The little King Richard II. was a boy ten years old, born in the year when his father went on his ill-fated expedition to Spain to help Don Pedro. Richard's mother was Joan, Countess of Kent, the heiress of that unfortunate Earl Edmund, whom Mortimer beheaded in 1330. She had been a widow when the Black Prince wedded her, and had two sons by her first husband, Sir Thomas Holland. These two half-brothers of King Richard were ten years his seniors, and were destined to be not unimportant figures in the history of his reign; their names were Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, and John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon. [Sidenote: =The regency.--Disasters abroad.=] The helplessness of the young king, the son of the deeply mourned Black Prince, at first touched the hearts of all men, and the parties which were represented by John of Gaunt and William of Wykeham reconciled themselves, and agreed to join in serving the king faithfully. A council of regency was appointed, in which both were represented, and it was agreed that Parliament alone should choose and dismiss the king's ministers. This happy concord, however, was not to last for long. The conduct of the foreign affairs of the nation was left in John of Lancaster's hands, and the continued misfortunes in the French war were laid to his charge. The troops of Charles V. were still carrying everything before them; they conquered all Aquitaine save Bordeaux and Bayonne, and overran the duchy of Brittany, the sole ally of England on the continent. Moreover, fleets of Norman privateers had begun to appear in the Channel. They landed boldly on the English coast, and burnt Winchelsea, Portsmouth, and Gravesend. [Sidenote: =Heavy taxation.=] To restore the fortune of war, money was urgently needed, and Duke John kept asking for more and more, to the discontent both of the Parliament and the nation. He was granted in 1379 a poll-tax, wherein every man was assessed according to his estate, from dukes and archbishops who paid £6 13_s._ 4_d._ to agricultural labourers who paid 4_d._ In 1380 followed another tax graduated from £1 to 1_s._ on every grown man or woman. [Sidenote: =Discontent of labouring classes.=]