Richard II of England
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Richard II, also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward, Prince of Wales, and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father died in 1376, leaving Richard as heir apparent to his grandfather, King Edward III; upon the latter's death, the 10-year-old Richard succeeded to the throne.
Portrait at Westminster Abbey, mid-1390s
Edward, Prince of Wales, kneeling before his father, King Edward III
Coronation of Richard II aged ten in 1377, from the Recueil des croniques of Jean de Wavrin. British Library, London.
Richard II watches Wat Tyler's death and addresses the peasants in the background: taken from the Gruuthuse manuscript of Froissart's Chroniques (c. 1475)
Peasants' Revolt
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The Peasants' Revolt, also named Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black Death in the 1340s, the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years' War, and instability within the local leadership of London.
The boy-king Richard II meets the rebels on 14 June 1381, in a miniature from a 1470s copy of Jean Froissart's Chronicles.
English soldiers landing in Normandy, c. 1380–1400, during the Hundred Years' War
Peasant longbowmen at practice, from the Luttrell Psalter, c. 1320–1340
15th-century representation of the cleric John Ball encouraging the rebels; Wat Tyler is shown in red, front left