The original reasons to doubt Richard’s fitness to rule – his unwise grants of lordships and lucrative… — Ian Mortimer
The original reasons to doubt Richard’s fitness to rule – his unwise grants of lordships and lucrative offices, his lack of military leadership in the face of encroaching enemies and his lack of judgement in political and diplomatic affairs – all remained valid. He continued to advance his favourites and friends without regard for lordly or public opinion.
p. 55Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Modern scholars now see Richard as essentially narcissistic, convinced of his own perfection, and yet deeply insecure. We might elaborate on this slightly and see that he was exceptionally self-conscious: so much so that his own identity, royal percentage, ideas, rivalries and feelings formed not only the core but the limit of his entire world.
p. 136
The question of whether or not Henry was a great king in the fifteenth century, or subsequently, is a distraction. A man’s character may be obscured as much by the acclamation of greatness as by neglect.
p. 3
It is not surprising that Lucia Visconti fell for him [Henry IV]. Considering his crusading, his pilgrimage and his jousting, it is not going too far to say that he had made himself into an exemplary knight, combining the spiritual and chivalric values of his age more completely perhaps than any other Englishman of the late fourteenth century.
p. 115
