xvii. p. 541 sq.

RICHARD of Bury. See Aungervyle, Richard.

RICHARD of Cirencester (1335-1401), historical writer, was a member of the Benedictine abbey at Westminster, and his name (“Circestre ”) first appears on the chamberlain’s list of the monks of that foundation drawn up in the year 1355. In the year 1391 he obtained a licence from the abbot to go to Rome, his design being to visit limina Apostolorum, and in this licence the abbot gives his testimony to Richard’s perfect and sincere observance of religion for upwards of thirty years. In 1400 Richard was in the infirmary of the abbey, where his death took place in the following year. His only known extant work is Speculum Historiale de Gestis Regurn Angliae, IH f 7-1066. The manuscript of this is in the university library at Cambridge, and has been edited for the Master of the Rolls by Professor John E. B. Mayor (2 vols., 1863-1869). It is in four books, and at the conclusion of the fourth book Richard expresses his intention of continuing his narrative from the accession of William I., and incorporating a sketch of the Conqueror’s career from his birth. This design he does not, however, appear to have carried into effect. The value of the Speculum as a contribution to our historical knowledge is but slight, for it is mainly a compilation from Rodger Wendover, Geoffrey of Monmouth, William of Malmesbury, Florence, Asser, Henry of Huntingdon, and other writers; while even in transcribing these the compiler is guilty of great carelessness. He gives, however, numerous charters relating to Westminster Abbey, and also a very complete account of the saints whose tombs were in the abbey church, and especially of Edward the Confessor, with w r hose reign the fourth book is entirely occupied. The work was, notwithstanding, largely used by historians and antiquaries, until, with the rise of a more critical spirit, its value became more accurately estimated. Besides the Speculum Richard also wrote, according to the statement of William Woodford in his Answer to Wickliffe (Brown, Fasciculus Rerum expetendarum, p. 193), a treatise De Offi,ciis ; and there was formerly in the cathedral library at Peterborough another tractate from his pen, entitled Super Symbolum. Of neither of these works, however, does any known copy now exist.

Of the Speculum the main value may be said to be of a negative character, in that it affords the most conclusive proof of the spuriousness of another work attributed to Richard and long accepted by the learned world as his. This was the De Situ Britanniae, an elaborate forgery relating to the antiquities of Roman Britain which first appeared at Copenhagen in the year 1758. It was printed along with the works of Gildas and Nennius, under the editorship of Charles Julius Bertram, professor of English in the academy of Copenhagen in the middle of the last century, with the following special title :—“Richardi Corinensis monachi Westmonasteriensis de situ Britanniae libri duo. E Codici MS. descripsit, Notisque et Indice adornavit Carolus Bertram.”

This forgery was accepted, as genuine by a well-known antiquary of the last century, Dr William Stukeley, and under the sanction of his authority continued for a long time to be regarded in the same light by numerous scholars and antiquaries. Among their number were Gibbon, John Whitaker, Richard Gough, and Lingard. On the other hand, critics of a later date, such as J. J. Conybeare, Dr Guest, Wex, Raine, and Woodward, from time to time gave expression, on various grounds, to a contrary conclusion. All doubt on the subject may, however, be held to have been effectually set at rest by the masterly and exhaustive exposure of the whole fraud drawn up by Professor Mayor in the preface to the edition above referred to of the Speculum. He has there not only demonstrated, from the external and internal evidence alike, the spuriousness of the whole treatise, but in a collation (extending to nearly a hundred pages) of numerous passages with corresponding passages in classical mediaeval authorities, has also traced out the various sources from whence Bertram derived the terminology and the facts which he reproduced in the De Situ. “To say nothing,” says Professor Mayor, “of antiquaries whose canons of criticism are so lax that they cite a supposed monk of 1400 a.d. as authority for events of 1000 b.c., we find a forger alike contemptible as penman, Latinist, historian, geographer, critic, imposing upon members of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, and of the two ancient universities, of the youthful Society D. U. K., on the writers of Germany and Denmark, of England, and of Scotland,—the last bribed by the invention of Vespasiana.”

RICHARD of Sτ Victor (oδ. c. 1173), a Scot by birth, was subprior of his convent in 1159 and prior in 1162, and was a friend of St Bernard, to whom some of his books are dedicated. The tendency of his mysticism has been characterized in vol. xvii. p. 132. Of his works, which embrace exegesis, moral and dogmatic subjects, and mystical contemplation, the first edition appeared at Paris in 1528, the best at Rouen in 1650.

