De Re Militari | Book Reviews

Douglas Biggs

Three Armies in Britain:
The Irish Campaign of Richard II and the Usurpation of Henry IV, 1397-99

History of Warfare 39. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006. xvi+300pp. ISBN 978 90 04 15215 1. €110/US$164.

Douglas Biggs, who teaches at Waldorf College, has undertaken to examine with care the curious circumstances that brought into existence three armies under different commanders operating simultaneously in Britain at the end of the 1390s. The king of England at the time was Richard II, son of Edward the Black Prince and grandson of King Edward III. One of the armies was commanded by King Richard. A second army was commanded by Edmund of Langley, earl of Cambridge and duke of York, who was a son of Edward III and therefore an uncle of King Richard. The third army of the book title was commanded by Henry of Bolingbroke, earl of Derby, duke of Hereford and son and heir of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, who was himself a son of Edward III and, like Edmund of Langley, a younger brother of the Black Prince.

Richard II was concerned to preserve the presence of English royal authority in a portion of Ireland and led a military expedition to Ireland for that purpose in 1394. Within a few years the situation in Ireland caused the king to prepare for a second Irish campaign. Biggs discusses with efficiency the issue of the English lordship of Ireland during the 1390s that led to King Richard raising an expeditionary force in England for service in Ireland in 1399. The impression Biggs has of Richard as a military commander is a positive one, a man who planned his Irish campaign of 1399 with care and who made wise decisions as events unfolded. Surviving manuscript sources have enabled Biggs to compile substantial lists of the men recruited into Richard’s military and domestic service (pp. 63-80).

Before Richard II set out on his second Irish expedition in May 1399, there were other matters that influenced the course of events. To ignore a very exciting story, let it simply be said that Henry of Bolingbroke incurred the wrath of his cousin the king and found himself banished from the kingdom in September 1398. Bolingbroke went into exile in France and was away from England when his father, John of Gaunt, the wealthiest nobleman in the kingdom, died in February 1399. The next month Richard declared forfeit to the crown the Lancastrian inheritance that should have passed from John of Gaunt to his son Henry of Bolingbroke. Disinheritance turned Bolingbroke into a determined enemy of the king, and made him a figurehead for others who opposed Richard as well as for those who feared that if the great inheritance of Lancaster could not pass to its rightful heir then all inheritances were in jeopardy.

Richard seems not to have appreciated the potential threat posed by Henry of Bolingbroke, and Biggs finds this reasonable. Biggs has a low opinion of Bolingbroke, calling him “overly impulsive” (p. 11), a “playboy” (p. 15), the “wayward cousin” (p. 51), the “prodigal son” (p. 92), a “pliant, affable, political non-entity” (p. 173), a man “disinterested in politics and pliant in person” (p. 231), one who had “never in his life taken an interest in politics” (p. 234), a “political neophyte” (p. 271), “a wastrel with little political ability” (p. 204), a man with “little appreciation for economy” (p. 177) and who had “no head for politics or ability to govern” (p. 266). This is the evaluation of the man who became King Henry IV, replacing Richard II, who in contrast to Henry, Biggs evaluates as a “skilled politician” (p. 240) who “had all his wits about him” (p. 248) and who was “not a mentally incompetent tyrant” (p. 276). Biggs is offering a revisionist interpretation both of the king who lost his throne (Richard II) and also of the cousin (Henry IV) who replaced him, held the throne, and passed it on to his son Henry V.

The revisionism of Biggs is not likely to go unchallenged. Many historians have concluded that Richard II, especially near the end of his reign, sought to exercise an unfettered regality that could be called tyranny. Many have also wondered about Richard’s judgment in political matters. This reviewer joined the discussion on the issue in “Richard II: A Case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder?,” Medieval Life 12 (1999): 19-22. Biggs did not accept any such suggestion, but simply dismissed the idea that Richard suffered from any personality disorder or form of insanity (pp. 6, 17, 268). Biggs does have a point that Henry of Bolingbroke had limited involvement in political affairs before his sentence of exile. There are explanations beyond his being a wastrel. John of Gaunt was the head of the House of Lancaster, and Henry correctly stood in his father’s shadow. For two periods in the 1390s Henry was out of the kingdom on crusades and pilgrimage.

It is also possible that Richard simply disliked or distrusted his younger cousin [Ian Mortimer, “Henry IV’s Date of Birth and the Royal Maundy,” Historical Research 80 (2007): 567-76.] and gave him little scope on the political stage. In circumstances where thoughts of dynasty were of paramount importance, Henry was a success and Richard was not. Richard was childless, while Henry and his wife Mary Bohun had two daughters and a male heir with three spares before her death in 1394. Richard cannot have been unaware that his grandfather, Edward III, had provided that the crown would descend in the male line and that should Richard die childless, then Henry of Bolingbroke was in line to be king [Michael J. Bennett, “Edward III’s Entail and the Succession to the Crown, 1376-1471,” English Historical Review 113 (1998): 580-609; Ian Mortimer, “Richard II and the Succession to the Crown,” History 91 (2006): 320-36]. Bolingbroke’s lack of presence on the political scene could plausibly be explained by jealousy on the part of King Richard or Richard’s fear that too much involvement in politics might make Bolingbroke eager to hasten the succession.

