RICHARD IIReferences and Futher Reading
Best, R. I., O. Bergin, and M. A. O’Brien. The Book of Leinster,
formerly Lebar na Núachongbála, vol. 1. Dublin: 1954.
Breatnach, L. “Zur Frage der ‘Roscada’ im Irischen.” In Metrik
und MedienwechseMetrics and Media, edited by Hilde-
gard L. C. Tristram. Tübingen: 1991. ScriptOralia 35.
Forste-Grupp, S. L. “The Earliest Irish Personal Letter.” Pro-
ceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 15 (1995): 1−11.
Mac Cana, P. “On the Use of the Term Retoiric.” Celtica 7
(1966): 65−90.
Oberhelman, S. M. Rhetoric and Homiletics in Fourth-century
Christian Literature: Prose Rhythm, Oratorical Style, and
Preaching in the Works of Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine.
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991.
Tristram, H. L. C. “Early Insular Preaching: Verbal Artistry and
Method of Composition.” Österreichische Akademie der
Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Kl. Sitzungsberichte, 623. Band
See also Columbanus; Áed mac Crimthainn;
Hiberno-latin
RICHARD II
Richard II was born on January 6, 1367, at Bordeaux
in the duchy of Aquitaine. With the death in 1376 of
his father, Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince,
Richard became heir to his grandfather, Edward III of
England, whom he succeeded in 1377 at the age of ten.
His reign of twenty-two years saw a number of domes-
tic crises, from the Peasants’ Revolt (1381) to later
conflicts with a disaffected nobility, culminating in his
usurpation by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke (crowned
Henry IV). Richard was deposed in September 1399
and died in captivity at Pontefract Castle in February
1400, events made familiar through their dramatization
in Shakespeare’s Richard II.
Richard was the first English king to visit the lord-
ship of Ireland since John in 1210 and the only reigning
monarch to make two such expeditions. This unusual
degree of involvement has prompted historical specu-
lation about his motives and degree of success, for
although recurring crises may have justified royal
intervention no other monarch responded to the lord-
ship’s needs with such a commitment. In recent biog-
raphies drawing on modern studies of Richard’s reign,
English historians have set his aspirations in a wider
British context, linking his policies in Ireland with
those in other peripheral regions and with his views
on royal authority and the obedience of subjects.
By the time Richard became king, the Irish lordship
was regularly requiring support from England to meet
its critical military and financial needs. In 1385, a
council in Dublin asked for personal royal interven-
tion. Sustainable recovery could not be effected by
passing the burden to chief governors, whether the king
conferred authority on them by military indenture or,
as in 1385 with Robert de Vere, Marquess of Dublin,
by the grant of extensive powers commonly reserved
to the crown. In these circumstances, amid fears of the
lordship’s complete collapse, Richard’s first Irish expe-
dition (1394−1395) was an extraordinary success.
Richard arrived in Ireland in October 1394 with a
substantial force. His primary objectives were military
and political, but he also intended administrative and
financial reforms. The presence of the king in Ireland
provided an unprecedented opportunity to establish
peace between the different interests in the country.
A combination of diplomacy and of overwhelming
force, demonstrated in the defeat of Art Cáeánach Mac
Murchada in Leinster, won the submission of Gaelic
Ireland. Correspondence from the rebel Irish lords
records their willingness to accept the English crown and
their desire that Richard arbitrate in their disputes with
the English of Ireland. Richard accepted this position as
the basis for a common approach to all the submitting
Irish. Rather than focus on their punishment for past
rebellion, he welcomed the Irish lords as his lieges,
requiring them to make oaths of allegiance that effec-
tively recognized their status as his subjects. Special
sensitivities within some areas called for additional
arrangements. In Leinster, an area of particular diffi-
culty because of Mac Murchada’s authority and the
lordship’s vulnerability, he attempted to revitalize the
English interest, requiring the Irish to yield lands they
had seized and making grants to English knights. In
Ulster, however, there had been no resolution of the
differences between Ua Néill and Roger Mortimer, earl
of Ulster, when Richard left Ireland in April 1395.
Although little evidence survives about the lord-
ship’s government and administration in the 1390s,
occasional references show that in the following yearsRichard II goes to Ireland from Froissart’s Chronicles(Volume IV,
part 2). © The British Library.