Richard II and the Invention of the Pocket Handkerchief

It has long been thought that the deposition and murder of King Richard II was a personal tragedy, and that “Richard's personality—his natural or inherited character considered apart from the important actions of his life—was the chief cause of his downfall.” In more recent years the aesthetic side of his Richard's character has assumed a new importance in explanations of his fall. Richard H. Jones, for example, has noted that “in any case the fundamental obligation of the medieval king was that he should lead his arrays on the field of battle. Yet, Richard was slight of frame and sensitive of disposition. His tastes were aesthetic rather than athletic.” As well, in the view of Bertie Wilkinson,the reign of King Richard II…ended in utter failure…because he himself was lacking in precisely the qualities he most needed and which his grandfather fortunately had….Instead of the instincts of the warrior he possessed only the more exotic and less popular qualities of the aesthete, loving art, literature, and music, and the pleasures of the mind.