Part of Richard’s planning for his 1399 Irish expedition was to provide for the defense of the realm during what was intended to be a prolonged royal absence. The person left in charge of the kingdom was Richard’s uncle, Edmund of Langley. Biggs described Edmund as a man with military experience, closely allied with his older brother John of Gaunt before his death, “and in poor health” (p. 132) in 1399. When Henry of Bolingbroke invaded in 1399, Edmund of Langley made a valiant attempt to raise an army to face the invasion threat. It was a difficult task because it had to be done quickly and because a great many able military men who were faithful to the king were with the king in Ireland. Duke Edmund did raise an army, and Biggs has diligently compiled information about the commanders and retinues brought into service by Duke Edmund (pp. 151-56). Biggs also traces the movements of the army under Edmund’s command until it dispersed, for at some point, and we shall never likely know just when, Edmund decided to abandon his responsibilities to his nephew the king and give his allegiance to his nephew Bolingbroke.

Henry of Bolingbroke, aided by such allies as the exiled Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, brought a modest army from France to England. Biggs argues persuasively that Henry landed at Bridlington in Yorkshire rather than at the traditionally accepted Yorkshire landing spot of Ravenspur, although late in his narrative (p. 250) Biggs speaks of the “landing at Ravenspur.” Biggs also argues persuasively that the date of Bolingbroke’s landing was 28 June rather than the traditionally accepted date of 4 July. Henry of Bolingbroke gathered supporters as he moved to confront King Richard, and of special importance were Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland, Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, and his son Henry Percy known as Hotspur. Biggs has compiled a listing of the captains who with certainty came into the service of Bolingbroke (pp. 261-62).

As may readily be appreciated, Richard in Ireland was distressed to learn of Bolingbroke’s invasion of England and did not have the shipping available to transport his entire army back to England for a confrontation. From Ireland Richard crossed to Milford Haven in south Wales and wandered through Wales vainly seeking support until his final surrender to Archbishop Arundel and the earl of Northumberland at Conway Castle in August. Just when Bolingbroke decided to shift from seeking his inheritance to seeking the crown as well is a matter of endless speculation, but that he did so and was successful in the endeavor is a certainty. Given the political instinct for fidelity to the reigning king, it has long been a troubling question as to why Richard’s support was so limited in the face of Bolingbroke’s invasion. What did even Edmund of Langley find so insufferable about Richard that he would willingly turn traitor and support Bolingbroke? The answer Biggs provides is that Bolingbroke put together a “coalition of the disaffected,” (pp. 6, 15, 19, 87, etc.) and the coalition overthrew Richard, who made wrong decisions in the face of Bolingbroke’s invasion of England.

In the aftermath of the deposition of Richard II and Bolingbroke becoming King Henry IV, there were many changes in governmental personnel at all levels. Biggs traces many of these changes and notes, as would be expected, that many men appointed by the new king had associations with the House of Lancaster. What Biggs has discovered is not, unfortunately, to be followed by using the index of the book. The index of Three Armies in Britain consists primarily of names of persons, and this reviewer compiled a list of over one hundred names of persons given significant mention in the text who do not appear in the index. There are other persons listed in the index who are mentioned in the text more often than the index indicates. For example, Sir John Pelham is of interest because his was one of five life-histories included in this reviewer’s Lancastrian Englishmen (Washington, D.C., 1981), and the index provides seven references while ignoring four others. Such an example could be multiplied. Readers are therefore cautioned that the index is woefully inadequate.

There are other worries about the text. There are dozens of instances of additional words appearing in sentences, of words obviously missing from the text, and of sentences that are garbled. There are grammar problems that can be overlooked, as with the erratic use of commas, but purists will be annoyed by numerous split infinitives and the frequent opening of sentences with “But,…” or less often with “Yet,….” We confront young Henry Percy as Henry “hotspur” Percy (p. 50), Henry ‘hotspur’ Percy (p. 106), ‘hotspur’ (p. 120), Hotspur (p. 146), or Henry Percy (p. 195). Surely Shakespeare made Hotspur a known proper noun, as did A. W. Boardman’s Hotspur (Stroud, 2003). To mention only additional proper nouns, there are also misspellings: Ruthin is consistently ‘Ruthien’ (as on pp. 33, 40, 49, 291), Tywi is often ‘Twyi’ (as on pp. 212-13), Clare becomes ‘Claire’ (p. 32), Llandeilo becomes ‘Llandelio’ (p. 209), while Llawhaden seemingly becomes both ‘Llanwaden’ (p. 209) and ‘Llanwhaden’ (p. 219).

The reason for calling attention to some of the many obvious missteps in the text is not only to decry the lack of a copy editor’s attention and the general carelessness in Brill’s production as publisher, but also to raise the issue of how trustworthy might be information Biggs has drawn from unpublished manuscript sources that cannot readily be corrected or confirmed, such as the size of retinues, numbers of men-at-arms and archers, and wages paid. It is disconcerting that a worthy project of research, the three armies operating in Britain in 1399, should be so unworthily presented to the public.

Compton Reeves

Professor Emeritus, Ohio University <[email protected]>

Page Added: February 2008