The first time I visited York, one of the few surviving First Folios in the world (235 total) just happened to be on display at the Yorkshire Museum. The Folio was open to the first page of Richard III. I gasped and smiled, then breathlessly read over those opening words which any girlfriend of Shakespeare knows by heart:
Now is he winter of our discontent
made glorious summer by this son of York
The museum also had a church pew which Richard allegedly had kneeled upon at some point in history. I would be lying if I didn't admit to being quite tickled by my proximity to such a relic in old Dicky's hometown. Such is the strange hold the long-dead King has on history and our imaginations.
Ironically, despite Shakespeare’s attempt to smite Richard III’s ruin upon the mountainside, the murderous king became one of the most celebrated villains in all of theatre and literature. Actors just love playing him.
Witness our perrenial Lord of Bardolotry, Sir Laurence of Olivier, who portrays Richard with an almost sexy giddiness that straightens his posture to a point that he barely registers as deformed. Or Sir Ian McKellan, who emphasizes the King's depravity with costuming that is highly suggestive of a WWII Nazi. Al Pacino was so obsessed with Shakespeare that he made the navel-gazing Looking For Richard (1996), in which he tries so hard not to be pretentious about the admittedly dense material that it feels pretentious as hell. It's also infectiously earnest in its exploration of the play's legacy and I low-key love it.
Kevin Spacey, who worked with Al on that film, must have caught the cloying Richard bug because the most recent and high-profile modern version of Richard (with a soupçon of Macbeth) is his unforgettable Frank Underwood in Netflix's House of Cards. The show made such good use of the fourth-wall-breaking Shakespearean asides that we, as an audience, were constantly and sadistically led into a twisted, political world by Underwood's slimy, crooked fingers.
Fun fact! Benedict Cumberbatch (who plays our man in the BBC’s The Hollow Crown series) is actually Richard III’s third cousin sixteen times removed. I watched a TV special presentation of the day they interred Richard’s skeletal remains in a church in Leister and Cumberbatch read a very nice poem during the ceremony. It was more touching than one would think. But Benny always touches me in special ways anyway.
It’s all too easy to dismiss Richard as a horrible tyrant and an ineffective ruler, but in the play, his sharp reasoning for his behavior makes sense: Nature thrust him into this world “scarce half-made-up” and because he cannot be expected to “witch sweet ladies” or spend all his time enjoying the fruits of a lovely body, he has no other choice but to do villainous shit. Or so the English playwrights under Elizabeth I would have us believe.
Shakespeare most likely felt compelled to portray Richard as a terrible monster because Queen Elizabeth I’s Lancastrian/Tudor line had to be defended, lest she get pissed and shut down his theatre. Today, there’s a whole Richard III Society dedicated to clearing Richard's name of Shakespeare’s slanders. For a long time, some historians even thought his being a “hunchback” was exaggerated or a complete fabrication.
I saw a documentary once where they were analyzing that skeleton they found in a parking lot in Leicester and the Ricardians held their breaths, hoping the scoliosis-twisted bones weren’t actually his. Spoiler alert! It was him. The pelvis even had sword marks that coincide with the humiliating story about someone shoving the weapon up his ass after he died. It was too much for them to bear. There were even DNA tests done on the bones, and Edward III may not even be Richard’s great-great-grandfather, due to the kind of “covert illegitimacy” that was part and parcel of being a big manly Duke of anything back then.
Richard III is second only to Hamlet for sheer length and it opens with one of the most famous soliloquies in the universe. Richard deliciously delivers a monologue about how sad he is that everything is peaceful and his horny kingly brother is too busy fooling around in bed (he fathered 10 kids, remember). Richard resolves to poke the hornets’ nest by spreading rumors about how some witch or prophet or whatever ironically predicts that “G” will kill Edward’s heirs. Um, hello. Edward thinks it means the Duke of Clarence (George), but duh, it could mean Duke of Gloucester (Richard). So when Richard meets George on his way to being mewed up in the Tower, he promises to convince Edward to change his mind (yeah right).
