1592 - Richard III - “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York…”

1592 - Richard III “Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York…”

In August 2012, the University of Leicester, on the insistence of screenwriter and amateur historian Phillippa Langley dug up a a carpark in Leicester and found the remains of Richard III. Within a week or so, it was conformed that the skeleton and skull found by archeologists on their first day of their ‘dig’ underneath a council parking lot, was that of Richard III, King of England and France, Lord of Ireland and the last of the Plantagenet or House of Lancaster kings. He died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field and his death heralded in the age of the Tudors.

'Richard III' is probably Shakespeare's first great play. A lot is said about Shakespeare’s rendering of Richard III, which is probably not as historically accurate as a portrait of Richard III or the facial bust made of Richard III from the remains recently found in Leicester. Let’s put this in context. Shakespeare was first and foremost, a writer of fiction for the stage. In 1591 or 1592, he is, as Robert Greene refers to him, “an upstart crow, beautified with… feathers…” bombasting out blank verse. I doubt that his “Shakescene” had reached the pitch of Beatlemania or Abba’s first trip to Australia or even that of a Coldplay concert. If he thought times were hard for a young playwright, he certainly knew that the time of the War of the Roses had been horrific for everyone in England. Just ask anyone in Syria or Lebanon what the cost of civil war actually is. While writing was starting to prove lucrative for Shakespeare, it was, in 1591, not a money tree by any means. Besides, he was living in Tudor England and Elizabeth 1 had brought stability to England and Richard III’s shadow and the Plantagenet’s pikes still lay resting on the doors of the palace. Besides, Shakespeare was probably still yet to have one of his plays performed at the palace or the court. So even if the older generation like Robert Greene felt threatened, Shakespeare had not made it financially, nor had fame come down the cobblestones and up the stairs to knock on his door in Bishopsgate. He probably wouldn’t have answered the door anyway because he probably would have thought it was the tax collector or the bailiff coming to collect what they were owed or to serve a summons for him to appear before the magistrate.

It was probably a no-brainer for Shakespeare to move on to write about Richard’s reign after the completion of the Henry VI trilogy. Going back to Henry V was a little problematic since most of his dramatic potential lay on the battlefield and Henry VIII’s prowess lay in the bedroom and on the chopping block and that made Henry V momentarily un-stagable and Henry VIII untouchable, for the moment. So Richard III it was. Besides, the public had enjoyed and followed Richard’s growth as an intelligent manipulator in Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays. How to frame Richard dramatically was always going to be drenched more in blood than history after the success of Shakespeare’s ‘Titus Andronicus’. So Shakespeare, having probably recently read Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’, knew that political intrigue, manipulation, blood and gore would bankroll another play. He also had other reasons. He wanted to please the Tudors and Elizabeth I, he needed to pay for the new granary he had started to build in Stratford, and he knew that everyone loves a good villain. So 'The Tragedy of Richard the Third' it was.  And what a play it turns out to be. It was, perhaps, the first great play Shakespeare was to write.

“ …since I cannot prove a lover

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.”

As Richard III speaks directly to the audience (and himself) in the opening of the play, we instantly warm to him as a character, even though he is a killjoy to the celebrations of his older brother King Edward IV’. He is not made for court life and its trivial “sportive tricks” for he is a soldier and a politician. Civil War is over, but Richard’s desire now in peace is power and to gain the crown for himself. To start the process he decides:

"To set my (his) brother Clarence and the king

In deadly hate against the other..." 

Richard sets up his younger brother Clarence and Clarence finds welcoming accommodation in the Tower of London and, with Richard vowing to champion Clarence’s cause, we know that the Tower will become Clarence’s own ‘Hotel California’.

Richard then woos the Lady Anne, the widowed wife of the former King Henry VI, who Richard stabbed to death mid-speech. Richard is amused by this irony and after suffering Anne’s derision, insults and spit, he convinces Anne that he killed her husband for love of her. Anne succumbs to this story, lowers the knife with which she could have killed Richard in Act I (making this the shortest tragedy in Shakespeare's list), and she accepts a ring from Richard believing him to be changed and penitent. But as Richard tells himself and the audience, “I'll have her; but I will not keep her long…” as he contemplates Anne’s place in his shadowy plans. He even muses that he wishes the sun to keep itself hidden, "... till I have bought a glass, that I may see my shadow as I pass."

Richard then plays victim and accuses almost everyone of slandering him “… with silken, sly, insinuating jacks…”. But Queen Elizabeth’s eyes are open to his deceptions. Enter the ex-Queen Margaret, swearing and cursing more than Courtney Love’s or Patti Smith’s lyrics. She curses Elizabeth and hopes her son dies before she does but for Richard she saves the worst curses calling him a “bottled spider” and an “elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog”.

