(upbeat music) (gentle music) - In the days of absolute monarchy, the royal court was where
you went to get ahead. It was the nation's heart of
power, influence and money. But life at court was
a game of high stakes. It could make you, or it could break you. Even kings and queens could lose a crown by misjudging the mood at court. Fortunes rose and fell. Richard II was the first English king to use art and rhetoric to
build a sophisticated court. It gave his reign a new aura. Richard wanted to the take
monarchy to a whole new level. Until his day, the king
was first among equals, leader of the gang, sure,
but still one of the chaps. Instead, Richard craved
absolute power, veneration, the aura of divinity, even. He was the first monarch who
insisted on being addressed as "Your Highness", "Your Majesty", even "Your High Royal Presence". Richard still needed fearless warriors, like kings before him. The art of chivalry was
as important as ever. Now there were new ways to
flatter and indulge a king. It's pretty hot in the old
kitchens of Richard II. Dress to impress. Tell stories. Geoffrey Chaucer, the
first great superstar of English letters. But Richard was a tricky customer. - Everything about his life was
different and odd and other. - Being close to him
brought many a courtier to a sticky end. He could be spiky, thin-skinned, peevish, over-sensitive, effete. He could be the best
of friends and company, the next minute turn
wrathful and difficult, he was unpredictable. He liked the finer things in life, like clothes, food, architecture. He had an artistic sensibility at a time when nobody had
heard of such a thing. He was married twice but had close male friends
about whom rumors circulated. Richard was altogether too complicated, too modern for his time, and he would pay the price for that. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Richard's reign began in July, 1377 with the most splendid
coronation England had ever seen. A cavalcade of 3,000 courtiers paraded through the streets of
London to Westminster. A red carpet marked the
route into the abbey and up to the high altar. As one chronicler wrote, "It was a day of joyful gladness and of the braying of trumpets." At the heart of all this
fanfare and flummery was a 10-year-old child. Richard was the youngest
king ever crowned here at the abbey. The oppressive grandeur of the occasion, the sheer immensity of this old place, even now one feels the weight
of the fabric, the stone, the history upon you, pressing down. How much more of a burden,
then, upon the frail shoulders of a child barely out of short trousers. Richard wasn't the only
one quaking at the knees. For most courtiers, this
was their first chance to get close to their new king, and first impressions mattered. The burden of the great
occasion weighed heavily on everyone present. Every courtier, every guest,
every bishop and servant, each knew that they had to
fulfill their role perfectly because the merest misstep or hiccup, to the superstitious medieval
mind, was a portent of doom, overshadowing Richard's reign
before it had even begun. Pre-eminent amongst the
grand array of courtiers was the King's Champion. He rode a magnificent charger
and wore a full suit of armor while offering mortal combat to anyone who opposed Richard's rule. No courtier was more important
than the King's Champion. And it was his role to proclaim aloud, "If there be any man
of high degree or low, that will say that this, our
sovereign liege, Lord Richard, ought not of right to be
King of England crowned, I am ready now till the
last hour of my breath, with my body to beat him like
a false man or a traitor." (upbeat music) This magnificent picture, the king seen against a
backdrop of gold gesso is known to this day as
The Coronation Portrait, as if there could be no other. And certainly there'd been
nothing like this before. It's the work of that
distinguished artist, Anonymous. Sadly, we don't know the
identity of the gifted hand responsible for this work. But we do know that it's a milestone in art history and monarchy. Before Richard, no king had
been rendered on this scale, bigger than life. Until now, religious sensibilities
meant that the sitter, however elevated, would
be seen in profile. But Richard presumed to
address the viewer directly, looking straight into his eyes. What this is saying is, "Here's
a young man who believes, who understands in his bones, that his calling is from
on high, from God himself." This is the beginning of an
aura of divinity around kingship and if you look into
Richard's eyes, even now, you can't doubt he believes his calling is from the highest authority. (upbeat music) If you wanted to get
ahead in Richard's court, you had to be ahead of
the latest fashions. The king himself was
certainly a dapper dresser. He couldn't get enough fur,
velvet and cloth of gold. He was said to have spent 20,000
pounds on a single outfit, an unbelievable fortune. Courtiers had to be well
turned out, from head to toe. We think we're the first people to worry about the size of our footprint, but in the 1300s, courtiers
were falling over each other, sometimes themselves, to
put their best foot forward. This is the Medieval cloth
town of Lavenham in Suffolk, where Paul Wragg is making
pointed Medieval shoes, known as poulaines. - Hello, Paul.
