Royal Treasure

The Legend
Local legend holds that Richard II hid his extensive Royal Treasure at Beeston Castle before sailing to Ireland to quell an uprising in 1399. Richard never reclaimed his treasure as he was captured, upon his return, at Flint Castle by Henry Bollingbrooke (Duke of Lancaster, and later Henry IV) and imprisoned at Chester Castle for a while in 1399. Many attempts have been made to find the "treasure" over the years and none of them have been successful. Local legends place the treasure at the foot of the castle well (said to be around 365 feet deep - an impressive feat of mediaeval engineering) or in passages running off the well. Stories have suggested that there are "secret" passageways leading from the well to a nearby farmhouse, a possible escape or re-supply route if the castle was under siege.There is a document from the 16th century which suggests that some of the priceless artifacts included a gold quadrant in a leather case, a white helmet of St George, white hart brooches, cups and jewellery.

The White Hart ("hart" being an archaic word for a mature stag) was the personal badge of Richard II, who possibly derived it from the arms of his mother, Joan "The Fair Maid of Kent", heiress of Edmund of Woodstock. It may also have been a pun on his name, as in "Rich-hart". In the Wilton Diptych (National Gallery, London), which is sometimes said to be the earliest authentic contemporary portrait of an English king, Richard II wears his gold and enamelled white hart jewel, and even the angels surrounding the Virgin Mary all wear white hart badges. The King’s emblem was adopted by many inns and in 1393, Richard II passed an act making it compulsory for inns to have a sign in order to identify them to the official "Ale Taster". The white hart badge was worn by Richard's personal guard, many of whom came from near Chester.

So is there any basis for the legend of the treasure at Beeston? There are certainly clear connections between Richard II and Cheshire, but there are also hints that the bulk of his treasure may not have been at Beeston Castle, but at Holt Castle.

The King
Richard's father, Edward, Prince of Wales (the "Black Prince"), died in 1376, leaving Richard as heir apparent to his grandfather, the incredibly long-lived but increasingly senile King Edward III, who had ruled from 25 January 1327 to 21 June 1377. Upon the death of Edward III, the 10-year-old Richard succeeded to the throne. He would rule for 22 years. Victorian historians had clear views about the difficulties of the times:


 * "Edward III left to his boy successor a damnosa hæreditas. The nation was unnerved by deadly pestilences. In the first days of the new reign the victors of Cressy and Poictiers saw their own coasts plundered and burnt from Rye to Plymouth. The supremacy of the narrow seas for the time passed away from England. The greatly shrunken population groaned under the long strain of a war taxation which now spared none but beggars. Yet the luxury introduced with the spoils of France had not decreased. The upper classes were demoralised by the war, and law and order undermined by the extension of livery and maintenance fostered by the misgovernment of Edward's profligate dotage. A national protest in the "Good Parliament" of 1376 had just been stifled by Richard's nearest male relative, John of Gaunt. The agricultural population, who had been driven to the verge of rebellion by the attempt of the landowners to ignore the economic results of the Black Death, and enforce the obsolescent villein services, had adopted the revolutionary theory of power and property enunciated by John Wycliffe, whose chief protector was John of Gaunt. Richard's accession was considered a checkmate to his uncle's personal ambition, and the members of the new king's household, who had trembled for his succession, straightway instilled into him exalted views of his regal rights."

To many people, Richard's connection with Chester and Cheshire is only that his treasure is supposed to be hidden down the well at Beeston Castle. In fact, he has a much deeper connection with the area. Since the thirteenth century the county of Chester had enjoyed a special status as a palatinate earldom directly controlled by the English crown. When there was a Prince of Wales this earldom was traditionally part of his lands and titles. At times when there was no prince – as under Richard II – the earldom remained with the king himself. Richard's father had been the Earl of Chester and appears to have paid considerable attention to the region, not least because of revolt. In 1353 some disturbances seem to have broken out in Cheshire, for the Black Prince as Earl of Chester marched with Henry of Grosmont, then Duke of Lancaster to the neighbourhood of Chester to protect the justices, who were holding an assize there. The men of the earldom offered to pay him a heavy fine to bring the assize to an end, but when they thought they had arranged matters the justices opened an "inquisition of trailbaston", took a large sum of money from them, and seized many houses and much land into the prince's, their earl's, hands. On his return from Chester the prince is said to have passed by the Abbey of Dieulacres in Staffordshire, to have seen a fine church which his great-grandfather, Edward I, had built there, and to have granted five hundred marks, a tenth of the sum he had taken from his earldom, towards its completion; the abbey was almost certainly not Dieulacres but Vale Royal. The Cheshire Archers were already in existence at the time, were paid more than bowmen from elsewhere and had been recruited as the royal bodyguard by 1334. They could be recognised by their green and white livery which was issued to them by the chamberlain of Chester Castle. They were taken into France by Edward III, and later again by the Black Prince, and played important roles in the English victories at the battles of Crecy in 1346 and Poitiers in 1356.

During Richard's first years as king, government was in the hands of a series of regency councils, influenced by Richard's uncles John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock. England then faced various problems, most notably the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453). A major challenge of the reign was the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, and the 14 year old king played a central part in the "successful" suppression of this crisis. Less warlike than either his father or grandfather, he sought to bring an end to the Hundred Years' War. A firm believer in the royal prerogative, Richard restrained the power of the aristocracy and relied on a private retinue for military protection instead. In part this retinue was based around a political power base in Cheshire and parts of Wales.



The First Crisis
The years 1386-88 saw a crisis for Richard. Richard's high-handed behaviour as an adolescent, the extravagance of his household and the attempts of his councillors to broker a peace with France, led to a series of aristocratic protests between 1386 and 1388. Arguments at the Wonderful Parliament over military funding seriously challenged Richard's authority, which he saw as a direct assault against the traditional principle that medieval kings governed by personal prerogative. In 1388, as a result of the political and military actions of the magnates known as the Lords Appellant, some of Richard's closest friends and advisors were executed or sent into exile. By installing Robert de Vere as Justice of Chester (see: Courts), he began the work of creating a loyal military power base in Cheshire. De Vere's relationship with King Richard was very close and rumored by chronicler Thomas Walsingham to be homosexual, although Walsingham was clearly biased against Richard.

Prior to installing De Vere at Chester, Richard II visited the city (in 1387) and found the town greatly impoverished with a ruined Old Dee Bridge. Letters Patent granted to the citizens on 25 July 1387 state:


 * “Know ye that of our special grace and at the supplication of our lieges, the Commonalty of our town of Chester, and for consideration that as many have been drowned in the water of the Dee since the bridge has been destroyed and broken. And also, because the same town for that reason is very greatly impoverished as we are informed, we have granted to the fabric and repair of the aforesaid bridge all the profits of the Passage of the said water at Chester and the Murage which used to be granted there for the walls, to be received until that bridge is rightly and reasonably completed”.

At the same time that he moved to Chester, De Vere divorced his wife and took up with Agnes de Launcekrona. Agnes accompanied Anne of Bohemia, the future consort of King Richard II to England in December 1381. She served in the capacity of Lady of the Bedchamber, and was also the custodian of the jewels and valuables given to Queen Anne by her mother, Elizabeth of Pomerania. Agnes became de Vere's mistress, and then in 1387, he repudiated and subsequently divorced his wife, Philippa de Coucy (the King's first cousin - her mother, Isabella, was the sister of the King's father) and promptly married Agnes. This created a scandal throughout the kingdom, especially as Philippa was the first cousin of the King, being the youngest daughter of his aunt, Isabella of England. Her royal uncles, the Dukes of Lancaster, Gloucester, and York were especially angered. The divorce was apparently granted to de Vere upon false evidence which he had submitted to the Pope. In 1386 Richard had made de Vere (at the age of 24) "Duke of Ireland" - thus the first marquess, and only the second non-princely duke (after Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster in 1337), in England. Since de Vere was hugely unpopular with the other nobles and magnates, his close relationship with King Richard was one of the catalysts for the emergence of an organised opposition to Richard's rule in the form of the "Lords Appellant". The leader of these Lords was Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester, the yougest child of Edward III and hence uncle to Richard II.

De Vere's downfall came at the Battle of Radcot Bridge fought on 19 December 1387 between troops loyal to Richard II, led by de Vere, and an army captained by Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby. The historian Hollinshead recorded:


 * Richard II. sent secretly to Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland, who was levying troops in Wales, to come to him with all speed, to aid him with the Duke of Gloucester and his friends; and commissioned at the same time Sir Thomas Molyneux de Cuerdale, Constable of Chester, a man of great influence in Cheshire and Lancashire, and the Sheriff of Chester, to raise troops, and to accompany and safe conduct the Duke of Ireland to the Kings presence. Molineux executed his commission with great zeal, imprisoning all who would not join him. Thus was raised an army of 5,000 men.

Radcot Brdge was a military disaster and de Vere, after escaping by leaping into the river on horseback and galloping away on the other side, made his way to London. Another version is that he flred by boat. He was forced into exile by Parliament in 1388 and went to live in Louvain, Brabant. The failure of Vere's campaign was celebrated locally by his enemy Richard FitzAlan, 4th Earl of Arundel, who from his base at Holt Castle caused a copy of the appeal against the royal favourite to be nailed to the door of St Peter's church at the High Cross in Chester, something which Richard may of heard of and which he was unlikely to forget.

