Lessons on Famous Men & Their Character

Mentioned in 

"The Young Man and Himself"
by James Kirtley

The following are, unless otherwise noted, articles excerpted from various sources as noted below, including: Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Compton's NewMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.,
www.answers.com, www.wikipedia.com and others.

 and others.

KINGSLEY, Charles (1819-75).

 In his own lifetime the clergyman Charles Kingsley was known chiefly as a social reformer. Today he is beloved by children for his delightful fairy story 'The Water-Babies'.

Charles Kingsley was born on June 12, 1819, in Devonshire, England. His father was a clergyman. Charles attended King's College in London. Later he entered Cambridge University. In 1842 he went as curate to the parish of Eversley, in Hampshire, and soon was appointed rector. He held the position for the rest of his life, except for brief intervals.

Kingsley risked his position in the church with his speeches and writings in behalf of the working class. He originated the term sweatshop system to describe abusive working conditions in the manufacturing industries. He associated himself with the Christian Socialists, a group that proposed radical solutions for England's industrial problems. His 'Alton Locke', published in 1850, is a novel dealing with social problems. Kingsley died on Jan. 23, 1875, and was buried in his own churchyard at Eversley.

He is chiefly remembered for his historical novels. 'Hypatia' (1853) deals with the former glories of Alexandria, in Egypt. 'Westward Ho!' (1855) tells the story of a knight in the days of Elizabeth I.

For his children Kingsley wrote delightful stories, such as 'The Heroes', a retelling of the old Greek myths. 'The Water-Babies' (1863) is a fairy tale and nature story combined. Its hero, a little chimney sweep, is changed by the fairies into a water baby and learns about the habits of the water creatures.

HENRY, Joseph (1797-1878).

 One of the first great American scientists after Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Henry was responsible for numerous inventions and discovered several major principles of electromagnetism, including the oscillatory nature of electric discharge and self-inductance, a phenomenon of primary importance in electronic circuitry.

Joseph Henry was born in Albany, N.Y., on Dec. 17, 1797. He came from a poor family and had little schooling. In 1829, while working as a schoolteacher at the Albany Academy, he developed a method greatly increasing the power of an electromagnet. In 1829 he constructed the first electric motor.

Although Michael Faraday is generally given credit for discovering electromagnetic induction in 1831, Henry had observed the phenomenon a year earlier (see Faraday; Electricity). In 1831, before he assisted F.B. Morse in the development of the telegraph, Henry built and successfully operated a telegraph of his own design (see Morse). Henry never patented any of his many devices because he believed that the discoveries of science were for the common benefit of all humanity.

Henry became a professor at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) in 1832. He continued his researches and discovered the laws on which the transformer is based. He conducted an experiment that was apparently the first use of radio waves across a distance. He also showed that sunspots radiate less heat than the general solar surface.

In 1846 Henry became the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where he initiated a nationwide weather reporting system. He was a primary organizer of the National Academy of Science and its second president. He died in Washington, D.C., on May 13, 1878. In 1892 his name was given to the unit of electrical inductance, the henry.

GLADSTONE, William (1809-98).

 After his graduation from Oxford in 1831, William Gladstone wanted to become a clergyman in the Church of England. But his strong-willed father, Sir John Gladstone, insisted that he enter politics. For 60 years William Gladstone served the government almost continuously, achieving one of the most brilliant state careers in British history. Four times during the reign of Queen Victoria he was prime minister.

William Gladstone was born in Liverpool on Dec. 29, 1809. His father was a wealthy merchant of Scottish descent and had rich plantations in the West Indies. He went to Eton, where he did not particularly distinguish himself, but at Oxford he demonstrated his great intellectual abilities by receiving first honors in classics and mathematics.

At the age of 24 Gladstone was elected to the House of Commons as a Conservative. He was a striking speaker. His powerful yet musical voice commanded attention. Although many of his speeches resounded with classical phrases, they often appealed to the working class.

