Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/162

 known to Creton in 1401, and is satisfactorily disproved by the modern examination of Richard's skull (Archæologia, vi. 316, xlv. 323). Creton's suggestion that Henry showed Maudelyn's body, and that Richard was still alive in some prison, prepared the ground for the story of Richard's escape to Scotland, which was started early in 1402, and supported by letters under his signet. It found some credence in England, especially among the friars minors, and even in the palace. According to the contemporary Wyntoun (ii. 388), a poor man, ‘traveland’ in the ‘out isles’ of Scotland, was recognised as the deposed king by a sister-in-law of the lord of the isles, who had met him in her own country of Ireland; but the details of the story vary greatly. The Scottish government certainly gave a small allowance for many years to a person, seemingly of weak intellect, whom they called King Richard, and who, dying in 1419 at Stirling, was buried in the Black Friars there, with a Latin epitaph still extant. But it is significant that this man's first appearance immediately preceded a Scottish invasion of England, and that he was always kept in the background by the Scots. The English government declared him to be a certain Thomas Warde of Trumpington, very probably an instrument in the hands of William Serle, a former chamberlain of Richard, living in Scotland, who had carried off or forged his signet. Little was heard of the pretended Richard after Serle's execution in 1404. The French satisfied themselves as early as 1402 that he was an impostor; Creton, who had hailed the news of his old master's escape in a balade and a letter to Richard himself, was sent to Scotland to make inquiries, and on his return urged Philip of Burgundy to avenge the murder of Richard (Archæologia, xxviii. 75). From time to time the ‘mammet’ of Scotland was still made a stalking-horse to attack the Lancastrian government; the conspirators of 1415 intended to make the Earl of March king, ‘provided Richard were dead,’ and Oldcastle in 1417 urged the Scots to send him into England. In modern times the reality of Richard's escape has been maintained, but not convincingly, by Mr. Tytler. Henry had buried Richard, not in the splendid tomb he had built in 1395 for himself and his first wife in the chapel of the Confessor in Westminster Abbey, removing the Bohun tomb for the purpose, but, without any ceremony, in the church of the friars preachers at his manor of King's Langley. Henry V, whom as a boy Richard had treated with kindness, removed his body to the tomb at Westminster. The characteristic epitaph, in which Richard describes himself as ‘animo prudens ut Omerus,’ must have been inscribed between 1397 and 1399. Richard's widow became the wife of the poet, Charles, duke of Orleans.

Richard's short life contains all the elements of tragedy. Neither by natural disposition nor youthful training was he well fitted to come through the troubles bequeathed to him by his grandfather. With the pleasure-loving temperament which he inherited from the ‘Fair Maid of Kent’ along with her physical beauty, Richard united a firmness of will and capacity for sustained action when roused which, under a more fortunate star, might have done England good service. He deserves the credit, at least, of seeing that her men and money were better expended in Ireland than in France. Unhappily, these qualities were diverted to schemes of revenge and arbitrary power, which lost him the allegiance of the nation. Abrupt and stammering in speech, hasty and subject to sudden gusts of passion, Richard's was a nature neither patient of restraint nor forgetful of injuries. The somewhat unmanly despair attributed by the French writers to Richard when brought to bay may not be out of keeping with his character; but it should be remembered that they professedly wrote to excite sympathy for his piteous fate. Richard carried to excess the pomp and show introduced by Edward III. Ten thousand persons, says Hardyng, were provided for in his household, which, at Christmas 1398, consumed daily some twenty-eight oxen and three hundred sheep. His master cook's ‘Forme of Cury’ (ed. Pegge, 1780) is one of the earliest English cookery books. He spent great sums on garments embroidered with gold and precious stones, and first began to embroider the arms or badge on the just-au-corps as well as the mantle. One of his coats was valued at thirty thousand marks. Just before his deposition Langland severely rebuked this extravagance in ‘Richard the Redeless’ (ed. Skeat). Richard was charged, in his later years at least, with turning night into day in drinking bouts, and with indulging in unnatural vice. But the latter allegation must be received with caution (cf. Jones's ‘Index to Records,’ under 1400–1). His affection for his first wife admits of no doubt. Richard was alleged to have had resort to divination. He was not without literary tastes. In 1379 there were bought for him a French bible, the ‘Romance of the Rose,’ and the romances of Percevell and Gawayn (Issues, p. 213). Gower dedicated the first version of his ‘Confessio Amantis’ to him, explaining that the king had met him on the river and bid him write ‘some newe