The Lord's Appellant had their revenge on the king's favourites in the "Merciless Parliament" (1388). The nominal governor of Ireland, de Vere, and Richard's Lord Chancellor, Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, who had fled abroad, were sentenced to death in their absence. Alexander Neville, Archbishop of York, had all his worldly goods confiscated. The Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Tresilian, was executed, as were Sir Nicholas Brembre, Lord Mayor of London, John Beauchamp of Holt (who by 1384 he had been made Receiver of the Chamber and Keeper of the King's Jewels), Sir James Berners, and Sir John Salisbury. Sir Simon Burley was found guilty of exercising undue influence over the king and was sentenced to death. Derby and Nottingham, together with the Duke of York, tried to win a reprieve for him, but he was executed on 5 May. The purge continued deep into the administration, dozens of retainers, clerks, chaplains, and secretaries to Richard were summarily condemned and executed. This was even after the queen, Anne of Bohemia, went down on her knees before the Lords Appellant to beg for mercy. King Richard never forgave this humiliation and planned and waited for his own moment of revenge.



After this virtual coup d'état, the Appellants continued to dominate English politics for the next year. Richard was effectively their puppet until the return of John of Gaunt from his Spanish campaigns in 1389. The power of the Appellants rested on popular support from the commons in parliament, but by the end of 1388 this support had already begun to wane. In the subsequent parliament held at Cambridge in September 1388, the commons were highly critical of the Appellants' record in government. Indeed, it has been argued that the Appellants were predominantly concerned with the task of destroying various members of Richard II's court, and after this objective had been achieved they ceased to concern themselves with the governance of England. Richard immediately began formulating plans for revenge and afterwards finally enacted a de facto peace with France with the Truce of Leulinghem.

Chester in Richard's Time
England had a population of two to three million and the crown enjoyed a healthy income from its estates and customs revenues on wool exports (£70,000 pa.). However the conflicts with England's neighbours dragged on, draining the economy. In 1379 at Chester:


 * "A bushel of wheat sold for 6d a gallon of white wine for 6d, a gallon of claret for 4d, a fat goose for 2d, a fat pig for 1d. A Mayor's Feast containing all the dainties of the season cost exactly eleven shillings and ten pence.".

Maintaining the basic border forts in France, Scotland and Ireland cost £46,000 pa and by 1381 three regressive poll taxes had been passed by parliament and extracted from an unwilling population, barely recovering from the ravages of the Black Death. Hemingway (Vol II, page 301) records the following as regards the port of Chester:


 * That the Dee was navigable for vessels of great burden from the sea up to Chester in very ancient times is beyond all doubt and it is equally certain that early in the 14th century the navigation had been materially impeded by the shifting of the sands. The first notice we have of the latter circumstance is contained in letters patent of Richard II who releaseth to the citizens £73 10s 8d parcel of the £100 for the fee farm reserved by the charter of Edward I which the city was in arrears in which also is assigned as the reason of this indulgence the ruinous estate of the city and of the haven. Henry VI in confirming all the former charters of the city recites what great concourse in times past as well by strangers as others has been made with merchandise into this city by reason of the goodness of the port thereof and also what great trading for victuals into and out of Wales to the great profit of the city and then shows how the same port of Chester was lamentably decayed by reason of the abundance of sands which had choaked the creek and for these considerations released to the city £10 of the fee farm reserved by Edward I.



Richard II., by a charter dated tenth December, 1379, at Westminster, under his own hand, confirmed that of Edward the Black Prince. He had already ordered that "all the profits of the passage of the said water (the Dee) at Chester, and the Murage which used to be granted there for the Walls," were to be used for the repair of the bridge. In 1395 he, by his letters patent, wanted Murages for four years for the repair of the Walls and pavements. Richard's specific interest in Chester is seen to go back to at least 1387 and the appointment of De Vere, which was the first occasion that Richard officially visited Chester. It is not known whether he accompanied his father to Chester at any time before he became king, but he would have been very young at that time.

Livery Badges
Apparently beginning relatively harmlessly in the reign of Richard's grandfather Edward III in a context of tournaments and courtly celebrations, by Richard's reign livery badges had come to be seen as a social menace, and were "one of the most protracted controversies of Richard's reign", as they were used to denote the small private armies of retainers kept by lords, largely for the purpose of enforcing their lord's will on the less powerful in his area. Though they were surely a symptom rather than a cause of both local baronial bullying and the disputes between the king and his uncles and other lords. The issuing of badges by lords was attacked in the Parliament of 1384, and in 1388 they made the startling request that "all liveries called badges [signes], as well of our lord the king as of other lords ... shall be abolished", because:


 * "those who wear them are flown with such insolent arrogance that they do not shrink from practising with reckless effrontery various kinds of extortion in the surrounding countryside ... and it is certainly the boldness inspired by these badges that makes them unafraid to do these things".

Richard offered to give up his own badges, to the delight of the House of Commons of England, but the House of Lords refused to give up theirs, and the matter was put off. In 1390 it was ordered that no one below the rank of banneret should issue badges, and no one below the rank of esquire wear them. The issue was apparently quiet for a few years, but from 1397 Richard issued increasingly large numbers of badges to retainers who misbehaved (his "Cheshire archers" being especially notorious). Given these dates and the fact that Richard had used the emblem before his first visit to Chester in 1387 it seems likely that the white hart of St Johns and that of King Richard were initially not connected. However they might have become so as St Johns was especially venerated in Wales; in 1278, 10 hostages from the leading men of Gwynedd were released after swearing loyalty (on the Rood of Chester) and that they would not bear arms against the king, and in the later 14th century it was the subject of several odes by the poet Gruffudd ap Maredudd (1352–1382), who seems to have made a pilgrimage to the relic, and others. Thus the symbol of the white hart would have already been familiar to the men of Chester and north wales who wore it as Richards livery. Curiously, churches associates with white harts occur all along the River Dee. They are also generally associated with holy wells or springs. Examples include: Llandderfel and Llangar. Just downhill from St John's was Jacobs Well - now relocated to Grosvenor Park. The story of the hind/stag also turns up in the Journal of the Archaeological Society (Vol 2):


 * "Mr. J. H. Parker, F.S.A., read a paper “On St. John’s Church, Chester.” It appeared at, length in the Gentleman's Magjazine, 1858, pp. 273— 281. We will merely state here that Mr. Parker was of opinion that the present north-west tower, half detached as it stands, was completed in the time of Henry VII. or Henry VIII. In the west face of the tower there is a figure of St. Giles, abbot, in a niche of well-designed work, with his usual emblem, a stag, in his hand, to which the tradition of the white hind has been for centuries locally applied."



The rising of 1393
In 1393 there was a mysterious rising in Cheshire, apparently aimed primarily against Richard II's hated enemy Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, then justice of Chester. The cause of the 1393 rising has never really been satisfactorily established. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham maintains that the reason was the rumour put about in Cheshire that the dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester, together with Lancaster's son, the future Henry IV, were planning to surrender Richard II's claim to the French throne in the course of their current peace negotiations. It was also suspected that the special liberties of the Palatinate were about to be threatened. A force, according to Walsingham, of 20,000 men (probably a very generous over-estimate) was gathered with the avowed intention of putting to death the three "offending" lords It was probably during this rising that the seeds of a later one (1400) were sown. The king proclaimed his innocence of any involvement, but the fact that he found it necessary to do so casts doubt upon his protestation. One historian writes that Richard took this as the opportunity to depose the Duke of Gloucester - Thomas of Woodstock from the office of Justice and replace him with Earl Marshal, with Sir William Bagot as his lieutenant, however Thomas had ceased to be justice in 1391.

Troubles in Chester contibued into 1394:


 * "Sir Baldwyn Rudistone and other desperados excite a dreadful riot in the Abbey Precincts and city. After killing one Sheriff, taking the other prisoner and injuring the Mayor, they were finally expelled but returned a few days after with 300 men, and attempted to take the place by surprise, but were repulsed and many taken prisoner."

Apparently Baldwin Radington, controller of the royal household, at Chester to recruit for the king's expedition to Ireland, broke into the abbot of St. Werburgh's lodgings, detained two of his servants, and raided the neighboring houses. The mayor, John the Armourer, intervened in the dispute, Radington attacked the sheriffs; during the affray one of his own men was killed and in retaliation he and his supporters rode out 'in manner of war', terrorizing the city and its environs, an outrage to which the king's only response was to indict one of the sheriffs for the death of Radington's follower. Later that year Richard II arrived in Chester with the duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Northhampton, Earl of Arundel, Real of Salisburu, Earl of March and Earl of Rutland. The major, "John the Armourer", was ordered to "arrest ships in the Dee" to transport the royal household to Ireland.

What appears to have been happening in the early 1390's is that Richard was building up his power-base in the Palatinate of Chester, where he was both king and earl, and in effect governed independently of parliament. During much of this period Henry Bolinbroke was either away fighting on the Baltic coast with the Teutonic Knights or on pilgramage to Jerusalem. In fact Henry Bolinbroke, who later would become Henry IV would be the only English king to set foot within the walls of Jerusalem.

Prince of Cheshire
John of Gaunt had returned to England in 1389 and settled his differences with the king, after which the old statesman acted as a moderating influence on English politics. Richard assumed full control of the government on 3 May 1389, claiming that the difficulties of the past years had been due solely to bad councillors. He outlined a foreign policy that reversed the actions of the appellants by seeking peace and reconciliation with France, and promised to lessen the burden of taxation on the people significantly. Richard ruled peacefully for the next eight years, having reconciled with his former adversaries. In 1396 Richard married the French princess Isabella, who at the time was six years old. This was a political union to cement the Truce of Leulinghem with Charles VI of France. Unfortunately for Richard, Charles VI was mentally unstable and the political situation in France was volatile.

