This excerpt is taken from the very first act of Shakespeare's play 'Richard III', and it exemplifies just how, throughout the play, Shakespeare portrays the king as a vile and despicable character.

GCSE English

“Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,

Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determin’d to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.”

This excerpt is taken from the very first act of Shakespeare’s play ‘Richard III’, and it exemplifies just how, throughout the play, Shakespeare portrays the king as a vile and despicable character. This image of Richard has captured the imaginations of many and there is no doubt that he had been vilified and castigated across numerous generations: condemned as the evil villain who contrived to have his brother drowned in a butt of wine and his nephews smothered in the Tower of London.

However, is this impression of King Richard really valid? Can this picture, painted in words by a man who wrote them over one hundred years after Richard’s death, be the definitive account of the person and character of this frequently reviled king? To answer these questions one must look beyond Shakespeare’s brilliantly written prose and search for true examples of Richard’s personality.

The Quest to ruin Richard’s Name

Though Shakespeare created the most vibrant images in his telling of Richard’s life, his play can still only be viewed as fictional. It must also be taken into account that, though Shakespeare’s characterization of Richard, as one of the most brutal and malicious of English kings, endured well past his death, it is a fact that his work is merely a continuation of the propaganda begun by Henry Tudor and his most devoted supporters after their victory at the Battle of Bosworth.

Richard’s bad image began as the result of Henry VII’s desire to destroy Richard’s reputation once he was dead. He intended for Richard to sink into oblivion whilst he, Henry, would be remembered as the magnificent saviour who rescued England from Richard’s oppressive and tyrannical reign. By using the interest that many people had in historical events in the 15th and 16th century, Henry hoped to twist events to make Richard appear cruel and spiteful. However, Henry’s propaganda actually had the adverse effect of elevating Richard’s character to mythic proportions, so that it is often a source of debate, 5oo years after his demise, as to whether he was a paradigm of evil or a paragon of loyalty. Henry, meanwhile, is rarely spoken of, since the tale of a villain makes a much more compelling story than that of a peacemaker (Shakespeare also wrote a play about Henry and made the main theme his uniting of the Houses of York and Lancaster).

Shakespeare lived and worked under the tenure of Elizabeth I, the last of the Tudor monarchs, thus he was predisposed to represent Richard as a wicked person or risk the wrath of his sovereign. He also researched his play using sources from the Tudor period; therefore he was biased against Richard, having read the works of others who had also been inclined to be hostile towards him. For example, Sir Thomas Moore, a respected lawyer and scholar, was one of the first Tudor propagandists. He was chancellor to Henry VIII and depicted Richard as a man who was “little of structure, ill featured of limbs, crook backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard favoured of visage…He was malicious, wrathful, envious and from before his birth ever froward.” Moore grew up in the home of Cardinal John Morton, who had been one of Henry VII’s councilors and thus was a sworn enemy to Richard III; hence Moore inherited a similar antipathy towards Richard. His account of Richard in his unfinished novel ‘History of Richard III’ is given credence because he was known to be an educated man and also because he was a martyr, being executed later in his life by Henry VIII. However, Moore was only seven upon the date of Richard’s death in 1485, and his profile of the ill-fated king is taken from the works of Richard’s other enemies. Moore also happened to be a valuable member of Henry VIII’s court at the time of his writing. It is clear that all these factors had a strong influence on Moore’s depiction of Richard. Hence, whether Richard really was an evil man or not, didn’t matter, he was destined to be illustrated as a malevolent character due to the beneficiaries of the current regime.

Moore was cut off in the middle of writing his history of Richard and thus he was unable to finish it, but there were plenty of other Tudor apologists who were willing to add to and expand on his opinions of Richard. Edward Hall produced a very similar narrative of Richard to the one Moore had written, describing him as “small and little of stature, so was he of body greatly deformed, the one shoulder higher than the other, his face small, but his countenance was cruel, and such that a man at the first aspect would judge it to savour the smell of malice, fraud and deceit…”

