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Home / People / Richard II

Historical person

Richard II

1367–c. 1400

Richard II became king of England in 1377 at the age of ten and faced the Peasants’ Revolt four years later. His reign developed a highly ceremonial court and an increasingly personal style of kingship, while conflict with leading nobles culminated in the Merciless Parliament. Richard later took revenge, exiled Henry Bolingbroke and seized the Lancastrian inheritance. Bolingbroke returned in 1399, deposed him and became Henry IV. Richard died in captivity.

Margaret Campbell Barnes’s Within the Hollow Crown is a well-known historical novel about Richard, and he appears in fiction about Katherine Swynford, Chaucer and the Lancastrian usurpation. Shakespeare’s play has strongly influenced the tragic image of a poetic but politically ineffective king. Modern novels may instead emphasise deliberate authoritarian government and the trauma of a child ruler confronting rebellion.

In non-fiction, Richard II is discussed in A. W. Boardman’s Hotspur, Dan Jones’s Summer of Blood, Dan Jones’s The Plantagenets, Dan Jones’s Henry V, and Tracy Borman’s Crown & Sceptre. In A. W. Boardman’s Hotspur, the study follows Percy’s upbringing within an ambitious border dynasty, his campaigns against France and Scotland, his capture at Otterburn and his service to Richard II.

Historical context

Historical periods linked to Richard II

Lancastrian England 1399–1461 CE Peasants’ Revolt 1381 CE Reign of Richard II 1377–1399 CE

Series

Series featuring Richard II (6 series)

An Owen Archer Mystery in Order

by Candace Robb 16 books 4.2

The Owen Archer mysteries follow a Welsh soldier and former captain of archers who becomes an investigator, spy and officer in fourteenth-century York. Beginning in 1363, Owen serves Archbishop John Thoresby and later the city authorities, while his marriage to apothecary Lucie Wilton gives the investigations a close…

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Struggle for a Crown in Order

by Griff Hosker 10 books 4.5

Struggle for a Crown follows soldiers and retainers through the crises of late medieval England and France. The series moves from Richard II and Henry IV to Henry V, Agincourt, the later Hundred Years’ War and the struggle to hold English power in France. It is a dynastic…

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Jeanette of Kent Duology in Order

by Elizabeth Chadwick 2 books 4.4

The Jeanette of Kent Duology tells the story of Joan of Kent, presented as Jeanette: a royal cousin whose private choices repeatedly become matters of dynastic importance. The Royal Rebel follows her forbidden marriage to Thomas Holland and the long legal battle to have that marriage recognised. The…

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The Mowbray Chronicles in Order

by Mette Holm 7 books 4.2

The Mowbray Chronicles follow a fictional branch of the English Mowbray family from the later Hundred Years’ War through the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V. Argyle Mowbray’s murder inquiry begins the numbered sequence at Richard’s divided court, but the dynasty’s concealed origins are established…

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The Life and Times of Corban Loosestrife in Order

by Cecelia Holland 6 books 3.9

The six-volume Corban Loosestrife saga begins in tenth-century Ireland when a Viking raid destroys Corban’s family and carries away his twin sister, Mav. His pursuit takes him through Dublin, Jórvík and Denmark before the family attempts a new life across the Atlantic. The later volumes shift much of…

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Standalone books

Standalone books featuring Richard II (9 books)

Non Fiction

Non Fiction featuring Richard II (5 books)

Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.