Richard’s reign falls into two equal divisions—the one comprising his crusade and captivity, the other his wars against Philip in France. On his father’s death he was at once acknowledged as duke of Normandy and count of Anjou. On September 3, 1189, he was crowned with great pomp at Westminster. This is the first English coronation of which we have a full account, and the formalities then adopted have been followed with little alteration ever since. Richard at once set to work to collect funds for the crusade. He sold ecclesiastical and temporal offices, released the king of Scotland from the vassalage to which Henry II. had subjected him; and, having by these means and by taxation collected a large sum of money, he crossed to Calais on December 12. Soon afterwards he met Philip at St Remy and made a treaty with him for a joint crusade. On June 27, 1190, the two armies assembled at Vezelai, whence they marched together as far as Lyons. There Philip took the route to Genoa, while Richard went by Marseilles. Visiting Naples on the way, he landed at Messina on September 23, where he found the French army and his own fleet awaiting him. The two kings remained in Sicily during the winter. William IL, king of Sicily, husband of Richard’s sister Joanna, had died shortly before, and Tancred, nephew of William, had seized the throne. During the negotiations for the recovery of Joanna and her dowry, disturbances broke out which ended in Richard’s forcing his way into Messina at the head of his army. His real enemy was, however, not Tancred, but Philip. The natural jealousy of the two kings grew into mutual hatred during their stay in Sicily, and Tancred informed Richard of French intrigues. In March 1191 Richard made a treaty with Tancred, and recognized him as king of Sicily. At the same time he repudiated Alice, Philip’s sister, and betrothed himself to Berengaria of Navarre. Philip was the first to leave Sicily. He arrived at Acre early in April. On April 10 Richard set sail, and a month later reached Cyprus, where he married Berengaria (May 12). He then proceeded to conquer Cyprus, took Isaac Comnenus and his daughter prisoners, and set out again for the Holy Land, reaching Acre on June 8. Guy of Lusignan, who claimed the throne of Jerusalem, had besieged that fortress since 1189, but the Christian army was itself hemmed in by the forces of Saladin. Richard’s arrival encouraged the besiegers, and on July 11 Acre surrendered. The two kings now settled the dispute between Guy of Lusignan and Conrad of Montferrat about the throne of Jerusalem and on August· 3 Philip left the Holy Land. Saladin having failed to fulfil the terms on which Acre had surrendered, Richard ordered the massacre in cold blood of some three thousand Mohammedan prisoners. Soon afterwards he set out for Jaffa, and on the way thither won the battle cf Arsuf. Having rebuilt Jaffa, he started for Jerusalem. About Christmas 1191 he arrived at Beit-nûba, within sight of the Holy City, but, owing to the reluctance or desertion of his French allies, he found it impossible to besiege it, and therefore withdrew to the coast. In April 1192, at the instance of his followers, he recognized Conrad as king of Jerusalem, indemnifying Guy with the crown of Cyprus. The murder of Conrad immediately afterwards was laid, probably without sufficient ground, to the charge of Richard, who conferred the vacant throne on Henry, count of Champagne. Bad news from England now made him anxious to go home, but he resolved on one more attempt to save Jerusalem. He set out on June 4, arrived again within sight of the city, and again retired without venturing to attack. Jaffa, which had been taken by Saladin, was retaken on August 1. This was Richard’s last exploit in the East. On September 1 he made a three years’ truce with Saladin, on the basis of the status quo ; and on October 9 he sailed for home, leaving behind him a name long remembered by the Saracens, but, beyond the capture of Acre, having accomplished none of the objects with which he set out.