- Hello. - I'm Stephen. How are you? - Fine, thank you. - Proper little elves'
workshop you've got going on. Can I sit down? - Yeah, please do. - So what are you doing? - Making a pair of shoes,
a pair of poulaines. - Like nothing I've ever seen before. How on earth would you even go about making a pair like that? - First of all, I would
make a pattern of your feet, take a drawing around your feet. And then measurements across and around. And then I'd transpose that
onto a piece of leather and sew them inside out along this, what we call the lasting seam. And when the shoe is ready for
turning, it's soaked in water and then turned. - Were there any rules
that you're aware of determining who could wear what, Paul? - The length of the shoe was commensurate with your status in society. So if you were of a lowly status, you would only be allowed
a very short poulaine. If you were of a royal, kingly status, these could be as long as you like. - The sky is the limit. Now, I know you've kindly been making a pair of poulaines for me. Are these them? - No, no, no. Yours are- - They're finished. - Yours are here. In fashionable red. - Wow, get a load of those. I was hoping for a long
pair, but these will do. (Paul laughs) I'd love to try them. - Please do. - And to complete the look... That's heavy. What's that?
- Hat as well. - Hat as well. Seriously? - Yeah.
- Okay. Is there somewhere where I can slip into something less comfortable? - Through there. Okay, thank you. - Have fun. (upbeat music) - Well, Paul, nice piece of work. - Thank you. - The only trouble is that I don't have a bag to go with them. What's the size of that for goodness sake? - Well, even bigger. - Fill this room. To be honest with you, and I don't want to hurt your feelings, they're not for every day. - No.
- Are they? - No. - I mean, cycling is out. The allotment. I think this is the finest cobblers I've ever been involved with, Paul. Thank you very much.
- Thank you. - God bless you.
- Thank you. (upbeat music) (gentle music) Richard's childhood was
overshadowed by his father, the Black Prince. He was a warrior down to
his gore-flecked bootstraps and was forever waging war. His own chance of becoming
king was snatched away by his untimely death, leaving
Richard to take the throne. But who'd be there to guide him? What Richard needed was a
role model, as we say now, a father figure, and there was no shortage
of suitable candidates. There was his own uncle, John of Gaunt. His trusted tutors, Simon
Burley and Guichard D'Angle. There was even the
Chamberlain of his household, a man called Aubrey de Vere. But nobody was better suited to the job than the Archbishop of Canterbury, the man who'd placed the
crown on Richard's head at his coronation. He was the pious Simon Sudbury. Sudbury was always there for Richard. After the Black Prince's
death, he praised him as "a fair son and the very
image of his father." Richard made him one of
his closest advisors. But in 1381, the year
of the Peasant's Revolt, Sudbury's position at
the king's right hand put him in danger. (upbeat music) The ugly truth was that
when things turned nasty, there was nothing the mob liked better than exacting revenge against the king by killing someone he loved. And that dire fate befell
the king's father figure, Simon Sudbury. Tragically for Richard, and
for Simon, too, of course. Here at St Gregory's Church in Sudbury, there's a grizzly reminder of his end. (bell tolls)
(upbeat music) Good afternoon, Vicar, how are you? - Good afternoon, Stephen.
Welcome to St Gregory's. - Thank you very much. I believe you have a fascinating
relic of Simon Sudbury. - Yes, you could call it
a relic. Yes, we have. Come this way, Stephen. - So the head's behind here. - The head? It's a head?
- It's a head. There we are.
- My goodness. - That's the head of Simon of Sudbury. And it's a head, not a skull because there's little bits of
flesh and skin and cartilage. - How did they achieve that,
that mummification process? - The story is that he was
beheaded in the White Tower as part of the Peasants' Revolt and the head was put on
a spike on London Bridge. And apparently it was a
very hot time of year, in the summer, and it sort
of mummified, I suppose, over that period of time. And then the good folk of
Sudbury took pity on the head and felt it should come back here to his home town of Sudbury,
and so brought back, and it's been in the town ever since, so well over 600 years. - Can we take him out
and have a look at him? - We can't touch him, I'm afraid, but I can tell you a bit
more about him, if you like, because having seen it
myself on another occasion. On the back of the head,
you can actually see marks where the attempted beheading took place. And the story goes that
it took seven blows to take that head off, which
must have been horrific. (upbeat music) - It's tough at the top
but it's lonely, too. And throughout history, leaders, monarchs have
surrounded themselves with their special people,
intimates, familiars, favorites. Those with whom they could
talk in an unguarded way removed from the strictures of court life. But it's a slippery
business being a favorite. It tends to breed suspicion, enmity, bitter hatred, controversy. And that was never truer
than in the case of Richard. One favorite caused more
controversy than any other. His name was Robert de
Vere, 10th Earl of Oxford. This was Robert de Vere's home. His relationship with
Richard was so close, it provoked resentment, even scandal. Perhaps those two things were connected. Thomas Walsingham, a leading
chronicler of the day, a man who could give any
modern tabloid journalist a run for his money, wrote of the king's
relationship like this, "According to rumor, his
closeness to Lord Robert and his deep love and affection for him was not without some taint
of an obscene relationship." Or, as Walsingham put it in
Latin, the king was guilty of "familiaritatis obsoenae". (upbeat music) Next door to the castle, de Vere's descendant, Demetra Lindsay, still lives in the family home. (upbeat music) (door bell rings) Demetra, hello.
