Richard II found himself under siege not once, but twice in his minority. Crowned king at age ten, he was only fourteen when the Peasants' Revolt terrorized London. But he proved himself every bit the Plantagenet successor, facing Wat Tyler and the rebels when all seemed lost.
Alas, his triumph was short-lived, and for the next ten years he struggled to assert himself against his uncles and increasingly hostile nobles. Just like in the days of his great-grandfather Edward II, vengeful magnates strove to separate him from his friends and advisors, and even threatened to depose him if he refused to do their bidding.
The Lords Appellant, as they came to be known, purged the royal household with the help of the Merciless Parliament. They murdered his closest allies, leaving the King alone and defenseless.
He would never forget his humiliation at the hands of his subjects.
Richard's inability to protect his adherents would haunt him for the rest of his life, and he vowed that next time, retribution would be his.
Book Review: A King Under Siege by Mercedes Rochelle
★★★★★
There is something particularly compelling about a king who has the title, the crown and all the ceremony that goes with it, yet discovers that none of those things necessarily mean people will obey him.
That was the aspect of A King Under Siege that fascinated me most.
Richard II comes to the throne as a child, and by the time he is old enough to want control of his own government, everyone around him has become rather comfortable with ruling on his behalf. Richard, unsurprisingly, would quite like them to stop.
Unfortunately, asking nicely isn't really the Plantagenet way.
The novel begins during the Peasants' Revolt, and Richard's youth really struck me here. At fourteen, he is faced with a crisis that would test a far more experienced ruler. Yet some of his actions during those frightening days show remarkable courage. It gives you an intriguing starting point for a character who becomes much more complicated as the novel progresses.
What I particularly liked was watching the gradual deterioration in Richard's relationships with the powerful men around him. There isn't one sudden moment when everything goes wrong. Resentments build. Richard wants independence. His nobles want influence. Friends are promoted, accusations are made, tempers flare and every attempt to gain the upper hand seems to create another problem.
And then there is the royal family.
I found those relationships every bit as interesting as the politics. John of Gaunt can be infuriating, but there are times when Richard needs him. Thomas of Woodstock is another matter entirely. Henry Bolingbroke is still Richard's cousin rather than the man history remembers him as, which gives their scenes together an added fascination. Even John Holland creates an enormous problem when his temper has tragic consequences.
This is a family in which an argument over dinner could probably become a constitutional crisis by breakfast.
I also appreciated that I didn't always know whose side I was on. Richard has legitimate reasons to resent being controlled, but he doesn't always make sensible choices when trying to escape that control. His opponents can raise reasonable concerns about his government and then behave in ways that make their claims to be acting for the good of the realm considerably harder to swallow.
By the time the Lords Appellant take control, the struggle has become something much darker. Richard isn't simply arguing about who gets to advise him anymore. He is discovering how little protection the crown offers when those opposing you have the political and military strength to back up their demands.
For me, this was where the title really came into its own. Richard is quite literally a king under siege, trapped between what he believes his position entitles him to do and what he actually has the power to do.
The final part of the novel was particularly satisfying. Without giving anything away, Richard has spent years being told that he is too young, too inexperienced and too dependent upon others. Eventually, however, young kings grow up.
And Richard has been paying attention.
A King Under Siege is an absorbing opening to The Plantagenet Legacy. It left me with the feeling that everything Richard has endured in these early years matters enormously to the man he is becoming.
I am very curious to meet that man in the next book.
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Mercedes Rochelle
Born in St. Louis, MO, with a degree from University of Missouri, Mercedes Rochelle learned about living history as a re-enactor and has been enamored with historical fiction ever since. A move to New York to do research and two careers ensued, but writing fiction remains her primary vocation. She lives in Sergeantsville, NJ with her husband in a log home they had built themselves.
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