacy

The deposition did not resolve the underlying tensions. A brief rebellion in 1400 underscored the instability of Henry’s new rule and the lingering factionalism within the nobility. Richard II’s mysterious death, likely by starvation in Pontefract Castle, echoed the unresolved conflicts that defined his reign.

Meanwhile, the tragic fate of Isabella, Richard’s young bride, highlighted the personal human cost of political machinations. Her return to France and subsequent death at nineteen underscored the relentless pressures faced by royal figures during this era.

[35:53] Helen Castor: "That's a tragic story."

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8. Conclusion: Lessons from Richard II’s Reign

Castor’s analysis reveals that Richard II’s reign was characterized by miscalculations and a failure to understand the dynamics of power and responsibility. His inability to build lasting alliances and his tyrannical governance set the stage for his downfall and the tumultuous transition to Henry IV’s rule.

[44:40] Helen Castor: "That's exactly the problem. It made nobles very nervous."

The episode underscores the importance of competent leadership and the delicate balance between authority and responsibility in maintaining a stable and just kingdom.

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Notable Quotes:

• [01:36] Helen Castor: "He became king in 1377 at the age of 10...the crisis only really develops and gets worse as Richard grows up because it turns out that he has completely misunderstood what being a king is all about."

• [05:01] Helen Castor: "John of Gaunt...is trying to keep everything going...trying to stop the war spiraling out of control."

• [12:44] Helen Castor: "Thomas of Woodstock, the Duke of Gloucester, was given a few minutes to make his last confession of his sins...and then he suffocated to death."

• [18:12] Helen Castor: "He thinks he can impose whatever laws he likes...but he is outside the law, so he can do whatever he wants."

• [37:00] Helen Castor: "Henry arrives on the shores of England and finds the country rallying to his banner...England has already lost."

• [35:53] Helen Castor: "That's a tragic story."

• [44:40] Helen Castor: "That's exactly the problem. It made nobles very nervous."

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Final Thoughts:

This episode of Noble Blood offers a nuanced exploration of Richard II’s reign, highlighting how personal flaws and political missteps can lead to the downfall of even the most seemingly secure rulers. Through Helen Castor’s expert analysis, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the intricate power dynamics and historical lessons that remain relevant today.

Transcript

[Dana Schwartz]

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[Helen Castor]

Hi listeners. I am so excited to be here today talking to the brilliant historian Helen Castor, whose new book, the Eagle and the the Tragedy of Richard ii and Henry IV, is out October 15th. Helen, thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you for having me.

Now, I have to confess, Richard II is one of those kings I sort of gloss over in my histories. I, you know, was familiar, obviously, with the fact that Shakespeare wrote a play about him, but I was less familiar with who he was as a king. So can you talk just a little broadly about how Richard II became king as a child and then what his legacy is? A little bit.

I can certainly try. One of the things I've learned in the course of writing this book is that I often have to explain, to start with, that he's not Richard the Lionheart and nor is he the king in the car park. He's the one in between. He became king in 1377 at the age of 10. We're in that very tumultuous period, the 14th century, when what we know as the Hundred Years War between England and France has already been going on for nearly 40 years. But when Richard comes to the throne, the problem for England is that the crown skips a generation. So he is the grandson of the great king Edward iii, the one who has started the Hundred Years War between England and France, who is a great warrior, the great lion of England, one of the best medieval kings England had. And Edward's son was the Black Prince, another military hero, the man who won at Crecy and Poitiers and all these great battles. But the Black Prince died young in 1376, and Edward III died quite old in 1377, leaving the throne to this ten year old boy. So this is a moment of crisis for England, really, and the crisis only really develops and gets worse as Richard grows up because it turns out that he has completely misunderstood what being a king is all about. He thinks it's all about the rights that he's been given by God, and he doesn't see that those rights come with responsibilities to his people. And so he ends up getting, in the end, getting deposed by his first cousin, who, Henry of Bolingbroke, who takes the throne to become Henry iv.

And in Richard's defense, I imagine it would be fairly difficult to grow up knowing that you're about to become king. Becoming King of England at 10 years old and not letting it get to your head a little bit.