Two relatively minor posts gave him invaluable experience. In 1835 he became undersecretary for the colonies. His tireless investigation of colonial problems persuaded him that colonies should have local self-government. This strain of liberalism appeared increasingly in Gladstone's thinking. In 1841 he became vice-president of the Board of Trade.

Two years later, as president of the board, he entered the cabinet, where he fought for free trade. His financial knowledge enabled him in 1852 to reveal the flaws in the budget presented by Benjamin Disraeli, who was chancellor of the exchequer. The rivalry between these two great British statesmen lasted for some 30 years.

In the 1860s the more liberal Whigs or Liberals, as they came to be called attracted some of the free-trade Conservatives. Gladstone, originally a Tory, or Conservative, was among those who moved toward Liberalism. The Liberals' power increased when the electorate was broadened in 1867 to include workingmen in towns.

Gladstone helped to bring about most of the great British social and political reforms of the late 19th century. He was responsible for the first state aid to public elementary schools, for opening Oxford and Cambridge universities to men of all religions, and for introducing the secret ballot. Most of all he is remembered for his Irish reforms.

Ireland's misery and discontent were best solved, Gladstone believed, by admitting and correcting the wrongs done by England. Although most of the people in Ireland were Roman Catholics, they were forced to pay tithes to the established Protestant church of Ireland. Gladstone led in passing an act disestablishing the Irish Protestant church in 1869. He was responsible for the first Irish Land Act in 1870. This protected landless farmers from eviction and helped them buy their farms from the absentee landlords. Finally, in 1886 he introduced the first Irish Home Rule Bill, which split the Liberal party. Deserted by many Liberals, Gladstone was forced to resign as prime minister, and the bill was defeated. In his last term as prime minister, he introduced a second Home Rule Bill. It failed in the House of Lords, but his effort was important as a first step toward both Irish independence and the limitation of the Lords' veto power.

Gladstone explained his change from Tory to extreme Liberal thus: "I was brought up to distrust and dislike liberty: I learned to believe in it." When he was 85, approaching blindness forced him to retire from public life. He died at his home in Hawarden Castle, Wales, in 1898. He had served as prime minister from 1868 to 1874; from 1880 to 1885; from February to July 1886; and from 1892 to 1894.

DE QUINCEY, Thomas (1785-1859).

 Although the collected writings of English essayist and critic Thomas De Quincey consist of more than 14 volumes, he published very little during his lifetime. He is remembered basically for one book, 'The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater', which brought him immediate fame when it was published in the 1820s.

De Quincey was born in Manchester, England, on Aug. 15, 1785. Feeling alienated from his family, he ran away from home at 17, first to Wales, then to London. He returned home in 1803, and his family sent him to Worcester College at Oxford, where he decided to become a writer. While in school he began taking opium to relieve the pain of facial neuralgia. By 1813 he confessed that he had become a "regular and confirmed opium-eater."

In 1817 he married Margaret Simpson, with whom he had already had a son. He continued to write a great deal, but his financial situation became desperate because he published almost nothing. At the invitation of the editors of London Magazine, he wrote two articles that later appeared as a book, 'The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'. This account of his addiction was rewritten in an 1856 edition. He continued to take opium for the rest of his life, but in the 1856 version his interest in the drug centered on its medical value and on its power "over the grander and more shadowy world of dreams."

De Quincey wrote on many other subjects in the years after the 'Confessions' was first published, including history, economics, and biography. His most important works were his autobiographical writings, literary criticism, and an unfinished book, 'Suspiria de Profundis' (Sighs from the Depths), a work explaining his philosophy of life as a result of his sufferings. His critical efforts focused on the poets John Milton and Alexander Pope as well as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with whom he had been closely associated early in life. De Quincey died in Edinburgh on Dec. 8, 1859.

COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834).