Fearing to go through France, Richard sailed up the Adriatic, and made his way on foot, as a pilgrim and almost alone, to Erdburg near Vienna. Here he was discovered (December 21, 1192) by Leopold, duke of Austria, of whom, while at Ascalon, he had made a bitter enemy. After being confined for some time at Dürrenstein on the Danube, he was surrendered in March 1193 to the emperor Henry VI., who imprisoned him first at Trifels and afterwards at Worms. Legend was already rife about him, but the story of his discovery by Blondel only dates from the following century, and is of French origin. In order to liberate himself, Richard resigned his crown to Henry VI. as overlord of Christendom, promised to pay a yearly tribute, and received back the crown as a vassal of the emperor. At Easter a diet was held at Spires, at which Richard was charged with various misdoings,—the recognition of Tancred, the conquest of Cyprus, the murder of Conrad, even with the betrayal of the Holy Land to Saladin. He defended himself eloquently, and the charges were dropped. Shortly afterwards a treaty was made at Worms (July 29) for Richard’s release on payment of a ransom of 150,000 marks, with other conditions. Great efforts were made in England to collect the money, two-thirds of which was paid over to Henry, hostages being given for the rest. Philip and John were able, however, by offers of money and other means, to induce the emperor to detain Richard till the following spring. At length he was liberated. On March 13, 1194, he set foot again in England. He found his dominions in great confusion owing to the intrigues of Philip and John. He rapidly made himself master of the castles which held out for John, and on April 17, 1194, he was crowned a second time. He then collected more money from the impoverished country for the rest of his ransom and for an expedition to France, and on May 12 left England again never to return. Philip retired before him; John submitted and was pardoned. For the remaining five years of his reign Richard kept up an intermittent struggle with Philip, a struggle marked by no great battles, and interrupted only by fruitless negotiations and truces which were never kept. Neither party was strong enough to inflict a severe blow upon the other. In the autumn of 1198 the war went decidedly against Philip, but in January 1199 a peace for five years was made, each side retaining what it held. Shortly afterwards Richard, while besieging the castle of Chaluz near Limoges, which was held against him by one of his vassals, was wounded by an arrow. He died on April 6, 1199, and was buried at Fontevraud. His brother John succeeded him.

In person Richard was tall, muscular, ruddy, with light brown hair. He was lavish, generous, and fearless; a skilful commander, but incapable of extensive combinations or far-reaching plans; more religious than his father or brothers, but equally vicious; a bad husband and a bad son, with much of the ferocity that characterized his race;

in fact, a typical representative of the faults as well as the virtues of the chivalry of his day. His reign was signalized by no great legal or administrative reform, and England owes him nothing but barren fame.

Chief Authorities.—Hoveden, Chronica·, Ralph de Diceto, Imagines Historiarum; Gervase of Canterbury, Chronica, &c.; Chronicles and Memorials of the Reign of Richard I.; Gesta Regis Henriei II., &c. (ascribed to Benedict of Peterborough); all the above have been edited, with most valuable prefaces, by Dr Stubbs for the Rolls Series; also William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglicarum, edited for the Engl. Hist. Society by H. C. Hamilton, and for the Rolls Series by R. Howlett; Richard of Devizes, Chronieon, &c., edited for the Engl. Hist. Society by J. Stevenson; Pauli, Geschichte von England, vol. iii.; Stubbs, Early Plantagenets; Lingard, History of England, vol. ii. (G. W. P. )

Richard did not for some time abuse his power. The “appellants” were not punished, and even remained members of the council. William of Wykeham, however, became chancellor, and it was apparently by his advice and that of John of Gaunt, who returned to England in 1389, that Richard regulated his conduct. For eight years he ruled constitutionally. The country was at peace at home and abroad. In June 1394 the queen died. In October of the same year Richard went to Ireland and received the submission of some of the chiefs. He remained in Ireland till May 1395. Next year he concluded a twenty-five years’ truce with France, and engaged to marry Isabella, the French king’s daughter. In September 1396 he w r ent to Calais and returned with his bride, a child of eight years old. This alliance seems to have encouraged Richard to carry out a stroke of policy which he had probably long contemplated. In July 1397 he suddenly seized the “appellants,” Warwick, Arundel, and Gloucester. The parliament, which met in September, repealed the acts of 1386, and declared the “appellants” guilty of high treason. Arundel was executed, Warwick imprisoned Gloucester died, probably by violence, in prison. Next year the parliament conferred on Richard tonnage and poundage for life, and delegated their authority to a committee of eighteen, practically chosen by the king, thus making him an absolute monarch. A treasonable conversation between Hereford and Norfolk, reported by the former, gave a pretext for the banishment of both. In February 1399 John of Gaunt died, and Richard seized the Lancaster estates, thus reducing Hereford to desperation. The latter at once began to prepare to recover his inheritance, and Richard, apparently ignorant of the danger, went over to Ireland (May 29), thus leaving the kingdom open to his rival. Henry landed in Yorkshire early in July, and rapidly collected an overpowering force. Richard returned to find Henry in possession of power and himself deserted by the nation. He surrendered to Henry at Flint (August 19) and was conveyed to London. On September 29 he executed a deed by which he resigned the crown. Next day the deed was read in parliament. Formal sentence of deposition was pronounced, and Henry claimed and received the crown. A month afterwards the date king was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, and was removed to Pontefract. The conspiracy against Henry IV., which was discovered in January 1400, sealed Richard’s fate. The manner of his death is unknown, but there can be little doubt that he died by violence. He is said to have been buried at Langley, February 14, 1400.

