Coronation of the British monarch monarch by making the ceremony a spectacle for ordinary people, started with the coronation in 1377 of Richard II who was a 10-year-old boy, thought unlikely to command respect simply by his physical appearance. On the day before the coronation, the boy king and his retinue were met outside the City of London by the lord mayor, aldermen and the livery companies, and he was conducted to the Tower of London where he spent the night in vigil. The following morning, the king travelled on horseback in a great procession through the decorated city streets to Westminster. Bands played along
John of Gaunt of political strife. He mediated between the king and a group of rebellious nobles, which included Gaunt's own son and heir, Henry Bolingbroke. Following Gaunt's death in 1399, his estates and titles were declared forfeit to the crown, and his son, now disinherited, was branded a traitor and exiled. Henry Bolingbroke returned from exile shortly after to reclaim his inheritance, and deposed Richard. He reigned as King Henry IV of England (1399–1413), the first of the descendants of John of Gaunt to hold the English throne. The House of Lancaster would rule England from 1399 until the time of the