The last two years of Richard's reign are traditionally described as a period of tyranny with the government levying forced loans, carrying out arbitrary arrests and murdering the king's rivals. Richard's regime went on the offensive exacting revenge for past humiliations and attempting to bring substance to the imagery now associated with the king's rule. The cause of Richard's actions has often been considered a result of the death of his first queen, who may have provided a restraining influence. But his tyranny reflected a reaction to a new environment: one of renewed fear. Always carrying resentment against the Appellants, the king now felt threatened again, and seized the initiative. Evidence of a plot against the king is unclear but he had every reason to suspect one. Sparked by a long-running dispute between the earl of Warwick and the now loyal Nottingham and the need to fund the French alliance, the king called a loyal parliament. He raised 2000 men in Cheshire, caught the Appellants off guard and tried them in parliament. In 1397 he attacked the Lords Appellant who had prevailed in 1388 and seized their lands and goods. His uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, was murdered and Richard, earl of Arundel, executed on Tower Hill. Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, were exiled. In the following year, as memorably dramatised by Shakespeare in his Richard II, the two remaining Appellants, who initially had been pardoned, Henry of Bolingbroke, duke of Hereford, the future Henry IV, and Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, accused each other of treason. Richard forbade the resulting duel and took the opportunity to exile both men.



In 1397, Richard II created the title "Prince of Cheshire", which he awarded to himself. On 13 July 1397, he ordered the sheriff of the county of Chester to collect 2,000 archers for royal service. These troops were used to overawe the parliament which met in September - sometimes known as the "Revenge Partiament". Most were then allowed to return home, but the king kept back others to form his personal bodyguard, receiving wages of 6d per day, which was the standard rate for archers in royal armies in the late fourteenth century. This wage was on a par with that of a skilled craftsman. This personal bodyguard was made up of Cheshire bowmen who were described as being intolerably arrogant, insolent ruffians who lived on far too intimate terms with king. By the autumn of 1398, Richard had a bodyguard of over 300 Cheshire archers which was grouped into seven "watches", four containing 44 archers, two with 45 archers, and one with 46 archers. That there were seven groups suggests that each may have been responsible for the watch on one day of the week. Each watch was under the command of a knight or esquire from Cheshire: John del Legh del Boothes; Richard de Cholmondeley of Cholmondeley; Ralph de Davenport; Adam de Bostok; John Donne of Utkinton; Thomas de Beeston; and Thomas de Holford.

In 1399 Richard II had a heated bathroom constructed in Chester Castle (costing £70). It was paneled with Norwegian timber. His apartments were redecorated with cushions and fine silk hangings, but he would not enjoy it for long. Richard's style of goverment may have had some bearing on other "improvements" at Chester Castle: Thomas le Wodeward, deputy constable of the castle, took delivery of the following new supplies in 1397: 11 iron collars and 2 gross of iron chain; 2 pairs of iron belts with shackles; 2 pairs of iron handcuffs with 4 iron shackles; 7 pairs of iron feet fetters with 3 shackles; 1 hasp for the stocks. Events in Chester at the time included a riot at the Corpus Christi procession (possibly after Richard had taken his men to Ireland) - a record of 1399 describes a terrible brawl which broke out between the members of the guilds of the Weavers, Shearmen, Challoners (blanket-makers) and the Walkers (fullers) against their apprentices, outside of the guild church of St Peter:


 * " ..and many other master weavers came with force and arms, with pole-axes, staves, daggers, and other diverse armaments, by a premeditated plan on Thursday, the feast of Corpus Christi, in the twenty-second year of the reign of King Richard the second, opposite the church of Blessed Peter of Chester. Also, those gathered together insulted William de Wybunbure, junior, Thomas del Dame, and very many others, their servants, called journeymen, in a great affray of the whole population of the city, against the peace of the lord king"

There were other local changes: in 1396 the office of master mason, which had lapsed in 1374, was reintroduced, and in 1397 the office of keeper of the king's artillery in Cheshire and Flintshire first appeared. In 1399 Richard II granted 3000 gold marks to the people of Chester (widows and dependents of soldiers killed during the battle) who had suffered as a result of the Battle of Radcot Bridge (19 December 1387). This was distributed by Robert de Legh (Sheriff of Chester) at the Exchequer court in the Castle.

Royal involvement in the city's affairs brought benefits as well as problems. In the 1390s royal favour secured for the monks of St. Werburgh's the long-sought licences to appropriate their livings. The resumption of building work at the crossing of the abbey church may also be attributed to royal interest, contact with a refined and sophisticated court being a factor in the community's acquisition of such accomplished works as the late 14th-century choir stalls. At St Johns, too, royal patronage may have played a part in the refoundation in 1393 of the fraternity of St. Anne, the chaplains of which were to pray daily for the king and his family. In his last years Richard visited the capital of his new principality with increasing frequency, staying there at least six times in 1398-9.



Richard's position was however precarious in the sense that the 30 year-old king had no heir and had just married a six year old French princess. Two families possessed strong claims to succeed Richard II: the young Mortimer Earl of March through the senior female line and Lancaster/Hereford through the secondary but male line from John of Gaunt. Needless to say, Gaunt argued that succession to the crown should be entailed to the male line as was increasingly the case for inheriting noble estates.

Some Victorian historians, starting with Bishop Stubbs, have argued that Richard II was insane in his last years, but this view is no longer strongly supported. One current fashion is to state that he was narcissistic. The true root of his downfall seems to be in part his almost complete reliance upon Cheshire as a power base which hurt his support from the rest of the country. Another issue was that although he brought peace with France (which was not to last), he did not reduce the taxes which had been levied to fight that war, but continued to spend on the opulence of his court and lavish patronage of his favourites.

Downfall
John of Gaunt died on the 3rd February 1399. On 18th March Richard II cancelled the legal documents allowing the exiled Henry Bolingbroke to inherit his father's lands. In June 1399, Louis I, Duke of Orléans, gained control of the court of his brother the insane Charles VI ("the Mad") of France. On paper, Richard seemed in a very strong position in 1399. The £83,000 dowry from the French crown meant that the king possessed assets for the first time, with over £43,000 in his reserves. The reorganisation of the government around the king's court and the fact that his appointees dominated the nobility and provinces, left seemingly little room for weakness. The marriage treaty had secured peace with France, while the one power in the land who had posed a real threat to Richard's position was dead. Indeed, the king felt so secure that he went marching off to Ireland for the second time, taking his best and most loyal men with him. His security was soon to be revealed as an illusion.

The policy of rapprochement with the English crown did not suit Louis's political ambitions, and for this reason he found it opportune to allow Henry Bolingbroke, the exiled and now dispossessed Lord Appellant, to leave for England. Louis did offer troops to Bolingbroke, but Bolingbroke is reported to have said that he did not need them. With a small group of followers, Bolingbroke landed at Ravenspurn in Yorkshire towards the end of June 1399 (possibly on 4th July), together with exiled former Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Arundel as an advisor. The town where he landed has since been lost to coastal erosion. Men from all over the country soon rallied around him. Meeting with Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, who had his own misgivings about the king, Bolingbroke insisted that his only object was to regain his own patrimony. Percy took him at his word and declined to interfere. The king had taken most of his household knights and the loyal members of his nobility with him to Ireland, so Bolingbroke experienced little resistance as he moved south. Keeper of the Realm Edmund, Duke of York, had little choice but to side with Bolingbroke.



Due to bad weather in the Irish Sea it took time for Richard to hear of events in England. On discovering what had happened, Richard declared that Lancaster "should die a death that would make a noise as far as Turkey", and sent Lancaster's son (afterwards Henry V) to Trim Castle for "safe keeping". Rejecting advice to cross at once into North Wales with such a following as he had shipping for, he returned to Waterford and conveyed the bulk of his army over to Milford to join his supporters at Bristol, sending Salisbury from Dublin to raise Cheshire and North Wales. The advice to split his forces in this way may have been the suggestion of one of Richard's favorites, Edward, Duke of Aumale, and some have suggested that this was a deliberate attempt to weaken Richard. But on reaching Milford about the last week in July he learned that Henry was certain to reach Bristol first, and decided to make his way with all speed into North Wales. Finding it impossible to move his army rapidly through so difficult a country, he directed Worcester to disperse it. He himself stole away at midnight with a handful of followers and rode northwards through Carmarthen. It seems entirely logical that his goal was to reach Cheshire, where he had two important links. Firstly, he had recruited his personal troops there and secondly a considerable part of his wealth was at his treasure house in Holt. However, dispersing the bulk of his troops and heading north with a tiny force seems like very bad judgement.

Henry beat Richard to Chester. The Duke of Lancaster made his way to Chester by somewhat sporadic forced marches and took it without a fight on the 9th August. The Duke stayed at Chester Castle for 12 days, amusing himself by drinking the king's wine, wasting fields and pillaging houses. and presumably enjoying the use of Richard II's "Norwegian Wood" heated bathroom. While there ("this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke, who all this while hath revell'd in the night"), he also found time to secure the arrest, incarceration in the Gowestower (outer gatehouse tower) and execution of Sir Peirs Legh of Lyme, one of Richard's leading retainers in Cheshire and the brother of the Sheriff - Legh's head was placed on the Eastgate. Richard arrived at Conwy to find himself hemmed in. Salisbury's levies had already dispersed, possibly following a rumour that the King was dead. Defections on the road had reduced his own small following to six (Traïson, pp. 282, 293). The unhappy king, tearfully bewailing his hard fortune, if we may believe Creton, wandered restlessly from castle to castle, Beaumaris, Carnarvon, and Rhuddlan, and back to Conwy. Creton's account is unintentionally amusing as he describes how the lack of preparations meant that the king had no food or furniture and had to sleep on straw. If we believe Thomas of Walsinghom, Richard even visited Holt where his treasure was stored, although this seems unlikely.

