The War of the Roses: the Historical Facts of the Tudor Myth (Shakespeare’s Histories) — страница 9

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king, in spite of the continued survival of his nephews (the Princes in the Tower). His new status leaves Richard sufficiently confident to dispose of his nephews. Buckingham conditions his consent for the princes’ deaths on receiving a land grant, which Richard rejects, leaving Buckingham fearful for his life. As the body count rises, the increasingly paranoid Richard loses what popularity he had; he soon faces rebellions led first by Buckingham and subsequently by the invading Earl of Richmond (Henry VII of England). Both sides arrive for a final battle at Bosworth Field. Prior to the battle, Richard is visited by the ghosts of those whose deaths he has caused, all of whom tell him to: “Despair and die!” He awakes screaming for “Jesu” (Jesus) to help him, slowly

realizing that he is all alone in the world and that even he hates himself. Richard's language and undertones of self-remorse seem to indicate that, in the final hour, he is repentant for his evil deeds, however, it is too late. As the battle commences, Richard gives arguably the least motivational pep-talk in English literature (“Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls; Conscience is but a word that cowards use... March on, join bravely, let us to't pell mell; If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell....”). Lord Stanley (who happens to be Richmond's step-father) and his followers desert, leaving Richard at a disadvantage. Richard is soon unhorsed on the field at the climax of the battle, and utters the often-quoted line: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a

horse!” He is defeated in the final “hunting of the boar”, so to speak, and Richmond succeeds as Henry VII, even going so far as to marry a York, effectively ending the War of the Roses (to the evident relief of everyone involved). In dramatic terms, perhaps the most important (and, arguably, the most entertaining) feature of the play is the sudden alteration in Richard's character. For the first 'half' of the play, we see him as something of an anti-hero, causing mayhem and enjoying himself hugely in the process: I do mistake my person all this while; Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot, Myself to be a marvellous proper man. I'll be at charges for a looking-glass; Almost immediately after he is crowned, however, his personality and actions take a darker turn. He

turns against loyal Buckingham (“I am not in the giving vein”), he falls prey to self-doubt (“I am in so far in blood, that sin will pluck on sin;”); now he sees shadows where none exist and visions of his doom to come (“Despair and die”). Depiction of Richard Shakespeare's depiction of Richard and his “reign of terror” is unflattering, and modern historians find it a distortion of historical truth. Shakespeare's “history” plays were not, of course, intended to be historically accurate, but were designed for entertainment. As with “Macbeth”, Richard's supposed villainy is depicted as extreme in order to achieve maximum dramatic effect. In addition, many previous writers had depicted Richard as a villain, and Shakespeare was thus following tradition.

Nevertheless, it is important to question why this particular king became a symbol of villainy during the Elizabeth’s period. Critics have argued that this dark depiction of Richard developed because the ruling monarch of Shakespeare's time, Elizabeth I, was the granddaughter of Henry VII of England, the Lancastrian Earl of Richmond, who had defeated the last Yorkist king and started the Tudor dynasty, and Shakespeare's play thus presents the version of Richard that the ruling family would have wanted to see. Shakespeare's main source for his play was the chronicle of Raphael Holinshed but it also seems likely that he drew on the work of Sir Thomas More, author of the unfinished “History of King Richard III” published by John Rastell after More's death. Rastell, More's

brother-in-law, compiled the text from two work-in-progress manuscripts, one in English and one in Latin in different stages of composition. More's work is not a history in the modern sense. It is a highly coloured and literary account which contains accurate and invented details in (arguably) roughly equal portions. More had many sources available for his account (most of whom, like his patron Cardinal John Morton, were extremely hostile to the old regime) but like Shakespeare his main source is his own imagination: over a third of the text consists of invented speeches. Richard III is the culmination of the cycle of “Wars of Roses” plays. In “Henry VI”, part II and part III, Shakespeare had already begun the process of building Richard's character into that of a