 A major 19th-century English lyrical poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge had a tendency to daydream a weakness, like his later drug addiction, that limited his work. Nevertheless these reveries inspired the exotic imagery that made his poetry so haunting.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on Oct. 21, 1772, in Ottery St. Mary in Devonshire. He was the youngest of ten children of John Coleridge, a headmaster-clergyman who died when the boy was 8. At that early age Samuel had already read the Bible and 'The Arabian Nights'. The next year he was sent to Christ's Hospital, a famous charity school in London.

Deeply in debt while a student at Cambridge University, he ran away to London and enlisted in the Army under an assumed name. After a few months his brothers arranged his discharge, and he returned to Cambridge. But he was restless, stimulated by the ideals of the French Revolution, and left without a degree in 1794. With the poet Robert Southey he planned to go to America to start a utopian community (called a pantisocracy), but they lacked the funds to carry out the project.

Coleridge's daydreams were affected by the use of opium, which he started taking to relieve the pains of neuralgia. This addiction created great difficulties for the poet and is believed by some to have made his work much less than what it might have been. His imaginative power is expressed in his dream poems 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', 'Christabel', and 'Kubla Khan'.

Among Coleridge's close friends were the essayist Charles Lamb and the poet William Wordsworth. Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey were known as the Lake Poets because they lived in the Lake District of England and expressed similar poetic ideals.

In spite of his weaknesses, the personal influence of Coleridge was great. In his last years he was visited by many noted men. "He is the only wonderful man I ever met," said Wordsworth. Thomas Carlyle called him a "king of men."

Today Coleridge is chiefly remembered for the few great poems that he wrote in his earlier years. It has been said of his poetry: "All that he did excellently might be bound up in 20 pages, but it should be bound in pure gold."

Although Coleridge is regarded as principally a poet, he wrote a number of important prose works and was also a prolific and highly regarded journalist. His 'Biographia Literaria' (published in 1817) gives a profound analysis of the nature of poetry and the principles of criticism. His 'Lectures on Shakespeare' (1849) rank him among the greatest of Shakespearean critics. 'Aids to Reflection' (1825) is the most famous of his philosophical and religious works. Coleridge died in Highgate, England, on July 25, 1834.

Everett, Edward (1794-1865),

 U.S. statesman, clergyman, and orator, born in Dorchester, Mass.; Unitarian minister at 20; professor of Greek at Harvard at 21; member of House of Representatives 1825-35; governor of Massachusetts 1836-40; minister to England 1841-45; president of Harvard 1846-49; secretary of state 1852-53; U.S. senator 1853-54; fine example of the scholar in politics

WEBSTER, Noah (1758-1843).

 Few individuals have had as great an influence on the pronunciation and spelling of American English as Noah Webster, a man whose name became synonymous with the word dictionary. (See also Reference Books.)

Noah Webster was born in Hartford, Conn., on Oct. 16, 1758, and educated at Yale College. His studies were briefly interrupted by the Revolutionary War, but he was graduated in 1778. While teaching in Goshen, N.Y., in 1782-83, he became aware of the need for better textbooks. In 1783 he published his 'Grammatical Institute of the English Language', which included 'The American Spelling Book'. The spelling book has never been out of print. In the next 20 years he practiced law in Hartford, edited a newspaper in New York City, and served as a judge and a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives.

In 1807 he began his 'American Dictionary of the English Language'. He spent ten years in the study of English and its connections with other languages. Seven more years were spent in preparation of the dictionary, including a visit to Europe to consult books and scholars in Paris and Cambridge.

The fact that Webster included 12,000 words and between 30,000 and 40,000 definitions that had not appeared in any earlier dictionary indicates how thoroughly he did his task. The work was finished in 1825 and published in 1828 in two volumes. Since that time it has been a standard dictionary of the English language.

In compiling his dictionary Webster had in mind the special needs of his own countrymen. He followed the best American usage of his time, sometimes departing slightly from British forms and choosing the simpler of two spellings whenever he felt warranted in doing so. He spelled wagon, for instance, instead of waggon; develop rather than develope; theater, miter, and center in place of theatre, mitre, and centre; color, labor, and honor instead of colour, labour, and honour (see American Literature).