We then are transported to Clarence’s room in the Tower where Clarence’s dream needs no Freudian analysis from Brackenbury to be seen as a foreshadowing of his death. What is striking in the last scene of Act I is Clarence’s refusal to believe that Richard is behind the plot to imprison and kill him. “O do not slander him, for he is kind… he bewept my fortune…” Richard’s hired hands, after being brushed by a shadow of conscience, kill Clarence. The stage is set for the rise of Richard III.

Richard III Act 2 – “Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace…”

The weeds of Richard’s harvest grow apace. Soon after the sickly King Edward IV seems to have diplomatically curbed the tide of in-fighting, Richard enters. Elizabeth’s pleas with Edward to free Clarence are met with mock outrage by Richard in an acting performance worthy of a BAFTA or an Academy Award. Richard then announces that this must be a mockery because Clarence is already dead on the command of Edward’s first order, which was not rescinded in time. Cloaked in guilt and shame, King Edward dies.

While comforting, Clarence’s young children, the duchess (Richard’s own mother) reveals that she thinks her own son Richard is evil and regrets having ever giving birth to him.

“Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,

And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!”

Richard enters and we see his calculated manipulation continue. He is shameless and remorseless.

Just as Richard's power is on the rise, so also is Shakespeare's. Gone is the precision of consistent drum-like verse evident in the Henry VI plays. He seems to be able give each character and each scene a rhythm and even a verse style that is different and shaped by the individual perspective of each character and their dramatic circumstances. Shakespeare is able to combine formal verse reminiscent of the language of Ancient Greek playwrights like Sophocles, with Elizabethian high verse and naturalistic blank verse to emphasise the grief while giving a sense of the impending rise of Richard’s power.  Shakespeare even shifts to the ‘word on the street’ as represented by a citizen scene showing the general dread and mistrust of what the future and Richard may bring. This acts as both oracle and Chorus to what is to come.

Richard is not king yet, but he is clothed in immense power. Breaking into a scene where Clarence’s youngest son derides Richard with wit and humor, Dorset tells Queen Elizabeth that her kinsmen, Rivers and Gray are arrested, as instigated by Richard and his new ally Buckingham. Elizabeth can sense the winds have changed and she “sees the ruin of my (her) house…”. With the Great Seal of England in hand, she flees with her youngest son knowing that Richard’s reach and power is growing.

Richard III – Act 3 “So wise, so young, they say, do never live long…”

“Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years

Hath not yet dived into the world's deceit…”

Unlike ‘Titus Andronicus’ the deaths and undermining of people’s morals and character, come slowly in ‘Richard III’. Prince Edward, heir to the thrown enters London but Richard is now in control after the king's death. Richard, never one for subtlety, invites Prince Edward and his brother to stay in the Tower of London. Although this may be central, it is accommodation, which comes with the tax of history. Honestly, Richard needs to find a decent website, because he sucks as when it comes to finding accommodation.

Coronation preparation scenes are juxtaposed to scenes of nobles like Rivers, Grey and Vaughan, being led to their deaths. Although unhappy, Prince Edward goes to stay in the Tower, along with his younger brother and Richard, with as much tact as Winston Churchill after a night on the booze, manipulates two political meetings, one which follows the party line and intends to put Edward on the throne and the other one, aided by Buckingham, advocates himself, Richard, as the contender for the thrown..

I would love to live in the blissful blind ignorance that shrouds Hastings, who is as unaware of Richard’s plan, as are Rivers and Gray. Everyone starts to realize that they should have listened to the old Queen Margaret and her curses.

“Now Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,

For standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.”

Never a card-carrying member of MENSA, Hastings realizes that Richard is manipulative and desires only power. Hasting is not consoled by his own final rhyming couplet as he moves to his death:

 “Come lead me to the block; bear him [Richard III] my head. 

They smile at me, who shortly shall be dead…”

Then Richard, with the grace of a million dollar lawyer, contends that Prince Edward is illegitimate and a bastard. Meanwhile Buckingham has been trying to drum up support for Richard as king. He is relatively unsuccessful. The Lord Mayor of London, who turns and changes his perspective as much as the London Eye, fickle as ever, agrees with this and supports Richard. Richard, clothed in humility and disinclination, reluctantly accepts the kingship. 

Richard III Act IV – “An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told…”

Since we know that 'Titus Andronicus' and 'Henry VI Part 1' were performed at the Rose Theatre, we can probably assume that 'Richard III' was first performed at this polygon-shaped Elizabethan marvel. The Rose Theatre (built in 1587), was only a few years old in 1592. It had just had its capacity further expanded to accommodate about 2,000 people for the summer 1592 season so was by far the largest theatre venue in London compared to The Curtain (which held about 1,200 and was built in 1577) or The Theatre (which held about 900 and was built in 1576). The shifting focus of 'Richard III' and the juxtaposition of scenes in the Tower to court and battle scenes is also suggestive of the two level staging of the Rose Theatre. 