It's impossible. Particularly when we remember that he's never seen the job being done properly. If he's only 10 when he becomes king, then for the whole of his childhood so far, his grandfather's been aging, getting iller, and his father, the Black Prince, has a chronic illness in the last years of his life. So Richard has never seen what this job looks like in real time. And at the same time, he's been told he's unique, he's special. The powers of the king are given by God. That's what everybody believes. But he is brought into Parliament just after his 10th birthday. His father's already dead. His grandfather is ill and is going to be dead in six months. And he's brought in and described in front of his own face as England's Messiah.

Oh, gosh.

Yeah. And that the royal ministers do that in order to try and reassure Parliament that they're in safe hands. Everything's going to be fine. Look, King Edward has sent his grandson, just as God sent Christ, to the world. But everyone there knows its rhetoric, apart from Richard. He's 10, and he believes it, of.

Course, even though he becomes King at 10, I imagine he has a lot of adult uncles who probably want to actually seize power. What do those uncles look like?

It's an interesting question, whether or not they want to seize power. They certainly know they've got to fill in until the King is old enough to rule for himself. And it's a difficult one to assess because they are very ambitious, very proud, very powerful men, but they're not trying to be king in Richard's place. That's what he thinks they're trying to do. But in fact, if we look at someone like John of Gaunt, which is obviously a big name in medieval English history, but John of Gaunt is Richard's oldest surviving uncle, and he's the one who is trying to keep everything going until Richard is old enough to rule for himself, and he's hated for doing it. Everyone suspects that Gaunt is trying to take over, and in fact, I think he's just really trying to keep the plates spinning, trying to stop the war spiraling out of control. He's doing a very difficult job in very difficult circumstances. Not helped by his two younger brothers, Richard's other uncles. The middle one, Edmund de Blangley, who becomes Duke of York, absolute waste of space. You can't give him any job to do because it won't get done properly. And then the youngest one, Thomas of Woodstock, becomes Duke of Gloucester. Well, his nose is out of joint right from the very beginning because he's sort of stuck between generations. He's only 12 years older than Richard and he's never been given the power and the resources that he really thinks he ought to have. He was the youngest of Edward III's children, and so he is resentful. He's on the margins. He thinks everyone should listen to him and no one really does, certainly not as much as he thinks they ought to.

Well, that's a great transition because Thomas has a slightly unfortunate end. Can we fast forward a little bit and can you talk a little bit about what happened to Thomas, Duke of Gloucester?

We certainly can. Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, Thomas of Woodstock had, whenever the opportunity arose, put himself forward as the leader of what we would probably call the opposition to Richard. As Richard grows up, Gaunt is the uncle who's always trying to make things work, make things smooth, as smooth as they possibly can be in these very difficult circumstances. But in the late 1380s, a crisis erupts. Gaunt has gone away to fight abroad. There's a terrible crisis in the war, and Thomas of Woodstock is the one trying to get Richard to focus on it. Richard sees this as appalling insolence, and it spirals into a horrible confrontation in which Wood leads the charge to remove and destroy the people immediately around Richard. Richard's favorites, if you like, because Woodstock actually really wants to get at Richard, but you can't take down the King without everything falling apart. This is all smoothed over eventually. But during the 1390s, Richard and Thomas of Woodstock never see eye to eye. Richard is trying to make peace with France. Thomas of Woodstock thinks they ought to be fighting. And the memory of this terrible crisis in the late 1380s has never gone away. So when Richard gets his chance and, you know, there's a lot that's going on, but Richard, we can see, has sort of been biding his time and waiting to see if he would face more Opposition from Woodstock. And at the moment when he thinks he is that Thomas of Woodstock is plotting against him again, he decides he's going to destroy him. And in 1397, he arrests him. Suddenly, overnight, literally overnight, he rides through the night to Woodstock's home in Essex with a detachment of armed men, takes him into custody, dispatches him to Calais, which belongs to England. It's a garrison town in northern France, England's main stronghold on the continent. And he sends him to prison there, and he's going to put him on trial for treason. But when the trial starts in Parliament, the call goes out to Woodstock's jailer. Bring Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, into Parliament. And the man who's been given the task of being in charge of guarding him comes to Parliament and says, I can't. I can't bring the Duke of Gloucester in because he's dead.

