Shakespeare's Kings (14 page)

Fortunately,
Richard
loved
her:
not
perhaps
at
the
start
-
when
they were
both
little
more
than
children
and
he
was
dominated
by
his infinitely
stronger
mother
-
but
increasingly
after
Joan's
death
in
1385; and
as
time
went
on
Anne
herself
gained
a
measure
of
popularity. Meanwhile
her
numerous
and
highly
cosmopolitan
following revolutionized
life
at
court.
The
households
of
Edward
III
and
the Black
Prince
had
been
of
a
pronounced
military
character,
with
little formality
or
protocol;
women
were
expected
to
know
their
place. With
Richard,
all
this
was
changed.
The
military
element
disappeared altogether;
in
its
place
came
a
new
atmosphere
of
culture
and sophistication,
such
as
had
never
before
been
seen
in
England
—
an atmosphere
of
which,
we
may
be
sure,
both
the
King's
father
and grandfather
would
have
mightily
disapproved.
There
was
also
a
strong feminine
element
-
with
ladies
not
only
from
Austria
and
Bohemia
but from
France
and
Germany,
and
even
occasionally
from
Hungary
and Poland,
no
longer
content
with
their
embroidery
but
playing
on
instruments,
singing,
and
dancing
to
the
most
fashionable
steps
imported from
the
Continent.

With
these
developments
came
a
fresh
interest
in
two
other
aspects
of
the
new
douceur
de vivre:
cooking
and
dress.
'The
best
and
royallest
viander
of
all
Christian
Kings',
Richard
presided
over
what
was
generally
agreed
to
be
the
most
sumptuous
table
in
Europe.
Among
the
196
recipes
in
his
court
cookery
book,
The
Forme of
Cury,
which
has
fortunately come down to us,
¹
we search in vain for references to the roasted oxen, haunches of venison and shoulders of mutton which represent, in the public imagination, so large and daunting a part of the royal menus. Instead, the meat seems almost invariably to have been reduced to mince or pate, its natural taste obscured by vast quantities of sugar and exotic spices. For the first time, too, much store was set by male sartorial elegance. Previously, except on high ceremonial occasions, dress in England for the King as well as for his subjects had been essentially practical; it is in Richard's reign that we see the birth of fashion, with tailoring developed into an art. Shoulders padded, waists ti
ghtly
constricted, hose skin-tight, shoes absurdly elongated with pointed toes, hats like turbans: all these were
de rigueur
for the young men about the court, with the addition in cold weather of the
houpelande —
a full-length gown with huge sleeves that also fell almost to the ground. Jewellery was everywhere - on belts and collars, sleeves and tunics, worn as badges on the breast or in chains about the neck. In comparison, the women seemed almost drab. As for the King himself, he did not follow the latest fashions; he set them. He is credited, too, with one invention that has survived uninterruptedly to our own day, the handkerchief - 'made', according to his wardrobe account, 'for carrying in his hand to wipe and cleanse his nose.' Another contemporary innovation has also been attributed to him, though whether anyone would nowadays wish to take credit for the invention of the codpiece must remain a matter for speculation.

But Richard was not only a gourmet and a dandy; he was also an intellectual, with a passion for literature. Already by the age of thirteen he was enthusiastically buying books; at the time of his death he is believed to have possessed several dozen volumes of his own - a rare thing in those days, a century before the invention of printing. And he was an active patron of the arts. At his royal banquets, in place of the old minstrels, a new race of court poets — foremost among whom was Geoffrey Chaucer — would declaim their own poems, both in French and English, to the bilingual company; for Richard was almost certainly

1
Presented by Edmund Stafford to Queen Elizabeth I, it later formed part of the Harleian Collection. It was printed for the Society of Antiquaries in 1780. For examples of the recipes — they included minced pheasant, with Greek wine, cinnamon, cloves and ginger - see Gervase Mathew,
The Court of Richard II,
pp. 23-5.

the first King of England since the Norman Conquest to speak fluent English.