Webster lived for a time in Amherst, Mass., and was one of the founders of Amherst College. He also served in the Massachusetts legislature. He returned to New Haven in 1822 and died there on May 28, 1843. 

De Koven, Reginald (1859-1920),

U.S. composer, born in Middletown, Conn.; studied in Europe; founded and conducted Washington Symphony Orchestra; music critic for New York publications.

Joseph II (1741-90), 

Holy Roman emperor, son of Maria Theresa; benevolent despot; upset old customs and provoked discontent and revolt; died disillusioned and unhappy.

Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Compton's NewMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Richard II of England

source = http://www.answers.com/topic/richard-ii-of-england 
Text only copy and minimal pictures were included, so please go to the link to see actual page :-) 

For the play by Shakespeare, see Richard II. 
Richard II -- By the Grace of God, King of England and France and Lord of Ireland 

Reign 22 June 1377 - 29 September 1399 
Coronation 16 July 1377 
Born 6 January 1367 
Bordeaux 
Died 14 February 1400 
Pontefract Castle 
Buried Westminster 
Predecessor Edward III 
Successor Henry IV 
Consort Anne of Bohemia (1366-1394)
Isabella of Valois (1389-1410) 
Issue Died without posterity 
Royal House Plantagenet 
Father Edward, the Black Prince
(1330-1376) 
Mother Joan of Kent (1328-1385) 
Richard II (6 January 1367 – 14 February 1400) was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan "The Fair Maid of Kent". He was born in Bordeaux and became his father's successor when his elder brother died in infancy. He was deposed in 1399 and died the next year.

Early life
Richard II watches Wat Tyler's death and addresses the peasants in the background. Because Richard was born at Epiphany and three kings were present at his birth, a legend arose that despite being a second son, he was destined for great things. Certainly he became heir to the throne of England, and was created Prince of Wales, when the Black Prince died after a wasting illness in 1376. The following year his grandfather King Edward III of England also died, making Richard king at the age of ten.

During his minority, three 'continual councils' lasting from June 1377 to January 1380 were responsible for the general governing of the country. In reality John of Gaunt, his uncle, exerted considerable influence on matters of importance (despite not being a member of any of the three councils) especially with regard to foreign policy. During that time, the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 brought Richard to prominence at the age of fourteen. It fell to him personally to negotiate with Wat Tyler, the other rebel leaders, and their massed armed ranks of several thousand. He promised pardon to the leaders of the rebellion, but this was not honoured - they were arrested and executed. Although it is now generally accepted that Richard was not sympathetic to the rebels' demands, it remains doubtful whether Richard intended the arrest to occur, or if he was forced to go against his word by militant sections of the English nobility. Either way, his tactics had the effect of dispersing the rebel forces from the streets of London back to their homes in the country, thus ending the disorder. The young king had shown great promise; but as he matured into adulthood he revealed an inability to make the deals and compromises essential to fourteenth-century politics and diplomacy, leading eventually to his deposition in 1399.

On 22 January 1383, he married Anne of Bohemia, daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Elizabeth of Pomerania; but they had no children, and she died on 7 June 1394. Richard is said to have been devoted to her. 
On 31 October 1396, he married the seven year old Princess Isabella of Valois, daughter of Charles VI of France and Isabeau de Bavière; that marriage was also without issue.