Oh, no.

What has happened? What has happened? Gloucester has died in his prison at Calais. And at that point, it's completely unexplained. There's a sort of shocked silence in Parliament. And then, well, they agree that obviously he was a traitor and all his lands should be forfeit. But it is not explained that the King's own uncle, the son of the great Edward iii, has mysteriously died behind the walls of his prison. And in fact, it doesn't get explained for another two years. Two years of terrible crisis in England. Two years that result in Richard's deposition, not least because he set about destroying many of the great nobles of England in exactly the way he's done to Woodstock.

So when and how does it come out, exactly what happened to Woodstock when.

Richard is deposed in 1399 by his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke, whom Richard has tried to destroy in a differently imaginative way. Henry has been embroiled in an argument with another nobleman about whether one or both of them are traitors. Richard says they have to fight a duel. Then he stops the duel, he banishes them, and then says Henry can't inherit his father's lands. It's a whole terrible crisis. Henry comes back, takes the throne, England rallies to his banner, and in parliament in 1399, the same parliament that is sorting out how to depose the King and make a new king. I mean, it's a crisis on a sc. England hasn't seen for ever, really. Certainly not since a different kind of deposition, the Norman conquest. In 1066, various questions are asked and witnesses are brought into Parliament. And one witness is a man called William Baggot, who has served Richard and he is asked what happened to Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester? And William Baggot says out loud in public for the first time, thomas of Woodstock was murdered. He was murdered in Calais. And he was murdered on the orders of King Richard. And he then says, if you want to know more, there's a man in prison in London who was a valet, a servant called John Hall. Bring him in and he'll tell you everything. So the poor, wretched man John hall is dragged into Parliament and made to tell what he knows. And what he knows is, he says, I was a servant of Thomas Mowbray, the man who was in charge of Calais garrison and in charge of Woodstock when he was a prisoner. And I got an order from my lord in the middle of the night, get out of bed, and come to this particular inn in Calais. And when he got there, he found that Thomas of Woodstock had been brought there out of his prison. And there was a collection of servants of Richard and Mowbray and another noble there. And Thomas of Woodstock, the King's uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, was given a few minutes to make his last confession of his sins. And then he was made to lie down on a bed in this room at an inn in Calais, and a feather mattress was put on top of him and it was held down over his face until he suffocated to death.

Brutal. And so it's. What I find interesting is it wasn't this death that sort of propagandized people into wanting to overthrow Richard ii. It was just sort of an additional detail. The moves to overthrow Richard II were already happening.

The information about the detail of it came out in public at this point. And you're absolutely right that it's part of the process of justifying and explaining the deposition of Richard. The problem two years earlier, when it was announced that Woodstock had died, but not how is that rumors were flying. Calais, a leaky place you can't keep. And certainly for a death that a lot of people have been involved in, this isn't one blade in a dark alley. And only one person knows what's happened. You know, a whole number of men have been involved in this. But in 1397, when it's announced that Woodstock has died in a parliament controlled by Richard, this is a context where another great nobleman, the Earl of Arundel, has just been tried as a traitor and beheaded. The Parliament itself is meeting in a temporary building because there's building work going on in Westminster. So they're meeting essentially in a big tent, and Richard has a Personal army, a personal bodyguard that he has just recruited, hundreds of archers, and he has stationed a number of them around the sides of this tent, facing inwards, with their bows in their hand. So it's a brave man who will speak up at that point to say, hold on, what's happened to the Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. It's a brave man who will say anything at all against a king who is beginning to show his true colors, who's beginning to give very clear signs that he is going to rule by military force with an iron fist, and that anyone who resists in any way might go the same way as the Earl of Arundel or Thomas of Woodstock, who has now died. So I think it's not that nobody knows anything, it's that Richard is showing his true colors as a tyrant rather than a good king. And it's going to take a couple of years for the full implications of that to come out and for a leader to show themselves, Henry of Bolingbroke to show them as a leader. We also have to remember Thomas of Woodstock had made himself pretty unpopular over the previous few years. So if you're going to stick your neck out for anyone in the first instance, you might not choose Thomas of Woodstock to do it.