In person Richard was slight, fair-haired, beardless, with rounded face and elegant but rather feminine features. His character, a strange mixture of strength and weakness, courage and irresolution, indolence and energy, remains an enigma to the historian. He protected Wickliffe, encouraged Chaucer, and made a serious attempt to establish an absolute monarchy. His reign, w τ hether we regard it from the religious, the political, or the social point of view, is one of very great importance, and its history has as yet been by no means fully elucidated.

Chief Authorities.—Knighton, De Eventibus Angliae, ed. Twysden in the Decern Scriptores, 1652; Walsingham, Historia Anglieana, ed. Riley (Rolls Series); Adam de Usk, Chronicon, ed. Thompson, 1876; Chronicon Angliae, by a monk of St Albans, ed. Thompson (Rolls Series); Historia Vitae et Regni Rieardi II., by a monk of Evesham, ed. Hearne, 1729; Cronicque de la traison et mort de Riehart deux, &c., ed. Williams (Engl. Hist. Society); Histoire du Roi di Angleterre Richard, ed. Webb, in Archaeok Brit., vol. xx.; Froissart, Chronicles; Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. ii.; Pauli, Geschichte von England, vol. iv. (G. W. P. )

Tradition is divided as to Richard’s personal appearance, and the story of his deformity is possibly derived from Lancastrian malignity and from a misunderstanding of his nickname Crouchback. His courage, energy, and ability would have made a great and honoured name had not those qualities been matched by extreme ferocity and unscrupulousness, and perverted to an evil use by the turbulente of the time and his own nearness to the throne.

Chief Authorities.—Fabyan, Concordance of Histories, ed. Ellis, 1811; Historia Croylandensis, ed. Fell, Quinque Scriptores, 1687; Ross, Historia Regum Angliae; Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, 1875; Letters and Papers illustrative of the reigns of Richard III. and Henry VII., ed. Gairdner (Rolls Series); Sir T. More, Histories of Edward V. and Richard 1II., 1556; H. Walpole, Historic Doubts on Richard III., 1768; Gairdner, Life and Reign of Richard III., 1878. (G. w. P.)

RICHARDSON Samvel (1689—1761), as the inventor or the accidental discoverer of a new literary form, the modern novel of domestic life and manners, is entitled to a more prominent place in history than his powers, whether of thought or style, would justify. He stumbled on novel writing by accident and late in life. The son of a Derbyshire joiner (born in 1689), he had been apprenticed at the age of seventeen to a London printer (Wilde of Stationers’ Hall), had spent some years as a press reader or proof corrector—not a bad position for acquiring some knowledge of literature—had married his master’s daughter, and acquired an extensive business, trying his hand occasionally in composition as a writer of prefaces and dedications to the books that he printed. When he was near the age of fifty some bookseller friends of his, struck perhaps by the excellence of his letters, had suggested to him that he should compose a “familiar letter-writer”— “a little volume of letters, in common style, on such subjects as might be of use to those country readers who were unable to indite for themselves.” Richardson improved upon the suggestion. As it happened, he had had a singular experience in the way of writing letters for others. When he was a boy of thirteen three young women λvho could not write had employed him to conduct their correspondence with their sweethearts, which he did, he tells us, much to the satisfaction of his employers and without betraying their confidence. It occurred to him, turning over the project of the booksellers in his mind, and reverting to this early experience, that he might tell a story in a series of letters which would serve equally well as models for letter-writing and at the same time cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the minds of the youth of both sexes. Accordingly, the publication being for country readers, he chose a country girl, Pamela, in the service of a young squire Mr B. (Fielding afterwards expanded the initial to “Booby ”), and made-her relate in letters to her friends her experiences from day to day and week to week in very trying circumstances. Friends write to advise Pamela in her difficulties, and so the story is carried on with circumstantial minuteness, Pamela describing with the most careful elaboration every particular of what happens to her, and adding her own reflexions, surmises, and appeals for approbation and counsel. The natural effect of this method is that, if we have any sympathy with the heroine, we get intensely interested in her perplexities,—the very fulness of the details and the close truth to nature with which the novelist follows every turn in the girl’s thoughts compelling us to read on. This effect was fully realized in days when the voluminous moralizing was more in harmony with the general taste than it is now, and the kind of thing was new and fresh. The success of Pamela was immediate and widespread, and extended at once far beyond the circle of country cousins for whom it was designed. It is said that ladies at Ranelagh Gardens were to be seen holding up one to another their copies of Pamela to show that they had in their possession the most popular book of the day. The industrious antiquary has cast doubt upon this anecdote, pointing out that Ranelagh Gardens were not open to the public till eighteen months after Pamela had begun to run through many editions. Vauxhall, however, was open if Ranelagh was not, and the incident may have been observed there. At any rate the fact expressed by the anecdote is true enough, that the novel was at once and universally popular. Pamela, the first of one long line of novels, was published in November 1740. In January 1741 the following appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine :—“Several encomiums on a series of Familiar Letters, published but last month, entitled Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, came too late for this magazine, and we believe there will be little occasion for inserting them in our next, because a second edition will then come out to supply the demands of the country, it being judged in town as great a sign of want of curiosity not to have read Pamela as not to have seen the French and Italian Dancers.” This testimony is hardly less quaint and significant than the accredited anecdote.

