Manhood and Politics in the Reign of Richard II

I

Amongst English kings Richard II enjoys, with the dishonourable exception of Edward II, perhaps the most unmanly reputation of the later Middle Ages. He is habitually associated with an elaborate delight in clothing and courtly culture, sometimes contrasted with the martial 'masculinity' of earlier kings.¹ His allegedly unusual concern with ceremonial is seen as the support of 'absolutist' ideas,² and as one aspect of a Francophile and peace-loving nature.³ He has been portrayed as temperamentally opposed to fighting, keeping his distance from chivalric culture.⁴ Despite a number of dissenting voices,⁵ Richard's unmanly reputation has remained largely intact to this day. For his most recent biographer, the king remains a 'slightly epicene' character, who was judged severely by his contemporaries perhaps because 'the chroniclers were measuring him against the manliness of his father, who, in his prime, had been an exceptionally vigorous man'.⁶

That this view of Richard II's character continues to dominate is perhaps because it is not without a certain basis in contemporary texts. However, the nature of these texts and what they are saying has been consistently misunderstood. Perhaps the most important of these has only occasionally been remarked upon: a sermon delivered at Richard II's deposition by the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel.⁷ In it, that very political prelate argued that Richard behaved like a boy (puer) and thus ought not to rule. Henry of Lancaster, on the other hand, who had just toppled Richard from the throne, was a man (vir), and therein lay his right to govern. This was despite the fact that both Richard and Henry were 32 years of age.

As the central text for this sermon, Thomas Arundel used a theme loosely derived from 1 Samuel 9:17. This was 'Vir dominabitur populo' (a man shall rule the people).⁸ He then set out the faults of the boy. It is clear that these faults are ascribed to Richard, not to the earl of March, one of Henry's other potential rivals, who really was an infant at the time.⁹ At each point the archbishop locates the faults of youthful governance in the past, in Richard's reign, from which the kingdom will be delivered by Henry's rule. For example, Arundel begins by noting the boy's failure to hold his tongue and keep his word, before continuing:

For these things [are] unfitting and very irksome to the kingdom, and it is not possible for the kingdom to stand easily where these circumstances reign. But the kingdom is liberated from these defects when a man rules, for it pertains to a man to keep guard on his tongue. For now it is not a boy who will rule but a man, of whom I hope it is possible to say . . . 'The blessed man who erred not in tongue'.¹⁰

Arundel went on to explore how the boy hates the truth-teller and loves flattery. By this it could be seen 'that he who used to reign understood as a child'.¹¹ Now that a man ruled, truth would come, and flattery withdraw. Finally, the prelate deplored the childish tendency to rule by will rather than by reason, and how this led 'constancy' to flee the kingdom, before noting that 'We have been freed from that peril, because a man will rule; he, that is, who speaks not like a child but like one perfected by reason', that is, by the will of God.¹² He concluded: 'And so in the place of the playful will of the boy a man will now rule the people: and that man is such, that it will be said, a king will reign, and he will be wise, and he will make judgement and justice on Earth'.¹³

It is probable that the moralist and polemicist John Gower had this sermon in mind when he amended certain sections of his Vox Clamantis to include criticism of Richard II after his deposition.¹⁴ According to Gower, Richard had failed to cultivate the moral...