In reality Hall, Shakespeare and many others writing about Tudor history, were not just inclined to disparage Richard, they had a tendency to get their facts wrong as well or exaggerate them to an extreme. The reason they were believed was because their accounts were at least rooted partly in truth. For example, people knew that Richard had taken the crown from his nephew Edward V, and when Edward and his brother Richard disappeared from the Tower of London people were liable not only to believe that Richard had murdered the two boys, but that he had been murdering people a long time before his brother Edward IV’s death. Writers were able to take advantage of this willingness to accept a certain story by embellishing the truth and making stories far more dramatic than they might really have been or by making people do fantastic things that they hadn’t done in reality. For example, Shakespeare wrote about Richard slaughtering men left and right at the Battle of St. Albans and people were willing to believe this, discrediting the fact that Richard had actually been only two years old at the time. The other reason that these historical writings were accepted was because there were no historical researchers to challenge the mistakes that were regularly made.

As England entered the 16th century, people began to criticize the old style of chronicle writing and a new type of historian emerged, Polydore Vergil being the one who created the most impact as he tried to analyze the history he was writing rather than just describing it. Vergil also researched his history carefully instead of copying others, yet he still manage to describe Richard III as “little of stature, deformed of body, the one shoulder being higher than the other, a short and sour countenance, which seemed to savour mischief…” Hence this false image of Richard lived on, so that ...

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However, now we know that these various sources are not telling the truth about Richard, but are acting as propaganda instead. Therefore, we must ask that, if Richard wasn’t the immoral cripple that we have been brought to believe he was, then what was he really like and what really happened during his reign?

Richard the Ogre

As the various descriptions above have stated, Richard III is meant to have been a horribly malformed person, his physical appearance leaving much to be desired. The truth, though, is that Richard was nowhere near as deformed as Tudor historians have led us to believe. The portrait of Richard below dates from the 16th century times.

Recent cleaning of this painting has revealed that it was retouched at some point to make one of the shoulders higher than the other, just as Richard is often described. Thus originally the painting must have depicted Richard as a normal man without any unusual conformation. This painting could possibly be discredited as not being valid evidence of Richard not being crippled, since it was painted after his death and isn’t taken from real life. However the portrait would have been copied at least partly from another painting of Richard that was taken from life, which in turn must have shown Richard to be perfectly normal. This indicates to me that Richard was not deformed and that it was only later propaganda that gave him his crippled form, which was then exacerbated by Shakespeare’s powerful imagery and other writings by Richard’s enemies. This picture of Richard is just one the results of propaganda, appealing to a breed of people inclined towards physiognomy in the hopes that making Richard look like a monster would encourage people to think of him as a monster in general.

The verity of Richard’s defect is disproved again when Polydore Vergil, who above wrote that Richard was crooked in form, went on to report that “Richard alone was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies”. This is a blatant contrast to his description of Richard’s weak stature and it should also be considered that, as a Tudor propagandist, Vergil would have been more likely to disparage Richard than to praise him; therefore this comment is most likely truthful, reporting a point in time when Richard’s obvious valour impressed even his enemies.

As the historian Sir Winston Churchill said “no-one in his lifetimes seem to have remarked these deformities, but they are now very familiar to us through Shakespeare play”.

Murder most Horrid

On the other hand, can one as easily dismiss the idea that Richard is a murderer and that he consigned his brother, George, Duke of Clarence, to his death?

Firstly, it is important to look at how Richard supposedly came to perpetrate his brother’s death. The Duke of Clarence was accused of treason partially for helping the Earl of Warwick to rebel against his brother, King Edward IV. Richard had also been offered the chance to join Warwick, yet steadfastly remained faithful to his brother and king, his motto being “Loyaulte Me Lie”. Meanwhile, George and Warwick joined forces with the exiled Lancastrians, including the one time queen, Margaret of Anjou. Richard and Edward had to flee from the threat of this alliance and Henry VI was reinstated on the throne in 1470. However George allowed himself to be reconciled and the three brothers overcame the Lancastrians at Barnet, where Warwick was killed. Edward was able to reclaim the throne and George was temporarily forgiven his disloyalty. Nonetheless George continued to dabble in treason, going one step too far when he tried and executed a servant for poisoning his wife, who had actually died in childbirth. This was a malicious charge, subverting the king’s justice, resulting in Edward finally having George charged with treason, imprisoned and then privately executed by drowning in a butt of Malmsey wine.

