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King Richard II 1367-1400; reigned 1377-1400 "Am I not king?" -- Shakespeare's Richard II, III.ii |
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Wilton Diptych | Roof Boss | Crown | Quadrant | Ewer | Coronation Portrait | Tomb |
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Richard II's reign was marked by controversy and power struggles between him and the gentry and ended in the king's usurpation and murder. The son of England's popular war hero, Edward Prince of Wales (known now as the Black Prince), Richard became king when his grandfather, Edward III, died in 1377. Richard was only 10 at the time, and his authority was overshadowed by that of his powerful uncle, John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster. Richard was notorious for impolitically rewarding his favorites, which led to a major uprising by several close family members, known as the Apellants, when the king was 20. Richard retaliated ten years later, executing or banishing several of his earlier rivals, including Gaunt's son, Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby. Henry would return to oust the king in 1399 and name himself Henry IV, beginning the new Lancastrian dynasty. Shakespeare's play begins with the exile of Henry and his rival in 1397 and ends with Henry's installation as king and Richard's death.
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The Wilton Diptych, ca. 1395
The Wilton Diptych is one of the most celebrated pieces of medieval art. It was commissioned in the late 1390s and therefore coincides with the creation of the Coronation Portrait and Richard's tomb (discussed below). A portable folding altarpiece for private devotion, Richard could even have had it with him on his final, fateful expedition to Ireland just before his deposition. When the altarpiece is closed, the front shows a white hart (deer) sitting on a bed of branches - Richard's personal badge. Badges had been invented by Richard's grandfather, Edward III, to be worn at tournaments and on specific occasions; by the end of the 14th century they were popular personal symbols among the nobility. Nobles decorated their belongings with their badges and also distributed them to their friends and vassals in the form of pins to be worn on their hats or garments. Wearing someone's badge was a way of publicly identifying oneself as that person's supporter, friend or favorite. The interior of the altarpiece shows a youthful Richard in a red and gold brocade robe patterned with seated harts, wearing a crown, collar and white hart pin, all studded with pearls. He kneels while Saints Edmund, Edward the Confessor and John the Baptist stand behind him. All look opposite to the virgin and Christ child, who are standing in a garden surrounded by a host of blue-robed angels, each wearing Richard's white hart badge. Christ leans forward in his mother's arms to bless the king. The king's image of piety in this piece is overshadowed by one of magnificent privilege and divine favor. Personally blessed by Christ himself, and guarded by some of England's most venerable saints, the king appears magically encased in Heavenly pleasure and protection. Though the angels surround Christ and the Virgin, they explicitly identify themselves with Richard by looking at and gesturing to him and by wearing his badge. The scene recalls Richard's words in III.ii of Shakespeare's play: "God for His Richard hath in heavenly pay / A glorious angel. Then if angels fight, / Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right." In a way, the Diptych reflects Richard's state of denial, so evident in these words, about the weakness of his own position at the end of his reign, despite his title of king. Sources
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White hart roof boss, 1388-99
The estate at Dartington was granted to Richard II's half-brother, John Holand (the Black Prince's second son by his first marriage), when he was named Earl of Huntington in 1388. Holand immediately began work on the estate's structures, and most of them, including Dartington Hall, date from this period. Though not previously a member of the king's inner circle, Holand enjoyed the favor of his uncle, the powerful John of Gaunt, and after Richard claimed full control of the government in 1389, Holand was entrusted with greater responsibility. Holand's wealth came almost entirely from his royal grants as earl, further binding him to the crown. However, Holand was not particularly active in Richard II's government until he played a lead role in prosecuting the Appellants in 1397. After Richard was deposed in 1399, Holand was one of the leaders of a rebellion aimed at returning him to the throne. He was executed for treason in early 1400 and his head displayed on London Bridge. Richard II's white hart badge appears prominently on a roof boss at the center of the porch ceiling, in the tower that is the Hall's main entrance. The chained hart is mounted on a rose, a longtime symbol of the crown. It was painted in 1932. Sources
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Crown ("Bohemian" or "Palatine" crown), 1380-90
England's oldest surviving crown, this object may have belonged to Anne of Bohemia, Richard's beloved first wife, who died in 1395. It is recorded in a royal inventory from 1399, though its description seems to indicate it was missing one of its sections. Constructed in sections, the crown could be dismantled for storage. Like many of the items in Richard's household, ownership of the crown passed to Henry IV when he assumed the throne. When Henry's daughter Blanche married the Palatine Elector Ludwig III in 1402, the crown was included in her dowry and thus passed to Germany, where it has remained to this day. A potent symbol of the monarchy, Shakespeare uses Richard's own crown to signify the status of king and its loss. When Henry Bolingbroke confronts Richard in Act IV, scene I, their discussion about the abdication of power centers around Richard's crown. Richard says: "Here, cousin, seize the crown. Here, cousin, / On this side my hand, and on that side yours. / Now is this golden crown like a deep well / That owes two buckets..." Nigel Saul wrote, quoting the Dieulacres writer, that when Richard "surrendered his crown, he 'placed it on the ground and resigned his right to God' - from whom he had received it." Sources
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Bronze with traces of gilding British Museum, London Quadrants were scientific instruments invented in the 14th century to tell time. By aligning the sun with slits pierced in the instrument, the user caused a thread anchored by a weight (often a precious stone) to fall on the marking that indicated the correct hour. The Richard II Quadrant in the British Museum is thought to be the one indicated on Richard II's treasure roll. It is laid out correctly for a user located in London (aligned to that latitude). Originally gilded, the bronze instrument is engraved on the back with a rabbit (a symbol of Easter; this side can also be used to calculate the date of Easter) and on the front with a white hart, Richard's badge.