I mean, it's incredible that someone was brave enough to stand up to. This is evidence that the king is being a violent tyrant and standing up to him, you are very much risking your own, quite literally neck you are.

But I think it's interesting to show the kind of stages by which a regime like this can reveal itself and then the stages by which resistance can start to emerge. Because in 1397, when Woodstock's death was first announced in Parliament, Richard had been quite careful for a few years. He'd played his cards pretty well up to that point. He'd, for instance, made peace with France. Not a permanent peace, that was too difficult to do, but he'd made a 30 year truce with France by arranging a marriage alliance for himself at the age of 29 to the 6 year old daughter of the King of France. And that meant that a lot of the pressures on his government had been sort of reduced or released. He'd got an enormous amount of money as the dowry with this little girl. And the immediate pressure of the war which Thomas of Woodstock had been going on and on and on about, was sort of lessened. And so at the point when he arrested Thomas of Woodstock, he made out initially that Woodstock was plotting new treasons against him. And I think everyone, everyone sort of said well, you know, not so implausible. He's done some pretty out there things before. Okay, we'll give the King the benefit of the doubt. We'll wait and see what terrible crimes Woodstock has committed. But three months later, when Parliament actually meets, it turns out there are no new crimes. There are only the old crimes from 10 years earlier, for which Woodstock has already explicitly been pardoned. He literally has a sort of charter from the King saying, don't worry, that's all in the past, everyone's forgiven for what they've done. And Richard is now saying, well, I've changed my mind, I'm not going to pardon people for things 10 years ago. So suddenly the danger is there for anyone who might have stepped out of line in the past in a way the King now doesn't like. So you've then got to make very careful calculations about what have I done? What could I do? Do I need to try to keep my head down and hope the King doesn't notice me? Or what point am I going to have to stand up and be counted?

And I imagine how that lack of order was a major misstep on Richard II's part, because not only was he murdering the son of a king, someone who people might have thought would have been protected by the system, but he's showing that the system itself can be bent to his will, which I imagine made nobles very, very nervous.

That's exactly the problem. It made nobles very nervous. And eventually, as the full horror reveals itself, it makes everyone in the country very nervous, because the whole contract of a government, if you like, is we will impose laws on everyone and those laws will keep everyone safe. So, you know, you, the people of England, buy into the fact that you are ruled by the King in order to know that, yes, you might not be able to break the law, but neither can anyone else, you know, in theory. So you are safe, everyone is safe, because you all know what the rules are. But Richard has failed to understand that. He thinks he can impose whatever laws he likes on his own subjects and he is outside the law, so he can do whatever he wants. He thinks he's going to be secure as King on his golden throne if he makes everyone else in his kingdom insecure.

Parliament did call him Jesus Christ himself.

Exactly. All of 20 years earlier, and he's spent 20 years feeling really thwarted because it's turned out he can't just do what he likes. You know, at an earlier stage in the war with France, when France was threatening invasion, there'd been a, literally a French armada waiting to set sail to invade England. And when another parliament tried to get Thomas of Woodstock, in fact taking the lead in this, trying to get him to focus on that danger, he'd said, how dare you? My subjects are being so insolent towards me. I'm going to ask my cousin, the King of France for help against you. And you know the level of sort of delusion of not understanding that if France is about to invade, then asking your cousin, the King of France for help against your own subjects is not the thing you should be doing as King of England. It's such a fundamental misunderstanding of what the power of a government, a royal government in this case, should be used for.

[Dana Schwartz]

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[Helen Castor]

Well, let's transition on that. You had mentioned his second marriage to the six year old Daughter of the King of France. Richard had been married once before to Anne of Bohemia. She dies. What leads to his decision to marry a six year old girl? And was there a conversation? Obviously the, you know, to modern ears that sounds ludicrous, but what was the conversation? Around a 20 something, I imagine, marrying a 6 year old at that time.

