RIP Richard III

Who was the historical Richard?

Richard III was the last of the Plantagenet line of English kings. The Plantagenets, who had ruled since 1154, turned on themselves during the Wars of the Roses, splitting into the rival houses of Lancaster and York. Born in 1452 to Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, Richard grew up amid the strife of civil war. His father and his brother Edmund were killed by Lancastrian forces in 1460. In 1461, Richard’s older brother Edward deposed the reigning Lancastrian King Henry VI and became Edward IV.

Though Shakespeare paints Richard as embittered by a life of physical suffering and emotional neglect, historian Baldwin points out that we have no reason to think he ever considered himself a candidate for the crown until the untimely death of his brother. He may have seized power for power’s sake, for the good of the realm, or to keep himself from being pushed aside (or executed) by Edward IV’s queen, the unpopular Elizabeth Woodville, whose family once supported the House of Lancaster.

Edward IV ruled for roughly 22 years (there were some interruptions as King Henry VI regained and then lost power) before dying of illness on April 9, 1483. Up until this time, Richard, then Duke of Gloucester, had been an “exemplary royal brother” says medieval historian David Baldwin. The problem was that Edward IV’s son, also named Edward, was only 12 at the time of his father’s death. Richard became Lord High Protector of the Realm, ruling on behalf of his nephew, and Edward and his younger brother, also named Richard, were sent to the Tower of London. It was not unusual for kings to reside at the Tower before their coronation, though it would later become infamous, in part because of what may have befallen the two York princes there. The young Edward V’s coronation was scheduled for June 22, 1483. It would never take place.

Regardless of the reason, between April and June of 1483 something undoubtedly shifted for Richard. He declared his nephews to be illegitimate and had William, Lord Hastings, a powerful ally of the late king, executed without trial. The York Princes were last seen alive on June 16. On July 6, 1483, their uncle was crowned as Richard III at Westminster Abbey. What happened to the boys has been debated by historians ever since. Shakespeare repeats the popular idea that their murder was ordered by Richard. There is no direct evidence for this—or that they were murdered at all—but his reputation as a child killer persists.

His reign was a short one. In April 1484, his only son and heir died, an event that was taken as a bad omen by the people. In March 1485, his wife, Queen Anne, died and it was scandalously rumored that Richard would marry his own niece, Elizabeth. That summer, Henry Tudor, representing the rival Lancastrian cause, arrived in England with an army.

Who was Shakespeare’s Richard III?

One of Shakespeare’s most enduring characters, Richard III is unrepentantly (deliciously?) villainous. He bears little likeness to the historical Richard. Michael Dobson, director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham in England, points out that the real Richard would certainly have seen himself as a pious Christian prince, doing only what he had to in order to preserve the kingdom. He would certainly not have recognized Shakespeare’s depiction of him as a blood-thirsty tyrant and, if he had reigned longer, his popular reputation might have been very different. But Richard’s successor, Henry Tudor, was not interested in rehabilitating his reputation. A king whose hereditary claim to the throne was weak and who had truly won his kingdom on the battlefield, Henry and his heirs had a vested interest in demonizing Richard III and bolstering their own claim to leadership. Histories that condemned the previous dynasty were popular in Tudor times.

Successful in battle but deformed (how much so is a subject of extensive theatrical interpretation) and unlovable, Shakespeare’s Richard has little use for the peace that begins Richard III. Eager to clear his way to the crown, he convinces his brother Edward to imprison their brother Clarence. Richard later has both his brother and his nephews murdered, and marries Anne Neville, even though he also murdered her husband and father-in-law. When she dies (possibly also his doing), he plans to seduce his niece. He may be a killer, but Richard’s underdog status and his clarity of purpose make him impossible to look away from and, in some ways, to root for. He also gets one of the most memorable opening lines in Shakespeare: “Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this son of York.”

