Read "A Child's History of England" by Charles Dickens online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Richard, son of the Black Prince, a boy eleven years of age, succeeded to the Crown under the title of King Richard the Second. The whole English nation were ready to admire him for the sake of his brave father. As to the lords and ladies about the Court, they declared him to be the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best-even of princes-whom the lords and ladies about the Court, generally declare to be the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best of mankind. To flatter a poor boy in this base manner was not a very likely way to develop whatever good was in him; and it brought him to anything but a good or happy end.
The Duke of Lancaster, the young King's uncle-commonly called John of Gaunt, from having been born at Ghent, which the common people so pronounced-was supposed to have some thoughts of the throne himself; but, as he was not popular, and the memory of the Black Prince was, he submitted to his nephew.