“Not all the water in the rough rude sea/ Can wash the balm off from an anointed king,” says Richard II in William Shakespeare’s eponymous 16th-century history play.
The real King Richard II of England (1367–1400) believed in the absolute power of the monarch and that he was answerable only to God. This proved to be Richard’s undoing, as his rule was eventually perceived by many of his subjects to have descended into tyranny. In the fall of 1399, Richard was deposed and imprisoned by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV. Richard died a few months later, just after his 33rd birthday. The cause of death was likely starvation, although there have long been rumors that he was murdered.
