Richard II., son of the Black Prince, was born in 1366, and succeeded his grandfather Edward III., on the throne of England, 1377; murdered in 1392. Historians differ with regard to the manner in which he was murdered. It was long the prevailing opinion that sir Piers Exton, and others of his guards, fell upon him in Pontefract castle, and that the king, wresting a pole-axe from one of the murderers, soon laid four of their number dead at his feet; but at length being overpowered, he was struck dead with a blow of a pole-axe.
"O Pomfret, Pomfret, O thou bloody prison!
Fatal and ominous to noble Peers!
Within the guilty closure of thy walls,
Richard the Second here was hack'd to death."
Shakspeare's Richard III.
But it is more probable that he was starved to death; and after all sustenance was denied him, he prolonged his unhappy life, it is said, for a fortnight, before he reached the end of his miseries. This account is more consistent with the story that his body was exposed in public, and that no marks of violence were found upon it.
When Richard the Second in England was king,
And reign'd with honour and state,
Six uncles he had, his grandfather's sons,