From Creton's description it appears that he must have personally visited Chester, as he mentions the castle in a manner which suggests that he had seen it. He writes of how Surrey and Exeter camne Chester to treat with Henry, but that they "would not have crouched to him for all the gold in England". Henry appears to have met them at Chester Castle and repeated his argument that he only wanted his rightful inheritance. The chronicles are unclear whether this was a trick by Henry to lure Richard out and capture him, or whether even at this stage Henry would still be prepared to come to some arrangement. Jean Creton's account even has a rather fanciful illustration of the meeting. possibly intended to show the Agricola Tower (inner gateway) of the castle.



Henry then marched against Richard at Fflint Castle to which Richard had been lured from the safety of Conwy Castle. The Dieulacres Chronicle and Jean Creton both record very similar facts, and it has been suggested that the Dieulacres Chronicle is in part based on a city Chronicle written at Chester and later copied.

Richard surrendered, but not before trying to escape dressed as a monk, although the illustrations accompanying Creton's account show the king dressed in a very conspicuous red robe which can hardly be considered a disguise. According to Stowe's Annals, following the capture of the King, Bollinbrooke:


 * " with a high sharp voice, badde bring forth the king's horses; and then two little naggs, not worth forty francs, were brought forth."

The king was set on the one, and the earl of Salisbury on the other, and thus the duke brought the king from Flint to Chester, where he was delivered to the duke of Gloucester's son, who led him straight to the castle (still wearing the monk's habit in which he had attempted to escape) and "lodged" them in Chester Castle for a few days (possibly in a tower over the outer or inner gateway, possibly in the Agricola Tower), while Henry received at Chester a sizable deputation from the City of London renouncing their fealty to the prisoner. Imprisoned with Richard were some of his loyal supporters including Jenico d’Artois and James Darteys, who refused to lay aside Richard's badge of the white hart. The journey to London commenced on the 21st, and at Lichfield, a favourite spot with Richard in happier days, he escaped through a window by night, but was retaken (Creton, p. 376). Between Lichfield and Coventry the army was attacked by bands of Welshmen but they were unable to rescue Richard. Afterwards, Richard was escorted to Westminster, where he was persuaded to abdicate. Bollingbroke usurped Richard and became Henry IV.

Aftermath
The chronicle of Dieulacres remarks on the sudden change of fortune of the Cheshire archers:


 * "Then indeed were the royal insignia both of the stag and of the crown placed under wraps"

Rebellions continued throughout the first ten years of Henry IV's reign, including the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr, who declared himself Prince of Wales in 1400, and the rebellion of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland. Early in 1400, there was a revolt in Cheshire, linked with the Epiphany Rising. Those involved included prominent members of Richard's Cheshire retinue and a large group of townsmen from Chester, 28 of whom, dressed in the "white hart" livery of the deposed monarch, marched to the Eastgate on January 10th 1400, removed Peir's Legh's head from the Eastgate, and unsuccessfully besieged the castle, then held by the Chamberlain of Chester, the Sheriff of Cheshire, and the Constable, William Venables of Kinderton. The Chester Carmelites, themselves well favoured by the citizens, also apparently harboured Ricardian sympathies, and gave burial to Legh's mutilated body, together with the head after its retrieval from the Eastgate. The new dynasty exacted a price for such attitudes. Some notable local offices changed hands in 1399-1400, including the constableship of the castle and the tenancy of the Dee Mills. The Carmelites' complaint of poverty in 1400 perhaps stemmed partly from Bolingbroke's ravaging in 1399. There was a reckoning, too, for St. Werburgh's: in 1400 Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, ordered a visitation to investigate the monastery's financial administration. Although Abbot Sutton survived, he was subjected to humiliating restrictions, and soon afterwards the appropriations of livings which Richard II had approved were revoked. Arundel cannot be considered unbiased - he was instrumental in the usurpation of Richard by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke. More on Arundels involvement can be found in the discussion of the events in relation to the depiction at the Chester Pageant 1937.



The main conspirators in the Epiphany Rising suffered horrible fates. Thomas Blount was first hanged, then cut down and eviscerated, although still alive and replying to the taunts of Sir Thomas Erpingham, the king's chamberlain, who directed the horrible procedure. His intestines were pulled out and placed in a fire while still connected to his body. He was finally beheaded and quartered, and his head was sent to London.

The rebellion temporarily enhanced the castle's military importance: early in 1400 it was garrisoned by 8 men-at-arms and 35 archers, and even in 1404 it was still protected by 8 archers. It also contained considerable stores of weapons and supplies. The civic authorities appear nevertheless to have reached a somewhat uneasy modus vivendi with the new dynasty. The leading citizens were pardoned for their role in the rising, and in 1401 Henry, prince of Wales, confirmed the charters. Late in 1400 the mayor and sheriffs were required to supply provisions protected by an armed guard for an expedition planned by the king and prince, and the portmote was suspended while they fulfilled their commitments. In 1402 the city evidently agreed to provide and man a barge and three small ships in the king's service, and later it was required to furnish all the richer citizens with equipment necessary for its defence. Despite Chester's cooperation, the new dynasty continued to be distrustful, taking sureties to ensure that supplies sold in the city were used to provision royal troops rather than the rebels.

In 1403 Sir Henry Percy ('Hotspur'), lately justice of Chester, stayed in the city and raised the standard of revolt there before the Battle of Shrewsbury. The citizens were far less involved with the rebels than in 1400, and indeed the mayor and the constable of the castle were present at Shrewsbury in the king's retinue. In a closely fought encounter Hotspur was killed, apparently shot in the face when he opened his visor to get some air. With the loss of their leader, the battle came to abrupt end. One of the captains of the Cheshire Archers, Thomas Beeston, died at the battle fighting for Percy. Five of the other captains were excluded from the pardon which Henry IV extended to the men of the county of Chester on 27 September 1403 for the support which they had shown to Percy (Legh, Cholmondeley, Bostok, Donne, and Holford). They were instructed to make terms with the prince of Wales. To encourage them to do so, the escheator of the county was ordered to seize their lands. All subsequently made their peace. Their exclusion from the pardon does not necessarily mean, however, that they were present at the battle fighting for Percy. It may simply be that the king had lingering doubts about their loyalty, given their previous close connections with Richard II. The names of the Cheshire archers possibly reflect their habitations and include Huxley, Cholmondeley, Beeston, Bickerton.

After Percy's defeat and burial, to quash rumours that he had in fact survived the battle, the king had Hotspur exhumed, quartered and the parts put on display. One of the quarters of his body was sent to Chester, together with the heads of Sir Richard Venables and Sir Richard Vernon. Percy's head was sent to York where it was impaled on the Micklegate Bar (one of the city's gates). His remaining three-quarters were sent to London, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Bristol, before they were finally delivered to his widow (Elizabeth Mortimer). She had the body parts buried in York Minster, but then remarried and is buried in Sussex with her second husband.

The Chester "legend" that the people of the City are allowed to "Shoot the Welsh" dates from this time. In the weeks following the Battle of Shrewsbury the insecurity of both the new dynasty and some of the city authorities (some of whom had been on the King's side at the battle) was demonstrated in the instructions issued by then Prince Henry - then Earl of Chester - (later Henry V) in response to further defections in north Wales. On September 4, 1403, he supposedly wrote to the Mayor, Sheriffs and Aldermen of the City of Chester, who were required to impose a curfew upon all Welshmen visiting Chester, and to ensure that they left their arms at the city gates and did not gather in groups of more than three; all Welsh residents were expelled and any who stayed overnight were threatened with execution. According to a commonly told tale, the actual wording was that:


 * "..all manner of Welsh persons or Welsh sympathies should be expelled from the city; that no Welshman should enter the city before sunrise or tarry in it after sunset, under pain of decapitation."

It is not clear whether the letter actually existed (no trace in the royal records has been found). In any event it seems to have had ittle effect: Bridge Street was the centre of much of the Welsh community in medieval Chester, including the successful gentleman John of Ewloe, who came from a Welsh migrant family. John lived in a grand house with extensive gardens on the west side of Bridge Street, and many of his associates, servants, tenants and debtors were Welsh. John was elected mayor in 1405, even whilst the Glyndŵr rebellion was still causing tensions with Wales, and re-elected in the following four years. In August 1409, however, John was temporarily suspended from office because he was allegedly "tampering with the rebels" and his loyalty was suspect.



The deposed King Richard died in prison at Pontefract Castle later in the year (by 17 February 1400), possibly having been starved to death on Henry's orders, or possibly having starved himself. His body was put on display to prove that he was dead and had not died violently. Rumours of his still being alive persisted but never gained much credence in England; in Scotland, however, a man identified as Richard came into the hands of Regent Robert Stewart, the Duke of Albany, lodged in Stirling Castle, and serving as the notional – and perhaps reluctant – figurehead of various anti-Lancastrian and Lollard intrigues in England. Jean Creton was actually despatched to Scotland by the French king to ascertain the truth, at which point he finally concluded that King Richard was indeed dead. Henry IV's government dismissed him as an impostor, and several sources from both sides of the Border suggest the man had a mental illness, one also describing him as a "beggar" by the time of his death in 1419, but he was buried as a king in the local Dominican friary in Stirling.

Richard's downfall in 1399 has been called the first round in what the Victorians named the "Wars of the Roses," the bloody, noble civil wars that devastated England from around 1450 to 1487. However Henry IV is perhaps better viewed as a usurper and the issues which led to the "Wars of the Roses" only really started with the untimely death of Henry V. William Shakespeare's account of the rule and death of Richard II, as well as subsequent events, is pseudo-historical and was probably much influenced by the "Tudor Myth" which presented the 15th century, including the Wars of the Roses, as a dark age of anarchy and bloodshed. It served the political purpose of promoting the Tudor period of the 16th century as a golden age of peace, law, order, and prosperity.

The "Treasure Roll"
No medieval English king had such a reputation for splendor as Richard II. Contemporary rumours reported that at the time of his deposition Richard held enormous cash reserves and treasure worth as much again.

