Three Armies in Britain: The Irish Campaign of Richard II and the Usurpation of Henry IV, 1397-99 (review)

This book provides a fresh examination of the political and military background to Richard II's usurpation in 1399, when the exiled Henry Bolingbroke, heir to the duchy of Lancaster, landed in North Yorkshire to reclaim his inheritance, but ended up seizing the throne in its entirety. This is a period of English history that is as enigmatic as it is dramatic. Not the least of the difficult questions which Biggs addresses is why Richard II seemingly lost his crown so cheaply, with Henry hardly being required to win a skirmish, let alone a full blown set piece battle, to instigate regime change in his favour. The book therefore considers the organisation and movement of three armies in this period, and the political machinations behind this military activity, rather than any great clash or feat of arms. The three armies in question were: Henry Bolingbroke's force, which he gathered as he marched south from Bridlington where he had landed from his exile in France; the army raised by Edmund, duke of York, who had been appointed as custodian of the (English) realm while Richard was on campaign in Ireland; and Richard's own army which was busy engaging the rebellious Irish chieftains when news of Bolingbroke's landing in Yorkshire arrived in the royal camp. A cornerstone of Biggs's thesis is that explanation for Richard II's failure to meet and overcome the challenge presented by Henry Bolingbroke lies not in the king's incompetence, or in any personality disorder or in the opposition engendered by his 'tyrannical' behaviour, but rather in a series of flawed but entirely understandable strategic blunders which played into Bolingbroke's hands and ultimately resulted in the highly unlikely scenario of an uncontested royal deposition.

The real strength of the book lies in the explanation it provides for the military movements of the Summer: its account of Henry's feigned landing at Pevensey, which was instigated in a clever attempt to keep opposing military forces tied down in expectation of further landing in southern England; its account of the logistical and strategic problems which faced the duke of York once it became clear that Henry posed a significant military threat; its analysis of the composition of the different armies, with detailed explanation of the allegiances of their significant members; and its explanation of Richard's delay in Ireland, the king's choice of South Wales as the starting point for a counteroffensive and his fateful – and fatal – decision to travel to north Wales in an attempt to outmanoeuvre Bolingbroke. The key point that Richard's activity in Ireland had left England full of Lancastrians, and Richard himself bereft of any significant force of his own once he had returned to England to confront Bolingbroke, proves a very effective and compelling explanation for the military meltdown the king experienced in the summer of 1399.

The more contentious parts of the book lie in its political analysis. Perhaps the most original of Biggs's arguments is that Richard's mistakes in 1399 were predicated on the belief that Bolingbroke was a political lightweight, that he didn't have it in him to pose any significant threat to his position and that a 'stand and wait' policy was the best way to deal with the crisis in the Summer. There can be no doubt, of course, that Richard misjudged Henry's aims, and therefore one presumes his abilities, but whether modern historians can make the same judgement of Bolingbroke – that he was a 'wastrel' and a 'playboy' in the 1390s (p. 15) – is open to question. Arguably Bolingbroke had shown great enterprise and resourcefulness in his crusading exploits, and his low political profile in the same years could easily be regarded as the natural inclination of a...