The big picture is the war with France which has been going on for decades by this point, I mean it's been going on since 1340 and we're now in 1395 at the point that the negotiations start. So Richard has wanted peace for a long time. He doesn't like fighting, he doesn't like the pressure he comes under at home over money and campaigns. He wants some form of peace. And the death of his first wife means he has a new bargaining chip. He has his own hand in marriage. And so the French say, would you like a French bride? Problem being Richard is only going to accept a French bride of the right kind of status. And the King of France's children are all very young. But Richard doesn't say that as a problem. And that's despite the fact that he has no children. Because you'd think as you're saying that a man in his mid, going on into late 20s who has no direct heir is looking for a new wife. He might be looking for someone around his own age or at least some kind of adult. Richard doesn't seem bothered by that at all. It's not that, I mean we shouldn't, obviously it looks terrible to us, but it's not that he wants to live with a six year old as his wife in it, every sense of, every sense of the word. But what he doesn't seem at all bothered by is the idea of having children in the foreseeable future. Richard is so far the center of his own universe that I think he doesn't really like to think about a future in which he is not the beating heart of the entire body politics. So he's going to put off the idea of an heir or someone who might. He seems to see the idea of having an heir as a sort of threat or a challenge, a rival. He wants it to be all about himself. And so when his uncle, Thomas of Woodstock says to him, not a great idea to marry someone so young, why don't you marry my 12 year old daughter? That would be far more suitable.

Yeah, the waiting period for an heir is going to be much shorter.

Exactly. And of course Thomas of Woodstock has his own agenda. He thinks it's a great idea for his daughter to become queen. Richard says, no, no, no, no, no, it's great. She's five going on six. I will be able to bring her up in English ways and in the forms of time. There's no rush, but I will have an air in due course. We're going to do what I want. And what he's wanted for a very long time is to have a glorious face to face summit meeting with his French counterpart, the glorious King of France. And that's what they arrange in 1396. If you imagine the most lavish combination between the biggest royal wedding you can imagine and the most important political summit meeting, all held literally on the spot of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, which of course hasn't happened yet, but this is the Middle Ages version of the Field of the Cloth of Gold in October 1396.

What sort of festivities and riches can we imagine during this summit?

We've got to imagine ourselves in the rather bleak flatlands just south of Calais. It's a region that's been fought over for decades. The Battle of Crecy has been fought near there. The Battle of Agincourt will be fought near there in the following centuries. So it's not a pre possessing beautiful place, but the French and the English make it beautiful by building essentially two small towns out of fabric, two encampments of the most beautiful pavilions made out of cloth of gold, rich colours, 120 on each side, surrounded by a sort of palisade. And at their gates the French have built one super pavilion, which in their case is huge and square. And on the English side there is a tall round tower of a pavilion. And each encampment is going to be filled by a court. The English court on one side, the French court on the other. And the security and the protocol for this meeting, you have to read it to imagine, really, because the detail is so extraordinary. We need to imagine the medieval version of the secret services sweeping the area for weeks beforehand. Trade is stopped, the carriage of weapons is stopped, everyone is locked down in the towns nearby. And then the distance between these two encampments is measured to the inch. And the exact halfway point is marked with a stake, so that when the two courts, the kings at their head, emerge from these encampments, neither king will walk a single inch further than the other one to the point at which they're going to meet. And that is in fact what happens on Friday 27th October 1396. These great processions emerge from these new towns of tents that have sprung up on this Sort of now hallowed ground. Each king is accompanied by his royal uncles, other lavishly dressed nobles, and 400 knights and esquires, which act as a bodyguard. Except they've also all been given very clear instructions, and it's checked to the nth degree that they must only carry one dagger or one sword each. So it's that it kind of to make sure there's. There are no surprises, no nasty surprises. Each king is protected, but in an exactly equal way for this amazing moment when they will finally meet, bearing in mind that the last time a king of France and a king of England met, it was because the king of France, King Charles's grandfather, had been captured by the king of England, Richard's grandfather. So this is a historic moment when peace replaces war.