- Stephen. - How are you? - Very nice to see you. Come in! - Thank you. Smashing place. (upbeat music) Can we talk about your ancestor and his friendship with the king? What did the two of them have in common? What was the bond that
brought them together? - I think there was a rather
nice relationship between them because the Earl of Oxford, Robert, was five years older than Richard and I think there was a
certain amount of adoration going on. - It was a sort of hero worship, in a way? - I think so. - And from Robert's point of view, it was no bad thing to be that
close to Richard, of course. - I think it was
certainly good for Robert. Of course, Richard created
the title of Marquess, for the very first time, for Robert. - Just plucked it out of the air? - And then all these
earls are sitting there and suddenly there's a new title that they couldn't even aspire to. There was Robert being showered
with all these benisons, all these titles and estates. That wouldn't have been popular
with everybody, I suppose. - I think it caused
sincere jealousy at court. - You wouldn't give any house
room to these suggestions that their relationship was
more than platonic and friendly? I'm sure you've heard the suggestions. - Absolutely. I see the whole of their
relationship in the context of this extraordinary place here and that it was two boys growing up in rather a fun and
war-free time in England and that it was just all about fun and country pursuits. (upbeat music) But de Vere and Richard's other favorites were heading for a fall. In 1387, a group of leading nobles took control of the government by force and executed or exiled
Richard's closest friends. De Vere was banished to France, where he died in poverty two years later. Richard arranged for his casket
to be returned to England and there's this touching, contemporary account of the funeral. "Richard took care to open
the cypress wood coffin, in which the body lay
after being embalmed. He looked long at the face and
touched it with his finger, publicly showing to Robert, when dead, the affection which he'd shown
him previously when alive." (upbeat music) Freud would have had a
field day with Richard, but Shakespeare got there first. His play, Richard II, delves into the dark corners
of the King's psyche. David Tennant has played
the King to great acclaim for the Royal Shakespeare Company. - Not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm off
from an anointed king. - So you're immersing
yourself in Richard II. Is it fun to be him up there every night? - There's something peculiarly
exciting about entering to trumpet fanfares every
time you walk on stage. - What does that do to you in your head? - It certainly swells the breast and you can imagine that it
would distort the ego as well, were that happening to
you every day in life. You can see why Richard would
assume the airs that he did. The modern equivalent was Michael Jackson. Just someone who'd lived in
this kind of extraordinary... From a very, very young age,
they'd been other and different and treated differently and
then, possibly because of that, you develop a psychology
that's quite alien and difficult to understand
to the outside world because you are not as other men, really. God for his Richard hath in
heavenly pay a glorious angel. Then, if angels fight, weak men must fall. - And can I just ask about the hair? Is that based on intense research? - Quite the opposite. No. Richard had a sort of mop of red hair from the paintings that we have. But there's a certain androgyny to him, so we were looking for something that found that sort of androgynousness, something that would set him apart from the world of his court. - And what about if you'd been a courtier because that's something we're looking at? What would it have been
like to be a courtier? - I think it must have
been a daily struggle to be at the court of one of these people because any kind of autocrat, of course, you're having to dance around their whims. You can be a favorite one day and you can have your
head chopped off the next. So that must have been an
incredible stress and strain, to try and keep your status up, to every day be trying to please the King, particularly if that king
was capricious and difficult and potentially, if you
read some commentators, by the end of his life, a little bit mad. (upbeat music) - In the Middle Ages, it wasn't
enough for the King to rule. He had to be seen to be ruling. And the best way to guard against fear and intrigue and rumor and plotting was for the King himself
to appear in your town or village or hamlet, then
you knew who was in charge. Richard was always on the road, making circuits of his kingdom. They were known as gyrations. In one four-month period, he
set off from Kings Langley then went to Thame, Woodstock, Northleach, Gloucester, Worcester, before heading north and then
returning via Northampton, Newport Pagnell and
Dunstable to Kings Langley. A few months later, he
fetched up here, Leeds Castle. The Bishop of Ely confided despairingly to his household ledger in the 1380s that he'd been visited by
a "multitudine copiosa", a copious multitude or, in layman's terms,
the place was rammed. To attend to his needs on the road, Richard somehow got by with
no more than 1,000 courtiers. There were court officials, men-at-arms, household servants, camp followers. And after he married Anne of Bohemia, she and her household of 120 retainers, well, they went everywhere as well. As the chronicler Walsingham put it, Richard was guilty of
"non offerre sed aufferre" which, as we all know,
means taking and not giving. In theory, a visit from the
King would be a signal honor. In practice, only those
