Book Review: "Richard II: A Brittle Glory" by Laura Ashe

As you already know (good grief, you have to know by now!), I am reading a book about every single king and queen of England from Edward the Confessor onwards. I have covered so far: Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror, William Rufus (William II), Henry I, King Stephen, Empress Matilda, Henry II, Richard I, King John, Henry III, Edward I, Edward II and Edward III. And now, after all of this I am moving on to a king that was immortalised in the Shakespearean play that shows him as a narcissistic abuser of power and yet, a sympathetic character (and one of my favourite Shakespeare plays ever) - Richard II. This book is entitled: Richard II: A Brittle Glory.

The book starts off with a chronicler from 1401 who is reporting on the delicate situation of the deposition of Richard II - and the book is clear in stating how it was planned long before Richard II was actually deposed because of a long, and pretty fruitless reign. It explains that Richard's deposition was worse than Edward II's - at least Edward II had an heir. Richard II had no children. It goes on to also explain Richard's character as that of display of wealth rather than conquest and meaning. Richard liked spectacle, money and was a through and through narcissist.

As the book moves on, it covers how Richard came to the throne, through the death of his father Edward, the Black Prince. One of the things I like about this book is that it tries to dispell the myths about Richard II, and many have been created since his 'fall'. He has since become a figure of some sort of legend and, since his death - has also been mythologised as an almost romantic, troubadour kind of figure. It really didn't help that the BBC's performance of him in the Shakespeare play by Ben Whishaw was so damn good. That has to be one of the greatest things I have ever seen.

Anyways, this book does not shy away from telling us that Richard II, though a sympathetic figure for his possible mental illness, was still an evil character. It goes through his marriage to Anne of Bohemia, the death of her and his remarriage to a girl called Isabella. How he had no children and therefore no heir and how all of this accumilated in a huge problem when he died.

It goes through his tensions with John of Gaunt, the peasants revolt and the expulsion of Henry Bolingbroke from England. It is a brilliantly political book with various amounts of detail and attention paid to the fact that Richard II basically had no ethical purpose when it came to respecting people who were not the monarchs of places. I thought this criticism of his reign, wealth and kingdom were done very well. Teaching us that his sense of majesty basically came from his idea that he was the 'chosen one'. In a darker aspect, I think that this idea comes from his father's death.

In conclusion, I have read a few books about Richard II before and this one has to be one of the most critical about him yet, also devises a way to see his deposition as something illegal. I think that this book could have been more detailed, but did the best with the length it had. Honestly, I could not tell you why these books are so short, I sit there and read them within an hour or so and then here we are. It was good yes, but less detailed than I would've liked.