Shakespeare's Kings (26 page)

The
English
army
landed
at
Waterford
on
2
October
1394;
but
apart from
the
occasional
small
skirmish
with
Irish
tribesmen,
neither
then nor
later
was
there
any
serious
fighting.
That,
as
everybody
knew
by now,
was
not
Richard's
way.
He
marched
by
easy
stages
to
Dublin
Castle
,
where
he
settled
down
with
his
counsellors
to
restore
law
and order
and
re-establish
his
rule
-
essentially
by
confirming
the
chieftains in
their
lands
in
return
for
oaths
of
allegiance,
granting
them
where necessary
full
legal
recognition.
All
four
Irish
kings
came
to
Dublin, where
they
were
received
with
honour
and
granted
English
knighthoods,
and
where
they
cheerfully
performed
the
acts
of
homage
required of
them.
They
may
have
been
somewhat
less
pleased
when
the
King insisted
that
they
should
be
taught
English
table
manners
and
should abandon
their
traditional
kilts
in
favour
of
more
seemly
linen
drawers; but
they
doubtl
ess
consoled
themselves
with
the
reflection
that
he would
not
be
in
Ireland
long
and
that
they
would
soon
be
able
to
revert to
their
old
habits.

Richard
in
fact
delayed
his
departure
till
i
May
1395,
when
he
and his
army
sailed
from
Waterford,
leaving
the
Earl
of
March
to
maintain control.
His
Irish
visit
had
been
more
successful
than
he
or
any
of
his advisers
could
have
hoped,
and
had
immeasurably
increased
his
prestige. Not
only
was
he
popular
with
the
people;
among
the
nobility
too, opposition
had
melted
away.
Such
was
his
new-found
confidence
that he
decided,
typically,
to
risk
an
extraordinary
gesture
of
defiance
that would,
he
must
have
known,
arouse
the
intense
indignation
of
all
those around
him.
His
bosom
friend
Robert
de
Vere,
in
exile
since
the
end of
1387,
had
been
killed
five
years
later,
boar-hunting
near
Louvain; Richard
now
ordered
his
body
brought
back
to
England
for
reburial in
the
de
Vere
family
vault
at
Earls
Colne
in
Essex.
In
the
course
of
the ceremony
of
reconsecration
he
suddenly
ordered
the
coffin
opened
and gazed
down
on
the
embalmed
body,
clasping
the
dead
man's
hands, the
fingers
still
heavy
with
jewels,
and
adding
a
further
ring
of
his
own.

Few
if
any
of
the
great
nobles
were
present
at
this
embarrassing ceremony;
most
of
them
-
one
suspects
rather
to
the
King's
irritation
—
chose
to
ignore
it
altogether.
John
of
Gaunt,
however,
although
he had
always
detested
de
Vere,
remained
rocklike
in
his
nephew's
support, his
recent
disappointments
in
Spain
forgotten
in
the
satisfaction
of having
finally
concluded,
in
May
1394,
a
four-year
truce
with
France. He
was
also
much
exhilarated
by
the
demise,
two
months
before,
of his
Spanish
wife
Constance
of
Castile.
The
two
had
never
been
close, and
her
death
freed
him
to
marry
-
with
the
King's
willing
permission
-
his
long-time
mistress
Katherine
Swynford,
as
well
as
to
legitimize
their four
children.
¹
These
last
arrangements
were
predictably
unwelcome
to John's
heir
Henry
Bolingbroke,
now
Earl
of
Derby;
but
the
death
of Henry's
own
wife,
Mary
Bohun,
in
July
prevented
him
from
making any
active
protest.

Before
long,
too,
plans
for
a
still
more
important
marriage
were
in the
air:
that
of
Richard
himself
to
Isabelle,
daughter
of
Charles
VI
of France.

The
advantages
of
a
French
marriage
were
clear.
The
war
had
now continued
for
almost
sixty
years;
something
must
be
done
to
bring
it to
an
end.
A
permanent
peace
was
out
of
the
question
while
the
English remained
in
Calais,
the
surrender
of
which
neither
Richard
nor
his advisers
were
prepared
to
contemplate
for
a
moment;
but
a
royal marriage
could
be
expected
to
hold
the
situation
for
a
long
time
to come,
and
the
French
needed
little
persuasion
to
extend
the
earlier four-year
truce
to
a
period
of
no
less
than
twenty-eight
years
from
the signature
of
the
final
agreement
on
9
March
1396.
On
that
occasion Richard
himself
travelled
to
Paris,
where
Charles
VI
entertained
him to
a
ceremonial
banquet
and
he
was
married
by
proxy
to
Isabelle.
There was,
to
be
sure,
one
drawback
to
the
match
-
a
drawback
of
which Shakespeare
may
have
been
ignorant
or,
more
probably,
which
he chose
to
overlook:
while
the
groom
was
now
twenty-nine,
his
bride was
just
seven.
But
Richard
was
still
deeply
affected
by
the
death
of
his beloved
Anne,
and
he
may
well
have
been
grateful
that
the
Princess's youth
allowed
him
a
few
more
years
to
mend
his
broken
heart.
Meanwhile
he
grew
genuinely
fond
of
the
little
girl,
who
received
a
magnificent
welcome
when
she
arrived
at
Calais
in
October;
and
there
is
no reason
to
suppose
that
the
marriage
would
not
have
turned
out
an extremely
happy
one
-
and
probably
solved
the
problem
of
the
succession
into
the
bargain
-
had
it
been
given
the
chance
to
do
so.