his capacity for self-restraint.  Parted by his own will from the counsellors of his youth, calling to his service the Lords Appellant, reconciled alike with the baronage and the Parliament, the young king promised to be among the noblest and wisest rulers that England had seen.  But the violent and haughty temper which underlay this self-command showed itself from time to time.  The Earl of Arundel and his brother the bishop stood in the front rank of the party which had coerced Richard in his early days; their influence was great in the new government.  But a strife between the Earl and John of Gaunt revived the king’s resentment at the past action of this house; and at the funeral of Anne of Bohemia in 1394 a fancied slight roused Richard to a burst of passion.  He struck the Earl so violently that the blow drew blood.  But the quarrel was patched up, and the reconciliation was followed by the elevation of Bishop Arundel to the vacant Primacy in 1396.  In the preceding year Richard had crossed to Ireland and in a short autumn campaign reduced its native chiefs again to submission.  Fears of Lollard disturbances soon recalled him, but these died at the king’s presence, and Richard was able to devote himself to the negotiation of a marriage which was to be the turning-point of his reign.  His policy throughout the recent years had been a policy of peace.  It was war which rendered the Crown helpless before the Parliament, and peace was needful if the work of constant progress was not to be undone.  But the short truces, renewed from time to time, which he had as yet secured were insufficient for this purpose, for so long as war might break out in the coming year the king hands were tied.  The impossibility of renouncing the claim to the French crown indeed made a formal peace impossible, but its ends might be secured by a lengthened truce, and it was with a view to this that Richard in 1396 wedded Isabella, the daughter of Charles the Sixth of France.  The bride was a mere child, but she brought with her a renewal of the truce for five-and-twenty years.

[Sidenote:  Change of Richard’s temper]

The match was hardly concluded when the veil under which Richard had shrouded his real temper began to be dropped.  His craving for absolute power, such as he witnessed in the Court of France, was probably intensified from this moment by a mental disturbance which gathered strength as the months went on.  As if to preclude any revival of the war Richard had surrendered Cherbourg to the king of Navarre and now gave back Brest to the Duke of Britanny.  He was said to have pledged himself at his wedding to restore Calais to the king of France.  But once freed from all danger of such a struggle the whole character of his rule seemed to change.  His court became as crowded and profuse as his grandfather’s.  Money was recklessly borrowed and as recklessly squandered.  The king’s pride became insane, and it was fed with dreams of winning the Imperial crown through