Richard II (The English Monarchs Series) [Hardcover]

Professor Nigel Saul (Author)

Book Description

Series: The English Monarchs Series | Publication Date: May 29, 1997

Richard II is one of the most enigmatic of English kings. Shakespeare depicted him as a tragic figure, an irresponsible, cruel monarch who nevertheless rose in stature as the substance of power slipped from him. By later writers he has been variously portrayed as a half-crazed autocrat, or a conventional ruler whose principal errors were the mismanagement of his nobility and a disregard for the political conventions of his age. This book offers a reinterpretation of the king. Nigel Saul paints a picture of Richard as a highly assertive and determined ruler, one whose key aim was to exalt and dignify the crown. In Richard's view, the crown was threatened by the factiousness of the nobility and the assertiveness of the common people. The king met these challenges by exacting obedience, encouraging lofty new forms of address and constructing an elaborate system of rule by bonds and oaths. Saul traces the sources of Richard's political ideas and finds that he was influenced by a deeply felt orthodox piety and by the ideas of the civil lawyers He shows that, although Richard's kingship resembled that of other rulers of the period, unlike theirs, his reign ended in failure because of tactical errors and contradictions in his policies. For all that he promoted the image of a distant, all-powerful monarch, Richard II's rule was in practice characterised by faction and feud. The king was obsessed by the search for personal security: in his subjects, however, he bred only insecurity and fear. A portrait of a complex figure, this book is suitable reading for anyone with an interest in the politics and culture of the English middle ages.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Saul (medieval history, Univ. of London) has written several books on the medieval period (e.g., England in Europe, St. Martin's, 1994). His latest work stays close to primary sources, which means it is a biography of the reign of Richard II but not necessarily a biography of the man. Saul does provide a chapter at the end on Richard as an individual, with supporting evidence for his theories. The author assumes some knowledge of the era but writes clearly except when, at times, he refers to an individual by a variety of names. Still, all audiences will be able to enjoy this work.?Julie Still, Rutgers Univ., Camden, N.J.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1st U.S. Ed edition (May 29, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300070039
• ISBN-13: 978-0300070033
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #725,412 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing and badly organized, November 16, 2000

By 

John Cragg (Delta(greater Vancouver), B.C Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Richard II (The English Monarchs Series) (Paperback)

Richard II was a fascinating and enigmatic character, whose reign was marked by his being dethroned not once, but essentially twice. This in addition to Richard's being faced with that oddity, a nearly successful popular uprising. Thse two losses of power constitute about as disastrous a pattern as any ruler can produce. What the sources of the turmoil were and why Richard was so spectacularly unsuccessful at dealing with them should make for an absorbing tale. Unfortunately, Nigel Saul is good neither at telling the events of the reign nor in laying out the nature of Richard's character.

It may be no easy task to build up a character on the basis of the fragmentary and often very dry records left by medieval English society. However, as some fine volumes in this series illustrate, this task can be accomplished with aplomb, even by authors working with even weaker material than Saul has and with a less gripping tale that they might tell. Saul falls into a number of traps. The most blatant of these is his repeated failure to distinguish trivia from significant facts. He also fails to distinguish speculation from well-supported fact and makes little attempt to eschew the former as much as possible. Furthermore, Saul repeatedly presumes detailed knowledge of certain aspects of the individuals and situations under consideration to a quite unreasonable extent for anything purporting to be a book for anyone other than an expert. At other times he belabors matters that need little exposition for anyone with much familiarity with the subject.

The presumption of knowledge is most annoying when Saul is discussing taxation. Saul never explains what a "fifteenth and tenth" was; though he has Parliament grant it to the King repeatedly in the early going. What is totally lacking in the book is a discussion - and here there is a lot of material available - on what the sources of revenue of the English crown really were, and how they were used.

Another example of the author's annoying habits is illustrated by the offhand way in which Harry Percy (Hotspur) is introduced which presumes a full and immediate knowledge of who he was. (To make matters worse, the index doesn't even list the real introduction, which is in a footnote.) It is not clear that Hotspur needed to be mentioned when he was, but if he is going to enter the tale, we should be told who he is when he appears, especially since the real Hotspur differed in very significant ways from the picture to be gleaned from Shakespeare.

And so it goes. Lists of names where some analysis is needed, places visited with no explanation of why it would matter, etc. The book is so badly organized so that it is repetitious without being illuminating. Lengthy disputes with other scholars are undertaken on minor matters, while little care is given to establishing what is and is not known about major matters.

The general background of a society in transit, with serious demographic dislocation from the Black Death, is not analyzed and not related to Richard's troubles and successes. Only in discussion of religion and Lollardy do we get anything like an analysis of the background. This temporary strength is marred as Saul breaks off for meaningless (since there has been no clear analysis of the roles of the individuals) lists of adherents, and the thinnest of analysis of Richard's beliefs. Much of this latter involves the interpretation of an altar piece in whose design we are given no reason to suppose that Richard himself was involved.