The treasure roll of Richard II, compiled in 1398/9, offers a rare insight into the magnificence of a late medieval English king. The roll, unknown until it was rediscovered in the 1990s, describes in exceptional detail the crowns, jewels, and other precious objects belonging to the king and to his two queens, Anne of Bohemia and Isabella of Valois. It contains 1,206 entries, some describing dozens of pieces, and is written on forty long, narrow parchment sheets. Fully unrolled it measures more than 28 metres. Every object listed is of precious metal or of materials such as beryl, rock-crystal, coconut, amber, ivory and jet mounted in gold or silver. Almost all are given a weight and value. Besides pieces inherited by Richard or given to him by his courtiers and as diplomatic gifts, the inventory contains jewels and plate from Isabelle's trousseau and many forfeited goods. The only piece known to survive today is a crown which the roll describes as:


 * "set with eleven sapphires, thirty-three balas rubies, a hundred and thirty-two pearls, thirty-three diamonds, eight of them imitation gems".

It belonged to his first wife, Anne of Bohemia (where that elaborate style of metalwork was popular). It was recorded again in a 1399 list of royal jewels being moved across London which had been owned by the deposed Richard II and others. Later it travelled to Germany in the possession of Henry IV’s elder daughter Blanche, who married Louis III, the Elector Palatine. The crown is now held in the Schatzkammer of der Residenz, Munich.

Anne of Bohemia (11 May 1366 – 7 June 1394) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Richard II. A member of the House of Luxembourg, she was the eldest daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, and Elizabeth of Pomerania. Contemporaries criticised the marriage on two grounds: Anne had no dowry, and she was escorted by a large and expensive suite of Bohemian ladies and gentlemen, to some of whom Richard granted annuities. Her death at the age of 28 was believed to be caused by plague.



Isabella of France (9 November 1389 – 13 September 1409) was Queen of England as the second spouse of Richard II. She married the king at the age of six and was widowed three years later. The marriage treaty had stipulated that if the marriage was unconsummated Isabelle's dowry and jewels should be returned to France. The instalments of her dowry which had already been received were never repaid. Almost all the jewels and plate from her trousseau were returned in 1401, but not the other splendid gifts she had received from the English and French at the time of her marriage and at New Year from 1396 to 1399. In recognition of their kinship, Charles VI and Isabeau of Bavaria, Isabelle's mother and father, and her uncles, the Valois dukes, especially Philip of Burgundy and John of Berry, sent magnificent gifts to Richard II and Isabelle for New Year from 1397 to 1399. She later married Charles, Duke of Orléans, dying in childbirth at the age of nineteen.

Treasure Hunters
During the baronial civil war of King John’s reign (1199–1216), Ranulf de Blondeville, Earl of Chester (1170–1232), was a staunch supporter of the royal cause and received titles, castles and land across England in return for his loyalty. In 1218, after Henry III (reigned 1216–72) succeeded to the throne, Ranulf left England to take part in the fifth crusade. He returned in 1220 to find the king’s justiciar, or viceroy, Hubert de Burgh, confiscating lands from other men who had enriched themselves in the previous decade. Ranulf clearly felt the need to guarantee his political position and at some point in the 1220s began work on Beeston Castle. Although it is difficult to prove, it has always been thought likely that the castle owes part of its design to Ranulf’s experiences on crusade; the rock-cut ditch in particular is similar to features of buildings in the Holy Land. Beeston featured many other innovations. Instead of protecting an established location it was built in the best defensive position. It did not have a keep, but made use of a solid gatehouse instead. Towers are round and projecting to protect them against siege engines allow raking fire along the castle walls.

Ranulf died in 1232 and Beeston, together with the Earldom of Chester, was granted to Ranulf’s nephew, John le Scot. On John’s death in 1237 Henry III seized the earl’s estates, including Beeston. The early 14th century saw a major programme of rebuilding. Between September 1303 and September 1304 a total of £109 2s 4½d was spent on works, indicating more than routine maintenance. In 1333 it was reported in a survey that the castle was ‘well and surely sited on a rocky eminence, and very well enclosed’ and that no repairs were necessary. A short but valuable account, chiefly of the castle under royal ownership, was published in 1963 in the "History of the King’s Works".

Although historical sources suggest that any stockpiles of treasure were recovered by Henry IV (r.1399–1413), the legend was probably the reason for systematic investigations of the castle well in 1794 and 1842. It is not clear when the legend first arose. Egerton Leigh does not mention it in his "Ballads & Legends of Cheshire" (1867), although the early explorations clearly preceeded this date. Adam of Usk states that "goods were found in water cisterns" after the deposition of Richard. The Dieulacres Chronicle states that Henry seized treasure and other valuables that had been buried. John Stow stated in 1580 and after that Henry found coin to the value of 100,000 marks at Beeston - "all of which Duke Henry took with him".

During explorations in the 1930s debris was cleared out and two passageways leading off the shaft were discovered. That investigation was cut short when the rig which lowered the investigators down the well was destroyed somewhat mysteriously, during the night, supposedly by "vandals". Undoubtedly there would have been much muttering among the superstitious local folk about the "demon" that was supposed to guard the treasure.



Attempts to probe the well (including those using sophisticated electronic measuring devices) revealed at least 3 passages, but no treasure, though investigators conjectured that a fourth passage remains to be investigated. It was widely accepted in the Middle Ages that the gold was guarded by demons and that "anyone that goes down the well will be struck dumb or go mad". There are however many local caves and so it is just possible that a treasure is hidden in the vicinity: although most of the caves are the result of rather too recent quarying. It has been suggested that indeed Richard II did commonly hide treasure in castle wells. Over the last few decades the Cheshire water table has fallen dramatically and even the deep, historic, crag-top well at Beeston Castle is dry.

Elsewhere?
Several repositories for storing the king's treasure (crowns and other gold and silver jewels and plate), were in regular use in Richard's reign: at Westminster Abbey (in the Great Treasury beneath the Chapter House), in Westminster Palace (the Jewel Tower opposite the Houses of Parliament) and at the Tower of London (possibly in the Flint Tower and/or the White Tower). However, there was one treasure house outside of London which has a particularly "close" connection with Beeston.

Holt?
Holt was begun by Edward I in 1277 to control a ford across the river Dee and was possibly designed by the Master of the King’s Works, James of St George. It was granted to John de Warenne in 1282, following the death of Llewelyn ap Gruffydd in the same year. Holt Castle was completed c.1308. It rose three storeys above the ground and a basement was cut into the bedrock, several stories downwards. There were five circular towers, which gave the castle a pentagonal shape. John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, owned large areas of land in the region. He was made Regent of Scotland by King Edward I but was soon defeated by Scottish rebel leader William Wallace. Quarrying the natural sandstone of the valley, the masons were able to create an enormous rock cut defensive “moat” around his castle, using the quarried rock to form the castle itself. The method was ingenious, leaving a central pentagonal block of sandstone to form a robust, supportive core of the building. Against this, numerous rooms and towers were constructed to form a solid, if compact, castle. However, although its footprint was relatively small (compared to Edward I’s great castles elsewhere in Wales), it was a castle of height and aesthetic substance which in many ways was years ahead of its time. At four of the five corners was a stout round tower, capped with its own bartizan; the fifth corner, nearest the river, was also graced with a square addition, thought to have been the water gate to the Dee. Some plans show the entire fifth tower to be square, others to show it as a projection from the round tower. Thomas Pennant, writing in 1773, talks of a quay which in dry weather can still be seen in the Dee at this point. Reconstructions of the castle have a dock actually in the base of the tower into which a vessel could enter from the river through a defended doorway.



By 1394, Holt castle was held by Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. Arundel was a member of the royal council, and was involved in a quarrel with John of Gaunt, whom he accused in the parliament of that year. The sudden death of the young queen on 7 June proved a doubly unfortunate event, for it not only removed an influence which constantly made for peace, but indirectly aggravated the quarrel with Arundel. Richard's grief was so excessive that he had Sheen Palace, where she died, razed to the ground. Arundel was therefore extremely ill-advised in absenting himself from the procession which bore the body to Westminster on 2 Aug., and in making his appearance in the abbey next day, after the funeral service had begun, with a request to be allowed to retire. Richard so far forgot himself as to snatch a baton from an attendant and strike the earl across the head with such violence that he fell to the ground and his blood flowed over the pavement; the office for the dead had to be interrupted while the clergy performed the service for freeing the sacred building from the pollution of blood, and before they had done the night was far advanced. Arundel was sent to the Tower, but released a week later, on the eve of Richard's first departure for Ireland. Shortly after that, the King feigned a reconciliation but he was probably only biding his time for the right moment to strike. Arundel was persuaded by his brother Thomas to surrender himself and to trust to the king's clemency. On 12 July 1397, Fitzalan was arrested for his opposition to Richard II, as well as plotting with Gloucester to imprison the king. He stood trial at Westminster and was attainted. He was beheaded on 21 September 1397 and was buried in the church of the Augustin Friars, Bread Street, London. Tradition holds that his final words were said to the executioner, "Torment me not long, strike off my head in one blow". Richard II at once seized Holt Castle for himself, and is known to have been there in person on the 8th August 1398.

