Richard III - the play

• Richard III is one of Shakespeare's great villains, and a contrast with Iago is interesting. A study of his psychology is fascinating, and the play provides more causation than we find for Iago.

• The play and the movies can be confusing the first time through, but with a little background and a printout of this web page at your side, you should be able to follow the plot and understand the issues.

• The play was written early in Shakespeare's career–he was in his late 20s and comes about the time of his writing of Romeo and Juliet. It is important to note that Richard III was the last of the Plantagenet line (stretching back to 1154) and ending with the death of Richard at the end of this play in 1485. Richard is defeated by Henry Tudor (Henry VII) -- the first of the Tudor line. Shakespeare is writing during the reign of Elizabeth Tudor, so many see it as little wonder that Richard is made darker than he may have been in actuality.

• The events immediately leading up to the play concern the York line of the Plantagenet family. The play begins right after the York family, with our Richard Gloucester (Richard III) as a principal general, had defeated Henry VI and his wife Margaret of Anjou. The York family sets up Edward IV as king. He's sickly and weak. He has two brothers--Clarence, who during the war wasn't very loyal to his family so we see him getting put in prison, and Richard Gloucester (Richard III), who is hump-backed and with a crippled arm. He was born prematurely with these birth defects, and their mother, the Duchess of York, obviously finds him disgusting.

• Who was Richard III? You can print this handy guide to Who's Who.

• JM Massi has a good summary of who Richard was. I have added photos from the movie to Massi's summary to help you keep the characters straight.

• A good, balanced overview of Richard III the historical person is here. More background hereon how the plays have been interpreted.

• The character of Richard III and Shakespeare's interpretation of him have generated deep interest. Was Richard as evil as Shakespeare makes him? The answer is probably no. Just as Oliver Stone has reinvented JFK and Nixon in his movies, so Shakespeare interpreted Richard for his times. If you want to get a taste of the controversies or delve deeply, the Richard III Society is the place to start.

York Family Tree in Richard III

Events leading up to the beginning of the play:

			Two branches of the Plantagenet Family have been struggling for control of the throne of England. After a long battle with the House of Lancaster, headed by the King of England, Henry VI, and his warrior-queen, Margaret of Anjou,
	King Edward		the House of York has finally taken control of the throne and placed its own leader, now King Edward IV, in power. Edward is the oldest of three brothers, himself, George, duke of Clarence, and Richard, duke of Gloucester (Richard III). But the battle has not been without its casualties. Edward IV's father, Richard, Duke of York, the original leader of the family, was captured by Queen Margaret and executed after being sarcastically crowned with a paper crown and shown the blood of his teenage son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland ("Rutland" to Shakespeare in this play) on a cloth. Rutland had earlier been captured and killed.
Clarence	Richard III		To complicate things, Edward IV's brother, George, Duke of Clarence, had switched sides in the wars for a short time, fighting on the side of his wife's family under King Henry VI and Queen Margaret. "Clarence," as Shakespeare usually calls him, then switched back, but his family--the Yorks--are still a bit angry about his temporary change.
Anne in mourning	Prince Edward		The losers, the Lancaster family, are gone but not forgotten. The defeated king, Henry VI, was captured and, at least in Shakespeare's version, killed by Richard, now Duke of Gloucester, youngest brother to Edward IV. Henry's son and heir, Prince Edward, was also killed and also, according to Shakespeare, by the same Richard.
Anne wed Richard	Richard III		Young Edward's devoted wife, Anne, appears in this play, as the lone mourner in the funeral procession of her father-in-law, Henry VI. Henry's murderer, Richard, talks her into marrying him early in this play.
			Meanwhile, the ex-queen, Margaret of Anjou, has been exiled to France, but she comes back throughout this play to remind the victors that she is angry about the deaths of her son and husband and her loss of her status as queen of England.
			Meanwhile, over in France, there is still one contender for the throne left: Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, descended from a former queen of England by a liaison after her royal husband's death and also very distantly descended from the House of Lancaster through his mother. Historically, Henry's claim is EXTREMELY weak, being traced only through the female lines, whereas inheritance of the English throne at this point was expected to be through the male line. Henry's stepfather, the Earl of Derby (also called "Lord Stanley") appears as an unwilling supporter of Richard of Gloucester in this drama.
Duchess of York, mother of 3 sons:	King Edward		As if these are not sufficient problems for the newly-crowned Edward IV,
Clarence	Richard III		his wife's family are feuding with his own brothers, George, Duke of Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester,
Hastings	Buckingham		and their supporters, Lord Hastings and the Duke of Buckingham.
Queen Elizabeth	her brother,Rivers		The problem is that the new Queen, the former Elizabeth Grey Woodville, was of common birth and won the new King by her looks alone. He elevated her brother and her two sons by her late husband Woodville to the nobility, making them Earl Rivers, the Marquess of Dorset, and Lord Grey, respectively. Now they want even more power and are trying to get their enemies sent to the Tower of London on charges of treason. At the start of the play, they have already succeeded in doing this to the faithful Lord Hastings.
PrinceofWales then EdwardV	York		What Queen Elizabeth has done well, however, is produce heirs to the throne with King Edward--their two sons, Edward, Prince of Wales, and his younger brother, Richard of York. So at the start of this play, England's future actually looks fairly secure in spite of these problems: the long civil wars (the Wars of the Roses) between the Houses of York and Lancaster seem over at last and Edward IV is securely on the throne with two sons as heirs to ensure the continuation of his dynasty. And then Richard, King Edward's youngest brother, decides that he'd really like to be king himself....and thereby hangs this tale. Text by JM Massi, Ph.D.

