THERE IS NOTHING new about “spin”, “misinformation”, “being economical with the truth” or any of the other tools of propaganda. It's just that they often seem new to us, because failed propaganda gets forgotten, while successful propaganda becomes what we know as “history”.

In 1399, Henry of Lancaster usurped his cousin, Richard II, and a few months later had him murdered. It was a despicable, treacherous and naked grab for power, and yet, for 600 years, Henry IV has been celebrated as the man who saved his country from an unbearable tyrant.

In the past few years, however, historians have begun to question the veracity of the 14th and 15th-century chroniclers and writers upon whose statements they have hitherto relied. It is becoming increasingly clear that Henry was a consummate propagandist who did such a thorough job of blackening Richard II's character that no one has since doubted that the king was a vain, hysterical, duplicitous, vindictive, self-indulgent, megalomaniacal, cowardly tyrant who was hated and despised by his people.

But this is one of those few cases in which the propaganda is beginning to fall apart at the seams, and as it does it is exposing evidence of how the story was concocted. For example, the most famous chronicle description of “Richard as megalomaniac” records how the king would sit silent on his throne from dinner until vespers, and if his eye fell on anyone they had to bend their knee and bow low. This has always been taken as an eyewitness account of what actually went on. But earlier this year Professor George B. Stow, Professor of History at La Salle University, Philadelphia, demonstrated that this is a later interpolation inserted to defame Richard and justify the usurpation.

We know that Henry was greatly concerned about his image, because he called in the chronicles, ostensibly to check his claim to the throne, but without doubt to ensure that they recorded only his version of history.

From the moment of the usurpation, the chronicles betray a nervousness of offending the new regime. In one of the St Albans Chronicles, disparaging references to John of Gaunt, Henry's father, were altered after his son seized power. Sometime after 1399, the City of London's official record had several pages covering the period of the usurpation torn out, and two chronicles once favourable to Richard suddenly start attacking him. Clearly the recorders of history were anxious to toe the line delineated by the usurper.

But I believe it is in the work of a poet - John Gower (1325?-1408) - that we are now beginning to see the full impact of Henry's spin machine. There can be little doubt that Henry recruited Gower to publicise his version of the usurpation. Gower wrote a disgraceful but “politically correct” version of the events excoriating Richard as “poisonous”, “two-faced”, “greedy” and “offensive to one and all”, while fawning over Henry for page after page in the following vein: “Just as the rose is the crown of flowers, he was the best of good men ... the most excellent of the excellent ...” etc, etc, ad nauseam.

In his poem Vox clamantis, Gower bewails the ills of the realm, but is careful to exonerate Richard, laying the blame firmly on the king's advisers. However, some time later Gower rewrote passages to turn them into a blistering attack: “The king, an undisciplined boy, neglects ... moral behaviour... Sin springs up on every side of the boy, and he, who is quite easily led, takes to every evil.” Gower pretends he is writing this while Richard is on the throne, which in itself would have been a foolhardy thing to do if Richard was, indeed, a tyrant. But of course he didn't. Gower found it difficult to think outside the post-usurpation box, and a few lines later he adds that, “his destiny does arise out of this wrongdoing”. How could he possibly have known Richard's “destiny” in the 1380s?

He makes an equally farcical error in his reworking of another poem, the Confessio Amantis. He states that he is writing in 1393, and dedicates his book to Henry of Lancaster. But wait a minute! In 1393 Henry was known as Henry of Derby. He didn't become Henry of Lancaster until 1399 when his father. Some of the manuscripts acknowledge this anachronism by including a rubric saying: John Gower completed his book in 1393 and dedicated it to “his lord Henry of Lancaster, then Earl of Derby”. Billy Bunter couldn't have done better.

Gower was so assiduous in reworking his old material and presenting them in beautiful and expensive editions along with eulogies to the usurper that it is hard to believe that he wasn't being financed by the very person whose reputation most stood to gain: Henry IV.

The winners, of course, write the history, and the most successful propagandists hide their tracks. Henry's spin machine has, for 600 years, successfully blackened Richard II's reputation to justify Henry's act of treachery. But the story is finally beginning to unravel.

Terry Jones contributes an essay on Richard II to Fourteenth Century England V, ed Nigel Saul (Boydell)

The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival: Terry Jonesanalyses the character assassination of Richard II: October 11, 7pm
cheltenhamfestivals.com

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