Treasure House


Richard made Holt castle his own private treasure house. It has been estimated that more than £40,000 in coins, jewellery, gold and silver plate was transferred from the royal treasury in London to Holt for safekeeping. When Henry Bolingbroke – later Henry IV – returned to England in 1399, he shadowed Richard II up the Welsh Marches and was quick to recapture Holt Castle. Despite being defended by 100 men-at-arms and being well provisioned, Henry’s men, including perhaps the French chronicler Jean Creton, were able to enter through the new water-gate and ascend "on foot, step by step", to take the castle unopposed and so apparently recover this vast proportion of the king’s disposable wealth. Creton is somwhat vague about Holt itself:


 * "A vj, mile de la ville y avoit / un autre fort, que hoult on apelloit. / Sur une roche moult hault assis estoit" ( six miles from the town there was another castle, called Holt, set on a very high, rather narrow rock)

This description has led to some discussion as to whether Jean Creton is referring to Beeston or to Holt, although the fact that Creton names the castle seems to firmly indicate Holt, and while Holt is directly on the River Dee, there is no "watergate" at Beeston. It seems strange that the castle could be taken without resistance as just a few years later the castle held out for the Crown during the uprising of Owain Glyndŵr against Henry IV. However, according to Creton's account the garrison were so terrified of Henry that they surrendered at once both the castle and the vast treasure it contained.

Creton had remarkable access to the events on which he reported. Although he seems to have visited for the purposes of "amusement and to see the country," with a now unknown companion, he witnessed at first hand the events leading up to the deposition of King Richard II of England by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke. His account has been described as the "fullest and most circumstantial" of the various contemporary narratives. Most amazingly, Creton seems to pass freely from the camp of one side of the conflict to the other and back again. This is despite his being a foreign (French) "war correspondent" - which might in those days have been understood as meaning little other than "spy". Just how Creton managed to pull this "scoop" off is unknown.

Creton travelled to Ireland with the King on his expeditionary force in May 1399, but was sent back to Wales with John Montagu the Earl of Salisbury two months later when Montagu was sent to Wales to raise opposing forces. When these deserted, Montagu advised King Richard to flee to Bordeaux. Creton was caught up in the events which followed. He waited with the King at Conway Castle, and here he witnessed the Earl of Northumberland's arrival and then that of Bolingbroke. Along with the other minor members of the royal entourage, Creton was required by the earl to leave the castle with Bolingbroke's herald. The chronicler was later open about the fact that, as a recent scholar has put it, Creton:


 * "was more frightened than he had ever been in his life."

However, on hearing that Creton and his companions were French, Bolingbroke addressed them in their own language and assured them of their personal safety. Créton is notable for being one of the few contemporary chroniclers who believed Richard II was in fact alive after 1399 - possibly, in fact, the only one. In his chronicle he says that, when Richard's body was displayed in St Paul's Cathedral in March 1400, he "certainly [did not] believe it was the old King," and, further, that "I think it was [Richard] Maudelyn, his chaplain, whose face, size, height and build were so exactly similar to the King's."

So where was the treasure?
Given that Richard had a well-defended treasure house at Holt, it makes little sense that he should move the contents the relatively short distance to Beeston before his expedition to Ireland: or, if he was carrying even more treasure with him, hide that at Beeston rather than simply deposit it at Holt. The fact that he chose to go to Ireland indicates that he had no aprehension of any trouble while he was away. He could have had the treasure moved by John Montague, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, who he sent back to raise troops, but Creton, who seems to have been with Montague and possibly later at Holt does not mention this. In fact, Creton is quite clear that the treasure was captured at Holt. Walsingham's account that Richard visited Holt while wandering between various castles in North Wales makes little sense, as it implies that Richard was prepared to abandon both his treasure and a well-defended position.



Montague was one of the few lords who remained loyal to Richard. This was probably because of his personal feud with Henry. Acting as Richard’s ambassador to France, he had been unfortunate enough to earn Henry Bolingbroke’s personal enmity because of the message he had brought to Charles VI on Richard’s behalf – which was essentially that Henry should be treated as persona non grata. Many of Richard's favorites were arrested by Bolingbroke (some of whom were executed), and Salisbury was not left out. He was brought up on charges, as many others were, for his involvement in the trials against the Lords Appellant in 1397 and was accused of possibly taking part in the murder of the Duke of Gloucester, Bolingbroke's (and the king's) uncle. He was ultimately released from prison but decided to take part in a conspiracy against the newly crowned Henry IV when several lords (including the Earl of Kent and Huntingdon) planned to murder King Henry and his sons and place Richard back on the throne. The most detailed account of the conspiracy is provided by the chronicler Thomas Walsingham. He claimed that the plotters intended to make a sudden attack to kill the king and his sons "under the pretence of playing Christmas games" at Windsor Castle on the 4th January 1400.

Walsingham states that the earls of Kent and Salisbury arrived at Windsor with a force of 400 men just as dusk was falling. However, the plot had been betrayed to the king who had fled to London. The failure of their enterprise threw the earls into a panic who quickly left the castle in disarray. They first went to the manor of Sonning, near to Reading, where Richard’s young wife, Isabella of Valois, was residing. The earls supposedly boasted to her that they had caused Henry to flee before them and falsely claimed that Richard was at Pontefract Castle with a force of 100,000 men at his command. They then headed north-westwards, via Wallingford and Abingdon, all the while inciting the locals to join their cause, before reaching Cirencester at nightfall. The arrival of the earls and their men were said to have aroused the suspicion of the townspeople, who took up arms and surrounded the houses where they were staying. In the middle of the night they attempted to escape but were attacked by the local inhabitants. After a long fight, lasting from midnight to nine o’clock in the morning, the exhausted rebels surrendered. At first the earls were imprisoned in Cirencester Abbey, but the starting of a fire in the town by a priest in their company, in an attempt to cause enough chaos to allow them to escape, resulted in them being beheaded by the furious townspeople.

In the meanwhile, the other rebel leaders were swiftly captured and killed, with a further twenty-seven men executed at Oxford Castle on 12 January after being convicted of treason. Although the rising was unsuccessful it was clear that Richard continued to pose a threat to the new monarch even in captivity. The decision was therefore taken for him to be killed. According to most accounts he was starved to death at Pontefract Castle a short time later, although Shakespeare believed that he was killed rather more quickly and puts the following words into the mouth of Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers in his play Richard III:


 * "Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison / Fatal and ominous to noble peers! / Within the guilty closure of thy walls / Richard the second here was hack'd to death; / And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,/ We give thee up our guiltless blood to drink." (Richard III, Act III, Sc III)

In the play Richard II Shakespeare has Richard killed after he himself attacks his jailor and slays two servants with an axe, but this is seen as dramatic licence. The evidence that Richard was "not hacked to death" is normally taken as the facts that his body was put on display post mortem on 17th Feb 1400 and when his tomb was opened in 1871, his skull and bones showed no signs of damage. Of course, if he had been murdered with violence then the body could have been that of his "double" as descibed by Creton. If he was starved after the Ephiphany Rising (4th Jan) then he must have done so quite quickly as starvation normally takes 8-12 weeks. If either Richard or Montague knew where further treasure was hidden then their secret may well have died with them.

Summary


Just how the legend of the treasure ever being at Beeston arose will remain something of a mystery. We know that Richard had moved much of his treasure to Holt, a castle which Henry soon took after his series of forced marches northwards, and John Stow wrote that Henry had also recovered treasure from Beeston. We know that some of the Cheshire archers came from near Beeston, as their names include Huxley, Choldmondeley, Bickerton and even a Beeston himself - all villages within a few miles of the castle. Henry had rushed up from the south and then sat in Chester for 12 days finding time to "revel in the night". Was he celebrating because he had already laid hands on the bulk of the royal treasury or was he still searching for some or all of it? It is possible that Henry's initial offer to make peace with Richard was genuine, but that once he gained the treasure from Holt he changed his mind - the contents of the treasure house would have been a great temptation to Henry. Perhaps even the sight of Holt Castle was enough to convince him, for Henry had been born (1367) at Bolingbroke Castle, another of Ranulph de Blundeville's castles, and while Bolinbroke is hexagonal rather than pentagonal it does bear some similarity to Holt.

The presence of a hidden treasure legend at Beeston may have arisen because Richard was known to have stored great wealth and other treasure in the area, had a connection with the people living around Beeston and because Beeston is still a far more prominent landmark than Holt later became. The re-discovery of the inventory of the treasure has enabled the eventual fate of much of it to be traced and it might be assumed that the rest of it passed through the same hands, which seem to be those of Henry IV. Possibly the only treasure in the well at Beeston Castle are the coins which have been dropped down it by visitors to see how deep it is. The well is not exactly vertical, and some have reported very odd sounds after dropping a coin into the well, presumably as it glances against the sides. Of course, it is impossible to say that some part of Richard's treasure was not hidden away either at Beeston or somewhere along the ancient Saltersway from Holt: the Peckforton Hills contain standstone caves which could have been suitable places - but if this was the case then the treasure was either recovered in secret long ago or remains hidden to this day.

Exploring the History
It is possible to visit the castles of Conwy, Flint, Chester, Holt and Beeston. Some have restricted opening and/or charge a fee - therefore it is wise to check in advance. In Chester, St Peter, where notice of De Vere's condemnation was nailed to the door can still be seen next to the High Cross, as can St Johns with the White Hart depicted in stained glass (inside) and stone (above the door) - entry to both is free. The Old Dee Bridge which Richard had repaired, is still a major crossing of the Dee at Chester. The medieval Eastgate in Chester, where parts of some of the players in the story were displayed, was replaced by the present gate in 1768-9.

Chronology

 * 1378: Comet Halley revisits. There is no surviving record of its apparition.


 * 1379: "A bushel of wheat sold for 6d a gallon of white wine for 6d, a gallon of claret for 4d, a fat goose for 2d, a fat pig for 1d. A Mayor's Feast containing all the dainties of the season cost exactly eleven shillings and ten pence."


 * 1381: John Holland half-brother to Richard II made Justice of Chester;


 * 1385: John Holland dismissed after the murder of Ralph Stafford, eldest son of the Earl of Stafford. Edmund of Langley made Justice of Chester;


 * 1386: At the Wonderful Parliament in response to King Richard's extravagant patronage of such favorites as Robert de Vere, the appointment of fourteen Commissioners to oversee Royal expenditure.


