Jonty Claypole

And he does it because he's into the idea of court magnificence.

He's into the idea of spending money on his court and his own appearance.

He is the king who introduces your majesty and your highness.

Before that, kings weren't called that.

They tended to be called my lord or sire.

Yeah.

But Richard is like into the big name.

And so from his reign, we have amazing visual art like the Wilson Diptych.

We have these very early life-size portraits of him himself.

He commissions the architect Hugh Herland to build and design the great timber roof of Westminster Hall with its beautiful carving, which is still the largest medieval timber roof in Europe.

And he encourages the court culture of literature and writing today.

in English.

It's not just Chaucer either, we should say.

Chaucer is part of a movement.

He's got his mate John Gower, who he dedicates some of his work to.

There's the Gawain poet writing up in the north of England, who's writing Pearl and Gawain and Green Knight masterpieces.

There is, of course, Piers Plowman by William Langlard.

And these are all writers starting to write in the English language.

So I'm always struck at how wonderful this period is in cultural and artistic terms.

And I think there's a tendency to think about England as a sort of cultural backwater and then Shakespeare comes from nowhere.