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Richard IIIAs the play opens, Edward IV has reigned for more than a decade. Although outwardly it seems as if order is returning to England, Richard secretly continues to plot his rise to power. A debonair monster, morally and physically disfigured, Richard enjoys the political games of pitting one person against another, and he moves with frightening speed to gain the throne. Richard sets about masterminding the deaths of his elder brother George, and his nephews and wards, the young sons of the late King Edward. Meanwhile, he pits his courtiers against one another, bringing them into his confidence one moment and turning against them the next. Plotting indeed gains him the throne, but his machinations will also be his undoing. The night before the decisive battle of Bosworth Field, all of Richard’s victims—including his brother, his wife Anne Neville, Henry VI and Henry’s son Edward, Richard’s nephews Edward V and Richard Duke of York, and any number of dukes and courtiers—come to him in a dream and torment him. All repeat the phrase "Despair and die," which causes Richard to become increasingly desperate and, for the first time, to doubt himself. These same ghosts visit Richard’s enemy Richmond and wish him luck. The two armies meet on the field of battle, with both generals giving orations before the fight. Richmond kills Richard III, and is crowned Henry VII. Henry VII, a Lancaster, marries Edward’s daughter Elizabeth, a York, thus ending the Wars of the Roses by uniting the two houses, and marking the beginning of the Tudor dynasty. |
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