Robert de Vere fleeing Radcot Bridge, 1387: taken from the Gruthuse manuscript of Froissart's Chroniques (ca. 1475).

Radcot Bridge, Oxfordshire, was the scene of a battle (19 December 1387) between troops loyal to Richard II, led by court favourite Robert de Vere, and an army captained by Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby. The previous year had seen increasing hostility between the young king and his magnates. This crisis reached a head in November 1386, when the Wonderful Parliament compelled Richard to remove his chancellor, Michael de la Pole. In August 1387 Richard retaliated; he assembled a council of magistrates at Nottingham and attempted to redefine the Royal Prerogative in a way that would render the Wonderful Parliament treasonous. The leaders of the Parliament, including Richard's uncle Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, hit back during the Miraculous Parliament of November 1387. During this session, Woodstock and the Earls of Warwick and Arundel submitted an appeal which accused several of Richard's closest friends of routinely deceiving the king for their own profit. Richard de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was a favourite of King Richard II of England, on whom the King relied for advice and to whom he gave land, honours and wealth. ... Events June 2 - John Holland, a maternal half-brother of Richard II of England, is created Earl of Huntingdon. ... Jean Froissart (~1337 - ~1405) was one of the most important of the chroniclers of medieval France. ... Events August 29 - Treaty of Picquigny ends a brief war between France and England. ... Oxfordshire (abbreviated Oxon, from Latin Oxonia) is a county in South East England, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. ... December 19 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Events June 2 - John Holland, a maternal half-brother of Richard II of England, is created Earl of Huntingdon. ... Richard II may refer to: King Richard II of England Richard II, a play by William Shakespeare about the king Richard II of Normandy This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Richard de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was a favourite of King Richard II of England, on whom the King relied for advice and to whom he gave land, honours and wealth. ... Henry IV of England, depicted in Cassells History of England, Century Edition, published circa 1902 Henry IV King of England, Lord of Ireland. ... The Earl of Derby is a title in the peerage of England. ... Events Battle of Sempach: Swiss safeguard independence from Hapsburg rule End of reign of Poland by Capet-Anjou family. ... The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor and in former times Chancellor of England, is one of the most senior and important functionaries in the government of the United Kingdom. ... Nottingham is a city located in Nottinghamshire, in the East Midlands of England. ... This article or section should include material from Royal Perogative. ... In law, treason is the crime of disloyalty to ones nation. ... Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester (January 7, 1355 - September 8 (or 9), 1397) was the thirteenth and youngest child of King Edward III of England and Queen Philippa. ... The title Duke of Gloucester (pronounced gloss-tor) is a British royal title (after Gloucester), often conferred on one of the sons of the reigning monarch. ... An Earl as a member of the British peerage ranks below a Marquess and above a Viscount. ... The Earl of Warwick is one of the oldest English earldoms. ... The oldest extant Earldom (and perhaps the oldest extant title) in the English peerage is the Earldom of Arundel currently held by the Duke of Norfolk, and used as a courtesy title by his heir. ...

Richard responded by summoning Woodstock and the other Lords Appellant to the Tower of London; all three refused. This was open dissent and both Richard and the Appellants knew the implications of such defiance. According to the author of the Eulogium historiarum, Richard asked Woodstock whether his companions were willing to take arms against him, to which the Duke replied: "we do not rebel or arm ourselves against the king except in order to instruct him". Pushed further by Richard, who protested that Parliament did not have the right to command a king even in the case of "the meanest kitchen boy", the Duke darkly reminded his nephew of his own standing: "But I am the son of a king". The Lords Appellant were a group of powerful barons who came together during the 1380s to seize political control of England from King Richard II. The group was so called because its members claimed simply to be appealing to the King for good government (their major complaint was Richards... The Tower of London, seen from the river, with a view of the water gate called Traitors Gate. ...

Fearing deposition, Richard ordered that the citizens of London should take up arms. De Vere was despatched to Cheshire, where Richard had assembled an army of five thousand retainers, under the direct command of Sir Thomas Molyneux. De Vere now took these sourthwards towards London. The most direct routes to the capital were blocked by Arundel's men, so de Vere decided to cross the Thames at Radcot, near Faringdon. However, the bridge itself was under the guard of Derby's troops; they had also partly dismantled its structure. Undeterred, de Vere gave the command to storm the crossing. At this point, a larger force of Derby's men arrived from the north, effectively surrounding the Cheshiremen. de Vere managed to escape the field, eventually making his way to France; once it was known that he had fled, his army promptly surrendered. Among the handful of casualties was Molyneux himself, who was killed during the abortive attempt to cross the Thames. St. ... This article is about the English county. ... Several places exist with the name Thames, and the word is also used as part of several brand and company names Most famous is the River Thames in England, on which the city of London stands Other Thames Rivers There is a Thames River in Canada There is a Thames... Map sources for Faringdon at grid reference SU2895 Faringdon is a town in Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom. ...

After the battle, Woodstock and the other Appellants held a council with Richard at the Tower. Richard had no means of resisting their demands, and it was agreed that a further Parliament should be called in February 1388. The resulting Merciless Parliament saw a fullscale purge of Richard's household. Events Beginning of prosecution of Lollards in England The Battle of Otterburn between England and Scotland Births Thomas Montacute, 4th Earl of Salisbury. ...

External links

• Eulogium (historiarum sive temporis): Chronicon ab orbe condito usque ad annum Domini MCCCLXVI, a monacho quodam Malmesburiensi exaratum, ed. by Frank Scott Haydon, Rolls series, 3 vols. (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1858–63), III (1863), pp. 363–5.

This is a list of crossings of the River Thames, downstream first. ...