Robert DeVere, Royal Favourite with James Ross

Hi everyone and welcome to episode 304 of the Medieval Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Sibalski. When the power of an entire kingdom rests in the hands of just one man, it's both incredibly valuable and incredibly dangerous to be that man's bestie.

Lavished with gifts, lands and power, medieval royal favourites rarely made it to old age without incurring the animosity of rivals for the king's affection, often with deadly consequences. And the legacies of royal favourites tend to retain that taint of contemporary snark. So maybe it's time we take a second, less jaundiced look at royal favourites, starting

with today's episode. This week I spoke with Dr. James Ross about the life of Robert DeVere, the infamous BFF of King Richard II. James is a reader in late medieval history at the University of Winchester and the author

of several books including John DeVere, 13th Earl of Oxford, 1442-1513, The Foremost Man in the Kingdom, and Henry VI, a good, simple, and innocent man. His new book is Robert DeVere, Earl of Oxford and Duke of Ireland, 1362-1392, The Rise and Fall of a Royal Favourite.

Our conversation on what we know about Robert DeVere, his impact on Richard II and the English Kingdom, and why it's always worth taking a second look at the facts is coming up right after this. Warning, the following Zip Recruiter radio spot you are about to hear is going to

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or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Well, welcome, James, to talk about Robert Devere. This is so exciting for me because this is a guy that seems pivotal to history and yet we don't know all that much about him, or I didn't before I read your book.

So thank you for coming on and telling us about Robert Devere. Thank you very much for asking me. Okay. So before we can understand who this guy is, we need to know when and where we

are because he's attached to the court of Richard II. Which king is Richard the second? So Richard the second is King from 1377 to 1399, the end of the 14th century. He's the grandson of Edward III, the great victor of the first part of the Hundred Years

War, but Richard inherits as a young man. He's only 10 years old when he becomes King and he inherits the throne at a time when England's actually not in a great place. 100 years war is now not going nearly as well as it had done under the glory years of his grandfather

and his early years are a real struggle to try and reassert royal authority. It coincides also his early years with the peasants' revolts. So there's pressure from below. Economic conditions are not as good as they had been earlier. So it's a difficult period in which to start becoming king and the troubles continue throughout Israel. He is, of course, eventually deposed

and quietly murdered in 1400. So it's a tough reign and it's a tough time to be king. Yes. And it's never easy coming to the throne when you're 10 years old. Not speaking from experience, but I imagine it's not very easy to do that. No, a lot of royal minorities, there are problems that are created there and often kings really

struggle to sort of assert their personal authority once they become older. Richard interestingly tries very early, even as an early teenager, he's trying to push his authority and that doesn't go to her be well as we may get into later. Yes. Well, I was speaking to Helen Castor when her book came,

though, The Eagle in the Heart, where she's looking at Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth. And one of the things that she mentions that's probably relevant to the way that Richard sees himself as we start to introduce him

here on this podcast is that people have told him he's great, that he's the saviour, he's going to be the best. And so you can see him playing with power early on, because that's what he's been told he is meant for.

Yeah, absolutely. I would also say actually early on he does have some successes. He shows great personal bravery during the Pesence Revolt in 1381 aged about 14. I think that sets in his mind the fact that he's a great king who's going to do great things and it's never quite as good after that in some respects. Yes. Okay, so we're going to be talking more about Richard as we talk