Edward suddenly turns gravely ill and Richard decides he needs to marry Lady Anne, Warwick’s daughter, whose husband Richard had slain. Richard finds Lady Anne weeping over the coffin of her dead father-in-law, Henry VI. Richard proceeds to convince her to marry him even though she spits in his face. While we, the audience are cringing at his feat, even he can’t believe his manipulative skill and fancies that he’ll start dressing more fashionably. Everyone deserves to be fabulous, I suppose.
The royal family starts freaking out when they realize Edward is dying, because they know that Richard will be named Regent and protector of the young princes. An epic spat ensues and good old wolfish Margaret, prophet of doom, curses everyone until Edward calls everyone back to his side. In the Tower, poor George poetically describes his horrifying prophetic dream to his gaoler, almost convinces away the murderers Richard hired, but gets stabbed and drowned in a barrel of sweet wine anyway (Falstaff would be proud).
After the King pats himself on the back for reconciling his family feuds, he gets serious executioner’s remorse when he hears his brother was killed, even though he was the one who originally ordered his death. Richard blames Elizabeth’s family.
Meanwhile, the elderly Duchess of York is babysitting George’s kids (Margaret and Edward) and they gossip about Richard a bit before Elizabeth enters, crying that the King has croaked. Richard is hot on her tail, fake begging for his mother’s blessing in his new job, then volunteers to go with his bosom buddy Buckingham to pick up Prince Edward and bring him to the palace.
A handful of citizens in the street talk some shit about how the country is going down the toilet. Elizabeth, the Duchess, the Archbishop, and wee Duke of York chew the fat, then word arrives that Richard has arrested Elizabeth’s brother and son (from her previous marriage) and sent them to the same castle where Richard II was killed. She sighs heavily and decides to take her son to sanctuary with the bishop.
Richard and Buckingham bring the little Edward to London and the kiddo wonders what happened to his other uncles (super awkward). They order the Cardinal to go fetch the Queen and little York and Richard convinces the new King to hang out in the Tower until his coronation, because spending time in the Tower ALWAYS leads to good things, right? When Edward's bro arrives, they make jokes about Richard’s deformity (dumbasses) and he tells them to both go chill in the Tower despite poor York’s worries about seeing their uncle George’s ghost. Richard promises Buckingham an earldom if he helps him to the throne.
Stanley has a bad dream and sends a letter to Hastings saying they should both just get the hell out of Dodge, but he refuses. Catesby shows up and tells Hastings that he better get on Richard’s good side because he just ordered the deaths of Elizabeth’s closest family members. They all get executed, fulfilling some of Margaret’s curses.
A council convenes to determine when little Edward will be coronated. Richard shows up fashionably late and orders the Bishop of Ely to go fetch him some strawberries. He accuses Elizabeth and the dead Edward's strumpet Shore of conspiring against him with witchcraft, causing his arm to wither, and when Hastings defends his secret girlfriend (mistress Shore), Richard says "Off with his head!"
Richard tells the mayor of London that Hastings was a traitor and that’s why his skeleton will be sans skull. He tells Buckingham to spread rumors that the dead King’s children are illegitimate because Edward was fooling around with mistresses, he was supposed to marry Lady Bona, and then he reneged to marry the lowly Lady Grey. Some Scrivener in the street reflects on how obvious it is that a coup is about to happen but nobody has the balls to call it out.
In a bizarre scene that sometimes feels like a burlesque of Antony’s “honorable men” speech from Julius Caesar, Richard pretends to be an uber-pious man of God too busy at prayer while Buckingham brings the Mayor and a whole mob of citizens to his door to beg him to be King. Richard feigns humility and eventually agrees to be crowned the next day.
Lady Anne teams up with Elizabeth and the Duchess to go visit the kiddos in the tower but they are denied on order of “The King.” They cannot even. A messenger calls Lady Anne to be crowned Richard’s queen and she wants to just die (Richard will make sure of that in short order anyway).