Thus we can see that the Duke of Clarence was executed for valid reasons, not because of some wicked plan devised by Richard in order to remove one of the contenders for the throne. In fact, there is evidence to show that Richard did not want George to be executed at all; even historians hostile to Richard have commented on how he hurried south to try and avert George’s sentence and that he pleaded strongly with Edward IV for his brother’s life. After the execution Richard returned to Middleham Castle, his favourite residence, and rarely came to court, a sign of his displeasure with the course of actions and not of plotting to steal the throne. Dominic Mancini, who did accuse Richard of murdering his nephews, didn’t condemn Richard for the death of the Duke of Clarence, and instead wrote positively about Richard’s actions after the execution: “He kept himself within his own lands and set out to acquire the loyalty of his people through favours and justice.”

The Princes in the Tower

Richard’s innocence cannot be so easily proven in the situation involving his nephews Edward, Prince of Wales, and Richard, Duke of York, where he is assumed that he stole the throne from Edward and then murdered him and his brother.

Once again one must take a look at the background and the events of the time to uncover the truth. It is clear that Richard did become “Protector” to Edward V, as Edward IV had declared it should be in his will. Richard seemed to prove his loyalty to both his brother, by stopping at York where a requiem was said for Edward’s soul, and to his nephew Edward V as well, by arresting the Woodville conspirators, who had brought Edward V up and who wanted to rule through him when he was crowned. However, this could also be viewed as Richard’s attempt to get rid of any opposition to his ensuing actions.

Nonetheless Richard didn’t appear to want the throne, since he began preparations for Edward V’s coronation immediately and it all seemed set to take place. That is, until Robert Stillington, who was Chancellor twice during Edward IV’s reign, brought the news that Edward V could not legally be crowned since Edward IV had be betrothed to another woman at the time that he married Elizabeth Woodville. This meant that all of Edward IV’s children by Elizabeth were illegitimate since medieval church law held a consummated betrothal to be as legally binding as marriage. Since illegitimate children could not inherit Edward V could not be crowned. Hence the Lords and Commons of Parliament asked Richard if he would accept kingship of England; he did and on July 6th 1483 was crowned king of England.

Whether these events are entirely true or not is questionable since Richard could have invented the claim that Edward V and Richard of York were illegitimate himself. Investigations have shown that the claim could have been put together, though it would have required much skill, and that the story was plausible, though not proved. There do seem to be elements of truth in Richard’s accusation that make it feasible. For example, Edward IV was known to be a womanizer; therefore it is entirely possible that he was betrothed to another woman before marrying Elizabeth Woodville. Also, the man purported to have delivered the news, Robert Stillington, was Chancellor to Edward IV twice. Edward must have trusted the man for him to have gained that position. Hence Stillington would not unduly lie about the sons of the man who he served willingly, and thus one cannot really suspect Richard of forcing or bribing Stillington to say that Edward V and Richard were illegitimate. Finally it is acknowledged that Edward V was “reluctantly, but rightly prevented from becoming king due to illegitimacy”; therefore there must have been evidence to indicate that the claim was accurate otherwise there would surely have been considerable protest. It is also said that no one was shocked when Richard took the throne, thus indeed it may well have been perfectly valid, meaning that Richard was not really the usurper he is said to be.

However this does not clear Richard of guilt in the alleged case of his nephews’ death. It is known that the princes (shown below) were placed in the Tower of London when Richard became king, yet they were seen being allowed to walk in the grounds of the Tower and were said to have been kept comfortable.

Nevertheless, it is also known that the princes were not seen again after the end of 1483. Murder was implied and Richard became the immediate suspect, and he never procured any evidence to prove that he wasn’t the murderer or that he hadn’t authorized the murders (which, as many stories would have it, is meant to have been perpetrated specifically by James Tyrrel under Richard’s orders).

In spite of this though, one must ask, why would Richard wish to kill his nephews, the sons of a brother to whom he had been unswervingly loyal and of whom he had been intensely fond? People claim that he wanted to dispose of the boys in order to remove them as the true heirs to the throne. Yet Richard had already been anointed as king, he had no reason to fear the boys or to harm them. Indeed they were hardly threatening to a grown man, trapped as they were in the Tower of London. Richard would also not wish to hurt his nephews since he needed their mother’s cooperation to consolidate his position.

