Context and Background - Richard III #

History Plays became a device to bring the cultural and national inheritance to the common illiterate masses. Through entertainment, it helped the common people appreciate the famous victories and noble heroes of a great nation. None was more admired than Henry V.

The War of the Roses began as the result of a family dispute between rival cousins, grandsons of Edward III, for the crown of England. Shakespeare wrote two tetralogies (series of 4 plays), covering this era in British History: Richard II, Henry IV, Pt 1 & 2, Henry V, and then Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 & 3 finishing with Richard III.

Since 1066, England and France were locked together under the combined Monarchy of French Plantagenet Kings, who appointed favourites to administer affairs in England. Edward I, circa 1272 – 1307 was the first to assert independence by appointing his eldest son, Prince of Wales. It was Edward III, The perfect King, 1327 – 1377 who began the Hundreds Years War, humiliating the French by seizing much of their lands. Edward was widely respected as benevolent, merciful and magnificent. His heir, The Black Prince died in France a year before Edward died in 1377. The heavy crown passed to his grandson Richard II, who was 10 years old, so a regent ruled for twelve years.

Richard II (1367 – 1400) was a weak, ineffective but extravagant ruler with no heirs. Unfortunately the Black Death killed off half the population, followed by the Peasant’s Revolt which fomented social unrest. Richard became very unpopular. When his throne was usurped by Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV, the legitimacy of future Monarchs was in dispute with rebellions by the Welsh, the Irish and the Percy family in England’s north. As well there was continued war with France and Spain during this period known as the 100 years war.

“Richard II, loses his wealth, his kingdom and his role, his usurper and successor, Henry IV, rules a wounded kingdom in a continual state of emergency and unrest. This disturbance is manifest in damaged relations between fathers and sons. The sons, Hal and Hotspur, are cast as rival twins driven to dark, glorious dreams of redemption. Hal’s killing of Hotspur, his reconciliation with his dying father, and his betrayal of his friend Falstaff allow him to redeem his lost honour. As Henry V, he unifies his torn nation by leading it to acts of slaughter in France. His son is crowned Henry VI while still an infant. Under his reign, the kingdom descends into factional politics and brutal civil war. History becomes a bloody nightmare. During these wars, we witness the rise of the future king, Richard III, an exquisite monster whose rule will be a reign of death. His kingdom is a shadow land peopled by the dead.”

Huw Griffiths Sydney November 2008

At the opening of the play the Plantagenet dynasty has expired with the murder of Richard II, with a short reign of the House of Lancaster defeated by the House of York at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471.

While the period of the War of the Roses was brutal and bloody, it was mild compared to that of the English Civil War from 1640 – 1660 where thousands of citizens died in a struggle between a monarch and his people over the divine right of kings.

Blood and violence is the brutal story of our past and the watershed of today’s illusory freedoms.

Richard III (1452 - 1485) is a product of his environment and his naked aggression must be understood in the context of his forbears who each grabbed power (the crown) by violent and questionable means and in turn had it violently torn from their heads.

While most of the previous strife had been between cousins, this play is a contest within the York family’s brothers over who should wear the heavy crown..

Richard III - A synopsis #

Richard III is a simple story, though it may appear complex because of the sets of relationships involved.

The story is one of ambition for power not only on the part of Richard but on the part of many other characters in the play. The conflict is set around the period known s the War of the Roses. The two main competing families, Lancaster and York, had as their symbols, the rose - a Red Rose for the Lancasters, and a White Rose for the Yorks,

The dispute had its beginnings years before when King Richard II was forced to give up the throne of England in 1399. Normal succession to the throne was via the first born son of the King, but this was interrupted, creating two sets of claimants to the throne - the Lancasters and the Yorks. Each side had its supporters, and there were a series of battles as each tried to win power.

In 1471 the issue seemed to be settled when he Yorkists defeated the Lancaster forces at the Battle of Tewkesbury. The Yorkist forces, led by King Edward IV, defeated and killed the young Prince Edward in battle. Soon afterwards, his imprisoned father, King Henry VI, died in the Tower of London. After battle, Jasper Tudor, a supporter of Henry, escaped to France - his son Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond, going with him.

