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Richard II (6 January 1367 – c. 14 February 1400), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed on 30 September 1399. Richard, a son of Edward, the Black Prince, was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III. Richard was the younger brother of Edward of Angoulême; upon the death of this elder brother, Richard—at four years of age—became second in line to the throne after his father. Upon the death of Richard's father prior to the death of Edward III, Richard, by primogeniture, became the heir apparent to the throne. With Edward III's death the following year, Richard succeeded to the throne at the age of ten. During Richard's first years as king, government was in the hands of a series of councils. Most of the aristocracy preferred this to a regency led by the king's uncle, John of Gaunt, yet Gaunt remained highly influential. The first major challenge of the reign was the Peasants' Revolt in 1381. The young king played a major part in the successful suppression of this crisis. In the following years, however, the king's dependence on a small number of courtiers caused discontent among the influential, and in 1387 control of government was taken over by a group of aristocrats known as the Lords Appellant. By 1389 Richard had regained control, and for the next eight years governed in relative harmony with his former opponents. In 1397, Richard took his revenge on the appellants, many of whom were executed or exiled. The next two years have been described by historians as Richard's "tyranny". In 1399, after John of Gaunt died, the king disinherited Gaunt's son, Henry of Bolingbroke, who had previously been exiled. Henry invaded England in June 1399 with a small force that quickly grew in numbers. Claiming initially that his goal was only to reclaim his patrimony, it soon became clear that he intended to claim the throne for himself. Meeting little resistance, Bolingbroke deposed Richard and had himself crowned as King Henry IV. Richard died in captivity in February 1400; he is thought to have been starved to death, though questions remain regarding his final fate. Richard was said to have been tall, good-looking and intelligent. Though probably not insane, as earlier historians believed, he may have had what modern psychologists would call a "personality disorder" towards the end of his reign. Less warlike than either his father or grandfather, he sought to bring an end to the Hundred Years' War that Edward III had started. He was a firm believer in the royal prerogative, something which led him to restrain the power of the aristocracy, and to rely on a private retinue for military protection instead; in contrast to the fraternal, martial court of his grandfather, he cultivated a refined atmosphere at his court, in which the king was an elevated figure, with art and culture at the centre. Richard's posthumous reputation has to a large extent been shaped by Shakespeare, whose play ''Richard II'' portrayed Richard's misrule and his deposition by Bolingbroke as responsible for the fifteenth century Wars of the Roses. Modern historians do not accept this interpretation, while not exonerating Richard from responsibility for his own deposition. Most authorities agree that, even though his policies were not unprecedented or entirely unrealistic, the way in which he carried them out was unacceptable to the political establishment, and this led to his downfall. == Early life == Richard of Bordeaux was the younger son of Edward, the Black Prince, and Joan of Kent ("The Fair Maid of Kent"). Edward, heir to the throne of England, had distinguished himself as a military commander in the early phases of the Hundred Years' War, particularly in the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. After further military adventures, however, he contracted dysentery in Spain in 1370. He never fully recovered and had to return to England the next year. Joan of Kent had been at the centre of a marriage dispute between Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, and William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, from which Holland emerged victorious. Less than a year after Holland's death in 1360, Joan married Prince Edward. Since she was a granddaughter of King Edward I and a first cousin of King Edward III, the marriage required papal approval. Richard was born at the Archbishop's Palace, Bordeaux, in the English principality of Aquitaine, on 6 January 1367. According to contemporary sources, three kings"the King of Castille, the King of Navarre and the King of Portugal"were present at his birth.〔Tuck (2004).〕 This anecdote, and the fact that his birth fell on the feast of Epiphany, was later used in the religious imagery of the Wilton Diptych, where Richard is one of three kings paying homage to the Virgin and Child.〔(Gillespie and Goodman (1998), p. 266 ).〕 His elder brother Edward of Angoulême died in 1371, and Richard became his father's heir.〔Saul (1997), p. 12.〕 The Black Prince finally succumbed to his long illness in 1376. The Commons in parliament genuinely feared that Richard's uncle, John of Gaunt, would usurp the throne. For this reason, the prince was quickly invested with the princedom of Wales and his father's other titles.〔Saul (1997), p. 17.〕 On 21 June the next year, Richard's grandfather Edward III also died, and at the age of ten Richard was crowned king on 16 July 1377.〔Saul (1997), p. 24.〕 Again, fears of John of Gaunt's ambitions influenced political decisions, and a regency led by the King's uncles was avoided.〔McKisack (1959), pp. 399–400.〕 Instead the king was nominally to exercise kingship with the help of a series of "continual councils" from which John of Gaunt was excluded.〔 Gaunt, together with his younger brother Thomas of Woodstock, Earl of Buckingham, still held great informal influence over the business of government. However, the king's councillors and friends, particularly Sir Simon de Burley and Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland, increasingly gained control of royal affairs and earned the mistrust of the Commons to the point where the councils were discontinued in 1380.〔 Contributing to discontent was an increasingly heavy burden of taxation levied through three poll taxes between 1377 and 1381 that were spent on unsuccessful military expeditions on the continent.〔Harriss (2005), pp. 445–6.〕 By 1381, there was a deep-felt resentment against the governing classes in the lower levels of English society.〔Harriss (2005), pp. 229–30.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Richard II of England」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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