The action of ‘Richard III’ picks up pace in Act IV, as the character of Richard III shifts from arrogant self-assuredness, to paranoia, and as we know, Richard knows paranoia is merely total awareness. Anne (remember that Richard III killed her husband before he married her) realizes that she is indeed cursed and that Richard’s star is on the rise. Dorset follows the Duchess of York’s advice and flees to France to find a decent red wine and gather forces to back Richmond whose claim to the throne now seems like the only light on the horizon.

“So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.

Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye…”

Richard III’s crown sits as well upon his head as pity and remorse does in his heart. Buckingham now no longer mindlessly follows Richard’s orders especially his order to kill the young princes. Buckingham flees to his family home in Wales where he does not just intend to sing in the parish choir. This doesn’t affect Richard too much because he had already declared that Buckingham was not on his BFF list and if Facebook had been invented, Richard would have delisted Buckingham as a friend. Richard embraces the mercenary low life Tyrrell to do his dark business but even Tyrell is shaken by the darkness of the deed of killing two young innocent princes. Starting rumors of Queen Anne being on death’s door, Richard suggests he will confine and do away with her. Anne being out of the way, Richard announces his intention to woo and marry Elizabeth, the daughter of King Edward (who he also murdered). Richard believes that marrying Elizabeth will mean that his right to the throne is cemented. Ratcliffe’s news of imminent assaults from Richmond’s armies in France and Buckingham’s in Wales, bring Richard back down to earth to face the enormity of the forces opposing him.

Margaret re-appears on the scene and sounds more words of warning and wisdom:

“Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,


And he that slew them fouler than he is…”

Her life of pain and misery seems to teach the other women how to curse and rail against Richard III as they lament the death of the young princes. Richard III seems genuinely shaken by the women’s curses. He then asks Elizabeth to help him woo her daughter. She is outraged at this suggestion and mocks him by asking what she should say to her daughter on his behalf: 
"What were I best to say? Her father's brother
Would be her lord? Or shall I say, her uncle?
Or, he that slew her brothers and her uncles?"
But, realizing the precariousness of her position, she concedes to his demands. Just after this, a tsunami of bad news arrives for Richard III. It seems from France to Wales, all are turning against Richard and he must once again show his power on the battlefield. But we see an indecisive Richard, very different from the one that faced the forces of Henry VI on the battlefields.

Richard III Act 5

“I have set my life upon a cast, 

And I will stand the hazard of the die…”

It is All Soul’s Day as Act V ‘Richard III’ begins. Buckingham is inevitably led to his execution. Meanwhile, Richmond’s forces advance towards Richard’s band of fear-driven allies:

“Every man’s conscience is a thousand swords

To fight against this guilty homicide…”

Shakespeare dramatically intensifies the action and quickens the pace and Margaret’s curses echo and resonate across the night and come to rest above the battleground.

King Richard and his men are bunking down for the night after Richard tries to raise a sense of patriotism in his men – unsuccessfully. Shakespeare is still to write his rousing ‘Henry V’ speech so Richard’s address wavers between mock Roman oratory and a genuine attempt at patriotic prose. While Richard consoles himself in his superior numbers on the battlefield, secretly he harbors fears:

“It is now dead midnight.

Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.

What do I fear? Myself?”

But he is not without some remorse or self-contemplation.

“My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,

And every tongue brings in a several tale,

And every tale condemns me for a villain…”

But the dreams of both Richard and Richmond are blanketed in a red carpet parade of all the spirits of those who Richard has killed. They condemn him, taunt him and predict his death on the battlefield while voicing their support for Richmond. Shakespeare’s words and ideas seep out through the seams of this scene and through the images of Richard and Richmond who are sleeping and the appearance of a myriad of ghosts. The imagination of any director or designer runs riot with the possibilities. Richard wakes in fright while Richmond wakes to inspire his men with a little bit of morning oratory. King Richard fights valiantly but after loosing his horse, his fate seems set in the “hazard of die”. Richard faces Richmond in battle and Richmond wins the day. The stage directions carefully craft the demise of Richard III. His death is as inevitable as the cloak of the Duchess of York’s curses and paranoia which he donned after his coronation. His final cry for “A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” is a last cry of desperation far removed from the valiant calculation of Richard as seen in the Henry VI plays and evident in the opening two acts of ‘Richard III’.

Stanley, whose son was next in line for Richard’s chopping block, brings the crown to Richmond and Richmond is declared king. Richmond, now King Henry VII, honors the bodies of all the dead with burial and grants a pardon to all of Richard’s soldiers. He triumphantly declares his intention to marry the young Elizabeth, daughter of the former Queen Elizabeth and the late King Edward IV. The river of blood is dammed, the red and white roses are joined to form the pink rose of the unification of the Houses of Lancaster and York. Richmond ends with suitable declarations and promises that:

“We will unite the white rose and the red:

Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,

That long have frown'd upon their enmity!”

The Bard and I return in raunchy love poem ‘Venus and Adonis’.