Helen Castor: evaluation

Transcript context

…Now, as you well know, toward the end of his reign, Richard II goes off to Ireland. Not long after that, he’s deposed. Two-part question. First, was that just a stupid mistake? Second, why does he have to go personally? It reminds me of these old Star Trek episodes where Captain Kirk himself beams down to the planet. Clearly, that’s a mistake. Why is he in Ireland? [laughs] That’s not a bad analogy, actually, and science fiction is something I think about quite a lot when trying to understand medieval England. It is a stupid mistake but not one that Richard, I think, could have recognized because his whole approach to governing England was a stupid mistake. He thought he had just pulled off his greatest triumph by cutting his greatest rival, Henry of Bolingbroke, off at the knees. He’d destroyed his three most powerful opponents, the men he saw as his opponents in 1397: his uncle and two other nobles. That left two other men who had stood up to him previously: Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, and his cousin, Henry. He’d exiled them both. Then in 1399, when Henry’s father, John of Gaunt died, he seized Henry’s inheritance, and it was clear that Henry wasn’t ever going to be allowed back. Richard thinks, “Now I’m safe. I’ve seen off my greatest opponent, so I can go and do what I want to do,” which is go to Ireland. Why does he go himself? Very good question. Because he’d had a good time there before in 1394 and ’95. In Ireland?…

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