'Is Richard III a 'bloody tyrant and a homicide' or 'a man of great and diverse gifts''.

Mrs Godly – English Set 1 James Taylor 11MA

October 2002

‘Is Richard a ‘bloody tyrant and a homicide’

or ‘a man of great and diverse gifts’’

‘Richard III’ has fascinated generations of readers; they have found themselves seduced by his brilliance with words and his persuasive emotional manipulations even though most are repelled by his evil. Characters in the play realise his evil but are still caught out with his crafty word play and dissembling nature.

Written in 1593 as a sequel to ‘Henry VI parts one, two and three, which focused on the wars of the roses. ‘Richard III’ was used as propaganda material for the Tudors. The play damns the previous reigns of the York and Lancaster houses, the Tudors used it to promote how much better England was under their rule. Shakespeare used the chronicles of Edward Hall and Raphael Holinshed as sources of historical material for ‘Richard III’; although these historical sources were adapted from Sir Thomas More’s ‘History of Richard III’. However, More’s unfinished work deals with the rise of Richard and so Shakespeare used Halls and Holinshed’s works for Richard’s decline.

‘Richard III’ tells the story of how the intelligently evil Richard Duke of Gloucester schemes his way to the throne of England. The play starts as the civil wars end, however, the Duke of Gloucester finds himself ‘discontented’ in peacetime, so he starts to plot against the throne. From the very beginning of the play you hear of his cold-hearted murderous deeds, but also of his cunning plots to succeed the throne.

Many themes run throughout the play, the struggle of good over evil is one more obvious theme. Richard, the villain, has no redemption from his evil except perhaps his wit. Within the play there is a lack of goodness, any good that does exist in the play is quickly eradicated by Richard’s plot for the crown. It is perhaps the lack of this virtue, which makes the play so intriguing.

The play is also about a battle of conscience; Richard refuses to accept he even has a conscience, another sign that he is rooted in pure evil. Although he collapses mentally the night before the battle at Bosworth, he finds that he is forced to confront the reality of something he chose to ignore. It can be argued that this lack of acceptance led to his downfall.

‘Richard III’ still remains compelling today because of Shakespeare’s use of irony. The play contains both verbal and situational irony. For the first three acts, Richard draws the audience in with his witty asides and soliloquies. Although, Richard fails to see the dramatic irony in his own situation, he is destined to fail because he is evil. Shakespeare had to do this because it is part of human nature that evil never succeeds. So in the second half of the play irony works against Richard.

We first see Richards tyranny as he plots to see his brother, Clarence, imprisoned.

‘About a prophecy, which says that ‘G’

Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be’

Richard pretends to express sympathy for his brother, blaming Queen Elizabeth and her family for Clarence’s arrest. He promises Clarence he will have him released; however he orders his execution. This is a prime example of how Richard is sincere to his victims, but then he turns and stabs them in the back.

Even though he is a tyrant, Richard crafts his sentences with the uttermost care in order ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

We first see Richards tyranny as he plots to see his brother, Clarence, imprisoned.

‘About a prophecy, which says that ‘G’

Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be’

Even though he is a tyrant, Richard crafts his sentences with the uttermost care in order to bewilder and entrance his victim. Richard uses his cunning word play in order to woo Lady Anne in Act 1 Scene 2; he does it so well they become husband and wife. Although throughout the scene insulted by Anne with her likening him to the devil he is able to manipulate her.

‘Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell’

Richard calms Anne with his praise for his, reacting quickly and intelligently to the situation.

‘Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a women’

Richard deviously ensnares her with his rhetoric. He always has an answer for his own question and he flatters her. In their dialogue Richard tells her bluntly that he wishes to lie in her bedchamber and her beauty led him to kill her husband. Anne knows she should not be taken in. She calls Richard a ‘dissembler’, but it is Anne that has allowed herself to accept the statements of his affection for her. Richard offers Anne his ring and she accepts. This is a symbol of his future marriage to her.

