RICHARD III

formerly duke of Gloucester, son of Richard Plantagenet, duke of York, in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3; later king of England in Richard III. One of Shakespeare's finest creations, the physically deformed Richard is among the earliest and most vivid of the playwright's sympathetic villains. In his plot to become king, Richard commits himself to murder, treason, and dissimulation with an inventive imagination that an audience can both relish and condemn. Shakespeare also puts into Richard's speeches some of his most beautiful early poetry, as in the opening soliloquy to Richard III, Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York, and in the wooing of Lady Anne. Historically, there is some doubt about Richard's true nature; many modern scholars contend that he was framed for the murders recounted in the play, possibly by his rival, Henry Tudor. died , Feb. 3, 1027 duke of Normandy (102627, or 1027), son of Richard II the Good. He was succeeding in quelling the revolt of his brother, Robert, when he died opportunely, perhaps of poison, making way for his brother's succession as Robert I. chronicle play in five acts by William Shakespeare, first performed in London in 159293 and published in 1597 in a quarto edition reconstructed from an actor's promptbook. Richard III is the last in a sequence of four history plays (the others being Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, and Henry VI, Part 3) known collectively as the first tetralogy, treating the Wars of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York. For the events of the play Shakespeare relied mainly on the chronicles of Raphael Holinshed and, to a lesser extent, Edward Hall. The dissembling and physically deformed Richard, duke of Gloucester, reveals his true purpose in the opening soliloquy of Richard III: And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover / To entertain these fair well-spoken days, / I am determined to prove a villain. Having killed King Henry VI and Henry's son, the prince of Wales, in Henry VI, Part 3, Richard sets out to discredit or kill all who stand between him and the throne of England: his brother King Edward IV; his brother George, duke of Clarence; Edward's queen, Elizabeth, and two young sons, Edward, prince of Wales, and Richard, duke of York; his own wife, Lady Anne; and numerous courtiers and noblemen, most notably Elizabeth's brother, Anthony Woodville, earl Rivers, and the honest Lord Hastings. At first Richard is ably assisted by the duke of Buckingham, who readily convinces Cardinal Bourchier to remove the young duke of York from the protection of sanctuary and place him and his brother under their uncle's protection in the Tower. Buckingham further arranges for and later explains away the hurried execution of Hastings, spreads ugly rumours about the bastardy of the young princes and of Edward himself, and stage-manages Richard's apparently reluctant acceptance of the crown. The nefarious partnership between Richard and Buckingham ends when Buckingham balks at killing the young princes and then flees to escape the same fate. An army led by Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, challenges Richard's claim to the throne. On the night before the Battle of Bosworth Field, Richard is haunted by the ghosts of all whom he has murdered. After a desperate fight, Richard is killed and Richmond becomes King Henry VII. Richard III was the first of Shakespeare's history plays to have a self-contained narrative unity. In it, the playwright emphasized the moment of death as a crisis of conscience in which the individual is capable of great clarity. born Oct. 2, 1452, Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, Eng. died Aug. 22, 1485, Bosworth, Leicestershire Richard III, detail of a painting by an unknown artist; in the National Portrait Gallery, London also called (146183) Richard Plantagenet, Duke Of Gloucester last Yorkist king of England, who usurped power in June 1483 and ruled until he was killed in battle. An extremely controversial figure, he has been portrayed by historians and in literature as a monster of unparalleled villainy. Modern scholars, on the other hand, tend to regard him as a potentially capable monarch whose reputation for wickedness originated in 16th-century political propaganda. He was the youngest son of Richard, Duke of York (d. 1460) and was made Duke of Gloucester in 1461 after his eldest brother, Edward of York, had deposed the weak Lancastrian monarch Henry VI and assumed power as Edward IV. In October 1470, Richard and Edward were driven into exile by Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who put Henry VI back on the throne. Returning with Edward to England in March 1471, Richard commanded the vanguard forces in two victories over the Lancastriansat Barnet and Tewkesburythat led to Edward's restoration. It is likely that Richard had a hand in the murder of Henry VI in the Tower of London on the night of May 21, 1471. As a reward for his fidelity, the king gave him high offices and large grants of land. Upon the death of Edward IV on April 9, 1483, Richard became protector of the realm for Edward's son and successor, the 12-year-old king Edward V. Soon he came into conflict with the faction headed by Edward IV's widow, Elizabeth Woodville, which dominated the young monarch. Richard broke the power of the Woodvilles by arresting and eventually executing their leaders and by taking into custody Edward V and his nine-year-old brother. London preachers were then persuaded to announce that Edward IV's marriage had been invalid and his children illegitimate and that Richard was therefore his brother's rightful successor. On June 25 an assembly of lords and commoners endorsed these claims; the following day King Richard III officially began his reign. When the two young princes disappeared in August 1483, it was widely rumoured that Richard, their uncle, had had them murdered. There is a strong possibility that the rumour was fact. The rebellion raised in southern England by Richard's close associate Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, in October 1483 appeared at first to be another threat to Richard's regime, but it quickly collapsed, and Stafford was executed. But the defection of Buckingham and his supporters reduced still further the unsure foundation of Richard's power. In order to live down his past and enlarge his narrow base of support, Richard now devoted his full attention to his kingly duties; he promoted trade and instituted financial reforms. But time was not on his side; the aristocracy and gentry, whose support he desperately needed, found it difficult to accept him as a legitimate ruler. Meanwhile, Richard's enemies were joining his rival, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, a claimant to the throne of Lancastrian ancestry who was living in exile in France. On Aug. 7, 1485, Henry landed with his army in South Wales; he marched east and engaged Richard in battle on Bosworth Field on August 22. Richard's forces were larger than Henry's, but several of the king's most powerful nobles defected at a crucial moment in the battle. Refusing to flee, Richard died fighting bravely against overwhelming odds. Henry Tudor then ascended the throne as King Henry VII (ruled 14851509) and united the Yorkist and Lancastrian claims by marrying Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth of York. Not surprisingly, Richard was continually maligned in Tudor times through such writings as William Shakespeare's play Richard III. As to the allegationin Shakespeare and elsewherethat Richard was a hunchback, neither portraits nor contemporary reports reveal such a deformity, although there is some indication that one of his shoulders was higher than the other. Additional reading Charles Ross, Richard III (1981); Desmond Seward, Richard III, England's Black Legend (1983); Rosemary Horrox, Richard III: A Study of Service (1989).