Richard II (6 January 1367 – c 14 February 1400), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward, Prince of Wales (later known as the Black Prince), and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father died in 1376, leaving Richard as heir apparent to his grandfather, King Edward III; upon the latter's death, the 10-year-old Richard succeeded to the throne.

During Richard's first years as king, government was in the hands of a series of regency councils, influenced by Richard's uncles John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock. England then faced various problems, most notably the Hundred Years' War. A major challenge of the reign was the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, and the young king played a central part in the successful suppression of this crisis. Less warlike than either his father or grandfather, he sought to bring an end to the Hundred Years' War. A firm believer in the royal prerogative, Richard restrained the power of the aristocracy and relied on a private retinue for military protection instead. In contrast to his grandfather, Richard cultivated a refined atmosphere centred on art and culture at court, in which the king was an elevated figure.

The Peasants' Revolt, also named Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black Death in the 1340s, the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years' War, and instability within the local leadership of London.

The final trigger for the revolt was the intervention of a royal official, John Bampton, in Essex on 30 May 1381. His attempts to collect unpaid poll taxes in Brentwood ended in a violent confrontation, which rapidly spread across the southeast of the country. A wide spectrum of rural society, including many local artisans and village officials, rose up in protest, burning court records and opening the local prisons. The rebels sought a reduction in taxation, an end to serfdom, and the removal of King Richard II's senior officials and law courts.

Robert de Vere was the only son of Thomas de Vere, 8th Earl of Oxford and Maud de Ufford.[1] He succeeded his father as earl in 1371, and was created Marquess of Dublin in 1385. The next year he was created Duke of Ireland. He was thus the first marquess, and only the second non-princely duke (after Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster in 1337), in England. King Richard's close friendship with de Vere was disagreeable to the political establishment.[citation needed] This displeasure was exacerbated by the earl's elevation to the new title of Duke of Ireland in 1386.[2] His relationship with King Richard was very close and rumoured by Thomas Walsingham to be homosexual.

Simon Sudbury (c. 1316[1] – 14 June 1381) was Bishop of London from 1361 to 1375, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1375 until his death, and in the last year of his life Lord Chancellor of England. He met a violent death during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.

The son of Nigel Theobald, Simon of Sudbury (as he later became known) was born at Sudbury in Suffolk, studied at the University of Paris, and became one of the chaplains of Pope Innocent VI,[2] one of the Avignon popes, who in 1356 sent him on a mission to Edward III of England.

In 1361 Sudbury was made Chancellor of Salisbury[2] and in October that year the pope provided him to be Bishop of London, Sudbury's consecration occurring on 20 March 1362.[3] He was soon serving Edward III as an ambassador and in other ways. On 4 May 1375 he succeeded William Whittlesey as archbishop of Canterbury,[4] and during the rest of his life was a partisan of John of Gaunt.

In July 1377, following the death of Edward III in June, Simon of Sudbury crowned the new king, Richard II, at Westminster Abbey, and in 1378 John Wycliffe appeared before him at Lambeth, but Sudbury only undertook proceedings against him under great pressure.

In January 1380, Sudbury became Lord Chancellor of England,[5] and the insurgent peasants regarded him as one of the principal authors of their woes. Having released John Ball from his prison at Maidstone, the Kentish insurgents attacked and damaged the archbishop's property at Canterbury and Lambeth; then, rushing into the Tower of London, they seized the archbishop himself. So unpopular was Sudbury with the rebellious peasants that guards simply allowed the rebels through the gates, the reason being his role in introducing the third poll tax.

Famuli - Workers on medieval estates who were paid, as distinct from those tenants who provided boon labour.