The Shakespeare Book

58

R

ichard’s opening speech

sets the stage by moving

us from the wintry horrors

of the battlefield to the summer

holiday that peace has brought,

“Now is the winter of our

discontent / Made glorious summer

by this son of York” (1.1.1–2). Only

Richard’s discontent remains.

Mocking the idle courtly life in a

tone that is increasingly ironic, he

resolves to let his dissatisfaction

darken Edward IV’s sun-filled reign.

Politics and the past

Richard is a more subtle operator

in this fourth play of Shakespeare’s

Henry VI tetralogy than he was in

part 3. Where once he would have

used violence, now he manipulates

court in-fighting and the self-interest

of ambitious men. Shakespeare

gives him the cunning of a

Machiavel, and reinforces this by

moving most of the bloodletting

off-stage—although not every

modern director keeps it there.

Queen Elizabeth was a widow

who married Edward IV after

refusing to be his mistress, much to

his family’s disgust. Richard plays

on class consciousness, setting up

her brother and two young sons

by her former marriage as social

RICHARD III

climbers—“silken, sly, insinuating

jacks” (1.3.53). He then blames them

for his plots—the imprisonment of

his brother Clarence and Lord

Hastings—and accuses them of

having ambitious designs on the

new young king. This allows him to

play the kindly uncle and lodge the

two boys in the Tower of London.

Shortly afterward he has Rivers,

Dorset, and Grey executed.

Such a swift rise to power

relies on the collusion of others.

Buckingham, Catesby, Hastings,

the Bishop of Ely, even Richmond’s

stepfather, Stanley, may not be

duped by Richard, but they all

stay silent about what they know.

Settling history’s account

To a degree, Richard’s plotting

brings down those figures who

were disloyal to the House of York

during the civil war. Most of this

is predicted by old Queen Margaret,

the widow of Henry VI, who appears

anachronistically at court to call

down vengeance on those who for

so long set brother against brother.

She conveniently forgets her own

role in the fighting, as Richard

observes, but she sets out a pattern

of retributive vengeance that echoes

history’s script; one that we watch

Richard go on to fulfill.

IN CONTEXT

THEMES

Murderous villainy,

ambition, loss, retribution

SETTING

15th-century London and

Leicestershire

SOURCES

1st century The tragedies

of Roman playwright Seneca.

14th–15th centuries The

figure of Vice in morality plays;

the cyclical pattern and biblical

parallels of the mystery plays.

c.1520 Thomas More’s

History of King Richard III.

LEGACY

1590s Date of the first

performance is unknown, but

five reprints of the text by 1623

suggest the play was popular.

1700 Colley Cibber’s

adaptation dominates the

stage until the late 1800s.

1955 Laurence Olivier’s Old

Vic production is, for some,

the definitive Richard III.

1963–64 Peter Hall and

John Barton’s RSC adaptation

makes Richard, portrayed

by a boyish Ian Holm, the

dysfunctional product of a

bloody feud.

1985 Antony Sher’s spiderlike

Richard uses his crutches to

dominate this RSC production.

1991 Richard Eyre’s National

Theatre production set the

play in 1930s England where

a fascist Richard, played by

Ian McKellen, is a vengeful,

mutilated war veteran.

I am determinèd to

prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures

of these days.

Richard

Act 1, Scene 1

Are you drawn forth among

a world of men

To slay the innocent?

Clarence

Act 1, Scene 4