I am excited about this week, since we’ll finally get to one of my favorite soliloquies! It of course belongs to everyone’s least favorite son Dicky, and it’s a doozy. Weighing in at 71 lines, it’s a longest soliloquy in all the plays. It serves as a kind of first draft of his famous opening soliloquy from Richard III, and we get a deep dive into his troubled mind. Richard is a very logical person, and lays out his plans in a candid manner. His only flaw is that his paradigm revolves around MURTHER.
We start with how York hits the ground deposing. In the very first scene, he literally ascends to the throne and parks his ass there. When Henry shows up, he tries to convince him to get the hell off, but even Henry’s buddy Exeter admits that York has the greater claim (he is descended from both the second son of Edward III AND the fourth, so BOOYAH he wins by incest even though his dad was executed for treason). With a heavy sign (and probably tears in his eyes, as usual), Henry compromises by saying he’ll reign until his death, and then York and his sons will take over. All Henry’s buddies are disgusted with this, and Margaret most of all. When she arrives with their son Edward, she rips into her husband and announces that she will play the Lysistrata card until he reverses his decision. Back at his home, York is convinced by his silver-tongued son Richard that York can claim the throne right now instead of waiting because the deal was not struck with any magistrates hanging around as witnesses.
Just as York is about to leave to do that very thing, Margaret shows up with her army and ammunition on her back. York tells his sons to flee, and in the ensuing ruckus, Clifford slays York’s precious son Rutland. Margaret captures York. She makes him kneel on a molehill and wipes his tears with a hanky smeared with Rutland’s blood. She really lays into him, obviously happy to get revenge for what happened to Suffolk. York spews invective about her being a she-wolf from France and she allows Clifford to stab him before she does so herself. She walks away, ordering her men to stick York’s head on the gates so he can look over the town of York. Badass level unlocked.
When Edward, Richard, and Warwick learn of York’s death, they all freak right out and want blood. Meanwhile, Margaret greets Henry in York by happily pointing out York’s head on the gates, and he is distraught. She rolls her eyes and tells him to knight their son Prince of Wales already. They go to the battle with York’s sons. While everyone else is fighting, Henry wanders around in a daze, wishing he were a shepherd instead of a king. He watches a father cry over his son’s body, and a son cry over his father’s, and Henry weeps at the humanity of it all. Clifford dies, then Richard, Edward, and Warwick find and mock his dead body, and immediately make plans to get Edward on the throne ASAP and have him marry the French King Louis XI’s sister, Lady Bona. Edward names his bro George Duke of Clarence, and Richard Duke of Gloucester, although Richard would rather it be the other way around since the title of Gloucester seems to be cursed. "Nah, you'll be fine!" Edward says.
Henry is found half-nude by some gamekeepers out in the Scottish forest, blathering in most poetic tones about how he is a king in his mind, and that’s all that matters, really (YASS QUEEN! Don't let the bastards grind you down). Of course, they arrest him and bring his naked ass back to London, where the clever Lady Grey is using reverse psychology to convince King Edward to be more than just a friend with benefits. He forgets all about Lady Bona in France and wants to marry Elizabeth on the spot. Richard and George make snide remarks in asides about Edward’s little Eddie making all the decisions right now, and when they leave the stage, Richard delivers one of the coolest speeches ever about how he’s going to KILL THEM ALL.
King Lewis, who’s sitting pretty with Margaret and young Prince Henry by his side, receives Warwick’s message about Edward’s wish to bone Lady Bona, but in an analog version of the moment where everyone reads the same tweet simultaneously, they realize Edward’s changed his mind and they all get angry AF. Warwick curses Edward’s name and joins Margaret and offer his daughter Anne to Henry and they all put on their armour.
Edward’s Lady Grey blindness makes his buddies anxious, especially since he’s showering all her relatives with royal marriages. Total upstart queen. George is so miffed that he decides to join Warwick on the battlefield to raise Henry to the throne again and take down Edward. Warwick’s men take Edward in a “surprise” attack—the dude was sleeping rough quite a distance from his men, like a moron—and capture him. Elizabeth flees for fear of what might happen to her unborn son. Warwick frees Henry from the Tower of London. Henry's grateful, but he’s just like "Yeah, thanks but no thanks," so he names Warwick and George protectors of the realm. It’s funny because historically, Henry really did take the throne again for about a year. It’s such a mess.
Edward soon escapes (who lets their prisoner take their exercise in the woods?) and goes to York’s gates, claiming that they should let him in because he only wants to go back to being Duke of York again. Montgomery hates this, and he and Richard nag Edward into wanting to claim the throne again. Edward takes Henry prisoner AGAIN, then goes off to Coventry to meet Warwick’s forces. Oxford, Montague, and Somerset all show up with more forces, and Warwick worries. He feels better when Clarence arrives, but somehow Richard convinces Clarence to back down and re-join his brothers. Montague and Warwick die and Margaret shows up too late to the party. She gets taken prisoner along with her son, they kill him, and she begs to be killed as well, but Edward forces her to stay alive and sends her back to France.
Richard sneaks off to stab Henry in the Tower, then stabs him some more. He asides to us that he’s going KILL EVERYTHING because he doesn’t know what love is. Sometime later, after all is settled down, he joins Edward and George and Elizabeth in the final scenes to celebrate and bless Edward’s firstborn prince. Richard kisses the child in the most cringe-inducing way, fade to black.
Whatever you think about him, Richard III has quite a legacy despite his malformations, which he constantly points out to everyone all the time. His character got a lot done, and this play displays the quickening of Richard’s Machiavellian life choices. He jumps off the page and the stage with those shit-eating asides, and it’s awesome to witness Shakespeare’s artistic confidence begin to coalesce around conjuring incredibly intriguing characterization.
Warwick’s dying paragraphs about the futility of ambition, for example, are appropriate and fitting to this strong, complex warrior, who had really gotten shit for all his hard work defending two different sides of this war. He steps out of his own body and describes his “Kingmaker” role in this theatre of courtly war:
Ah, who is nigh? come to me, friend or foe, And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick? Why ask I that? my mangled body shows, My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows. That I must yield my body to the earth And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe. Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge, Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle, Under whose shade the ramping lion slept, Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind. These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil, Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun, To search the secret treasons of the world: The wrinkles in my brows, now filled with blood, Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres; For who lived king, but I could dig his grave? And who durst mine when Warwick bent his brow? Lo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood! My parks, my walks, my manors that I had. Even now forsake me, and of all my lands Is nothing left me but my body's length. Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? And, live we how we can, yet die we must.
--3 Henry VI, Act V, Sc. II
Then there’s Elizabeth, who tricks her King not only into giving back her dead husband’s lands, but lands herself an even better husband! And all kinds of perks for her family! They were just lowly landed gentry, mere aristocrats, but Edward launched her into British peerage and bestowed fancy titles. I love how she slams George and Richard for bad-mouthing her:
My lords, before it pleased his majesty To raise my state to title of a queen, Do me but right, and you must all confess That I was not ignoble of descent; And meaner than myself have had like fortune.
--3 Henry VI, Act III, Sc. IV
Ohhh she went there! She was the womb and sluice for Edward's issue (10 kids!), and ultimately, her daughter, Elizabeth (another one), becomes the lock for the key to ending the infamous battles between the Lancastrians and Plantagenets. You go girls. Stay tuned.
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