What Manuscripts Preserve King Richard Ii'S Coronation Rituals?

There’s something almost theatrical about Richard II’s fall — like a tragic play where a king’s hubris and a few bad political choices set the stage for his undoing. He spent the 1390s centralizing power, rewarding favourites (think Robert de Vere and Michael de la Pole) and brutally sidelining or punishing many aristocrats who’d challenged him during the 1380s. That created a lot of bitterness at court. In 1398 he exiled Henry Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray, which looked petty at the time but planted a seed that would matter later. When John of Gaunt died in early 1399, Richard tried to seize Gaunt’s Lancastrian estates instead of letting Bolingbroke inherit them. The decisive blow was timing: Richard left for Ireland in 1399 to put down a rebellion, and Bolingbroke used that opening. He returned to England ostensibly to reclaim his inheritance but quickly gathered nobles and popular support, partly because many resented Richard’s heavy-handedness. With defections mounting and no reliable army, Richard was captured and forced to abdicate in September 1399 — Parliament accepted his renunciation and Henry Bolingbroke became Henry IV. Reading about it always makes me think how fragile royal authority can be once the aristocracy and public turn against you.

I get a little fired up talking about this one — Thomas of Woodstock, the duke of Gloucester, was basically the royal uncle who wouldn’t stay quiet. He pushed back against Richard II by using the institutions nobles used best: Parliament, legal accusations, and alliances. In 1386 Gloucester led the charge to impeach Michael de la Pole, the king’s chancellor, blaming him for mismanagement and corruption. That pressure helped produce the so-called Wonderful Parliament, which forced Richard to accept a council to oversee royal governance. From there Gloucester didn’t just sit on his hands. He joined with other discontented nobles — the future Lords Appellant — and turned political opposition into military pressure. In 1387–88 they confronted the king’s favorites, blocked Robert de Vere’s influence (after Radcot Bridge), and then the Merciless Parliament of 1388 saw several of Richard’s close men executed or exiled. It reads like a medieval constitutional crisis: Gloucester used law, public accusation, and the threat of force to constrain royal power. Of course, the story ends darkly. Richard regrouped and, in 1397, had Gloucester arrested; he died in custody soon after, probably murdered. If you like political theater, the real events and the way Shakespeare dramatizes them in 'Richard II' are both worth reading — each gives a different flavor of how a duke opposed his king.

Walking through the messy corridors of late-14th-century politics always feels like overhearing a frantic, private conversation where everyone’s shouting at once. I think the simplest way to put it is that a lot of nobles stopped trusting King Richard II — not overnight, but after years of resentment over his style of rule. He leaned heavily on favorites, overturned legal protections for some lords, and after John of Gaunt died he confiscated the Lancastrian inheritance instead of letting Henry Bolingbroke (Gaunt’s son) take it. That felt blatant and personal to many barons. When Richard went off to Ireland, he left a leadership vacuum. Bolingbroke returned from exile ostensibly to reclaim his birthright, and he found plenty of open doors: nobles who’d been alienated by Richard’s centralizing moves, who missed the old feudal give-and-take and who feared royal arbitrariness. So they arrested Richard as part of removing what they called a tyrant: it was a mix of legal pretext, personal revenge, and realpolitik, with Parliament later justifying the switch by declaring Richard unfit to rule. For me it’s one of those moments where personal grudges and constitutional questions collide, and the result is a dynastic earthquake that felt inevitable once the trust was gone.

Walking into a production of 'Richard II' feels like stepping into a palace painted with words, and that's exactly how Shakespeare staged him: an almost ritualized monarch wrapped in language. I once sat in the dim of a small theatre, and the actor’s opening lines landed like a coronation—elevated, ceremonious, and oddly fragile. Shakespeare gives Richard sumptuous, lyrical speeches that present him as a man for whom kingship is a kind of art; his kingship is expressed through courtly diction, long rhetorical passages, and imagery of divine right. On stage that comes across as showy eloquence, a man who rules by ceremony and persona. But the tragedy is how theatrical that persona is. Shakespeare stages Richard’s decline as a stripping away of costume, speech, and ritual: coronation robes give way to plain garments, florid speeches shorten, and the actor’s physical space shrinks. Directors often dramatize this by changing lighting and costume mid-scene or having courtiers literally remove a crown. The deposition scene becomes theatre about theatre—audiences watch a king lose his role onstage and watch a human being revealed underneath. I love how that double vision—king as spectacle, man as exposed—makes the play feel both political and painfully intimate.