And I do find the one portrait that I've seen on the Internet of Richard marrying little Isabella is almost comical because he's so much bigger and, like, leaning down, it looks like to kiss her on the cheek. But just for modern listeners, it's not as if he would have consummated this marriage.

Absolutely not. No, it's very clear to everyone. I mean, royal marriages were consummated earlier than we might like to think about happening. The age of consent, technically, according to the Church, for a girl, was 12, 14 for a boy. But usually royal marriages were left even a little bit longer than that to an age when it was less dangerous for a girl to potentially give birth. So we might imagine it's usually 14 or 15 before a marriage was consummated and a young queen was expected to carry a child. But in this case, it's the alliance that she represents. But there are so many elements to all this ceremonial that are comical and sometimes then verging on heartbreaking. Even the two men meeting, which they do first on the first two days, the Friday and the Saturday, have their comical, stroke, poignant moments. Because Richard is 29, he's been looking forward to this for a very long time. And he appears lavishly and magnificently dressed, we're told, in red velvet, a red velvet sweeping royal gown, or on the first day, laden with jewels. But his counterpart, his new father in law, who's two years younger than him by the way, he's 27, is a much sorrier figure because Charles VI of France has not been well for the last four years. Four years earlier, he'd had a psychotic breakdown. One day as he was riding out on campaign with his army, he'd lost all sense of who he was, where he was, was he'd set about him with his sword, killed several of his servants, had to be restrained. And ever since then, he's had periodic bouts of madness. Sometimes he doesn't know who he is. He thinks he's made of glass. He's not a well man. So this summit meeting has been scheduled and very carefully organized in a period where he's not ranting and raving. He does know who he is, but he's a very fragile figure, and he's having to be supported by his royal un, particularly the Dukes of Burgundy and Bury. And for instance, the English note slightly critically that King Charles wears the same outfit every single day. Clearly, they think is a little bit inelegant compared to their king, who is wearing a brand new fashionable outfit every single time you see him. But the French say, oh, well, this summit meeting is all about God's peace. And it's not about the clothes, it's about the content, you know, so there are difficulties here. Enormous ceremonial, lavish gifts being exchanged every time they meet. You know, you can't have a conversation without some gold plate or a pouch of jewels being handed in each direction. They walk hand in hand. They have dinner in the English tent. They sit on golden thrones under golden canopies in the French tent to a agree the peace treaty that's already been negotiated. They're not doing anything like hard work at this point, but they are going through an elaborate choreography of a diplomatic dance that's been choreographed to the nth degree. And finally, finally, on the Monday after a difficult Sunday because there's been an enormous storm on the Saturday night. Wind and rain and a torrential downpour, and half the French camp has been flattened and the English camp has been damaged. And of course, the initial thought is, does God disapprove? But no, no, no, no. They quickly find another solution. The devil is angry that peace is being made. So they spend Sunday hastily repairing everything. And then on Monday, little Isabella, poor little Isabella, who's six, coming up to her seventh birthday, is brought in to meet her new husband. And we're told that Richard on this day is wearing a glorious blue and gold gown, which are the royal colors of France. And little Isabella is brought in in a matching gown of blue, covered in gold fleur de lis. She's got a little crown of golden pearls on her head. And the description is so detailed, you can just imagine her little face. She's trying to hold herself together. But the account says that she acquitted herself with wonderful dignity and only cried when her father and her uncle and her great uncles gave her a hug in a very formal way as she was about to be handed over to the English ladies. It's heartbreaking when you think about it. And we then get the detail in the sort of, again, formal accounts of everything that was brought with her to England, that when they packed up her trousseau with all her glorious gowns made of precious stuff and the jewels that she brought with her, she also brought her dolls with her.

She won't be in England for long because it'll just be a few years later that Richard II is deposed in favor of his first cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke.

That's right. Just three years later. Yeah.

I want to get a little bit into the actual deposition, but just because I have to know what happened to Isabella after Richard was imprisoned and no longer king.