Even the concluding chapter, which is probably the best of the book, is marred by raising material to buttress arguments which was not covered earlier and by making points quite unsupported by any material that went before. That chapter also quotes Shakespeare, with chunks pulled randomly and out of order from the play, and one can only conclude that Shakespeare, though no historian, had a better grasp of the situation than does Saul.

This is supposed to be the best biography of Richard II available. It may be - I am no expert - but if so, the field is crying out for a better one. One hopes that it is already sitting on some scholar's desk or in some editor's briefcase. In the meantime, there are many far better books on British medieval history and the character of its kings to absorb the energies of the interested reader.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Thorough but definitely not for laymen!, April 19, 2003

By 

chefdevergue (Spokane, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Richard II (The English Monarchs Series) (Paperback)

If you are not well-versed in this period of English history, then reading this book could be a struggle at times. It is not the best-organized book I have read; there were several times I had to re-read for 4-5 pages to make sure I was following the narrative properly. Also, the author assumes that the reader knows the subject thoroughly. Do you know the difference between the Great Seal, the Privy Seal and the signet? The difference between scutage and amercements? That the names Duke of Lancaster, Prince John, John of Gaunt and Gaunt all refer to the same person (sometimes several being used on the same page)? The difference of a "grant in fee simple" and a "grant in tail male?" The author assumes you do, for he offers no details. If you are in the dark about this, you will remain utterly confused at times with what appears to be meaningless terminology.

Also, echoing another reviewer, the author bases a number of assumptions on some rather sparse documentation. He may make an assertion and in the next paragraph observe that there is virtually nothing in the historical record to indicate one way or another what exactly was going on? Is the author then simply guessing at times? This is a little troubling for the reader.

The narrative can get unnecessarily tangled at time as the author gets bogged down in what seems to me to be minute details. This was a gripping period of English history, a prelude to the War of the Roses, where one witnessed a struggle for power between Parliament and the King, as well the struggle within the royal family itself, a struggle that would erupt more violently two generations later. This story would seem to provide a gripping narrative, but at times the prose is positively leaden. Be warned, the words do not flow gracefully from Saul's pen.

If you are able to stick with it, you will find this book to quite informative, but I cannot believe that this book could not have been a bit more accessible.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you read only one book on Richard II, this is it., May 2, 2000

By 

Frank Wiswall (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Richard II (The English Monarchs Series) (Paperback)

Richard II has been a controversial figure from his deposition from the English throne in 1399 to our own day. Like his later fifteenth-century namesake Richard III, interpretations of him and of his motives have varied widely, and were dominated for much of the twentieth century both by Shakespeare's play and by the image of the mad autocrat first painted by Anthony Steel in his "Richard II" (1941). Now Professor Nigel Saul has given us what will deservedly be the standard life for at least the next half-century. This work, first published three years ago, forms part of an outstanding series of lives of the English kings, and is every bit the equal of the best of them, from Warren's "Henry II" (1973) to Barlow's "William Rufus" (1983). Saul presents Richard as a man thrust, at the tender age of ten, into an office and a domestic and international situation which he could not fully grasp, and forced to do the impossible: fill the gargantuan shoes of both his grandfather, Edward III, and his father, the outstanding warrior Edward the Black Prince. The uncertainty of Anglo-French relations during this stage of the Hundred Years War, and the expectations of Richard's magnates and subjects - that he would be a military leader and vigorous defender of the English position in France like his predecessors - bedeviled the king during his minority and placed constraints upon his behavior which he found unbearable. Saul examines the entire context of Richard's reign and the forces at work in his world, from Richard's peace overtures to the French (which were opposed by his magnates as insulting to English "national" honor) to his support of unpopular court favorites, and even to the king's religious attitudes (traditional in a time of growing discontent with the Papacy and the Catholic Church). He thus gives us a complete structure to support the fascinating final chapters of the book. It is here, just as in any finely crafted piece of literature, that we see all the strands of Richard's life and character woven together with what, for him, was a terrible finality: his revenge against those, including members of his own family, who had insulted and demeaned him in his youth, his growing paranoia, and his assault on the property rights of his magnates, rights which were a cornerstone of the late medieval English state. The result, as Saul rightly puts it, was a "terrible denouement" in which Richard, showing a tragic lack of judgement (as he had so often done), lost his throne to his cousin Henry Bolingbroke. Saul's final view of Richard as psychologically disturbed, but understandably so, is well supported by evidence and is very plausible. The book has no major weaknesses and few minor ones, and will provide a thorough understanding not only of Richard II, but of power and its limitations in late medieval England.