with the fullest coffers could afford to withstand it. It was actually something to be dreaded. Richard and his ever hungry crew could eat and carouse their
way through your fortune. He was the house guest from hell. Thanks, Gavin. (upbeat music) In the Middle Ages, court
was a place for the chaps. Going to war, defending the realm, that was the stuff that
the boys got up to. And a powerful woman around the place tended to mean instability,
even civil war, so nobody liked to see that. But that all changed
with Richard's mother, the, how to put it, colorful,
perhaps scarlet, Joan of Kent. She was the sex bomb of the Middle Ages. She loved her rocks and
she loved her frocks, the tighter and more plunging, the better. Scandalously, she was married to two different men at the same time and neither of them was Richard's father. Joan put her charms to good use by patching up Richard's quarrels. During one blazing row
between Richard and his uncle, an onlooker noted that, "At length, by the praiseworthy
mediation of the Lady Joan, the discord was put to sleep." Joan was a trailblazer. Where
she led, other women followed. Here at the Victoria and
Albert Museum in London, there's an extraordinary
picture of women at court. The Devonshire Hunting
Tapestries, as they're known, run for 133 feet. And for me, they're the greatest depiction of courtly life in the Middle Ages. This party are actually out hunting. It's an exercise in falconry but it looks more like a
garden party, doesn't it? The striking thing about it is how many women there are in the scene. (upbeat music) It's like a beautiful fashion plate. As far as you look, the eye is caught by pearls, headdresses, lovely, rich, flowing
robes with long trains. (upbeat music) Richard was very comfortable
with women at court. He was essentially
peace-loving and, under him, court was a place where
other virtues flourished, a place of civilization, if you like, of learning and scholarship, not of the more macho disciplines
associated with his father or earlier Medieval monarchs. But, as ever, ladies
climbing up the ladder put noses out of joint. The chronicler Walsingham complained that Richard's courtiers were
knights of Venus, not Mars, better suited to manoeuvres in the bedroom than on the field of battle. (upbeat music) And what of that terrific
harpy, Joan of Kent, the King's mother and the forerunner, the role model, of all those
thrusting ladies at court? Well, her end couldn't have
been more blackly ironic. If Richard was anything,
he was a mummy's boy and yet, he was responsible
for his mother's own death in the most tragic and
horrible of circumstances. The King believed he'd been
betrayed by his half-brother and sentenced him to death but Joan pleaded for the
life of her other son. For four days, she begged
the King to change his mind but Richard was implacable, unmovable. On the fifth day, Joan died,
of a broken heart, they said. Capricious and contrary to the last, Richard then spared the
life of his half-brother. Rather late for Joan. (upbeat music) Phew! Getting pretty funky in here. Can you imagine the assault on the senses that was a Medieval court? All those nobles, their staff and servants huddled close together, with the aroma on them of
their livestock, their beasts and the last few meals they ate. If you wanted to get ahead at court, you had to pinch your
nose and dive right in. Now, Richard was a fastidious fellow. He insisted on cleanliness and demanded it of those around him, as this top-level reconstruction
may help us to imagine. For the first time, really,
since Roman England, the bath began to make
a bit of a comeback, and that was largely thanks to the King. At a palace in London,
alas, sadly now lost, Richard established a kind
of grand privy for himself, actually, something like a Turkish bath on a little isle or island
in the middle of the Thames, and there he would luxuriate, surrounded by 2,000 hand-painted tiles, while hot and cold running water, can you imagine the novelty? Gushed from taps into his bath. Nor were his courtiers deprived. Bear in mind, this is a time when it wasn't only the great unwashed who tended to go around unwashed. Richard had thought of
their comfort and ease and in the palace proper, they had latrines which they could use. Now, historians have been
looking for conclusive proof of these latrines but so far,
they have nothing to go on. (upbeat music) This is the College of Arms,
England's home of heraldry. People come here to this day to have their coats of arms made. But alongside the distinctive
shields of heraldry are the lesser known badges. Courtiers wearing the King's badge proclaimed their allegiance,
their true colors. York Herald Peter O'Donoghue
is here to show me some of the oldest treasures
in this collection. (upbeat music) - Richard was the first king
to really make widespread use of badges as opposed to coats of arms as a symbol of himself,
of his personal identity, whereas the coat of arms
is specific to the King and it's about kingship and lineage. The badge can be used much more widely. It was a way of recruiting
what we might call an affinity. A bunch of men around the country, all of whom were bound personally to him by their acceptance of the badge. And this manuscript here gives us a nice illustration of
the badges that he used. The Broom Coat, of course,
the Plantagenet symbol. The Sun Badge, the White Hart. - That's the device most
commonly associated with Richard. - Yeah. It's a badge with strong associations with Christ-like qualities
of humility and sacrifice. And Richard strongly associated himself with those characteristics. - All right. You had the
King's badge, the King's color. Was that a sort of
signifier that you would, one day, receive money from him? - Not necessarily money.