I'm afraid the story carries on being heartbreaking. Henry very much, of course, she was treated with enormous. She was not harmed. She was treated with enormous dignity. She's still the daughter of the King of France. Henry wants to marry her to one of his own young sons, but the French won't have that. And Isabella, in fact, the French send an ambassador to see her to check on her wellbeing, and she says she has no greater desire in the world than to see her parents and her siblings again. So she is sent back to France eventually. It's all quite tricky because Henry can't give her dowry back because it's all been spent and in fact then has to spend a lot more holding a sort of reverse summit meeting all dressed in black and another meeting in more or less the same place with not quite equal, but almost equal magnificence to hand her back. And she is eventually, a few years later, married off again to her younger cousin, the Duke of Orleans, whose father has just been murdered. French politics is descending into chaos as well. But she becomes the Duchess of Orleans, and then a couple of years after that, at 19, she becomes pregnant and she dies giving birth to her first child. It's not much of a life.

No, that's a tragic story.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm glad that she at least got.

[Helen Castor]

To come back to France, though, that they didn't keep her in England.

She did. She saw her family again and made at least another marriage that kept her at the heart of her family rather than being sent off yet again to another foreign court. I think perhaps the fact that we're used to the fact that young royal brides were sent off to make these grand diplomatic marriages, I think we can Guess we can lose sight of the human dimension sometimes. These very young women sent to countries they'd never been to to marry men they'd never met, with a handful of servants who quite often would have to return home soon after they'd arrived there. So it's an extraordinary fate that these young women faced, and the ones who made successes of it, I think we have to recognize the scale of their achievement.

Absolutely. And now, just to wrap up the story of Richard ii, I've always been under the impression that Henry of Bolingbroke, that it was a fairly easy takeover. Is that a correct impression by the.

Time the takeover actually happens? Yes, you're absolutely right. But of course, it's the end of the long process that we were talking about earlier. It's as though, you know that saying about how if you throw a frog into boiling water, it will scream and die horribly. Know that it's dying horribly, but if you put a frog into cold water and heat it up gradually, it doesn't really know what's going on. In a sense, that's sort of the story of the last two years of Richard's reign. But what Henry does is he rescues the frog right at the last minute, because Henry has been exiled and Richard has promised him, at the point when he goes into exile, that anything he inherits while he's banished, which he's been told is for the term of 10 years, he will be allowed to inherit. You know, the law will take its course, his property rights will not be disturbed. But when his father, John of Gaunt, dies, broken hearted in February 1399, the Duchy of Lancaster, John of Gaunt's great noble inheritance, which is the most powerful, the biggest, richest and most powerful noble inheritance in the country, Richard just goes back on his word and says, no, Henry can't inherit it after all. I'm going to take it into my own hands. And at that point, Richard clearly feels safe. Finally, he believes he's destroyed his cousin's power. Henry's in exile, he doesn't have his inheritance. Richard takes his private army that he's been recruiting and goes off to Ireland, where he's enjoyed a few years earlier. He's enjoyed going over there and making the Gaelic chiefs kneel before him. And he clearly fancies doing a bit of that again. So he leaves his country undefended at exactly the point when he has done the thing that is demonstrated to every one of his subjects that if the most powerful nobleman in the country isn't safe, they're not safe either. So Henry, who's in exile in Paris at this point. Point decides he's going to have to come back. And he sails for England with a small number of devoted servants who've been with him in exile. He doesn't have an army with him, but he arrives on the shores of England, puts in first on the south coast to drop off a few very loyal servants who take a castle on the south coast for him. And then he sails on to the coast of Yorkshire to a place called Ravenspur. And he makes his way into England via the Lancastrian castles in the north, these great strongholds. And what he discovers is that England rallies to his banner. Everywhere he goes, more men flock to him. No one is saying, we must stand up for good King Richard. In fact, they're saying, okay, this looks like rescue. And that's where the name of my book comes from, because Richard's been using the badge of the White Hart. The one thing Richard knows how to do is make a visual impact, and he's chosen this beautiful badge of the White hart, which he all his retainers and his private soldiers all wear. But in 1399, when Henry comes back, there are various poems written, and they say, the Eagle Duke is coming to rescue us. Using a badge that Henry's father and his grandfather, father Edward iii, have used, the Eagle Duke will save us from the crimes and the threat of the men of the White Hart that Richard has sent to visit such terror upon us. And by the time Richard manages to scramble his way back from Ireland, England's already lost. Henry, it's clear, is going to be.