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Asante (Ashanti) Ewer, 1390-1400
This vessel is marked with the English royal arms and carries an inscription that says: "He that shall not save when he can
The lid contains seven lions facing seven stags lying passant couchant - the position used in Richard's white hart badge. This iconography dates it to the final decade of his reign. The ewer was found in what is present-day Ghana in 1896 at the same time as two other, similar jugs. These three probably formed a set, but it is unknown when or why they migrated from England to West Africa. Sources
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Coronation Portrait, ca. 1395-9
Richard had been king for nearly 20 years when he commissioned this portrait of himself in coronation robes, with orb and scepter, in the 1390s. It cannot depict his actual coronation, which took place with the king was only 10. (Richard was the first king to hold a coronation procession, and the young king, carried on the shoulders of his tutor Simon Burley, lost a shoe along the way.) Why, then, would he have such an image painted? It certainly reinforces his royal persona. Richard was notoriously distant and self-consciously regal; in the 1390s, he liked to wear his crown during the evenings and sit enthroned above the members of his court, who were required to bow if they caught his eye. He asked to be addressed in strikingly lofty language, with many superlative adjectives preceding his title. His court was extravagantly splendid. This portrait captures that attitude of majesty he consciously cultivated in his maturity. Richard also had several "rebirths" during his reign, for which coronation may have seemed a likely metaphor. He became king as a child and ruled with a council, only gradually taking more control of the government. However, his reign was threatened by the Appellants' uprising in 1387-8, and much of his royal authority was preempted at that time by Parliament and the appointment of another council. He threw off this fetter in 1389 and dissolved the council again. Then, in 1397, he achieved what he thought was his final triumph over these former enemies (actions which instead led to his demise). Perhaps one of these occasions prompted a re-visioning of the king as newly crowned. In addition, legend has it that Richard believed himself to be in possession of holy oil from the Virgin Mary, and requested re-anointing at some point during his reign. A coronation portrait could have been commissioned in anticipation of such an event, though it is likely that this story is merely a rumor circulated by Henry IV for his own purposes. Sources
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Tomb, ca. 1396
Richard's tomb was constructed after the death of his first wife, Anne of Bohemia, who lies with him there. It is located in the chapel of his patron saint Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey, to the left of the tomb of Richard's grandfather, Edward III. Though the effigy was made after a pattern, it would have been approved by the king and is thought to be a faithful likeness; indeed, it shows the same long, delicate features, heavy-lidded eyes, slender frame and wispy beard as the Coronation Portrait.
One of Henry V's first acts as king was to re-inter Richard's remains in their proper tomb in Westminster Abbey. He used the banners from his father's funeral for the procession and attended the reburial himself (Shakespeare's Henry V mentions this in IV.i of that play). While partially an act of atonement for his father's seizure of the crown, Henry was probably also motivated by the desire to demonstrate his own legitimacy. Rather than leaving the body of the former king hidden away, he embraced it and restored it alongside its glorious ancestors. Henry's action thus publicly associated his own reign, which came as the result of what many still considered an illegal usurpation, with that of Richard, his grandfather, and father - Edward III and Edward the Black Prince - ancestors who Henry, as king, now directly claimed as his own. The tomb was reopened in 1871, and it was discovered that several of Richard's bones and most of Anne's had been removed by visitors over the years through gaps in its paneling. Sources
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