Influence and connections. And that's really how a lot of justice seemed to be carried out in that time. So if you wore the King's badge, you might find you didn't
get as much trouble from the local justices. You might find that you're recruited to put pressure on people. Gentry families that are on
the wrong side of a question might find gangs of
ruffians wearing a badge outside their gates, making
trouble, smashing things up. - You mentioned gangs. It does sound a bit like gang warfare, it sounds like LA, the
Bloods and the Crips. Whose colors do you wear? - There is an element of
that, absolutely right. Yeah. And that was very much how
it was perceived at the time. It was known to be a problem. - So Richard was very partial to a badge, found them extremely useful. In the long run, was he wise to rely on them quite as much as he did? - I don't think he was, because
I think that he was behaving more like a warlord, more like
a magnate and not as a king. Kings shouldn't behave like they're trying to
recruit private armies. They are the state. They're a reflection of,
and embodiment of the state, so for Richard to be actively
seeking to recruit retainers in that private way, which was exactly the same thing that all the other noblemen did, was controversial, to say the least. (upbeat music) - In the Middle Ages, the
best way to the King's heart was straight through his
rib cage with a cleaver and Richard lived in fear of that. But you could get to him by
the more traditional route, through the stomach. He liked his food. He wasn't one of those
gnaw on a chicken bone and toss it to the
mastiffs kind of rulers. No, he would have been very partial to the nouvelle cuisine of today and the first cookbook in these
islands was written for him, 196 recipes, everything from
Blancmange to porpoise soup. That's soup made out of
rare dolphin, by the way, not paupers. Richard's cookbook, the Forme of Cury, or, as we'd say now, Ways of Cooking, was compiled by his master cooks, some of the most important
people in the royal household. They were in charge of
over 300 kitchen staff, scullions, spit-turners, spicers. One cook who knows how to
serve up a Medieval dish is Clarissa Dickson Wright. Clarissa.
- Hello! - How are you?
- I'm all right, thanks. - Very nice to see you.
- Good to see you, too. Welcome to my humble kitchen. - Yes. Nice place you have. - Yeah, it's great. - Anything for supper? - Well, we're going to
have Eggradouce of Rabbit. - My favorite! Can't beat an Eggradouce!
What on earth is that? - Sweet and sour. - Heard of that. - You know, in your Chinese restaurant, you could have Eggradouce,
pork balls or something. - And did you say rabbit? - Oh, rabbit was the
luxury food of the day. - Get away! - Incredibly expensive. They
were all farmed in warrens. And great lords would
fight for the privilege of having the license to keep a warren. So what I'm going to do, first of all, is just mix the sauce. And that's just some chopped
onions. That goes in there. - And in goes black pepper from India, ginger and cinnamon
from the Spice Islands. And currants from the Levant. So this is quite ostentatious in its way? - Oh, incredible! I mean, you go to one of
your top chefs nowadays, you wouldn't get anything
quite as lavish as this. - Really? - Not in terms of price, anyway. That's just a bit of vinegar
to add the sour to the sweet. - To the sweet. - So, now, would you
like to be my scullion? - I'd be honored. - Ah, excellent! - Right, what do I need to do? - In with the rabbit?
- In with the rabbit. - The whole lot or? - Yes, all the pieces.
- It's making a good noise. There we go.
- Well done. - It's pretty hot here.