When the characters have heard of Clarence’s death and the natural death of Edward in Act 2 Scene 2. The Duchess and Elizabeth along with others lament the deaths, Clarence ‘s children are eager to find out the truth behind their father’s death. Richard enters the scene and quickly befriends and comforts the morning women. His mother, the Duchess, praises him.

‘God bless thee and put meekness in thy breast,

Love, charity, obedience, and true duty’

This situation shows Richard’s ingenious reaction to the emotions of his enemies in an effort to seem like he is not the devilish character, which he is made out to be. After his mother’s praise, Richard extremely ironically tells us, aside, that he will ‘die a good old man’. This shows Richards’s lack of conscience that he has already committed the most dreadful of crimes and will continue to murder without the slightest concern. Both irony and lack of conscience are themes, which run through the play and make up the backbone of Richard’s dialogue.

In Act 2 Scene 4 we see Elizabeth resolving to go into sanctuary with her young son after she hears of the arrests of the family members Rivers, Vaughan and Grey on the command of Richard and Buckingham. Elizabeth exclaims that Richard is slowly causing the ruin of the Plantagenet family. She also sees Richards plans unfold as he begins to stand out as a tyrant.

‘Aye me! I see the ruin of my house.

The tiger now hath seized the gentle hind,

Insulting tyranny begins to jut

Upon the innocent and aweless throne.

Welcome, destruction, blood and massacre.

I see, as in a map, the end of all.’

Ironically Elizabeth is indeed predicting the future. At the bloody battle of Bosworth Field (scene 5) it is the end of the Plantagenet’s reign, as Richmond, a Tudor, becomes King. Here Elizabeth refers to Richard as ‘the tiger’ this follows the seam of savage animal metaphors, others including ‘boar’. Shakespeare uses these to characterise and describe Richard’s deformity throughout the play.

The death of Rivers (one of the nobles) is proof of how craftily Richard worked and manipulated his victims. In Act 1 Scene 3, Rivers praises Richard for being:

‘A Virtuous and Christian-like conclusion

To pray for them that have done scathe to us’

However, the irony is that Richard then sends Rivers along with the other nobles to their deaths. On the way to their deaths, Grey, another noble, and Rivers have a conversation about Margaret’s curse being the cause of their death.

‘GREY: Now Margaret’s curse is fall’n upon our heads

When she exclaimed on Hastings, you and I

For Standing by when Richard stabbed her son.

RIVERS: Then cursed she Richard,

Then cursed she Buckingham,

Then cursed she Hastings. O remember God,’

This shows how totally unaware of Richard’s plot and blame the cause of their deaths on Margaret. Richard brilliantly covered his tracks and plotted secretly and wittingly in order to gain access to the throne. However, his Machiavellian ways ensure his downfall.

Another victim of Richard’s, Hastings, is lulled into a false sense of security. Hastings is confident that Richard trusts and loves him.

‘I think there’s never a man in Christendom

Can lesser hide his love or hate than he’

Unknowingly to Hastings, at the same meeting Richard and Buckingham discuss Hastings’ fate and accuse him of treachery. Richard orders his execution and it is then Hastings realises the truth and how he has missed the warnings including the warning from Buckingham at the beginning of the scene.

‘We know each other’s faces. For our hearts

He knows no more of mine than I of yours,

Or I of his, my Lord, than you of mine.

Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love’

We see this again when Richard turns against Buckingham in Act 4 Scene 2 because of his failure to organise the murder of the princes in the Tower. However, Buckingham heeds the warnings and manages to escape, although, later he is caught and executed.

We see how great Richard is when Buckingham confronts the citizens of London in Act 3 Scene 5. Richard and Buckingham must convince the mayor that there was a just cause for executing Hastings. They act fearful, pretending to be beset by enemies, saying that Hastings plotted against their lives.

‘Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian’

The mayor is taken by their story, which again shows the manipulative control Richard is able to have over people.

‘God and our innocency defend and guard us’

Buckingham’s plea to the mayor to protect them. This is ironic how Buckingham says the pair are innocent, whereas we know for a fact that they have already committed crimes far worse than Hastings supposed murder plot and they deserve to die because of this.