I get a little giddy talking about medieval power plays, so here’s how I’d put John of Gaunt’s role with King Richard II in plain human terms. John of Gaunt was Richard’s uncle and one of the kingdom’s heavyweight nobles — Duke of Lancaster, enormous landowner, and a man with serious political clout. When Edward III died in 1377 and Richard became king as a child, Gaunt was one of the senior figures who helped run the government and keep the realm steady. He wasn’t a formal continuous regent in the modern sense, but he acted as a stabilizing elder statesman: advising the council, leading military expeditions, and using his influence to manage nobles and finances. Their relationship shifted over time. Early on Gaunt sheltered and guided the young king; later politics and factional rivalries (and the rise of Richard’s favorites) strained things. After Gaunt’s death in 1399 his son Henry Bolingbroke’s exile and return toppled Richard — so Gaunt’s family and legacy were central to the crisis that ended Richard’s reign. If you’ve read Shakespeare’s 'Richard II', you’ll see echoes of this complicated family-political dynamic.

I've been down the rabbit hole of medieval documents many times, and for King Richard II you're lucky because a surprising amount is digitized if you know where to look. Start with the big public collections: 'Parliament Rolls of Medieval England' (often shortened to PROME) is searchable online and is indispensable for parliamentary proceedings during Richard's reign. British History Online hosts many of the calendars and edited rolls you'll want, like the patent, close, and fine rolls. The National Archives (UK) has digitized images and calendars for many royal records too — use their Discovery catalogue to track originals and digital scans. For narrative sources, I always go to 'The Chronicles of Froissart' (an accessible English translation is on Project Gutenberg and other archives) and to chronicles like 'Historia Anglicana' by Thomas Walsingham and 'The Westminster Chronicle' for the later 14th century; those are often available through Google Books, Internet Archive, or university repositories. If you hit paywalls, try your local university or public library portal for EEBO/ProQuest access, or use Internet Archive scans. Lastly, don't forget to cross-check editions: modern critical editions (even if behind paywalls) will give you reliable citations, which I find lifesaving when writing notes or blog posts.

Man, those two were like a medieval soap opera waiting to explode! Philip II and Richard the Lionheart had this wild mix of rivalry, grudging respect, and outright betrayal—it’s what made the Third Crusade such a messy, dramatic affair. They started as allies, both young kings with a shared goal: reclaim Jerusalem from Saladin. But Philip was the calculating strategist, always eyeing Richard’s charisma and military genius with suspicion. Meanwhile, Richard? He was the reckless hero who just wanted glory on the battlefield. Their partnership crumbled fast—Philip abandoned the Crusade early, probably fed up with Richard’s ego, and even conspired with Richard’s brother John to undermine him back in Europe. What fascinates me is how personal it got. Philip wasn’t just a political rival; he seemed genuinely bitter about Richard’s larger-than-life reputation. And Richard? He openly mocked Philip’s retreat from the Holy Land. Their feud reshaped Europe’s power balance, with Philip seizing lands while Richard was imprisoned. It’s crazy how two kings who could’ve been legends together ended up tearing each other apart instead.

Walking through the halls of medieval history, Philip II's ascension always struck me as a pivotal moment. He became king of France in 1180 at just 15 years old, stepping into power after his father Louis VII's death. What fascinates me isn't just the date, but how this teenager transformed France during his reign—expanding territories and laying foundations for Paris's growth. I once spent hours comparing his early rule to fictional young monarchs like Robb Stark from 'Game of Thrones'. Reality was harsher though; Philip faced rebellions immediately. Yet his nickname 'Augustus' later reflected how he elevated France's status. Makes you wonder how different Europe might be without that 12th-century boy king.