- Yeah. - I'm so glad I've got my
suit on for it. Perfect! - Why do you think I'm letting you do it? - Yeah! It's pretty hot in the old
kitchens of Richard II. Smells like Christmas. - That's the cinnamon, isn't it? - Yeah. How's that doing, would you say? - That's perfect. Absolutely perfect. And then we leave that to
cook for 35, 40 minutes, something like that. - Feasts were gargantuan occasions. 2,000 guests at a time sat
down at banqueting tables arranged over many rooms. They got through a
staggering pile of food. This is a shopping list for
one of Richard's feasts. - And you've got all sorts
of things. You've got curlew. - 120 curlew, mind you.
- Yup. Curlew, apparently, taste
like very lean beef. - Do they? - I met an old gamekeeper
who had it. You look at it. There's a lot of salt meat because they salted
everything down in winter, but then they have fresh
meat here alongside it. - So you've got salt
venison and fresh venison. This isn't puffin, is it? - Oh, yeah. Apparently, it
tastes just like fishy grouse. - 60 puffin. Where are
you gonna find 60 puffin? - Well, I think there were
rather more puffin around than there are now. Right, well, that should be done now. - Oops! Well, that spoon's gone. Right, there we are. - Well done. - Couple of bits. - Couple of bits. - How's that to be going on with? - Perfect. - All I need now is a fork, of course. - No, no! You wouldn't have had a fork! - No fork. Really? - Forks didn't come in. They were very eccentric,
even in Tudor times. - Were they? - Yeah. Jacobeans, really,
started using forks. - So what do we do? Bare knuckles? - Spoons. - Of course. - He was a great one for you bringing your
own spoon to the party. And the knife. - Shall we tuck in?
- Why not? - After you. Good? - That's all right. See what you think. - That's nice. - Good, isn't it? Good flavor. - Lovely, crunchy onions and currants. Oh, I think I'd come back here. To the Middle Ages. (upbeat music) One of the greatest
treasures of Richard's reign is to be found here, at
the National Gallery. It's strangely overlooked and neglected and yet, in its own subtle way,
it's every bit as enigmatic and mysterious as, say,
the Mona Lisa in Paris. What it does tell us,
unambiguously though, is that Richard was the
first English monarch who really was passionate about art and understood what it could do for him. Since Richard was a king
perpetually on the move, he needed portable trappings of power. None was more important
than his altarpiece, the finest painting to survive from the Medieval Age in Britain. This is the Wilton Diptych. It's a picture, of course, but also something of a holy relic. I think of it as a combination
of Richard's portable chapel and vanity cabinet. At first sight, it strikes us as a conventional image
of veneration and worship. Richard is kneeling, his
hands, his fingers are splayed, his gaze upon the holy infant. But, actually, it's much more complicated and nuanced than that. The king is accompanied by a trinity of significant and telling figures. Two English monarchs who he venerated, Edward the Confessor, Edmond the Martyr, and, most importantly of
all, St John the Baptist. The arm of St John the Baptist
is most significant here. He paved the way for Christ in the Bible. And there's a sense of equivalence here. He is presenting, representing the king. Over on the right hand panel, if you study the heavenly host, not only are they wearing
a striking, iridescent blue but if you look closely, they're bearing the
insignia of Richard himself, the White Hart. This is the medieval equivalent of the modern football
tradition of kissing the badge. This is Richard's team.
They're looking out for him. (gentle music) In its own charming and
understated way, at first, this piece represents
overweening monarchical ambition. Richard and his artist are
coming perilously close to the blasphemous idea that there's some sort of equivalence between the monarch, the flesh
and blood man here on earth, and the Christ child. Any courtier privileged enough to be accompanying the king at the moment during his travels when
the diptych was unpacked and the king fell to his
knees presumably before it, he might have found himself wondering, "Exactly who is being worshiped here?" Is the king perhaps adoring himself? And there was a further
provocative clue almost hidden away in the top of the right-hand panel. Above the standard that
the angel is holding, the flag of St George, there's a miniature
representation, a cameo of England, the sceptered isle. Is the artist, was Richard,
presuming to suggest that England, his sovereign patch of land, was the new Jerusalem? And that the king himself
had been sent here by God as the new Messiah? (gentle music) (upbeat music) Now, we all lead busy lives, and, by now, you might be asking yourself "What did this Richard
guy ever do for me?" Well, the next time you
have a snuffly nose, you need to mop your brow, or put a knot in something as a memento, then thank Richard because, voila, he was the man who invented and popularized the humble handkerchief. When he came to the throne, people didn't even know what to call this. Sure, there may have been some bracingly pungent
Anglo-Saxon version of snot rag, but handkerchief, nobody
had heard of such a thing. Indeed, the king's own tailor referred to small pieces of cloth