Richard III was a popular dramatic subject in Shakespeare’s time. A Latin play, Richardus Tertius, was first performed at Cambridge in 1579, and repeatedly copied in manuscript. A play entitled The True Tragedy of Richard III, published in 1594, continued to be performed well into the 17th century. Shakespeare’s Richard III, first printed in 1597, was one of his most popular plays, and was reprinted in 1598, 1602, 1605,  1612, 1622, 1629, and 1634.

It also provided a star vehicle for King’s Men actor Richard Burbage. The part of the deformed king who plots murders, seduces women, and experiences a meteoric rise and fall has appealed to generations of leading men. Michael Dobson also points out that the scheming Richard may have been familiar to Tudor audiences because he resembles the character of Vice in morality plays, who Richard compares himself to in both of Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays and in Richard III.

How did Richard meet his untimely end?

Henry Tudor, then Earl of Richmond, crossed the English Channel from France in early August 1485 and, as he moved through Wales into England, his army of approximately 2,000 men more than doubled in size to approximately 5,000. Henry’s stepfather, Lord Stanley, was also standing by with a private army of an additional 5,000–8,000 soldiers. Henry and Richard, himself leading between 10,000–12,000 men, met at the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. In Shakespeare’s version of events, the night before the battle, Richard is visited by the ghosts of all his victims, who curse him. While we can’t know the content of the real Richard’s dreams, we do know the battle did not go his way. Perhaps anxious to end the encounter, he led a charge aimed directly at Henry Tudor. Lord Stanley then deployed his army, overwhelming Richard’s men. The king’s horse became trapped, but he continued to fight on foot. Shakespeare memorializes this moment with the now iconic cry, which he says twice, of “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” Richard, just 32 years old, became the last English king to be slain in battle. It is said that his crown was found on the field and handed to Henry Tudor. With Richard’s death, the Wars of the Roses ended. Henry became Henry VII, married Elizabeth of York (Richard’s niece), and founded the Tudor dynasty.

What is Richard’s legacy today? 

Richard III’s reputation spent generations being tarnished by his enemies, while the truth about his reign and the location of his grave were lost. In August 2012, the Looking for Richard Project located remains in a parking lot in Leicester, on the former site of the Grey Friars church where his body had supposedly lain in state. Finding his body seemed unlikely; a local rumor said it had been dug up and thrown in a nearby river during the Reformation (truly, Richard could not seem to catch a break). But the skeleton found in Leicester appeared to be a perfect fit. The bones were carbon dated to between 1455 and 1540 and were those of a man in his late 20s to early 30s. The remains also bore signs of a violent death in battle, including taking a blade through the skull. Most interestingly, the person in question had scoliosis and would have likely had one shoulder raised above the other. They did not have a withered arm, a hunched back, or some of the other deformities ascribed to Richard over time.  DNA testing of descendants of Richard’s maternal line confirmed a 99.999% likelihood that the body was Richard III.

Since it won’t do for a former King of England—no matter how monstrous he may or may not have been—to lie forever in a parking lot, Richard was reinterred in Leicester Cathedral in 2015. The Dean of Leicester and the Archbishop of Canterbury presided over the service. Queen Elizabeth II sent a message and actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who was about to portray Richard in The Hollow Crown, read a poem by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. An estimated 35,000 people lined up to view his coffin.

The discovery of his remains helped move Richard from the realms of the mythical to the more nuanced and realistic. Just how much we know truly know about him and his actions has been reevaluated as time has gone on (and the power of the Tudor dynasty has also met its end). Still, Shakespeare’s dramatic version of him continues to spark awe and delight. A seductive and at times sympathetic presence—no one in his family appreciates him!—with more than a few memorable speeches, the role has been played by everyone from Burbage to Edwin Booth (and his brother John Wilkes Booth) to Ian McKellen, Denzel Washington, and Peter Dinklage. His shadow over pop-culture remains. Though Henry VII may be the victor in history and in the play, it is Richard, the underdog “determinèd to prove a villain,” who stays with us.