Shakespeare's Richard III is one of the Bard's "chronicle plays" that describes the eventual ascendancy of the House of Tudor to the English throne. Elizabeth I was the great-great niece of Richard III, who briefly ruled England before Elizabeth's grandfather, Henry Tudor (Henry VII) defeated him in battle and took the crown. Elizabeth's grandmother, also named Elizabeth, was the daughter of King Edward IV and had a claim to the throne in her own right. She was the "prize" won by Henry VII that gave legitimacy to the royal claims of the House of Tudor; her two younger brothers are said to have been murdered by Richard III to pave the way to his own taking of the crown (Parrott, p. 136). For Elizabeth I, therefore, Richard III had to be seen as little more than a villain whose defeat by her own grandfather was a sing from God that the Tudors were destined to rule in England. The question, of course, is whether or not Richard III was actually as thoroughgoing a villain and representative of Vice as he is painted by Shakespeare.
The focus of this report, therefore, is on the assessment of the character of Richard III as that character was created by Shakespeare. The play describes the last battle in the "War of the Roses," a multi-decade period in which the powerful noble houses of England fought to obtain and keep the throne. It will be argued herein that though Shakespeare makes it clear that "his" Richard is a thoroughgoing villain, the character is not without some saving graces that move him beyond the limits of broad caricature to something approaching wholeness. According to literary critic Thomas Marc Parrott (p. 136), for Shakespeare "the internecine Wars of the Roses were a period to be looked back upon with horror. He represents this period as culminating in the 'cacodemon,' Richard, who after trampling on the Red Rose turns in his mad pursuit of power against his own family."
The principal combatants in the War ...