to give to the noble king for blowing and covering his nose. Richard turned this into, perhaps the first English accessory, the accoutrement one had
to be seen with at court. It's even suggested that
Richard was in the habit of distributing his
favorite silks and linens to his courtiers so that if
you had the king's hankie, you knew you were on the make. (upbeat music) When we think about the Tower, we tend to conjure a brooding, forbidding place of repression,
torture, even execution. But in Richard's time, the Tower was as much a
palace as it was a prison. It was constantly being built
on, developed, expanded, and the man who was in
charge of those works was the father of English literature, the author of The Canterbury
Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer. (upbeat music) Richard appreciated literature
as much as painting. But it was still early days
to make a living as a writer. Chaucer needed other
means to prosper at court. Amongst his jobs he was
Clerk of the King's Works, responsible for upkeep of the
Tower, as well as soldier, diplomat, marriage broker,
keeper of royal parks, customs controller, and
a member of parliament. It would be 100 years before the appointment of
an official royal poet, but Chaucer was a favorite of the king's and popular at court. Here at Corpus Christi
College in Cambridge, is a rare illuminated
manuscript of one of his poems. (upbeat music) This is one of Geoffrey
Chaucer's less well-known but much admired works,
"Troilus and Criseyde," or as we would say now,
"Troilus and Cressida." It's the story of a doomed,
tragic love involving a warrior, who's reckless as to the
affairs of his heart, and an unfaithful heroine. It spoke to Richard's time
and to Richard's court with its themes of courtly
love, of honor, of chivalry. But it's not just the text that's valuable and insightful here. It's also the beautiful artwork. (upbeat music) It's a beautifully
achieved, eye-catching scene of an apparently changeless,
enchanted Albion. There's Richard, the most
brightly dressed of all, clad from head to foot
in gold, even a gold hat. But, strangely enough, he's
not the center of attention. That honor goes to, of
all things, a writer, Geoffrey Chaucer himself, the first great superstar
of English letters. Chaucer is declaiming his
soon to be new bestseller. And, almost heretically, rather naughtily, he's not on a soap box or
anything but in a pulpit. He has usurped the clergyman. The man of letters, it's suggested here, is on an equivalent footing
with the man of the cloth, the man of God. All eyes are on the poet waiting to hear what he's come up with next. All, that is, except for Richard himself. He's standing at a little remove, and he's facing the rest of
the crowd, the court, saying, "Are you not pleased?" He's
reveling in his role as patron. He was an indirect patron
of Chaucer himself, but, more generally, of a great flowering in the arts and culture in England. The first great era of English writing. If you could tell stories, if you could hold the king's attention, then you would prosper at court. For once, it really was true that the pen was mightier than the sword. (upbeat music) Richard made enemies, and that made him perpetually
worried about his own safety. His answer was to employ an
elite corps of bodyguards to watch over him day and night. They were known as the Cheshire Archers, 311 highly skilled
bowmen, all from Cheshire. The Knights of Middle England practiced archery in the
style of Richard's guards. Kevin Hicks is here to
tell me all about them. So what would it have been like to be one of the elite
guard, the Cheshire Bowmen? - If you were one of the chosen ones, you're there, aren't you? The best clothing, favors from the king, the best wages, and best food. You're gonna be the SAS
of the medieval period. And they were arrogant with it. And these guys were professional killers. - So, they sound like guys you wouldn't necessarily want to meet in an alley round the back
of the tavern one night. - Well, the danger is
they'll knock on your door and come through it. They'd batter your door down and they will arrest you violently. And people were scared of them. They regarded them as thugs. - And they were a law unto themselves? If they wanted to do something, nobody was going to quibble about it? - Only one man, the king. - So, it wasn't enough just to be handy with a bow and arrow, you had to be from Cheshire? You had to have a presence
and be quite threatening. A bit moody and tasty to fit in. - You had to be one of the boys. - That's right.
- Okay. - I'll put the arrow on for you. - Yep. - Take the arrow over a
bit, feel the weight of it, bring it back. - Push and pull?
- Push and pull. - Swing it up a bit?
- Yeah, yeah. Just give it a go, relax. - (groans) I'm probably overthinking it. - Yeah, it's very simple. You've got the arrow on
the wrong side of the bow. - Yeah, not overthinking that bit. So, that rests there, does it? - That's right, yeah. - Feel like I want to grip
it, but that would be wrong. - That's how people often
shoot themselves in the finger. Right, give it a go. - Stand well back. Better height? - Yeah. - It felt like a layman shot, though. - You missed by about, what? 10 yards? Relax, you're so tense. - I am tense. - I'll put my hand there so
you don't lean further back. - I'm leaning back, you're right. - Go on, push forward. Now shoot him. Hooray!
