Richard II is usually said to have died at Pontefract Castle on or about 14 February 1400. The year before, his cousin Henry Bolingbroke had deposed him and taken the throne as Henry IV.

Richard was now a former king. He was still dangerous.

Henry IV’s rule began with force, ceremony and argument. Richard had been accused of misrule and removed from power, but he was alive. For Henry, that was the problem. A living deposed king could become a name for other men to use. He could attract loyalty, rebellion and rumour without taking action himself.

At Pontefract Castle, Richard was a prisoner rather than a ruler. Imprisonment did not remove what he had been. Early in 1400, a rising by some of his supporters had already shown the danger. The plot failed, but it made the risk clear. Henry IV had the crown. Richard’s survival still left the new reign unsettled.

Richard’s death removed that immediate threat. Later accounts often connect his death with starvation, though the safer wording is more careful: he died in captivity, probably at Pontefract, soon after his deposition. The political meaning is clearer than the exact manner of death. Once Richard was dead, he could no longer be restored in person.

Even then, the matter was not settled. His body was taken south and shown publicly, so people could see that the former king was dead. That act says a good deal about the anxiety around him. A hidden death in a northern castle left too much room for doubt.

The doubts continued. Rumours that Richard had survived spread after his death, and Henry IV’s kingship never fully escaped the problem of how it had begun. Richard’s end made the new king safer, but it also left suspicion behind.

The death at Pontefract belongs to that uneasy part of medieval kingship. Removing a king from power was possible. Making that removal accepted was harder.