However this raises the question that, if Richard did not kill the boys, then who did? As it is, there were two men who could have benefited from the death of the two boys much more than Richard could. The prime suspect after Richard was Henry Tudor, who had a claim to the throne through his mother who was a Beaufort, or Lancastrian. He wanted to depose Richard, so he also needed to dispatch any others who might try to claim the throne upon Richard’s defeat and who had stronger claims than his. The princes (even if they were illegitimate) had a claim though their Yorkist heritage as descendents of Edward III. Meanwhile, as a Lancastrian, Henry Tudor’s claim wasn’t as strong, since he was a descendent of one of the younger sons of Edward III. It must be considered though, that Henry may not have had the resources to commit such a crime, exiled as he was on the continent.

The other man who could have murdered the princes was Harry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. Like Henry Tudor, Buckingham was descended from Edward III via his youngest son, Thomas of Woodstock. Buckingham could even claim more right to the throne than Tudor because his lineage was untainted by illegitimacy. Buckingham also had some of his men in charge of the household of the Princes since he was a trusted member of Richard’s council. Hence Buckingham becomes the main suspect if you suppose that Richard had the opportunity but no motive, Henry Tudor had the motive but no opportunity and Buckingham had opportunity and motive.

One must also take into account the fact that when Henry VII became king he never led anyone to believe the princes were not murdered, but he never openly accused Richard of murdering them either. Henry also had to deal with a rebellion during his reign led by a boy who called himself the Duke of York, which Henry took very seriously. Perhaps even Henry wasn’t certain of the princes’ fate.

It does seem quite likely the princes were murdered since the skeletons of two boys were found in the Tower of London, which archeologists have claimed are indeed those of Edward V and Richard of York. However this is a very controversial issue and no one can be truly sure of the fate of the Princes in the Tower. However, if you look at the evidence that we do have, it seems to me to indicate that Richard III is not responsible for murdering his two nephews, with the added evidence that Elizabeth Woodville, the boys’ mother, came out of sanctuary in the Christmas of 1484 to spend time at Richard’s court. I do not believe that she would have done this if she suspected Richard of being even the smallest bit guilty of murdering her sons.

A King above Kings

Hence, all the major stories that surround Richard can be discarded as myth; distorted from reality by propaganda and gross exaggeration. He was neither murder nor usurper; hunchback or traitor. However, it can be difficult to dismiss an idea that has been accepted as the truth for so long. Few people can perceive that a man, who is meant to be as vile as Richard was, could actually have been a normal, rational person and many are still inclined to condemn him as evil tyrant in spite of the evidence that shows he’s not.

Therefore it must be considered that, even before Richard became king, he ruled well for his brother Edward IV in the North of England. York City records claim that Richard was a “just and capable administrator”, respected throughout the North, where he ruled for twelve years as Duke of Gloucester. Richard stayed often in York and he and his wife Anne Neville became members of the Corpus Christi Guild. Richard, known to be a pious man, also set up ten charities and procured licenses to establish two colleges, one at Barnard Castle in County Durham and one at Middleham.

Dominic Mancini wrote “The good reputation of his [Richard’s] private life and public activities powerfully attracted the esteem of strangers. Such was his renown in warfare, that whenever a difficult and dangerous policy had to be undertaken, it would be entrusted to his discretion and generalship.” and Jeremy Potter appears to agree with this statement, saying that Richard “seems to have been brave and resolute…Pious, charitable and cultivated, he was a munificent patron of the church and of music and scholarship…Loyal himself, he seems to have been unable to inspire loyalty in others…” Indeed Richard’s loyalty is shown best at the point when he stood by his brother Edward in the face of the Lancastrian rebellion led by the Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, and their brother, George, in 1470. An anonymous writer commented that “Never was he [Richard] noted all the life of King Edward to thirst after the kingdom; never denied he any commandment of his prince, but performed all his employments discreetly, valiantly, successfully…” Richard remained a faithful subject to his brother and his character was much more respectable than Shakespeare’s portrayal of a villain has led us to believe.