- In the target. - You hit him in the knee.
Do you want another go? - Well, he'll feel it.
- Yeah. Shoot. There you go, another hit. Well done.
- Thank you. - I knew you could do it. - Deep down inside, maybe. (upbeat music) By the 1390s, Richard's grip
on power was getting shaky. Even his own extravagant
coronation was a distant memory. So, what better than to set
out the rules of monarchy? A how-to book for the kings of the future. Here in Westminster Abbey
Library is the Liber Regalis, the Royal Book. This great manuscript is 600 years old, far too delicate and
fragile for me to touch. But it's open on this lustrous, still very vivid illumination that tells us what's about to ensue. The monarch, seated upon a golden throne, with clerics attending to him, placing the crown upon his head. Over the page, which I
daren't touch, the rubric, the ritual of a coronation,
the rules of procedure. This states that a coronation
should take place on a Sunday or holy day. That the king should proceed bare headed from the Tower of London,
through the city, to Westminster. Then, when he arrives at the Abbey, he's to prostrate himself upon the stones. Fortunately for him, not
on the cold marble itself. His ushers are allowed to
spread cushions and carpets to keep him warm during the proceedings. And, as the climax, the
King receives the arcane, the magisterial tools of
the trade, if you like. The ring of kingly dignity.
The rod of virtue and equity. The golden scepter and the crown of glory. And, as a final, significant gesture, his nobles gathered around
him stretch forth their arms towards the monarch in a
sign of fealty, of loyalty. But, for Richard, loyalty,
and time, were running out. (upbeat music) In April 1395, two London coppersmiths, Nicholas Broker and Godfrey Prest, won a prestigious contract to create two gilt bronze
effigies of Richard and his wife for a tomb in Westminster Abbey. Richard was 27 years old, but, in his time, death
was ever close at hand. In the Middle Ages, it wasn't unknown for people of high birth to invest time and money in the afterlife, the design of their tombs and effigies. It was a way of ensuring one's legacy and also of creating a shrine, a place where one's loved
ones and descendants could come and pray and
intercede on your behalf, to ensure that your soul spend
as little time as possible in purgatory before ascending into heaven. But this was something different. This was one of the most expensive pieces of funerary architecture
seen in medieval times. It was also unusual in
that it's a double effigy. Richard reposes for all eternity alongside his first wife, Anne. The King approved a drawing
of himself, now sadly lost, and Broker and Prest were
expressly ordered to copy it. To strive for such a true likeness was highly unusual for the time. This is a supreme statement
of medieval refinement, almost a contradiction in
terms until Richard came along. And it throws forward to the sophistication of the Renaissance. If ever you were looking for proof that Richard had changed art, portraiture, then here it is in his eternal
monument, cast for the ages. (upbeat music) Richard can hardly have imagined the tomb would be completed
in the nick of time. He'd become paranoid and tyrannical. Rashly seizing the lands
of his cousin, Henry, proved his final undoing. Henry led an uprising against Richard, whom he imprisoned and forced to abdicate. A few months later, in February 1400, Richard was found starved to death. (upbeat music) The inscription's in Latin
but it translates like this, "Prudent and elegant,
Richard, by oath, the second, overtaken by fate, lies here
portrayed and under marble. He was true in speech and full of reason. Noble in body, and judicious
in mind like Homer. He overthrew the proud and threw down whoever
violated the royal prerogative. Oh, merciful Christ,
to whom he was devoted, oh, Baptist, whom he venerated, may you by your prayers save him." (upbeat music) Richard came blasphemously close to believing that he was the chosen one with a divine mission, and that his England
would be a new Jerusalem. Instead, it was something as
exotic and almost as wonderful, a new Xanadu. Wherever his ever restless court went was a pleasure dome of all
that was finest in life. The arts, sculpture, painting,
writing, fine living, food, drink, fancy clothes. The trouble with Richard was, although he was a terrific
patron of the arts, he was a lousy king, and his legacy, like the man himself, is conflicted and contrary. On the one hand, he ushered in the first golden age in the
English arts, if you like. On the other hand, he bequeathed us the
divine right of kings, a tyrant's charter to
amass wealth illegally and slaughter willy-nilly. Richard's reign is also one
of the great what-if moments in British history. What if he hadn't fallen out
so badly with his cousin? What if he hadn't pampered
and spoiled those pets, those favorites of his at court? Perhaps then it would have been these soggy, unlikely islands that would have witnessed
the first flowering of the Renaissance in Western Europe. As it was, that privilege fell to Italy. But that's a story for next time.
