t 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
the deposition of Wenzel of Bohemia. The councillors with whom he had acted
since his resumption of authority saw themselves powerless. John of Gaunt
indeed still retained influence over the king. It was the support of the
Duke of Lancaster after his return from his Spanish campaign which had
enabled Richard to hold in check the Duke of Gloucester and the party that
he led; and the anxiety of the young king to retain this support was seen
in his grant of Aquitaine to his uncle, and in the legitimation of the
Beauforts, John's children by a mistress, Catherine Swinford, whom he
married after the death of his second wife. The friendship of the Duke
brought with it the adhesion of one even more important, his son Henry, the
Earl of Derby. As heir through his mother, Blanche of Lancaster, to the
estates and influence of the Lancastrian house, Henry was the natural head
of a constitutional opposition, and his weight was increased by a marriage
with the heiress of the