The next king, and he isn't suffocated by a mattress. But he does meet an unfortunate end.

He does. Henry's problem in coming to save England is that he, Henry, is not the rightful heir. It's not clear who is the rightful heir, but it's not clear that Henry is the legitimate heir to Richard. He's his first cousin, but he's not his son, he's not his brother. So at the point where Parliament decides that, yes, we must get rid of Richard, Richard is deposed, it's all a bit of a fudge. Richard is made to abdicate, then it's agreed that he should also be deposed. And he's sent off into what Henry hopes will be oblivion in prison at Pontefract, which is one of these great castles in the north, and Henry is acclaimed as king. And there's a sort of. We're not going to look too closely at quite how Henry has become king, but he's going to be crowned. And we all agree that good King Henry should be our king.

Oh, and we all agree that of course, you know, even though there are grandchildren of Edward III descended from older sons, well, they had to descend from female lines where of course, Henry, it's all through men. They're coming up with these rules.

Exactly. And they are. Although they're also not saying that out loud too much because the English claim to the throne of France, that still hasn't been given up. Okay, there's this 30 year truce in place, but we haven't stopped claiming that the King of England is also the King of France. That claim comes through a woman. So you can't go too hard on the female line. Doesn't work in England. But equally absolutely right, those grandchildren through the female line, the Earls of March, the Mortimer Earls of March. He's a little boy at this point and we've tried having a little boy before, didn't work out too well. It's not a solution to anybody's problems at this point. So let's just say Henry has come back and we all agree that he's king. That's more or less what they say. And once he's crowned, you know, then God has also approved. But three months later, in new year 1400, four of the noblemen who were closest to Richard's regime, who are, who've thrown in their lot with Henry because everybody's doing so, they've been there at Henry's coronation, they've been there for his first parliament, but they're getting really, really worried about what might happen to them. They decide to rebel. Just after New Year 1400, the revolt is put down really quickly. They don't get anywhere near succeeding. But it's a real shock to Henry's new system. He'd been hoping that God would simply smile on him and then he could show that he was rightfully king by being. By offering England good government and everyone would just live happily ever after. Once this revolt has happened and it's been put down, it's clear that it's too dangerous to have an ex king hanging around the place. And a few weeks later, the news comes from Pontefract that Richard has died. And rather like Thomas of Woodstock who we talked about at the beginning, there is no explanation of how he's died. But rumour has it, the word on the street has it that Richard has been starved to death. So his body is displayed with suitable honour on its journey down from Yorkshire, down to London so that everyone can see the king really is dead, and he has no marks of violence on him. But however it's happened, the king is dead, he's prayed for, he's shown in public, and then he's buried quietly at King's Langley outside London. Henry doesn't want to put him in the grand gilded tomb that Richard had already built for himself at Westminster Abbey because the risk of that then becoming a shrine and a site of pilgrimage is too much. Too much of a threat.

Absolutely. Well, it's a fascinating story, and I feel like an area of medieval history that people haven't focused on enough, which is a shame, because so much happens. The Eagle and the Heart the Tragedy of Richard II and Henry iv is out October 15th. Helen, thank you so, so much for joining me and talking all this through with me.

It's an absolute pleasure, Dana. Thank you so much for having.

[Dana Schwartz]

Nobleblood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Menke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Giulia Milani and Arman Qassam. The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and Reema Il Kayali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Menke, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite show. We know you've heard a million mattress ads, but trust us, this one's different. Why? Because Naturepedic is different. While most mattresses are full of fiberglass, polyurethane foam and chemical flame retardants, naturepedic's organic options for the whole family are made with cotton latex wool. The good stuff. Shop Naturepedic's biggest sale of the year and get 20% off site wide plus a free pillow with any kids or adult [e-mail] nobleblood use code [e-mail] nobleBlood to save better sleep awaits.