 * 1387: Robert de Vere divorces his wife and moves to Chester with Agnes de Launcekrona. Richard II visits Chester and grants its citizens a murage for the repair of the ruined Old Dee Bridge: Letters Patent granted to the citizens on 25 July 1387 state: “Know ye that of our special grace and at the supplication of our lieges, the Commonalty of our town of Chester, and for consideration that as many have been drowned in the water of the Dee since the bridge has been destroyed and broken. And also, because the same town for that reason is very greatly impoverished as we are informed, we have granted to the fabric and repair of the aforesaid bridge all the profits of the Passage of the said water at Chester and the Murage which used to be granted there for the walls, to be received until that bridge is rightly and reasonably completed”. First mention of the High Cross in the city records. Robert de Vere made Justice of Chester. The Lords Appellant rebel. Richard II. sent secretly to Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland, who was levying troops in Wales, to come to him with all speed, to aid him with the Duke of Gloucester and his friends; and commissioned at the same time Sir Thomas Molyneux de Cuerdale, Constable of Chester, a man of great influence in Cheshire and Lancashire, and the Sheriff of Chester, to raise troops, and to accompany and safe conduct the Duke of Ireland to the Kings presence. Molineux executed his commission with great zeal, imprisoning all who would not join him. Thus was raised an army of 5,000 men. (Hollinshead). Molyneux has also been associated with the Cuerdale Hoard - that treasure could have been several hundred years old when bought from an unknown location in Ireland at the direction of Richard II and buried at Cuerdale (a local Preston-Lancashire tradition said that anyone who stood on the south bank of the Ribble at Walton-le-Dale, and looked upriver to Ribchester, would be within sight of the richest treasure in England). Following the battle of Radcot Bridge, at which Sir Thomas Molyneux was killed, Richard was reduced to a figurehead. According to Holinshed, Molineux, who had attempted to flee, pleaded for his life, but Sir Thomas Mortimer pulled off his helmet and stabbed him in the head with a dagger. Robert de Vere fled.


 * 1388: Thomas of Woodstock made Justice of Chester. Robert de Vere was attainted and sentenced to death in absentia by the "Merciless Parliament" which also made him forfeit his titles and lands. A considerable number of Richard's intimate associates, including Michael de la Pole, 1st Earl of Suffolk, Nicholas Brembre, Alexander Neville, and Chief Justice Robert Tresilian, were found guilty of "living in vice, deluding the said king...embracing the mammon of iniquity for themselves". None were given formal trials. Neville was bishop and spared execution, but all his assets were seized and he was exiled. The rest were ordered drawn and hanged. The purge continued deep into the administration, dozens of retainers, clerks, chaplains, and secretaries to Richard were summarily condemned and executed.


 * 1390: Epidemic and food shortages.


 * 1391: John Holland again made Justice of Chester;


 * 1392: Robert de Vere died of the injuries he had sustained during a boar hunt, in French exile.


 * 1393: there was a mysterious rising in Cheshire, apparently aimed primarily against Richard II's hated enemy Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, then justice of Chester. The cause of the 1393 rising has never really been satisfactorily established. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham maintains that the reason was the rumour put about in Cheshire that the dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester, together with Lancaster's son, the future Henry IV, were planning to surrender Richard II's claim to the French throne in the course of their current peace negotiations. It was also suspected that the special liberties of the Palatinate were about to be threatened. A force, according to Walsingham, of 20,000 men (probably a very generous over-estimate) was gathered with the avowed intention of putting to death the three "offending" lords It was probably during this rising that the seeds of a later one (1400) were sown. One historian writes that Richard took this as the opportunity to depose the Duke of Gloucester - Thomas of Woodstock from the office of Justice and replace him with Earl Marshal, with Sir William Bagot as his lieutenant, however Thomas had ceased to be justice in 1391.




 * 1394: "Sir Baldwyn Rudistone and other desperados excite a dreadful riot in the Abbey Precincts and city. After killing one Sheriff, taking the other prisoner and injuring the Mayor, they were finally expelled but returned a few days after with 300 men, and attempted to take the place by surprise, but were repulsed and many taken prisoner." Apparently Baldwin Radington, controller of the royal household, at Chester to recruit for the king's expedition to Ireland, broke into the abbot of St. Werburgh's lodgings, detained two of his servants, and raided the neighboring houses. The mayor, John the Armourer, intervened in the dispute, Radington attacked the sheriffs; during the affray one of his own men was killed and in retaliation he and his supporters rode out 'in manner of war', terrorizing the city and its environs, an outrage to which the king's only response was to indict one of the sheriffs for the death of Radington's follower. Richard II arrives in Chester with the duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Northhampton, Earl of Arundel, Real of Salisburu, Earl of March and Earl of Rutland. The major, "John the Armourer", is ordered to "arrest ships in the Dee" to transport the royal household to Ireland. A murage is granted to the citizens for four years by the king. Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, made justice of Chester. At around this time Richard II forms a Cheshire Guard for his personal protection - with John Legh, Ralph Devenport, Adam Bostok, John Donne, Thomas Beston, Thomas Holford and Thomas Cholmondeley each as captains commanding a select force of eighty men. The outrages committed by this guard have been cited as a reasons for Richard's eventual fall from power.


 * 1395: Richard has the body of Robert de Vere returned to England. The king had the coffin opened to kiss his lost friend's hand and to gaze on his face one last time.


 * 1396: £35 is spent on repairing the two stone towers of the inner gate of Chester Castle, in response to a letter from the King that the towers were "molt ruinose et fieble" and on the point of collapse.


 * 1397: On Saturday 22 September Sir Thomas Mortimer was summoned to stand trial as a traitor. Mortimer’s alleged crime was the slaying of Thomas Molineux, constable of Chester Castle, at the skirmish at Radcot Bridge. Unsurprisingly Mortimer chose flight to Scotland. Arundel, Warwick and Gloucester (Thomas of Woodstock - Justice of Chester) also arrested and charged with treason. The Earl of Arundel is executed and his estates in Shropshire and North Wales later become part of principality of Chester. Thomas Walsingham writes of the execution "before and after him in the procession went the wild roughs from Chester, armed with axes, swords, bows amd arrows" . Gloucester (Thomas of Woodstock) is murdered by Nicholas Colfox (Thomas of Woodstock's murder plays a prominent part in the opening scene of William Shakespeare's play Richard II). Warwick was imprisoned. The clerk John Hatton of Chester is appointed "yeoman of the livery of the crown" at 6d a day for life. The citizens of Chester are granted the profits of the murage duties towards the repair of the walls for five years by Richard II.


 * 1398: Chester is erected into a principality by King Richard who styles himself "Prince of Chester". In the process the Maelor Saesneg was merged with the County Palatine of Chester to form the Principality of Chester. Richard was a regular visitor over the next year, granting various charters. 4000 marks are deposited at St Werburgh's for the benefit of the Cheshire men who fought for Richard II at Radcot Bridge. William le Scrope, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, made justice of Chester.


 * 1399: Richard II has a heated bathroom constructed in Chester Castle (costing £70). It was panelled with Norwegian timber. His apartments were redecorated with cushions and fine silk hangings. While Richard II is away on a military campaign in Ireland, Henry Bollingbroke, later Henry IV, lands in Britain after exile and takes Chester without a fight. He stays at Chester for a few days and then captures Richard II who is briefly imprisoned at Chester Castle. Richard's treasure is reputedly hidden somewhere near Chester (often cited as down the well at Beeston Castle - England’s deepest medieval well), although this could be a confusion with the Cuerdale Hoard.

after Richard's capture

 * 1399: Chester is reduced from a principality to an earldom. The first mention of "The Bell" inn - now a restaurant. Peter Legh, seemingly the chief among those left behind to protect Richard's interests is executed and his head placed on the Eastgate.


 * 1400: revolt in Cheshire, seemingly linked with the Epiphany Rising, possibly through the conspiracy of John and Adam Hesketh two "men of Cheshire". On the 4th of January they left for Cheshire to meet with four of the seven captains of the Cheshire Guard: John Legh, John Donne, Thomas Beston, Thomas Holford. Chester Castle besieged. An armed group of men, dressed in the livery of Richard II made their way to the Eastgate and removed the head of Peter Legh and then issued a proclamation in Richard's name that all men of the city should rally to his cause. Sir William Venables, constable of the castle, resisted the assault. The castle was garrisoned by 8 men-at-arms and 35 archers. The mayor of Chester was ordered to "apprehend and imprison John and Adam Hesketh for they had broken into the Castle and stolen the keys to the Eastgate, beheaded Thomas Molyneux and proclaimed against the King." (Thomas Molyneux had died in 1387) Richard II is believed to have been killed by starvation, or otherwise murdered. A general pardon is issued to the people of Cheshire (except for 125 people), but property is confiscated from several Cestrians including their leader Thomas Cottingham. The mayor and sheriffs were required to supply provisions protected by an armed guard for an expedition planned by the king and prince, and the portmote was suspended while they fulfilled their commitments. On 16 September 1400, Owain Glyndŵr instigated the Welsh Revolt against the rule of Henry IV. The uprising was initially very successful and rapidly gained control of large areas of Wales, but it suffered from key weaknesses – particularly a lack of artillery, which made capturing defended fortresses difficult, and of ships, which made their coastlands vulnerable. Sir Henry Percy ('Hotspur') made justice of Chester.




 * 1401: Henry, prince of Wales, confirmed the charters of Chester. The exchequer is moved to a building adjoining the Shire Hall, just outside Inner Bailey of Chester Castle.


