1390s

Though in many ways cold and remote, Richard was not without a capacity for friendship. From the days of his youth he had always cherished the company of a select group of male friends. His deep affection for Robert de Vere in the 1380s is well known. In the 1390s he apppears to have been on intimate terms with a number of the senior clerks in his service. The Evesham writer says that the bishops of Worcester and Carlisle were prominent among his boon companions in 1398. His friendships with other men were almost certainly close and intense; but it is possible that they were also fickle. His friendship with Thomas Mowbray, for example, in the early 1380s did not last. In the 1390s, as he moved from adolescence to adulthood, there are signs that he took a greater delight in female company.