Richard finally ascends to the throne in all his decadent pomp and casually asks Buckingham to kill his two little nephews. Buckingham is (finally) appalled at all this murdering. Richard loses his shit and pays off someone else to handle it, immediately unfriending his former bestie. He decides he’s going to marry his niece Elizabeth, which is the least creepy thing he did all day. Buckingham timidly asks if Richard will now give him his promised earldom and Richard ghosts him.
With the princes dead, George’s son locked away, and Anne poisoned, Richard just needs to fight off the son of a random Welshman—Henry Richmond—who was prophesied by Henry VI to be the future of England. But Richard’s new buddy Ratcliffe comes in to announce that Buckingham has fled to raise a rebellion.
Outside, Elizabeth and the Duchess lament the deaths of the princes and Margaret skulks in to say “Told you so!” about Richard and their vaulting ambition. The three of them list their woes like drunk mommies on a Friday night drinking too much rosé until Richard shows up with his army and they curse him out. He takes Elizabeth aside and spends an inordinate number of lines trying to get her to agree to wooing her daughter into being his new queen. Elizabeth pretends to be won over (and goes off to promise her daughter to the handsome Richmond instead). Richard’s messengers all show up warning him about the rebels coming in from all sides and he’s so overwhelmed that he sends them back out with no instructions whatsoever. They have some good news though: Buckingham has been defeated and is about to be executed on Richard's orders.
Stanley secretly backs his son-in-law Richmond even though Richard has taken Stanley's son hostage as collateral. Richmond is buoyed by the fact that he has so much support and that Richard only has frightened lackies. The night before the battle, Richmond and Richard sleep in their tents. A bevvy of ghosts visit them both, cursing Richard and turning around to give support to Richmond. Richard awakens in a cold sweat and babbles to himself maniacally. Both leaders give impassioned speeches to their men and proceed to go at it.
Out on the battlefield, Richard’s precious favorite white horse gets slain and he yells out his famous (if pathetic) line about “My kingdom for a horse!” not once but TWICE. Richmond promptly fights and slays him, tossing him up on the back of a horse to be hauled off the field of battle. Richmond gives a mercifully short speech about how the civil war is over and everything is fine.
*wipes off brow* WHEW. What a ride.
By my count, Richard is responsible for the deaths of twelves people total over three plays, making him the most murderous character in all of Shakespeare. Granted, he was hands-off for some and merely ordered their executions, but he was unafraid to be stabby-stabby himself.
The body count is as follows:
Somerset: slain in battle (offstage, but presumed to be Richard's doing)
Edward, Prince of Wales: taken prisoner and stabbed by all the York bros
Henry VI: stabbed, then stabbed again (for good measure)
George, Duke of Clarence: Edward IV ordered his death, but Richard hastened the event and paid 2 murderers to get it done sooner
Hastings: beheaded
Rivers: executed
Vaughn: executed
Gray: executed
Prince Edward (almost King Edward V): murdered in the Tower
Richard, Duke of York: murdered in the Tower
Buckingham: executed
Lady Anne: probably poisoned
I am tempted to add Edward IV with an asterisk because news of his brother George’s death gave him enough of a shock to cease his existence. But by now, I probably seem like a proud mother posting her son's work on the fridge. Richard has been in my head for all of January, so sue me.
So why is this bottled spider still so goddamned compelling? Are his words so flowered that we can ignore the stench of their deplorable intent? Do we feel an ounce of pity due to his bodily misfortune or are we rubbernecking as he halts on by? Are we truly glad that he got his comeuppance for all his wrongs or do we get a sick satisfaction from being drawn in as accomplices to his crimes?
Perhaps Shakespeare has just proven that despite all the imperfections of this bloated early play, he is still fucking Shakespeare, and even shitty Shakespeare is far better than anything those mortals on HBO can conjure for us.
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