 * 1402: Chester evidently agreed to provide and man a barge and three small ships in the king's service, and later it was required to furnish all the richer citizens with equipment necessary for its defense. A revival of the Dee Mills Court was attempted, perhaps because of the presence in Chester of Henry, prince of Wales (later Henry IV), and his council;


 * 1403: Sir Henry Percy ('Hotspur'), lately justice of Chester, stayed in the city and raised the standard of revolt there, where former kings men and veterans of the Cheshire Guard, the household guard of the the deceased & dethroned ‘Good King Richard’, King Richard II, still resided by the hundreds.. Percy formed an alliance with the Welsh rebel, Owain Glyndŵr. Before they could join forces, Hotspur was defeated and killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury as he raised his visor to get some air (he was wearing full plate) and was hit in the mouth with an arrow. The single most intriguing event taking place before the Battle of Shrewsbury was the defection from the royal army(and therefor from the Kings' Peace) of Hotspur’s uncle the Earl of Worcester just days before the battle was fought.  The impact militarily on paper at least was significant, the Earl of Worcester bringing 1,000 men, mostly archers and lightly armed men of foot, over to Hotspurs rebel army. After Percy's defeat one of the quarters of his body was sent to Chester, together with the heads of Sir Richard Venables and Sir Richard Vernon. Chester was not wholly on the side of the rebels as the mayor and the constable of the castle were present at Shrewsbury in the king's retinue. The future (then sixteen-year-old) Henry V (Prince Hal) was also struck by an arrow which became stuck in his face "to a depth of six inches". Over a period of several days John Bradmore, the royal physician, treated the wound with honey to act as an antiseptic, crafted a special tool to screw into the broken arrow shaft and extract the arrow. The operation was successful, but it left Henry with permanent scars and explains why the one remaining contemporary portrait shows only the left side of his face. Legislation of 1403, vigorously supported by the mayor of Chester, denied any arms to the Welsh - except a knife to eat with.  It is from this time that the Shoot the Welsh story comes from In the weeks following the Battle of Shrewsbury the insecurity of both the new dynasty and some of the city authorities (i.e. those who had been on the King's side at the battle) was demonstrated in the instructions issued by Prince Henry in response to further defections in north Wales. On September 4, 1403, he wrote to the Mayor, Sheriffs and Aldermen of the City of Chester, who were required to impose a curfew upon all Welshmen visiting Chester, and to ensure that they left their arms at the city gates and did not gather in groups of more than three; all Welsh residents were expelled and any who stayed overnight were threatened with execution. Apparently, the actual wording was that: "all manner of Welsh persons or Welsh sympathies should be expelled from the city; that no Welshman should enter the city before sunrise or tarry in it after sunset, under pain of decapitation.". William de Venables, constable of Chester, with the steward and others of the prince's household took the field with the armed forces of Cheshire to resist an imminent invasion by Owain Glyndŵr. Gilbert Talbot (c.1383–1419), 5th Baron Talbot, made Justice of Chester.


 * 1404: Chester Castle was garrisoned by 8 archers. The government still found it necessary to order the citizens of Chester not to sell arms or merchandise to the rebels and to commission keepers of roads out of Chester. A large group of rebels broke into the fulling mills at Handbridge and stole white woollen cloth, an ox and three cows belonging to William Venables. Many of the Cheshire gentry families have a connection with the Venables of Kinderton and they were the ancestors of many of the branches of the Legh and Leigh families through John Venables son of William de Venables and Agnes de Legh, who changed his name to Legh. This family came over from Normandy and are first recorded in England in 1086.  Gilbert de Venables was one of the eight barons appointed by the Earl of Chester.


 * 1405: A pardon was granted to the citizens of Chester for aiding the Percy rebellion.

Related pages

 * Chester Castle: Richard's fortress as "Prince of Chester";
 * Beeston Castle: where the treasure is traditionally said to have been hidden;
 * Courts: The role of Justice of Chester was one of the most dangerous jobs in the Middle Ages;
 * Grosvenor Treasure: another "money pit" treasure hunt that has found nothing;
 * Cheshire Castles: the other Norman Castles forming a border defence;
 * St Johns: Chester church which also uses "White Hart" symbolism;
 * St Peter: Chester city center church where notice of the fall of De Vere was nailed to the door;
 * Cheshire Regiment: the local military unit in the years after Richard II;
 * Militia: another local military unit and its history;
 * Military Museum: on the site of the gatehouse where Richard was imprisioned;
 * Farndon: another local royal center from much earlier;
 * Old Dee Bridge: repaired by Richard II and still in use;
 * Cheshire Dialect: Cheshire, Gawain and the Green Knight;

Creton's Poem

 * "La Prise et Mort Du Roy Richart":

Online

 * Richard II's Treasure:
 * RICHARD II's CHESHIRE ARCHERS;
 * The Betrayal and Capture of the King: according to Jean Creton;
 * Historical Writing in England: c. 1307 to the early sixteenth century;
 * ARCHERS AT THE BATTLE OF SHREWSBURY
 * "Intriguing History": a very good reference on Richard with lots of links;
 * "Chronicque de la traïson et mort de Richart Deux roy Dengleterre": a series of gory deaths;

Beeston

 * History of Beeston Castle: English Heritage;
 * Beeston Castle listed building record;
 * Beeston Castle on Wikipedia;
 * Beeston Castle at CastleFortsBattles;
 * Beeston Castle at CheshireLive;
 * Beeston Castle at Britain Express;

Treasure

 * Beeston Castle, Cheshire: Excavations by Laurence Keen & Peter Hough, 1968-85;
 * Sacred Waters: Holy Wells and Water Lore in Britain and Ireland;
 * The History and Legends of Old Castles & Abbeys;
 * Illustrated Tales of Cheshire;
 * The Church of England magazine: Volume from 1871;

Holt

 * Gatehouse;
 * Wrexham County Borough Museum: information site with good 3D reconstructions;
 * Looking inside the medieval Holt Castle;
 * Holt Castle, or Castle Lion, Denbighshire: from Mythical Britain;
 * 3D model of Holt Castle in Richard's time: really impressive;

Not avaiable online



 * "Exploring Beeston's ancient well", Cheshire Life (October 1937), 16–17;


 * "The passages explored", Cheshire Life (November 1937), 7–9;


 * "Chronicles of the Revolution, 1397-1400: The Reign of Richard II";

Postscript: the succession issue
The question of succession after Edward III's death in 1377 is said to be one cause of the Wars of the Roses, although the generalised idea that Richard II was somehow to blame for that later conflict is no longer prevalent amongst historians. Edward III had four surviving legitimate sons: Lionel, Duke of Clarence (called 'Lionel of Antwerp' 1338–1368); John, Duke of Lancaster (called 'John of Gaunt'; 1340–1399); Edmund, Duke of York (called 'Edmund of Langley' 1341–1402); and Thomas, Duke of Gloucester (1355–1397). Although Edward III's succession seemed secure, there was a "sudden narrowing in the direct line of descent" near the end of his reign. His eldest son Edward, the Black Prince, had died the year before. Edward III was succeeded on the throne by the Black Prince's only surviving son Richard II, who was only 10 years old. Richard's claim to the throne was based on the principle that the son of an elder brother had priority in the succession over his uncles. Since Richard was a minor, had no siblings, and had three living uncles at the time of Edward III's death, there was considerable uncertainty about who would be next in line for the succession after Richard.



If Richard II died without legitimate offspring, his successors by primogeniture would be the descendants of Lionel of Antwerp, Edward III's second son. Clarence's only daughter, Philippa, 5th Countess of Ulster, married into the Mortimer family and had a son, Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March (1374–1398), who technically had the best claim to succeed. However, a legal decree issued by Edward III in 1376 introduced some complexity into the question of who would ultimately take the throne. The letters patent he issued limited the right of succession to male heirs, which placed his third son, John of Gaunt, ahead of Clarence's descendants because the Mortimer line of descent passed through a daughter.

Henry Bolinbroke, later Henry IV seems to get little space in the history books. Most just note that he usurped (the terrible) Richard II and was succeeded by (the wonderful) Henry V. His problem seems to have been that he was a successful usurper. Even Shakespeare portrays him as a somewhat wooden character, but cannot quite pin the murder of Richard II on him. Perhaps as a usurper it was politically incorrect to give him any good words at all, either in plays or history books. Looking at it from the other side Henry can be interpreted as seeing kingship as entailing responsibility not just authority. He lands in England with a small force and everyone flocks to him rather than take the side of his bullying and vengeful cousin Richard. In the latter part of his reign Henry was struck by a disfiguring disease, which forced him to become a recluse, and which later historians would hint as being due to his ursupation of Richard. The king's health steadily deteriorated, he contracted a form of skin disease, variously considered to be leprosy, syphilis or psoriasis. He is said to have developed a large tumour under his nose, while his body was covered in suppurating sores. His son Henry V partly took over government but disagreements between father and son led to political conflict between the two. After his father's death in 1413, Henry assumed control of the country and asserted the pending English claim to the French throne. Having effectively defeated France he was declared heir to the French throne. Everything seemed to point to the formation of a union between the kingdoms, in the person of Henry. However, he died suddenly two years later (1422) and was succeeded by his only child, the infant Henry VI.

Matters came to a head in 1455, when the houses of Lancaster and York started to fight each other in earnest. In many ways the succession issue was not the major cause of the war, as a more pressing issue was the fact that Henry VI, who had become king at the age of nine-months in 1422 was having bouts of insanity. The "last man standing" after that conflict was the much maligned Richard III. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485), the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England. The unification of the houses of York and Lancaster by the marriage of Henry VII to Elizabeth of York ended future discussion as to whether the descendants of the fourth son of Edward III, Edmund, Duke of York, through marriage to Philippa, heiress of the second son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, had a superior or inferior claim to those of the third son John of Gaunt, who had held the throne for three generations.