Even when Richard became king he ruled honourably and well, though he had little chance to prove himself, reigning as he did for a mere two years. When he went on progress in 1483, Richard refused many gifts of money offered to him by various cities across England, declaring that he would rather have their good will. Thomas Langton, Bishop of St. David’s in Wales, wrote privately to William Sellyng, prior of Christchurch, Canterbury in September 1483: “He contents the people where he goes best that ever did Prince, for many a poor man hath suffered wrong many days, hath been relieved and helped by him, and his commands on progress. And in many great cities and towns were great sums of money given him which he hath refused. On my trouth I liked never the conditions of any prince so well as his; God hath sent him for the wele of us.” King Richard evidently impressed some people with his generosity.

Richard did execute the Duke of Buckingham during his reign, but that was not because he viewed the man as a threat to his claim to the throne and wanted him out of the way, but was instead a result of the Duke leading a treasonous uprising against him in October 1483.

One might say that a good king is not necessarily a good person. However, there is proof that Richard was not a heartless or malicious man. When he was staying at Nottingham Castle in 1484 with his wife Anne Neville, they received the news that their son and the heir to the throne, Edward had died after a brief illness. A chronicler wrote: “You might have seen the mother and father after hearing the news at Nottingham where they were then staying, almost out of their minds for a long time when faced with sudden grief.” Then Anne, who never recovered from losing her son, died almost a year later. Richard is said to have wept openly at her funeral and he isolated himself for three days. Everyone has condemned Richard as a foul villain, never considering how he must have felt losing a much loved brother, son and wife within eighteen months, whilst persevering in his duties as king. It would appear that he was even able to remain valiant in the face of great tragedy. Then one of Richard’s enemies claimed that he had hastened Anne’s death so that he might marry his niece Elizabeth of York. This rumour was merely based on the fact that Elizabeth was seen wearing a dress made of the same cloth as the Queen’s and was actually more because of the Queen’s generosity and kindness to her niece than due to any favouritism on Richard’s part. Upon hearing this story Richard sent Elizabeth to Sheriff Hutton Castle and publicly denounced the rumour, demonstrating both integrity and courage.

Richard finally succumbed to the army of Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth. He was killed only a few feet away from Henry, hacked down by the army of Lord Stanley as he shouted “Treason, treason, treason.” Henry Tudor couldn’t even kill Richard honourably by fighting him himself and he certainly took the throne in a much more forcible way than Richard ever did.

Hence ended the reign of a king who had shown the makings of becoming a truly great ruler. The last Plantagenet king was also the last English monarch to die in battle and though many converted their loyalty to Henry Tudor, some, including the City of York, mourned his loss and did not forgive or forget his betrayal; despite the risks they took doing this. Richard had plainly inspired a powerful sense of loyalty in the citizens of York, so much so that a mob attacked and killed the Earl of Northumberland when he visited a village near Thirsk; they had not forgotten how the Earl had refused to go to Richard’s aid at the battle that claimed his life.

Not a Hunchback, he was just Human

In the face of these facts it is impossible not to be able see that Richard III was no where near as evil or malicious as has been made out. Josephine Toy’s detective Alan Grant looked at Richard’s portrait and saw “someone used to great responsibility, and responsible in his authority. Someone too conscientious. A worrier, perhaps a perfectionist.”

Not all of us will be able to view Richard in this way, but it is clear that the image that we all have all come to recognize from Shakespeare is merely an image of propaganda and does not truthfully represent Richard in character or in physical appearance. Perhaps Richard III was not perfect, but he does not deserve to be reviled as much as he has been. Even someone who does believe in the truth of physiognomy cannot simply jump to the conclusion that Richard was a murdering villain. Indeed, if he had been given the chance, it is quite likely that Richard would have grown upon all his people, making an impact on them just as he did on the people of York having ruled them for twelve years prior to becoming sovereign.

In particular I find it extremely unfair that Richard has suffered such libel whilst other monarchs, such as Henry IV, who snatched the throne from his uncle Richard II and then had him murdered, and Henry VIII, who executed not one, but two of his wives in plain evidence, have managed to escape the censure that has been awarded to Richard III. Therefore, before you bear judgment on Richard, just think about all the evidence that has been put forward here and you will quickly realize that perhaps Richard deserves a lot more appreciation than we have been willing to give him.

Bibliography

Websites:

Books: Richard III - William Shakespeare

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