First crisis of 1387-88

House of Plantagenet 
Armorial of Plantagenet 

England's Royal Sovereigns:

Edward III 
Edward, Prince of Wales 
Lionel, Duke of Clarence 
John, Duke of Lancaster 
Edmund, Duke of York 
Thomas, Duke of Gloucester 
Joan of England 
Isabella, Countess of Bedford 
Grandchildren 
Richard II 
Philippa, Countess of Ulster 
Philippa, Queen of Portugal 
Elizabeth, Baroness Fanhope and Milbroke 
Henry IV 
Katherine, Queen of Castile 
Edward, Duke of York 
Richard, Earl of Cambridge 
Constance of York 
Anne, Countess of Eu 
Richard II 


As Richard began to take over the business of government himself, he sidelined many of the established nobles, such as Thomas de Beauchamp, 12th Earl of Warwick, Richard Fitzalan, 11th Earl of Arundel, and Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester. Instead he turned to his inner circle of favourites for his council, men such as his beloved Robert de Vere, 9th Earl of Oxford and Michael de la Pole, whom Richard created Earl of Suffolk and made chancellor of England. It is possible that Richard had a homosexual relationship with de Vere; Thomas Walsingham called it 'obscene' [1] and 'not without a degree of improper intimacy' [2]. The nobles he had snubbed formed the head of a group of the disaffected who called themselves the Lords Appellant. The central tenet of their appeal was continued war with France against Richard's policy of peace, an aim that many of them pursued in the interests of personal gain rather than the interests of the nation.

In 1387, the English Parliament, under pressure from the Lords Appellant, demanded that Richard remove his unpopular councillors. When he refused, he was told that since he was still a minor, a Council of Government would rule in his place. Richard had the Earl of Arundel, leader of the Lords Appellant, arrested; but Richard's small army led by de Vere was overpowered by the forces of the Lords Appellant outside Oxford, and Richard was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Subsequently Richard agreed to hold a parliament in order to resolve the Appellants' grievances; the unpopular councillors were forcibly disposed of (eight being executed for treason and the others exiled) in the Merciless Parliament of 1388. Richard was forced to accept new councillors and was temporarily stripped of almost all his authority.


A fragile peace
In the years which followed, Richard appeared to have heeded the lessons of 1387, and he became more cautious in his dealings with the barons. In 1390, a tournament was held to celebrate Richard’s coming of age and the apparent new-found harmony since Richard's uncle John of Gaunt's return from Spain. Richard’s team of knights, The Harts, all wore the identical symbol – a white hart – which Richard had chosen. Richard himself favoured genteel interests like fine food, insisting spoons be used at his court and inventing the handkerchief. He beautified Westminster Hall with a new ceiling and was a keen and cultured patron of the arts, architecture and literature. In this sense, he can be seen as an early example of what was later held up as a model Renaissance prince. But many began to see him as another Edward II, somehow unworthy of his military Plantagenet heritage, given his delicate 'unkingly' tastes. Richard also lacked the thirst for battle of his grandfather: his Scottish campaign in 1385 was not decisive, and he signed a 28-year truce with France in 1396 which was hugely unpopular at home in spite of the dividends that peace brought to the kingdom.

Richard's commitment to peace rather than war can also be seen in his first expedition to Ireland in 1394. He put forward a sensible policy based on the understanding that the Irish rebels were motivated largely by the grievances they had against absentee English landowners and that they were perhaps entitled to some redress in this regard. Those whom he labelled[sic] the "wild Irish" - native Irish who had not joined the rebel cause - he treated with kindness and respect.

In spite of his forward-thinking attitude toward culture and the arts, Richard seems to have developed a passionate devotion to the old ideal of the Divine Right of Kings, feeling that he should be unquestioned and unfettered in the way he ran the kingdom. He became a stickler for tradition, insisting on being addressed as ‘majesty’ and ‘highness’ and sitting alone for hours wearing his crown; those addressing him were required to direct their eyes downwards in deference. In The Wilton Diptych he was portrayed alongside the Anglo-Saxon saint-kings St Edmund and Edward the Confessor, which reflected not only his attitude toward his own kingship but his genuine religious devotion.


Second crisis of 1397–99 and Richard's deposition
In 1397 Richard decided to rid himself of the Lords Appellant who were confining his power, on the pretext of an aristocratic plot. Richard had the Earl of Arundel executed and Warwick exiled, while Gloucester died in captivity. Finally able to exert his autocratic authority over the kingdom, he purged all those he saw as not totally committed to him, fulfilling his own idea of becoming God’s chosen prince.