Where he differed most radically from his father and grandfather was in his conception of kingship. For Edward III and the Black Prince a King was above all a warrior, a leader of his armies in battle. When not in the field, his primary duties were those of a statesman and a lawgiver. His crown, and the oil with which he had been anointed, might confer on him a special grace and the right to his subjects' loyalty; but he remained a man like any other, his feet firmly on the ground, approachable to one and all. For Richard, from his earliest years, kings were not as other men. The ceremonial of his coronation — which he never forgot - had convinced him that he was set apart from the rest. He probably knew nothing of the theories prevailing in the Byzantine Empire, where the Emperor was considered the Vice-Gerent of God on earth, standing half-way to heaven, Equal of the Apostles; but he would have wholeheartedly endorsed them. For him, too, the basis of kingship was religious rather than military. Three times, when the need arose, he was to lead his army into battle; yet kings, as he saw them, did not properly belong on the battlefield. Their place was on the throne. He presided from his royal gallery over many a tournament; but he always refused to participate himself, as his father and grandfather had loved to do. The sovereign of England could never risk being publicly unhorsed.

It is perhaps a measure of Richard's vanity that he is the first English King whose true likeness has come down to us — and not with one contemporary portrait, but with two. (Three, if we include the effigy on his tomb.) The earliest is the large panel portrait just inside the west door of Westminster Abbey. Since he is portrayed in what is obviously his early youth, wearing a high gold crown and in full regalia, it may be a coronation portrait, though it is more likely to have been painted some years later. The boy king stares out towards us from the golden ground behind him, his sad and solemn face clean-shaven and framed in thick brown hair, his long, delicate fingers seeming to caress, rather than actually to hold, the orb and sceptre in his hands. His eyes, beneath the high arched eyebrows, are heavy-lidded and tired-looking; but they are also blank and pitiless.

The second picture - the so-called Wilton Diptych, in the National Gallery in London — is itself something very like a jewel. Of its two
panels,
Richard
appears
in
the
one
on
the
left,
kneeling
in
adoration before
the
Virgin,
who
stands
in
the
right-hand
panel
surrounded
by
a host
of
blue-robed
angels,
her
child
in
her
arms.
His
cloak
of
scarlet
is richly
embroidered
in
gold
with
his
emblem
of
the
white
hart,
which we
see
again
in
a
badge
on
his
own
breast
and
on
those
of
the
angels. Behind
him
stand
two
royal
saints,
Edward
the
Confessor
and
Edmund the
Martyr,
with
Stjohn
the
Baptist.
Here,
in
contrast
to
the
Westminster Abbey
portrait,
the
King's
young
face
is
full
of
animation
as
he
gazes ecstatically
at
the
heavenly
pair,
his
hands
—
those
long,
tapering
fingers again
-
extended
before
him;
but
the
symbolism
remains
clear.
Richard, the
King,
ranks
with
the
holiest
of
his
predecessors
and
is
vouchsafed
a vision
of
the
heavenly
glory.
Even
the
angels
are
proud
to
bear
his badge.

The
one
virtue
immediately
noticeable
by
its
absence
from
both works
is
that
of
humility.
We
should
not
expect
to
find
it
in
the Westminster
Abbey
panel,
for
this
is
a
state
portrait
-
the
earliest,
indeed, in
the
history
of
English
painting
-
and
state
portraits
are
a
genre,
almost by
definition,
in
which
such
qualities
are
rare.
In
the
Wilton
Diptych, on
the
other
hand,
some
suggestion
of
self-abasement,
or
at
least submissiveness,
might
not
have
come
amiss;
but
once
again
there
is
no trace.
True,
Richard
is
kneeling,
but
this
seems
to
be
little
more
than a
politesse:
while
the
three
figures
behind
him
wear
expressions
of solemnity
and
awe
he
looks
the
Virgin
dead
in
the
eye,
the
suggestion of
a
smile
on
his
Hps,
for
all
the
world
as
if
he
were
about
to
engage her
in
conversation.