Main Characters

Richard — the Duke of Gloucester; deformed in body and twisted in mind

Duke of Buckingham — Richard's right-hand man

Sir Richard Ratcliff and Sir William Catesby — two of Richard's supporters

Sir James Tyrrel — a murderer whom Richard hires

King Edward IV — older brother of Richard and Clarence

George, Duke of Clarence — the trusting middle brother of Edward and Richard

Queen Elizabeth — the wife of King Edward IV

Dorset, Rivers, and Grey — kinsmen and allies of Elizabeth

Lady Anne — the young widow of Prince Edward, son of the former king, Henry VI

Duchess of York — widowed mother of Richard, Clarence, and King Edward IV; not to be confused with Margaret

Margaret — widow of the dead King Henry VI. Mother of the slain Prince Edward

The Princes (in the Tower) — the two young sons of King Edward IV, Prince Edward and the young duke of York

Elizabeth — daughter of the former Queen Elizabeth who was married to Edward IV

Richmond — challenges Richard for the throne and becomes Henry VII

Lord Hastings — a lord who supports the Yorkist cause

Lord Stanley — Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby; stepfather of Richmond

Lord Mayor of London — a gullible and suggestible fellow

Sir Thomas Vaughan — a friend of Elizabeth, Dorset, Rivers, and Grey

Introduction

King Richard III is the last of the four plays in Shakespeare's first quartet of history plays. It concludes a dramatic chronicle started in King Henry VI, Part I and then moving through King Henry VI, Part II, and King Henry VI, Part III. The entire four-play saga was composed early in Shakespeare's career, and most scholars date King Richard III to about 1591 or 1592.

King Richard III is a dramatization of historical events that concluded in 1485 with the defeat of King Richard III at the battle of Bosworth, when the Tudors replaced the Plantagenet family as rulers of England. Shakespeare often plays fast and loose with the facts, stretching and altering the timeline. The events of this civil war — including the murders of King Henry and Prince Edward by the York brothers, and the earlier killing of Rutland by Henry's family — are an important background to King Richard III. In Shakespeare's version, both Henry and Edward leave widows: Margaret and Lady Anne. Although Anne mourns Henry VI's death, she nevertheless becomes Richard's wife.

When King Richard III begins, Edward IV is growing old. His malicious and deformed younger brother, Richard, is plotting to get his hands on the throne. But a great many people stand between him and the kingship. When Edward dies, he leaves behind two sons who are in line for the throne before Richard. They are still children, though, and Richard has them murdered while they live in captivity in the Tower of London. Their young sister, Elizabeth, becomes an important pawn in bringing peace to the realm.

Richard's ambition is also blocked by his older brother and Clarence's two children, all of whom Richard must get rid of in order to seize the throne. Once on the throne, Richard soon finds himself besieged by his second cousin, Henry, the Earl of Richmond, who has been gathering strength overseas. Henry believes he has a rightful claim to the throne, and in preparing to challenge Richard sets up the final conflict of the Wars of Roses.

The Play

The play picks up from the end of King Henry VI, Part III. Richard's brother is now King Edward IV. In order to gain the crown himself and eliminate his brothers, Richard pits his older brother George, Duke of Clarence, against Edward. He convinces Edward that George is guilty of treason and has him arrested. He also brazenly woos Anne, widow of the murdered Edward, the Prince of Wales, in the midst of her husband's funeral procession.

Edward IV, who is deathly ill at the beginning of the play, dies. Richard has already arranged for his brother George to be murdered while in prison, and now he becomes regent until Edward's son (also named Edward, Prince of Wales) comes of age.

In order to “protect” the Prince of Wales and his younger brother, Richard puts them in the Tower of London. He then executes Edward's loyalist lords: Vaughan, Rivers, Hastings, and Grey. With the aid of Buckingham, Richard has Edward's sons declared illegitimate. Buckingham “offers” the throne of England to Richard, who pretends to be reluctant to accept. Few are fooled by his false modesty. Even his mother curses him as a bloody tyrant.

Richard hires a murderer to kill the princes in the tower because Buckingham has refused to help him. Having married Anne, who conveniently dies, Richard proposes marriage to Princess Elizabeth, King Edward's daughter. Her mother Elizabeth (Edward's widow) pretends to go along with the match but actually arranges for her daughter to marry Henry, the Earl of Richmond instead.

Richmond is raising an army in France to fight Richard. Buckingham, out of favor with Richard because he refused to go along with the murder of the young princes, gives his allegiance to Richmond. Buckingham is captured and Richard has him executed.

Richmond finally lands with his army and marches for London. The French and English armies get ready to fight near Bosworth Field. The night before the battle, the ghosts of the people he has killed visit Richard, and all prophesy his death.

During the battle Richard is thrown from his horse (“A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!”). He and Richmond fight, and Richmond prevails, killing Richard. Richmond is crowned King Henry VII. The Battle of Bosworth is the final engagement of the Wars of the Roses and marks the founding of the Tudor dynasty of kings and queens.

Commentary

King Richard III is a chronicle of bloody deeds and atrocities, and modern audiences can find it difficult to follow the complex political intrigue, family relationships, and personal vendettas. The play is as much melodrama as history, and Richard is a self-professed villain of monstrous proportions comparable only to Iago in Othello, or to a lesser extent Edmund in King Lear. Richard's ambition makes Macbeth look like an amateur by comparison. He is a totally Machiavellian creature, able to splinter and nearly destroy the forces opposing him, until Richmond finally defeats him.

Richard is clearly ambitious and sadistic, but no clear reason for his motivations or his hatred is given. It is as if he decides early on in life that he will be as bitter and twisted inside as he is out because that is the only joy he can ever really expect to have. Like the character the Devil from medieval morality pageants who represented evil, Richard does not even try to justify what he does.

Richard was probably no more murderous than the kings who came before or after him. He was more the rightful king of England when he died in battle than Richmond. History is written by the victors, and at the time Shakespeare was writing, England was ruled by Queen Elizabeth — granddaughter of King Henry VII, the man who defeated Richard. The official “party line” was that Richard had been a monster who was not the legitimate king of England. To suggest anything else would have been thoroughly dangerous for Shakespeare.

Famous Lines

“Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York, And all the clouds that loured upon our houseIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruised arms hung up for monuments, Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front; And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them, — Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun” (Act I, Scene I).

“O, I have passed a miserable night, So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams, That, as I am a Christian faithful man, I would not spend another such a night, Though 't were to buy a world of happy days” (Act I, Scene IV).

“Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown! What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears! What ugly sights of death within mine eyes! Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks, Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon, Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scattered in the bottom of the sea: Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept, As 't were in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems” (Act I, Scene IV).

“Off with his head!” (Act III, Scene IV).

“An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told” (Act IV, Scene IV).

“I have set my life upon a cast, And I will stand the hazard of the die: I think there be six Richmonds in the field” (Act V, Scene IV).

“A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!” (Act V, Scene IV).