Richard III
Richard III, chronicle play in five acts by William Shakespeare, written about 1592–94 and published in 1597 in a quarto edition seemingly reconstructed from memory by the acting company when a copy of the play was missing. The text in the First Folio of 1623 is substantially better, having been heavily corrected with reference to an independent manuscript. Richard III is the last in a sequence of four history plays (the others being Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, and Henry VI, Part 3). Known collectively as the “first tetralogy,” the plays depict major events of English history during the late 14th and early 15th centuries. For the events of the play, Shakespeare relied mainly on the Chronicles (1577) of Raphael Holinshed and, to a lesser extent, the works of Edward Hall (1498–1547).
Plot
Richard’s rise to power (Acts I–III)
In the opening soliloquy of Richard III, the dissembling Richard, duke of Gloucester—who is depicted in the play as hunchbacked, although historians believe he had scoliosis—reveals his true purpose:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain.
Having killed King Henry VI and Henry’s son, the prince of Wales, in Henry VI, Part 3, Richard sets out to kill all who stand between him and the throne of England. He masterminds the imprisonment and subsequent murder of his brother, the duke of Clarence. He woos and marries Lady Anne, whose husband (Edward, prince of Wales) and father-in-law he has murdered, and later arranges for Anne’s death as well once she is no longer useful to him.
The ailing King Edward IV, Richard’s elder brother, dies. Richard displays his animosity toward Edward’s widow, Queen Elizabeth, by arranging for the deaths of her sons, the marquess of Dorset and Lord Grey, and her brother, Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers. He orders the execution of Lord Hastings when that courtier proves loyal to King Edward’s children.
The Mystery of the Princes in the Tower
After Edward IV’s death in 1483, his sons, 12-year-old Prince Edward and 9-year-old Richard, duke of York, were declared illegitimate by Parliament. They were confined to the Tower of London by their uncle, who ascended the throne as Richard III. The princes vanished and are presumed to have been murdered, though it has been suggested that they escaped. The imposters Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck made false claims to the throne by pretending to be one of the missing princes.
Richard’s downfall and death in battle (Acts III–V)
At first Richard is ably assisted by the duke of Buckingham, who readily persuades Cardinal Bourchier to remove the young duke of York from the protection of sanctuary and place him and his brother under their uncle’s “protection” in the Tower of London. Buckingham further arranges for and later explains away the hurried execution of Hastings, spreads ugly rumors about the illegitimacy of the young princes and of Edward himself, and stage-manages Richard’s apparently reluctant acceptance of the crown.
The nefarious partnership between Richard and Buckingham ends when Buckingham balks at killing the young princes and then flees to escape the same fate. An army led by Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, challenges Richard’s claim to the throne. On the night before the Battle of Bosworth Field, Richard is haunted by the ghosts of all whom he has murdered. After a desperate fight, Richard is killed, and Richmond becomes King Henry VII.
For a discussion of this play within the context of Shakespeare’s entire corpus, see William Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s plays and poems.
