The political crisis culminating in the deposition of Richard II in 1399 by his cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke, ignited the issue of sovereign legitimacy between the houses of York and Lancaster for the next 85 years. In her probing work in four parts, with chapters titled after lines from the Shakespeare plays, Castor delves into the upbringing and character of these two very different men: Richard, the effete \u201cspare,\u201d becomes king at age 10 after the successive deaths of his older brother, father (the celebrated Black Prince), and grandfather Edward III in 1377, and his swashbuckling cousin Henry, son of the ambitious, influential John of Gaunt. It is a time of constant tension and war between England and France, as well as internal rebellions, and Richard\u2019s incessant need of money creates tensions with the Commons in Parliament. Richard\u2019s ennobling of his favorites and increasingly imperious tone prompt the actions of the so-called Lords Appellant, including Henry. The author adds a \u201cDirectory of the Main Players\u201d at the end as many have different names from those in Shakespeare\u2019s plays. Richard\u2019s calculated revenge on these men eight years later and Henry\u2019s ultimate challenge to Richard\u2019s authority mark what Castor calls \u201ca moment of political masculinity in crisis.\u201d Castor follows Henry IV through his brief \u201cwhite-knuckled\u201d reign and emphasizes that the era\u2019s \u201cthemes of power, legitimacy, and the limits of rule and resistance are as urgent now as they have ever been.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The political crisis culminating in the deposition of Richard II in 1399 by his cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke, ignited the issue of sovereign legitimacy between the houses of York and Lancaster for the next 85 years. In her probing work in four parts, with chapters titled after lines from the Shakespeare plays, Castor delves into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}