When Shakespeare wrote Richard II, he billed his play as a tragedy: the downfall of a king riddled with fear, contempt and an obscure sense of majesty. Shakespeare’s portrait was a reasonably accurate one. Some historians have suggested Richard was a narcissist; others that he had borderline personality disorder.
Helen Castor offers a candid and considered view. Though the king ‘always knew he was special… his presence in the world shaped by his God-given destiny’, he simply lacked the conventional qualities of kingship. Richard’s tragedy was that he was doomed to rule under the spectre of his father and grandfather’s martial legacy – the Black Prince, hero of Crécy and the military giant Edward III.
His cousin, however, possessed all the skills that a ruler required. Henry Bolingbroke, the son of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster, excelled in a tournament. He was a soldier, fighting for a time on crusade in Lithuania with the Teutonic Knights, and had three sons by the time he was in his early twenties.
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