King Richard

Also known as: King Richard II / Richard · Family: royalty · Role: king · First appears: Book 2, Chapter 3

In 1381, during the rising, King Richard was advised at the Tower to appease the rebels by granting their demands. On Friday morning, he summoned them to Mile-end and promised to meet their requests: “I grant your wish: now, therefore, return to your homes and the places whence you came”. He also pardoned them for their actions so far and had sealed letters delivered before they returned to their counties. At Rotherhithe, he met the assembled crowd by barge with the Earl of Salisbury (Richard rebellion), the Earl of Warwick and the Earl of Suffolk, but, advised not to land, returned to the Tower.

After rebels assembled at Smithfield under Wat Tyler, Jack Straw and John Ball, a proclamation ordered nonresidents to leave London or face arrest and execution. The king and the lords were pleased with the seizure of John Ball and Jack Straw; their heads were cut off and displayed on London Bridge. Sir John Holland and the Earl of Kent slipped away from the king’s company. Geoffrey Chaucer sent a ballade to him.

In Book 4, John Froissart recalled that Richard treated him generously at Windsor, presenting him with a silver-gilt goblet filled with a hundred nobles. Richard’s cousin King Henry became king after Richard’s reign of twenty-two years, and the crown fell to the house of Lancaster; Froissart wrote that Henry would not have become king if Richard had treated him in the friendly manner he ought to have done. Richard was interred at Langley.