second, a sirventes of 1196, reproaches his vassal the troubadour Dalfin d’Alvernhe and
his cousin for not having come to his aid against Philip.
Donald F.Fleming
[See also: CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD; NORMANDY; PHILIP II AUGUSTUS;
VEXIN]
Gillingham, John. The Angevin Empire. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984.
——. Richard the Lionheart. New York: Time Books, 1978.
Powicke, F.M. The Loss of Normandy, 1189–1204: Studies in the History of the Angevin Empire.
2nd ed. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1961.
Pernoud, Régine. Richard Cœur de Lion. Paris: Fayard, 1988.
RICHARD II
(1367–1399). King of England (r. 1377–99). Richard was born at Bordeaux, the only son
of Ed-ward, the Black Prince, and the grandson and successor of Edward III. He came to
the throne in 1377, as a minor, inheriting a war with France that by the 1370s had turned
against England and seemed unending. His turbulent reign, which ended with his violent
overthrow and murder, was characterized by two policies, peace abroad and
quasiabsolutism at home, which drew from the English nobility and especially his uncles
a stubborn resistance. Domestically, his reign virtually began with the Peasants’ Revolt of
1381, the greatest popular uprising of English history, sparked largely by the
unprecedented taxation required by the war with France. If it was not this event that
convinced Richard to end the war, he might have found many other reasons to do so;
since the early 1370s, France under Charles V had been on the offensive, retaking all the
gains of Richard’s father and grandfather and threatening England itself with invasion.
Despite the obvious necessity of peace, this policy was stubbornly opposed by the most
important figures of the English nobility: Richard’s uncles, John of Gaunt and the duke of
Gloucester; Gaunt’s son Henry, earl of Derby (the future Henry IV); and the earls of
Arundel, Warwick, and Nottingham.
These same men were little enamored of Richard’s domestic policy of autocratic
kingship and his exalted view of the royal prerogative. In 1386, with Gaunt out of the
country pursuing, literally, castles in Spain, the remaining five magnates, incensed at the
result of Richard’s first few months of personal rule, temporarily took over the
government of the realm and resumed the war. Richard regained power in 1389, and in
1390 Gaunt negotiated a treaty with France, heralding the first significant period of peace
with that country since the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360. The new state of relations between
the two kingdoms was sealed by Richard’s marriage in 1396 with Isabella, the seven-
year-old daughter of the king of France. Richard used this respite from foreign
commitments to secure his position at home, but his autocratic methods caused a
resentment that, when the exiled Henry of Derby returned in 1399, left him alone and
without support. He was forced to abdicate in Derby’s favor, and later that year he was
murdered in his prison at Pontefract castle.
Monte L.Bohna
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1506