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Richard II context - Coggle Diagram

- - - - 1397 - no politics now, just life or death
      - Before Gloucester dies he makes a confession to all Richard’s charges
      - Henry has to choose a side
      - Henry chooses life and makes a speech condemning his old friend, Arundel
      - Only Henry and Mowbray remain
      - Henry has just murdered his own uncle – a royal duke – gloucester
    - - Henry is called to a secret meeting months later
      - Mowbray tells him the king is plotting against them
      - Truth or trap?
      - Henry denounces Mowbray and goes straight to the king
      - Case can’t be proven because it was a private conversation
      - Richard exiles both – Henry for 10 years and Mowbray for life
    - - Richard sends his men to all the other houses of nobles he suspects and forces their signatures
      - Richard’s tyranny is in full swing
      - Henry’s father - Duke of Lancaster – dies
      - Henry’s inheritance will make him the most powerful noble in England
    - - Richard steals Richard’s inheritance – undermining the laws of England
      - Richard heads for Ireland to extend his tyranny there
      - Richard doesn’t understand that the strongest kings govern with consent
      - Richard’s absence – Henry races back to England
      - Henry has nothing to lose
      - Nobles flock to Henry’s side
      - Richard’s white hart army is no match
      - Richard is friendless and exposed
    - - Henry as King?
        
        1399 – Henry plans to take the throne
        
        Richard was so enraged he couldn’t speak
        
        250 years after the first Plantagenet king claimed and won the crown – Henry Bolingbroke formally claims his cousins throne
        
        He claims the throne in English, first time since Norman conquest, to suggest he is not like Richard
      - 1400
        
        A Tragedy's End
        
        Richard is still alive and remains a threat
        
        1400 - Richard is imprisoned
        
        Bolingbroke needs plausible deniability to show he has not just murdered the king
        
        Not sure how Richard exactly died, but we guess he was starved to death
        
        Dangerous to write against a monarch explicitly - Shakespeare theatricalised Richard
        
        Richard dies
        
        One of the greatest British periods ends
        
        Crown of England had passed down legitimately for eight generations
        
        Henry’s coronation ends that
        
        Causes War of the Roses - why Henry is not entirely happy at the end
- - - - Richard has now ruled his country peacefully for five years
      - He makes Henry a trusted councillor and diplomat - they are after all cousins
      - Richard welcomes him back
      - White hart symbol is everywhere – it appears threatening - also depicts divineness
      - Bolingbroke returns
    - - They wear the symbol of the white hart – even the angels wear his symbol so God is on his side
      - He is presented as symbolic, blessed, surrounded by saints
      - Wilton diptych - portrait painted for Richard
      - He is raising a private army in the north of England – private mercenaries with no loyalty to anyone but Richard – white hart symbol – behaviour of a warlord
    - - Appears that he has grown out of his youthful malice
      - Richard agrees a truce with France
      - Peace breaks out
      - Richard has taken full control of England
      - Bolingbroke as left the country on crusade
      - 1390 - Richard has been king for 13 years
    - - Richard's incarceration
        
        He’s 21
        
        In Richard’s mind, this is further proof that God will protect him
        
        Leaving Richard in place was simply the least worst option
        
        Fear of civil war stopped Henry and the others from deposing Richard
        
        Everyone bows low and swears allegiance to the king – Richard survives
        
        Everyone is expecting Richard to be abdicated
        
        Richard is locked up in the tower with his enemies for four days
        
        They (Henry and the others) enter the Tower of Parliament and confront Richard
      - 1387
        
        1387
        
        Henry has now sided with the barons against the king
        
        1387 - Devere flees to France and never returns
        
        An attack on devere is effectively an attack on the king
        
        Henry dislikes devere
        
        1386
        
        1386
        
        In a bloodless coup all Richard’s ministers are removed
        
        Richard accuses his council and parliament of treason
        
        The old guard have had enough and they aim to get rid of his friends
        
        1386 – French are poised to launch an invasion, deVere and the others do nothing to prevent it
        
        1385
        
        Rise of the new court
        
        Bolingbroke stands to inherit the most powerful duchy in Richard’s kingdom
        
        Henry is fighting in tournaments and learning the business of war
        
        Split between him and councillors
        
        Richard is still controlled by the council and viewed as a child
        
        Company of Robert deVere (divisive figure), Archbishop of Canterbury
        
        He marries Anne of Bohemia
        
        1385 - senior nobels are becoming nervous
        
        1381 - Peasant's Revolt
        
        Richard's betrayal of the peasant's
        
        He uses fear
        
        In the following months thousands of peasants are strung up by Richard’s men
        
        He declares he will devote the rest of his life to tormenting the peasants so no one will rebel again
        
        ‘Peasants you are and peasants you will remain in permanent bondage…’
        
        Richards got a new deal in mind
        
        The following week Richard meets the rebels again
        
        Result of the Peasant's Revolt
        
        From this moment on nothing will shake he belief that he has divine influence – he is invincible – divinely appointed
        
        After Tyler is wounded
        
        An astonishing act of bravery
        
        He cries he is their leader, captain and king and commands them to lower their weapons – they do
        
        But Richard charges towards the rebel ranks
        
        The Kings men turn to flee
        
        Wat Tyler encounter
        
        Tyler is mortally wounded
        
        Leads to a standoff - weapons are drawn
        
        Wat Tyler - Rebel leader – comes to make his outrageous demands - essentially communism (to rid of bishops, nobels etc.)
        
        He is 14
        
        Last roll of the dice
        
        All he has known is adulation
        
        Plans to ride through the mob and confront the rebels; throughout his life he has been told he can save England from terminal decline
        
        General
        
        England is on the brink of full blown anarchy – Richard could lose his crown
        
        Rebels storm the hiding place
        
        Rebels let Richard pass - councillors are the target
        
        Councillors hatch a desperate plan - richard is sent onto streets with an entourage for a distraction – to create a mob so they can escape
        
        Richard’s councillors are the most senior nobles on land
        
        Ruled by councillors - peasants want to kill them
        
        Rebels stalk the streets
        
        1381 - Peasant’s revolt
        
        1377
        
        Decay of turmoil in England, Richard II succeeds the throne at 10, hailed as the country’s saviour