The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England

In the 1360s, two of Edward’s daughters, his wife, and his son, Lionel, died of sickness, Lionel having failed to Anglicize Ireland. The new French king stopped ransom payments to Edward and aimed to reassert French dominance. In 1367, Prince Edward (now governing Aquitaine) won an impressive victory at Najera, but the campaign brought bankruptcy and disease. Chronically sick, he returned to England. In 1370, an aging Edward and France were again at war.

In the early 1370s, military disasters depleted Edward’s continental territories. Pirates impacted trade. Economic stability and law and order deteriorated. Edward and Prince Edward were physically weak; John of Gaunt (Edward’s third son) tried to offer mediation as corruption and discontent abounded.

Previously, parliament facilitated negotiations between lords and king; in 1376, the Commons (knights and gentry) directed a list of reforms and redresses to John. A weakened Edward conceded. Concurrently, Prince Edward died.

Edward III died in 1377. His grandson Richard (Prince Edward’s son) was crowned, aged nine, in a ceremony centering his divine right. Fearful that Gaunt may have appropriate power if given a protectorate role, the political classes emphasized obedience to Richard, while his household and a council system governed. Problems required immediate attention, including French and Scottish aggression and subsequent financial pressure.

The Peasants’ Revolt (1381) was the first major popular uprising in England, provoked by poll taxes, labor legislation, and foreign fears. The rebels ransacked London, enacting both targeted and chaotic violence. They demanded an abolishment of political, social, and religious hierarchy, envisaging the king’s rule over and for the common people. Richard’s brave maneuvering was instrumental in ending the bloody chaos.

Richard’s marriage brought Germanic allegiances, favoring Rome, not France in the papal schism and brought costs instead of a dowry. Richard’s investment in an aesthetic culture of divine kingship was also expensive. France continued to dominate, taking territory and damaging trade; Richard’s military endeavors in Scotland were costly failures. His promotion of his close personal favorites alienated older magnates including his uncles. In 1386, after hostile negotiations in which Richard threatened to turn to France for aid, a parliament forcibly removed his governance for a year.

Two sides formed: a group of magnates (the Appellants) opposing Richard’s favorites and Richard (furious at the events of 1386) and his favorites. Both sides leveled accusations of treachery. Richard tried to raise troops; the sheriffs refused, arguing that the Commons sided with the magnates. The Appellants seized control. In a series of parliamentary trials in 1388, they purged Richard’s favorites and his household, executing anyone who had not fled.

In the 1390s, the political situation appeared to stabilize: Richard renegotiated his role and cooperated with his political community, and royal finances improved. He kept a magnificent court venerating divine kingship, which patronized an impressive artistic and literary scene. However, there were warning signs that the past haunted him: he did not trust the machinery of authority, quietly using retaining (like magnates did) to bind followers to him and ritually elevating his person without connecting to his people. Grieving the deaths of his wife and an exiled favorite, he lashed out publicly. He honored Edward II.

Richard achieved short-term military success in Ireland, but a peace agreement with France drew some criticism. Richard’s magnates vetoed a clause enabling French assistance against his subjects, to his fury. In 1397, Richard moved, arresting the senior Appellants of 1386. He oversaw a parliament full of his supporters, under military guard. He killed or exiled his old enemies. He redistributed wealth and power and announced the supremacy of his sovereignty.

Richard enacted absolutism in his favor under the guise of pursuing peace and extorting compliance. When Gaunt died in 1399, his massive Lancastrian bloc was due to his son Henry Bolingbroke, Richard’s cousin, recently banished on questionable charges. In his absence, Richard extended his banishment to life, annulled his inheritance, and distributed everything between himself and his supporters. He then left to subdue Ireland. In his absence, Bolingbroke invaded, attracting vast support. Though Richard returned and tried to raise support along with his allies, Bolingbroke rapidly seized control of England and announced himself Steward of England. Richard was captured and forced to surrender governance to him.

Before a gathering, not technically a parliament in the absence of the king, two archbishops read a statement of Richard’s agreement to renounce his Crown due to his inadequacy and asked if the people consented. The lords and the Commons indicated they did. In unprecedented proceedings, an assembly gathered to formalize his deposition through articles citing his failings. Bolingbroke presented his claim and was crowned. Richard, who had probably not consented, soon died in prison.

Though Henry’s coup met little resistance, it broke precedent. Rather than an undisputed heir stepping in, an alternative claimant seized the throne, offering fuel for the subsequent Wars of the Roses. Richard’s deposition marked the end of a dynasty: the 246 years of Plantagenet rule in England produced huge structural, cultural, and geopolitical changes to kingship and the region.