Richard was still childless. The heir to the throne was Roger Mortimer the Earl of March, grandson of Lionel of Antwerp, and after his death in 1398, his seven-year-old son Edmund Mortimer. However, Richard was more concerned with Gaunt's son and heir Henry Bolingbroke, whom he banished for ten years on a spurious pretext in 1399. After Gaunt's death, Richard also confiscated Bolingbroke's lands. Some historians have seen this as an act designed to bring greater harmony to England. Bolingbroke's inheritance was huge, large enough to be seen as a small state within the greater state of England and thus an obvious obstacle on the path of a unified and peaceful England. In any event, Richard was only following the policy of his forebears Henry II and Edward I in seizing the lands of a powerful noble to centralize power in the crown.

Arms of Richard II

At this point Richard left for a campaign in Ireland, allowing Bolingbroke the opportunity to land in Yorkshire with an army provided by the King of France to reclaim his father's lands. Richard's autocratic ways, deeply unpopular with many nobles, facilitated Bolingbroke's gaining control quickly of most of southern and eastern England. Bolingbroke had originally just wanted his inheritance and a reimposition of the power of the Lords Appellant, accepting Richard's right to be king and March's right to succeed him. But by the time Richard finally arrived back on the mainland in Wales, a tide of discontent had swept England. In the King's absence, Bolingbroke, who was generally well-liked, was being urged to take the crown himself.

Richard was captured at Flint Castle in Wales and taken to London, where crowds pelted him with rubbish. He was held in the Tower of London and eventually forced to abdicate. He was brought, on his request, before parliament, where he officially renounced his crown and thirty-three official charges (including ‘vengeful sentences given against lords’) were made against him. He was not permitted to answer the charges. Parliament then accepted Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV) as the new king.

Richard was placed in Pontefract Castle, and died there in 1400. He is believed to have been killed by starvation (perhaps he refused to take nourishment and starved himself) or otherwise murdered. Richard was dead by 17 February.

Richard's body was displayed in the old St Paul's Cathedral for all to see that he was really dead, and he was then buried in Kings Langley Church. His coffin was badly designed, however, and it proved easy for disrespectful visitors to place their hands through several openings in the coffin and interfere with what was inside. It is said that a schoolboy walked off with Richard's jawbone. Rumours that Richard was still alive persisted well into the reign of Henry V, who decided to have his body moved to its final resting place in Westminster Abbey with much ceremony in 1413.


Richard as a collector
Richard was a keen collector of precious objects. We know about many of these objects because in 1398/9 they were recorded on a treasure roll, and the treasure roll has survived. It is now held at the British National Archives, Kew, London (reference TNA: PRO, E 101/411/9).

The roll lists 1,026 items of treasure, how much each item weighed, and how much it was worth. We learn, for example, that Richard had eleven gold crowns, 157 gold cups, and 320 precious religious objects including bells, chalices and reliquaries.

Each item also has a brief description. The only object listed on the roll that certainly survives is a crown now held in the Schatzkammer der Residenz, Munich, Germany. The roll describes the crown as "…set with eleven sapphires, thirty-three balas rubies, a hundred and thirty-two pearls, thirty-three diamonds, eight of them imitation gems".


Association with Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer served as a diplomat and Clerk of The King's Works for Richard II. Their relationship encompassed all of Richard's reign, and was apparently fruitful. In the decade before Chaucer's death, Richard granted him several gifts and annuities, including: twenty pounds a year for life in 1394, and 252 gallons (or, one tun) of wine per year in 1397. Chaucer died on 25 October 1400.


In literature
Richard is the main character in Richard II, a play written by William Shakespeare around 1595.