It was thus that this industrious prosperous printer, a stout, rosy, vain, precise little man, carrying himself with sensitive dignity, not at all the kind of man that might have been expected to be a fashionable novelist, stumbled in the natural course of his business upon a new species of composition for which he had an unsuspected genius.

The fame of Pamela made him a great personal favourite, especially with women, of λvhose hearts and fancies he had shown a knowledge so intimate. Several ladies of quality made a pet of him, deluged him with questions and confidences, and urged him to write more. Under this flattering encouragement, the sedate author, still keeping his head and following his own plans amidst a multitude of counsellors, produced Clarissa Harlowe (1749), a model of every virtue in higher life, and Sir Charles Grandison (1753), his ideal of a perfect gentleman. Clarissa is universally acknowledged to be his masterpiece. Au anecdote was given by Macaulay which shows how entrancing the story may become to readers once fairly caught by the current of it. He took the whole eight volumes with him, when he was in India, to a hill station during the hot season, and one day lent the first volume to the governor’s wife. She read it and lent it to the governor’s secretary, and went to Macaulay for the second. Thus all the eight volumes passed from hand to hand, and for a week or more the whole station was in a ferment over the fortunes of Clarissa, the readers anxiously waiting their turn for the successive volumes. Richardson is long-winded and prolix to a degree; but that, in spite of all his faults, he had the art of interesting his own generation was abundantly proved, and apparently his greatest novel is still capable in favourable circumstances of exerting its spell.

Richardson has long received the honour of being regarded as the founder of the English novel, but of late it has been customary to go a little farther back and trace the beginnings of the novel in the papers of Addison and Steele in the Tatler and the Spectator. The novel, it is said, λvas developed, not created, by Richardson. Now this is hardly fair to the ingenious printer, if it is meant to deny him any of the credit generally given to originators of new forms in literature. It is true that the novel was developed and not created, but it is not more true of Richardson’s novel than of any other new species of composition, such as Marlowe’s tragedy, or Scott’s romantic tale, or Byron’s personal epic. All alike are not created but developed in this sense that they have strongly marked affinities with kinds of writing immediately anterior to them. Thus in the novel of manners there are two elements—there is description of ordinary character, and there is plot-interest, i.e., there is a story. Both of these elements are found in the generation before Richardson. But not in combination. It was he that combined them in his novel of manners, and therefore he is entitled to the praise of being the father of a new species of composition. There is abundance of description of manners in the Spectator and there are many delicate studies of character. And the general reader in the days of Queen Anne and of George I. had abundance of stories to choose from—tales of scandal, of crime, of high-flown romance. But it had not occurred to anybody before Richardson to make a heroine out of such a character as Jenny Simper, or a hero out of her baronet Sir Anthony Love, or a story out of incidents within the probabilities of ordinary life. The epistolary form in which his stories were cast, and which remains as a memorial of their first suggestion, was abandoned by Richardson’s first great follower and satirist, Fielding; but it was Richardson that led the way into the new field of literature. He lived long enough to see many imitators. Within twelve years of the publication of Pamela, the Monthly Review began to complain of the labour of reading the multitude of novels submitted to its judgment, and the masterpieces of Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne were produced before his death in 1761. His correspondence was published in six volumes in 1804.