• Distinctive aspects of Richard III

• His appealing evilness. What makes him so disgustingly appealing? His sexual charm? His energy? His wit? The way he relates directly to us in the audience with his asides?

• His psychology. Aspects of his character are based on the medieval Vice figure in early medieval plays, but Richard's character goes beyond in being endlessly fascinating. Richard expresses self-hatred, his mother is disgusted by him, his body is visibly loathsome, and to all this he adds his own wickedness, with a sly smile.

• Aside from Hamlet, no play is so dominated by one character–he is the play.

• Unlike Iago, Richard is a mixture of psychological and spiritual evil. In Renaissance times, physical deformity could be considered an outward sign of inner, spiritual depravity. (In fact, the real Richard was probably NOT deformed. Later writers like Saint Thomas More—a friend of Henry VIII until Henry executed him—was a writer who described Richard's hump back. Much is made of the suggestion that Richard was evil from conception. Even his mother curses him in a chilling scene. So the evil portrayed here is of a different order. But Shakespeare does not make Richard solely a devil. He also endows him with a credible human psychology. Richard presents to us that he has been unloved by women. For a human side of Richard, see Act 5 scene iii, 180-207. [Discussion Topic 1: Explore Richard's character–his psychological, political, and metaphysical aspects.--R3Play1]

• One of the most delightful aspects of Richard's loathsome character is his self-awareness. He loves to observe himself and comment on himself to us the audience. He is always acting for us, commenting on his acting, and directing himself as he as character directs others. We could call this self-awareness his theatricality.
• [Discussion Topic 2: Explore Richard's theatricality. He is always acting, playing roles, conscious of others on stage and of us in the audience. Is there a Richard there or is he a man with many roles? --R3Play2]

• The women in Richard's life are fascinating.
  • his mother, the Duchess, who in the play finds him disgusting.
  • Queen Elizabeth, a commoner, married to King Edward, struggles for ever-greater power and is a principal rival to Richard. She has borne three children with whom we are concerned–the two boys, whom many say were executed by Richard in the Tower of London, and teenaged Elizabeth, whom Richard wants to marry but whom her mother actually pairs up with Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond, thus giving legitimacy to Henry Tudor's line. At the end of the play, Richmond executes Richard, weds young Elizabeth, and becomes King Henry VII.
  • Lady Anne, the wife of the son of the dead king, Henry VI, whom Richard woos and weds in one of the most remarkable dating scenes in all of plays and films. She is wooed by Richard over the corpse of her husband, who was killed by Richard.
  • This site gives an interpretation of Richard's relationship to women.
  • [Discussion Topic 3: Analyze Richard's relationships to the women in his world–his mother, Lady Anne, and Queen Elizabeth.--R3Play3]

• Shakespeare didn’t make up the story of Richard III.

The play is based on a book by Saint Thomas More, while he was the friend of Henry VIII, and More expresses the propagandistic view of Richard as evil in order to support the Tudor line. (Thomas More later was executed by Henry VIII for not going along with Henry's divorces. See the play and movie A Man for All Seasons.)