The mayor goes on to promote why Richard should be king by ‘inferring the bastardy of Richard’s children’. He has to convince the citizens that Richard is the rightful heir. He succeeds and Richard is then later proclaimed king at the end of Act 3.

Still in Act 3 Scene 5, in his closing speech, Richard confirms his complete control over events.

‘Now will I go to take some privy order

To draw the brats of Clarence out of sight,

And to give order that no manner person

Have any time recourse unto the princes’

Later, in Act 4 Scene 1, the women are refused entry to the Tower. They learn from Brakenbury that Richard is king. In this scene the women lament Richard’s accession, we see the true feelings of other character towards Richard.

‘For never yet one hour in his bed

Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,

But with his timorous dreams was still awaked.

And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me’

Anne is particularly scornful of her husband. Recounting how foolish she was to fall into Richard’s trap. She also tells us that she is a hindrance to Richard’s plot and believes that her death is soon, which unfortunately, for her, becomes true.

As the pace of the play speeds up towards Richard’s dramatic downfall. We learn that Anne is dead and in Act 4 Scene 4 we see Richard asking Elizabeth for help in wooing her daughter. After a long confrontation. Elizabeth appears to agree with the plan. However, it is here we see the beginning of his loss of control over people.

‘ ELIZABETH: Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARD: And be happy mother by thy deed.

ELIZABETH: I go. Write to me very shortly,

And you shall understand from me her mind.

RICHARD: Bear her my true love’s kiss, and so farewell

Exit Q[ueen Elizabeth]

Relenting fool and shallow, changing women’

Here we see that Elizabeth has lulled Richard into thinking that she fully intends her daughter to be wed. We see this by Richard’s last exclamation that he thinks he has manipulated her, whereas the truth is that Elizabeth has manipulated him into thinking he is to be married, when, secretly, Elizabeth has no intention for her daughter to be married to Richard.

This is the start of Richard’s downfall until he is finally killed by Richmond in the battle of Bosworth in Act 5 Scene 5. However, before his death we see his battle with his conscience and is victimised by it because of all the deaths he has caused. The repetition of the phrase ‘despair and die’ predicts the death of Richard, whilst the ghosts promote Richmond’s succession as king.

As ‘Richard III’ was written as propaganda for the Tudor dynasty, it is probable that Richard’s character was overemphasized and his deformity exaggerated to increase the superiority of their reign. Examples of Shakespeare’s magnification of Richard’s deformity include the animalistic metaphors such as: ‘boar’ ‘bunch backed toad’ and ‘tiger’ used to describe him. These are used to turn the audience against Richard, as they get more potent as we follow him through the play.

Throughout the play Richard shows many characteristics that would make people believe he is either a ‘bloody tyrant and a homicide’ or ‘a man of great and diverse gifts’. However, from the events that have been studied I have concluded that he is both. Richard is clearly a ‘bloody tyrant and a homicide’, like many other major historical figures such as Hitler or Stalin, he had a plan for complete power. Although, to achieve this there must be no opposition. Much like in Stalin’s Great Terror where he killed anybody who he thought could pose a threat, Richard killed anybody who would challenge his accession to the throne. Although, a tyrant this was unusual for the times, both Richard’s predecessors and successors were tyrannical rulers. However, for Richard to do this involved planning and care. Richard used his gifts of crafty rhetoric and manipulation. Richard is able to encourage confidence in others around him, without letting them know they are destined for death at his hands. We must also sympathise with Richard in the play because we know ‘Richard III’ was written as Tudor propaganda and so his deformity and character would have been hugely overemphasized to make the Tudor’s rule seem superior.

In conclusion, Richard is both a ‘bloody tyrant and a homicide’ and ‘a man of great and diverse gifts’. Without these gifts he would never have been able to gain access to the throne because he would have been stopped before he had a chance. With his gifts he was able to create a smoke screen, with which he was able cover his tracks until he was able to reach the throne.