Richard II occupies a very important place in the history of the court and of royal building. A royal court, in a recognisable sense to us today, begins to exist in England from his reign. Richard’s was a court which expressed an interest in culture, which comprised women to a much greater degree than previously, that could portray itself magnificently and that had a sense of hierarchy expressed in degrees of status and deference. Richard loved to wear his crown, presiding imperiously, and enthroned, over banquets, religious feasts and audiences. He was preoccupied by ceremony and his court festivities became more formalised and ceremonious. He loved expensive clothes, priceless personal jewellery, rich food and enjoyed having himself portrayed by painters.
His architectural reputation rests on one great work, perhaps the single most important and spectacular project ever undertaken by an English Monarch. This was the re-roofing of Westminster Great Hall that had been built by William Rufus in 1099. The hall roof was supported by pillars, the new roof, designed and built in the 1390s, was 69ft wide and was, instead, supported by innovative engineering: the hammerbeam and the arch brace. The wood alone weighed 600 tons.
Westminster Hall was not a domestic hall for everyday use. It was designed like a cathedral melding royal and Christian imagery and creating a heavenly canopy of carved oak angels high above the dais where the king sat.
There were other works on a smaller scale testifying to his love of finery. At Clarendon he built a dancing chamber and at Sheen a bathroom lined with 2,000 ceramic tiles. Near Sheen Manor there was a summer pavilion on an island on the Thames. It was at Sheen that his wife, Queen Anne of Bohemia, died. In a hysterical state he ordered the whole place be razed to the ground – an act of grief as well as a display of power.