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So you’ve seen that clip of David Tennant with long hair tenderly kissing another man from that one production of Richard II, and you’ve found yourself wondering—wait, was that real?

This is one of Shakespeare’s historical plays, after all; Richard II was a real guy. Did that actually happen? Was he actually queer?

It certainly seems to be a pattern in the theatre. Productions loves to lean in to Richard’s queerness, whether that be with hair extensions and gold nail polish, or by casting a nonbinary Richard while setting the play in the midst of the AIDS epidemic. They’ll literally make the character slip his cousins tongue to get the point across. So, is there any actual historical basis to it, or did some director just go balls to the walls with artistic interpretation and everyone else took notes?

In other words:

Is it just a queercoded tragedy, or did a queer code this tragedy??

Those of you who have some historical background are probably expecting me to shove Robert de Vere in your face and come out (no pun intended) with a resounding YES—and don’t worry, we’ll get to him—but first, I need to establish some things.

(This is gonna be a long one. Here’s your cut.)

Firstly: No, Richard’s perceived queerness does not originate from the theatre. It doesn’t even originate from Shakespeare. His legacy has been almost inextricably linked with queerness for… approximately… hold on, let me check my watch… oh yes, 625 years. In the cultural zeitgeist, Richard has always been queer, so this is a matter that goes way beyond the whims and artistic interpretations of a modern, progressive society.

Secondly: let’s talk about what it even meant to be “queer” in the Middle Ages (14th century England, specifically).

Here’s the thing. The concept of sexuality as part of someone’s inherent identity is kind of new. The idea of an individual being “gay” or “straight” didn’t really exist; it was more so a matter of whether or not you engaged in “unnatural” behaviours. I also think it’s important to mention that the concept of homosexuality was considered in a purely sexual context in the public consciousness, rather than a romantic one. Today, we’ve come to see queerness as an expression of love; back then, and for a long while afterward, it was considered more of a sex crime than anything.

And speaking of sex, you’re probably unsurprised to hear that the 14th century fostered a predominantly sex-negative society; one which extended far beyond condemnations of homosexuality. With the large influence of the church on every day life, the societally acceptable morals and values extensively promoted chastity and virginity. But, to quote the bard, “the world must be peopled,” and so sex was only acceptable for the purpose of procreation, and within strict boundaries. It could only occur between a husband and wife, in the marriage bed, in missionary.

Well, okay—it’s important to mention that, just because those were the rules, it didn’t necessarily mean people followed them. Social norms can only do so much to stop people from bumping uglies, so regular everyday medieval folks weren’t all puritanical by any means, regardless of what their society preached. But I digress.

I’ve genuinely seen people argue that, because the concept of “sexuality” didn’t quite exist back then, identifying historical figures with “queerness” is meaningless. I, for one, find that fucking ridiculous.

I mean, sure, forego the modern labels and terminology. But there very much is a way to talk about queerness from the Middle Ages within its historical context… because queerness is not a modern invention!

It doesn’t matter that the word for it didn’t exist yet, or that society at large thought it inconceivable or unnatural. At the end of the day, there have always been people that, no matter how much they may have wished it wasn’t so, felt attraction towards others of the same gender; people that fell in love with others of the same gender, people that had sex with others of the same gender. In addition, there have always been people who felt restricted by gender roles imposed on them, and felt that in order to express their true selves, they would have to bend those lines and boundaries.

I mean, just look at the Ancient Greeks. Enough said.

Queerness has always existed. And here’s the thing: people back then knew it too!

For context, let’s consider the legacy of a much more explicitly “queer” king from around this same time: Edward II, Richard’s great grandfather (also a play, but by Marlowe). Edward, like Richard, was heavily criticized for keeping his male “favourites” too close. He was deposed in 1327 and replaced by his son, Edward III, Richard’s grandfather and predecessor.

One of the reasons his queerness is more prominently discussed than Richard’s is because of the popularity of a little something called… the hot poker myth. I’m sure a couple of you have already heard of this, but if not… uh, here’s a trigger warning for homophobic sexual violence. After his deposition, it was widely believed that, while his “favourite” and probable lover was castrated, Edward himself was murdered by having a burning metal poker shoved up his ass. Y’know… “punishment fitting the crime.”

Now, this is probably not true. Probably. But that’s not the point. The fact that the hot poker myth exists at all is the interesting factor. It doesn’t matter whether Edward liked taking it up the ass or not, what matters is that people THOUGHT he did, and also thought that he should be punished for it. Myths like this don’t exist to actually cover up the truth, they exist as social regulation—to promote whatever lesson society at the time felt the public needed to learn. In this case the lesson was: Gay bad. Don’t do that.

All this to say, you can’t say that because queerness wasn’t considered as part of a person’s identity in Medieval times, that it didn’t exist, that it wasn’t present, and that people didn’t know about it. Sure, it was seen much differently than it is today, but it existed nonetheless, and people were actually very preoccupied with the whole ordeal.

Now I know I’ve already talked a whole bunch, and we haven’t even gotten to the guy this post is about yet. But bear with me, there’s a third and final thing I have to address: when it comes to identifying historical queerness, what counts as “evidence?”

Because here’s the thing. A lot of official writings I’ve read on Richard are quick to shut down the notion of him being queer, with their reasoning being along the lines of: “there’s no explicit evidence that he had sex with men, so he can’t be queer, end of discussion.” In my personal opinion, this leans a little towards a heteronormative bias; like they’ve gone in with the explicit goal of shooting down the rumour, instead of giving it its fair share of consideration.

So, for our purposes, what counts as evidence, then? What is considered queer enough to be undeniably queer? What is the definition of queer, anyway? Is it something objective and concrete, or a concept defined by social norms? A mix of both? Are we judging from the historical societal standard, or ours? Presumably, the end of the spectrum is “have sex with men,” but though there may be allegations, we can’t actually poke our heads into his bedroom 600 years ago to have a peak for ourselves.

But then there’s all the other things, the little, more gender-adjacent things—like how so many texts on the man are so intent on emphasizing how unmanly he was, how feminine he was, and correlating that with how it made him a weak ruler. What about that? Where did all that come from, and is that pattern (and the obvious bias inherent in their narratives) not enough to make queerness significant to the conversation?

I can’t answer every single one of those questions, obviously; some of them get a little too into the philosophical nitty-gritty of what queerness is and on what scale you can measure human existence… and I’m not God. Or a philosopher. But this is is the mindset with which I want to go into this discussion:

When talking about queerness in history, we need to leave room for uncertainty, speculation—and the simple acknowledgment of possibility. Queer people have always existed, but they haven’t always had the words to say so, or the safety to make it known. And yet, despite that, their stories still trickle down through the cracks of time, begging to be heard. Even if we never know for 100% certain, we owe it to them to entertain the possibility.

Alright, with all that out of the way, let’s finally talk Richard II.

Now I know what you’re actually waiting for me to answer here: goddamn it, just tell us whether he was gay or not! List all the reasons he was definitely fucking Robert de Vere!

Well, everything I already established was to prepare you for the reality of the situation. I can’t give you a definite answer! Not only was the middle ages what experts call a long ass time ago, but also, if he was queer, he definitely wasn’t going around flaunting it, was he? Certainly not with that hot poker myth going around.

But! There’s no shortage of accusations, allusions, and possibility. So let’s acknowledge them! (In other words, you’ve been very good following my train of thought until now, so you can have some “gay shit” as a treat)

If you’re unaware of who Robert de Vere is and why I keep mentioning him, he was one of Richard’s closest favourites before the rebellion of the Lords Appellant in 1388 (about ten years before the events of the play). They were very, very close throughout Richard’s youth and early adulthood, and he was granted titles often reserved for princes, such as the Duke of Ireland, which really pissed off the older nobles. In fact, their closeness was believed to be one of the inciting reasons for the rebellion in the first place. When the Lords Appellant came to challenge Richard’s reign, Robert fled the country, and was sentenced to death in his absence, but would die in what was essentially exile in 1392.

(If you’ve only seen the Shakespeare play and have no idea what the Lords Appellant situation is… don’t worry about it, just know it was a rebellion much earlier on in Richard’s reign. Surprise surprise! They tried to get rid of that guy more than once. I can make a separate post about it later if anyone wants.)

Chronicler Thomas Walsingham (most of the information we have about events that occurred in history is due to the work of chroniclers like him) accused Richard and Robert’s relationship of being queer, using words such as “obscene familiarity” and “political sodomy” to describe them. He also recounted how, when Robert’s body was returned to England for burial, Richard asked for the coffin to be opened so he could gaze upon his face and hold his hand one last time.

And historians will call them…

Well, whatever historians called them, the artists of yore did not agree! Rumours of their relationship weren’t exactly stamped out or ignored in the coming years. We, in our modern society, are not the first people to seriously consider the possibility that they were fucking. There was another historical play from 1595 by the name “Thomas of Woodstock” (sometimes even attributed to Shakespeare, though it’s probably not his) that features Robert’s wife as a character, saying the lines:

“My husband Ireland, that unloving lord God pardon his amiss, he now is dead; King Richard was the cause he left my bed.”

Which is really funny to me, I don’t know why.

Now, there is one big issue with all of this supposed “evidence,” and it’s Thomas Walsingham himself. See, the guy isn’t exactly... an unbiased messenger. In fact, most chroniclers aren’t, which is what makes things tricky. Walsingham really didn’t like Richard—or Robert, for that matter—so it’s not unlikely that he would kind of just make shit up out of anger and distaste. We kind of have to take everything he says with a grain of salt.

Let me clarify something, though. Throughout this entire post, you may have noticed that I’ve been using the word “queer” to refer to Richard, instead of more specific terms like gay or bisexual. This is intentional.

For one, Richard had a wife. Not only that, he really fucking loved his wife. He met and married Anne of Bohemia when they were both around 15 years old, and even though it was an arranged marriage, they were very much in love and rarely spent time apart. The marriage lasted for 12 years until Anne died very suddenly in 1394, likely of plague, leaving Richard absolutely inconsolable and utterly hysterical. He ordered the building she died in to be destroyed, and also threw hands with the Earl of Arundel for having shown up late to her funeral. It’s likely he never truly recovered from her loss. He planned to be buried next to her when he died, a wish which actually wasn't respected until the reign of Henry V, who had him reburied where he wished. The two lie together in Westminster Abbey to this day.

So, obviously, I am being purposefully vague with my usage of “queer.” Richard evidently was not exclusively homosexual, but his relationship with Anne doesn’t fully discount the queerness of his legacy either. At the end of the day, I am not just debating whether or not Richard liked dick. I am talking about queerness—meaning not only sexual or gender identity that deviates from the cishet “norm,” but also just strangeness, oddness, otherness, particularly in sexual and gender presentation.

It doesn’t matter that I think Richard was probably fucking Robert, and it doesn’t matter that others think he wasn’t—what matters is that, to society at the time, Richard was seen as queer. And that’s enough to make queerness relevant to the conversation!

People described him as being very fair (almost excessively so it’s kinda weird) and having a “feminine face” (whatever tf that means).

Many people described him as boyish and childish, compared to the “strong masculine manly men” like Henry and his uncles.

He was often vaguely accused of letting “perversion” run through court. I didn’t find specific elaborations but it feels relevant.

He was extravagant in spending and ceremony.

More than anything, though, he tried very vehemently to put an end to the hundred years war by compromising with France. Think of how unmanly this is; that instead of doing the super noble masculine thing and fighting, he would rather [gasp] compromise.

In place of war, he prioritized the arts in his court. He commissioned many extravagant pieces of art. You can attribute to this time the internal architecture of Westminster Hall, or the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

To (most) of us, today, you can see how attributing such traits to someone liking dick is honestly kind of fucked up and problematic. But back then, it was deviant enough to be queer, and—with what you have to assume was the aftertaste of Edward II still lingering in everyone’s mouths—people just weren’t very tolerant of queer.

Truth be told, Richard really wasn’t that bad of a king, at least compared to other kings. He was honestly just kind of… meh. His biggest efforts was spent in trying to end the Hundred Years War, which was rendered meaningless when it kind of charged right back up again after he was gone. In fact, he didn’t even have full power for most of his reign, initially due to his young age but then because of the Lords Appellant. He really only got his power back for the last two years of his reign, when he proceeded to go on a bit of a revenge spree, and was promptly deposed.

But what can be seen as just plain mediocrity actually turned out to be Henry Bolingbroke’s biggest weapon, used to paint Richard as weak and girly and queer. He used all the previous things I mentioned to build a narrative, to fear-monger—to prop himself up as the big, proud masculine hero in comparison to his twinky mctwink-face cousin. It’s not a far stretch to say Richard’s insistence on ending the war had also struck a nerve with other nobles who benefitted from it, and so they joined Henry to further perpetuate this narrative. A narrative that literally stuck for-fucking-ever.

You can even see traces of this narrative-building in the Shakespeare play, when Bolingbroke reads out the charges against Bushy and Green, making it sound like he’s accusing them of sleeping with Richard.

“You have in manner with your sinful hours Made a divorce betwixt [Richard’s] queen and him, Broke the possession of a royal bed, And stained the beauty of a fair queen’s cheeks With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.” (3.1.11-15)

(There aren’t any real accusations of the real Bushy and Green having a relationship with Richard, but you can see the point that was being made.)

All this to say, Richard has been boiled down to two things throughout history: queer, and a villain. And if you recall with Edward II, it’s not uncommon for people to equate queerness with perceived villainy and punishment as a form of social regulation.

I’d argue that Shakespeare’s play, if anything, was kind of an exception in this regard, given that Richard is not an outright villain but more of an anti-hero than anything. That’s probably why it’s remained such fertile ground for playing with and exploring Richard’s queerness without outright villainizing him (or toeing that line, at least).

So, what’s our conclusion?

In my own humble opinion—granted, I am not a scholar, but a gay shit with an internet connection, so keep that in mind—I don’t think “were they, weren’t they” should be our main concern. It’s worth having a discussion about queerness in the context of Richard II simply because, like Edward II, people perceived him as queer, and used it as an excuse to hate him. It’s been inextricably linked to his legacy for more than half a millennia and only in the last few years has it been in even a remotely positive light.

Essentially, queerness became the scapegoat on which people’s political and social vitriol was placed… and that’s not exactly something we’ve left in the past, is it? In this context, the topic of conversation becomes less about Richard himself, and more about the way queerness as a subject is treated in the social and political consciousness. The more aware we are of our past and how it’s shaped our present, we become more equipped to guide our future in the right direction.

…or something. That’s what I took away from it. I’m sure there are people smarter than me with contradicting thoughts.

When it comes to Richard specifically, the fact that he has been associated with queerness, judged for said queerness (whether or not he actually was), and defamed on the basis of said queerness, is enough to say: yes, his queer depictions have basis in actual history. While we can’t definitively say whether he was schtupping Robert de Vere, it’s possible enough that no one can blame you for having that opinion.

Congratulations, folks:

✨ a queer did code this tragedy ✨

———————————————

I know this was a long one, so if you made it to this point, thank you! I know I teased this post LITERALLY TWO MONTHS AGO and a couple people have been looking forward to it, so sorry it took so long! My long posts are usually analyses of fiction which are a lot easier because I don’t have to worry as much about FACTS and RESEARCH. So this took a hot minute. Either way I hope it lived up to expectations, and if you have any additions or corrections, feel free to add! Once again, I am not an expert, but an asshole with an internet connection. I jolted out of bed at 5 am and wrote the first draft of this post in my notes app like a man possessed, and now I’m making that your problem.

Anyway, I will answer any questions and concerns to the best of my ability but if you want someone who actually knows what they’re talking about, give @shredsandpatches a visit.

Tags: @skeleton-richard @kneelbeforeclefairy @l3monivy @len-tilsoup @masnadies @greyycey (lmk if you'd like the tag removed)

Edit: Small spelling mistakes

Edit 2: Included the segment further discussing Anne. I was so focused on the queer shit that I completely skimmed over her, which was really stupid in hindsight, given how relevant she is to the discussion on Richard's sexuality. Also, I removed the segment about Isabella of Valois. After some discussion I decided that situation's a bit too complicated to just tack on at the bottom of an otherwise irrelevant post, so if I want to start discussion about her, I'll make a separate post dedicated to her. Thanks to @skeleton-richard for pointing both things out!

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