This victory now changed the focus of the conflict to one within the victorious family. Now undisputed king. Edward IV had two brothers - George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Richard and George were fighting over the land and possessions seized from the Neville family, supporters of Henry VI, after Tewkesbury. Eventually, the dispute was settled and the lands divided between them. King Edward had two sons, Edward and Richard, who were now the heirs to the throne. Next in line to the throne was George, the King’s brother, and Richard, his other and younger brother.

In 1478 King Edward arrested his brother George, Duke of Clarence, on suspicion of trying to harm the heir, his nephew Edward. George died in prison.

In 1483 King Edward died, and his wife’s family tried to bring the heir, Prince Edward, to London to be crowned the new King. Richard intercepted them on their journey, and had the Queen’s family group, led by Earl Rivers, killed. He took control of young Edward, and brought him to London. Edward was too young to be made king immediately, so Richard was appointed his Protector. Richard brought Edward’s younger brother, Richard, to be with him - and had the two boys kept in the Tower of London for protection.

Edward was due to be crowned on 22 June. Shortly before this date, it was announced that it had been discovered that the boys were illegitimate children - their father, King Edward IV, had secretly married another woman before he had married Queen Elizabeth. The boys were therefore not legally entitled to inherit the Crown. Richard was the next in line, and he was to be made King Richard Ill. A supporter of the boys, Hastings, was quickly executed. Another supporter, Buckingham, tried to revolt against Richard, and he was defeated and quickly executed also. Richard duly was crowned in July.

Elizabeth Woodville, Henry VI’s widow, had now lost two sons and several other family

Elizabeth of York, but was told that the people would be outraged by his marriage to his own niece. Elizabeth of York instead became engaged to Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond, in France, to strengthen his claims to the throne.

Henry sailed to England with an army in 1485, and met Richard in battle at Bosworth. Richard was killed, and Henry was crowned the new king, King Henry VII. He married Elizabeth of York in the next year.

Notable quotes from Richard III

“Now is the winter of our discontent.” (Act I, Scene i)
“Off with his head!” (Act III, Scene iv)
“A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!” (Act V, Scene iv)

We close with Richmond’s assessment at the end of the Play:

RICHMOND

We will unite the white rose and the red:
*Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,
That long have frown’d upon their enmity!
What traitor hears me, and says not amen?
England hath long been mad, and scarr’d herself;
The brother blindly shed the brother’s blood,
The father rashly slaughter’d his own son,
The son, compell’d, been butcher to the sire:
All this divided York and Lancaster,
Divided in their dire division,
O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true succeeders of each royal house,
By God’s fair ordinance conjoin together!
And let their heirs, God, if thy will be so.
Enrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace,

Public Relations #

All governments spend a fortune on polishing their burnished images. Augustus was a patron to Horace and Virgil. Livy was independently wealthy and so a bit more objective.

Tennyson was on a life long pension to write for England.

The favourable light cast on the Tudor lineage compared to the blackening of the House of York may indicate the ulterior purposes of this Play; to curry favour with Queen Elizabeth I.

As Hilary Mantel points out, most events in history are buried, and we need to excavate the narratives and exhume the bodies to discover the truth.

All histories are written by the victors so must be treated with great skepticism. It is well known that King Henry VII destroyed a lot of documents and doctored his narratives to support the Tudor claim as rightful heirs to the throne.

Henry predated his annointment to the throne so he could charge those who fought at the battle of Bosworth against him with treason.

As to the murder of the Princes in the Tower, recent documented evidence brought to light by an SBS documentary fairly conclusively indicates that the young boys were rescued, taken to Europe and both made failed attempts to raise armies to reclaim the Yorkist right to the throne.

Assessment: #

As the last of the first tetralogy, Richard III seems an inferior work, compared to Shakespeare’s later more mature work, in that it is more simplistic in its black and white portrayal of villains and heroes.

In later plays, such as Henry V, Lear, Hamlet and Julius Caesar, Shakespeare is more nuanced and ambiguous. His characters have shades of good and evil, dramatised by subverting glowing and pompous rhetoric. Antony’s high flown oratory is undercut by the next scene in Act IV where he enthusiatically participates in the proscription of more than 200 prominent Romans and he flagrantly abnegates the promises of Caesar’s Will.

In Henry V, the heroic nature of the king is dramtically undercut by the juxtaposed unheroic voices of the common soldiers. Shakespeare deliberately shows the audience a more balanced and realistic view of leaders.

Could this be a mock epic?