See also
The Wilton Diptych 
John of Gaunt 
Robert de Vere 
Lords Appellant 
John Waltham 

Notes
^ Alison Weir (1998). Lancaster & York - The War of the Roses. Pimlico, ISBN 0-7126-6674-5 p.30 
^ Historia Anglicana by Thomas Walsingham, fl. 1360-1420 and edited by Henry Thomas Riley. Vol I , Parts 1 & 2 in 1863-1864. 

References
Harvey, John (1948). The Plantagenets, 1154-1485 (Revised Edition 1959), London: Collins Clear Type Press. 
Saul, Nigel (1997). Richard II, New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07003-9 
Schama, Simon, A History of Britain 1 3000BC-AD1603 At the Edge of the World?, London: BBC Worldwide Ltd, ISBN 0-563-48714-3 
Alison Weir (1998). Lancaster & York - The Wars of the Roses. Pimlico, ISBN 0-7126-6674-5 

External links [available on answers.com link above.]
Historia Anglicana by Thomas Walsingham, fl. 1360-1420 and edited by Henry Thomas Riley. Vol I , Parts 1 & 2 in 1863-1864. In Latin with English marginal comments and footnotes - scanned from originals. 
Richard II's Treasure a site about Richard II's treasure from the Institute of Historical Research and Royal Holloway, University of London. The content was written by academics, and contains a bibliography and an image gallery. 
Preceded by
Edward III King of England
1377–1399 Succeeded by
Henry IV 
Lord of Ireland
1377–1399 
English claimant to France
1377–1399 
Preceded by
Edward, the Black Prince Prince of Wales
1376–1377 Succeeded by
Henry V of England 

Monarchs of England
Pre-conquest
Alfred the Great • Edward the Elder • Athelstan the Glorious • Edmund the Magnificent • Edred • Edwy the Fair • Edgar the Peacable • Edward the Martyr • Ethelred the Unready • Sweyn Forkbeard*† • Edmund Ironside • Canute the Great*† • Harold Harefoot • Harthacanute (Canute the Hardy)* • Edward the Confessor • Harold Godwinson • Edgar the Outlaw
Post-conquest
William I the Conqueror • William II Rufus • Henry I Beauclerc • Stephen • Matilda • Henry II • Richard I the Lionheart • John Lackland • Henry III • Edward I Longshanks • Edward II • Edward III • Richard II • Henry IV Bolingbroke • Henry V • Henry VI • Edward IV • Edward V • Richard III • Henry VII • Henry VIII‡ • Edward VI‡ • Lady Jane Grey‡ • Mary I‡ • Elizabeth I‡ • James I‡§ • Charles I‡§ • Interregnum • Charles II‡§ • James II‡§ • William III‡§¶ & Mary II‡§ • William III‡§¶ • Anne‡§

* also Monarch of Denmark • † also Monarch of Norway • ‡ also Monarch of Ireland • § also Monarch of Scotland • ¶ also Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel and Drenthe

Dukes of Cornwall
HRH The Duke of Cornwall

Edward VIII (1910-1936) · George V (1901-1910)· Edward VII (1841-1901) · George IV (1762-1820) · Prince Frederick (1727-1751) · George II (1714-1727) · The Old Pretender (1688-1689) · Charles II (1630-1649) · Charles James (1629) · Charles I (1612-1625) · Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1603-1612) · Edward VI (1537-1547) · Edward Tudor (1536) · Henry Tudor (1534) · Henry Tudor (1514) · Henry Tudor (1511) · Henry VIII (1502-1509) · Arthur, Prince of Wales (1486-1502) · Edward of Middleham (1483-1484) · Edward V (1470-1483) · Edward of Westminster (1453-1471) · Henry VI (1421-1422) · Henry V (1399-1413) · Richard II (1376-1377) · Edward, the Black Prince (1337-1376)


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Text Document of Richard II King of England

 

From Richard II -- Wm. Shakespere

How sour sweet music is,
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men’s lives,
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To check time broke in a disordered string;
But for the concord of my state and time
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath Time made me his numbering clock.
My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell.