His first move is to plot the imprisonment of his brother, Clarence.
“This day should Clarence closely be mewed up
About a prophecy which says that ‘G’
Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.” (I.i.ll.38-40)
Richard will go to Edward (King of England) and tell him about a prophecy that says someone inline to the throne with the letter ‘G’ will kill him (George Duke of Clarence). So Clarence will be locked up by Edward in the Tower of London and then later on will be killed. This shows that Richard is evil because he is going to turn his two brothers against each other and them killed.
The true motivations for Richard’s evil manipulations remain mysterious. In his speech, he speaks of his bitterness at his deformity; Richard is a hunchback, and has something wrong with one of his arms. But the play’s later action shows that Richard is physically very active, and that he is in fact quite confident in his ability to seduce women. Bitterness at his deformity also fails to explain his overpowering desire to become King or his lust for power. For these reasons, Richard may not seem like an entirely realistic and consistent personality to us. Moreover, for Shakespeare’s audience, Richard would have been strongly reminiscent of the two-dimensional ‘Vice’ character of medieval morality plays, a character who was meant to illustrate man’s evil side rather than to present a psychologically realistic portrait.
Another example of Richard’s evil nature is when he starts to blame other people for the evil things he has done. An example of this is when Brakenbury is taking Clarence to the Tower and they meet Richard.
“RICHARD Brother, good day. What means this armed guard
That waits upon your grace?
CLARENCE His majesty,
Tend’ring my person’s safety, hath appointed
This conduct to convey me to the Tower.
RICHARD Upon what cause?
CLARENCE Because my name is George.
RICHARD Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours.
He should for that commit your godfathers.” (I.i.ll.42-50)
Here Richard starts to ask Clarence what is going on and why is this armed guard with you in a tone of love and sympathy even though Richard knows what is going on and even knows that Clarence will be killed as the play progresses. During this conversation Clarence blames Edward but Richard says no it is not he, it is his wife Elizabeth who you should blame for this and the only way to survive in this monarchy is to be nice to the Queen.
’Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower.
My lady Grey, his wife, Clarence, ’tis she
That tempts him to this harsh extremity.” (I.i.ll.63-65)
Richard promises that he will try to have Clarence set free. But after Clarence is led towards the Tower, Richard gleefully says to the audience that he will make sure Clarence never returns.
Well, your imprisonment shall not be long.
I will deliver you or else lie for you. (I.i.ll.114-5)
[…] Go, tread the path thou shalt ne’er return. (l.118)
Here we can see how Janus-faced Richard is being and he also has a loving tone in which he speaks to Clarence and then as soon as Clarence leaves he turns to the audience where he admits that Clarence will never return again meaning that Richard will have him killed very soon.
Soon after Clarence is taken away and Richard giving his soliloquy Lord Hastings enters with the news that Edward is very ill. Edward’s death would bring Richard one-step closer to the throne. But Richard says that he wants Clarence to die first, however, so that Richard will be the legal heir to power. “He cannot live, I hope, and must not die / Till George be packed with post-horse up to heaven.” (I.i.ll.146-7) As you can see Richard is not really bothered whether Edward is ill because to him it just makes life easier for him and also the way he talks about his brothers is just pure evilness.
Richard’s next planned step is to try to marry a noblewoman named Lady Anne. An alliance with her would help him on his way to the throne. Lady Anne recently has been widowed – she was married to the son of the previous Kin, Henry VI, who recently was deposed and murdered, along with his son, by Richard. Anne is therefore in deep mourning. But the sadistic and amoral Richard is amused by the idea of persuading her to marry him under these circumstances.
“For then I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter.
What though I killed her husband and her father?
The readiest way to make the wench amends
Is to become her husband and her father (I.i.ll.154-7)
As you can see in the above quotation Richard calmly says to the audience that he will marry Anne next and it does not bother him about the fact that he has just killed her husband and father. The way to lead her into my trap is to become her father and husband. Richard frankly is not bothered about what the audience think of him as long as he gets what he wants.
In the second scene Richard demonstrates his brilliance as a manipulator of people. We receive a taste of this brilliance in Act I, scene 1, but the wooing of Anne shows Richard’s persuasive abilities at a whole new level. Richard’s ability to persuade the grieving, bitter Anne to accept him as a suitor is surely proof of his ominous skill in playing upon people’s emotions and in convincing them that he is sincere when in fact he is lying through his teeth.
Richard manipulates Anne by feigning gentleness and persistently praising her beauty, a technique that he subtly twists later in the scene in order to play upon Anne’s sense of guilt and obligation. When Richard enters the room where Anne is with the corpses she reacts with horror and spite, but Richard orders the attendants to stop the procession so that he can speak with her. He addresses Anne gently, but she curses him as the murderer of her husband and father-in-law. Anne points to the bloody wounds on the corpse of the dead Henry VI, saying they have started to bleed.
“Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,
For ’tis thy presence that exhales this blood
From cold and empty veins where no blood dwells.” (I.ii.ll.57-59)
According to the Renaissance tradition, the wounds of a murdered person begin to bleed again if the killer comes close to the corpse. So as you can see Anne already accuses Richard of the murders but he does not panic, he responds in a very normal manner. I can sympathise with Richard on this point because even after being accused of murder he takes care of it by being calm and relaxed.
Praising Anne’s gentleness and beauty, Richard begins to court her romantically. Anne naturally reacts with anger and horror and romantically. Anne naturally reacts with anger and horror and reminds Richard repeatedly that she knows he killed her husband and King Henry. He tells Anne that she ought to forgive him his crime out of Christian charity, then denies that he killed her husband at all. Anne remains angry, but her fierceness seems to dwindle gradually in the face of Richard’s eloquence and apparent sincerity. Finally, in a highly theatrical gesture, Richard kneels before her and hands her his sword, telling her to kill him is she will not forgive him, indicating that he does not want to live because of her hatred for him. Anne begins to stab towards the chest, but Richard keeps speaking, saying that he killed Henry VI and Edward out of passion for Anne herself – Anne’s beauty drove him to it. Anne then lowered the sword.
“If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,
Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword,
Which if thou please to hide in this true breast
And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke
And humbly beg the death upon my knee.
Nay, do not pause, for I did kill King Henry,
But ’twas thy beauty that provoked me.
Nay, now dispatch; ’twas I that stabbed young Edward,
But ’twas thy heavenly face that set me on. (I.ii.ll.178-87)
You can see that Richard was not afraid or is not afraid of anything because a normal person would not hand over a sword to a woman who knew you had just killed her husband and father. At the same as Richard was admitting to the killings, after each line he would say something along the lines of ‘I did it because of you,’ I thought of you when I did it.’ Another words he did all this because of her beauty. She falls for his evil tricks making him evil.
Richard slips his ring onto her finger, telling her that she can make him happy only by forgiving him and becoming his wife. Anne says that she may take the ring but that she will not give him her hand. Richard persists, and Anne agrees to meet him later at a place he names.
“Vouchsafe to wear this ring.
Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger.
Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart.” (I.ii.ll.206-8)
Once again Richard has put his evilness at work and it has worked. He has successfully wooed Anne. You can see that even after killing her husband and father he still successfully woes Anne which shoes his evil desire to become King.
As soon as Anne leaves Richard drops his public mask, and becomes the schemer and master planner. He turns towards the audience and gives his final speech of the scene. In his soliloquy, Richard reveals in his triumph in successfully wooing the woman whose handsome husband –to-be, Edward, he has murdered. Despite his physical deformity and his evil deeds, he has won Anne through an artful display of verbal brilliance.
In his soliloquy Richard become big headed about this and also admits to the audience that he will marry her but not for long. Another words he is marrying her for political power. He also links himself to the devil. After this he goes on to say that there were so many things against him, like God, her conscience, having no friends at all except for the devil and dissembling looks but she still agreed to marry me.
“Was ever woman in this humour wooed?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I’ll have her, but I will not keep her for long.
What, I that killed her husband and his father,
To take her in her heart’s extremist hate,
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of my hatred by.
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I no friends to back my suit withal
But the plain devil and dissembling looks?” (I.ii.ll.231-40)
He asks scornfully whether she has already forgotten her husband, murdered by his hands. He gloats over having won her even while her eyes were still filled with tears of mourning, and over having manipulated her affection even though she hates him. If an Elizabethan heard Richard linking himself to the devil he would be killed instantly. He is feeling good about himself and is pleased with his work.
Although there is doubt over Richard’s guilt, and most evidence is circumstantial there is little doubt that he was responsible, he had a motive, access and the decisive point for is that he could not produce them if he was under pressure. So, although his actions were not as extreme as we are made to believe he certainly did not do himself any favours.
In my opinion Richard III was a man of considerable energy because the intellectual depth and political ability was always there. At the end of the day, I think that Richard III does not deserve such a reputation. Although it is difficult to judge one must consider the context in which all this took place, this was a time of political instability.
