of the Roses were the Houses of York and Lancaster (Muir and Schoenbaum, p. 130). Richard is, according to Kenneth Muir and Schoenbaum (p. 132), "the scourge appointed by heaven to cleanse a moral wilderness. Richard is the epitome of all England's wrongs: he is ambitious, ruthless, diabolically inspired, hypocritical, andàhe is a masterful actor of many roles." Richard is depicted by Shakespeare as climbing to the throne over the bodies of his relatives, including the murdered bodies of his brother's sons û the young "Princes in the Tower" whose deaths leave Richard the only remain male of the York family able to rule. Richard has also had his brother, Edward's, children declared illegitimate, thus ensuring that his niece Elizabeth will not rule.
John Masefield (p. 66) suggests that Shakespeare used this play as a culmination and ending for his own study of the Wars of the Roses and as an opportunity to affirm the importance of the new order and stability that had emerged in England along with the Tudor Dynasty. Masefield (p. 66) says that "In Richard III Shakespeare brought the tragic wheel to its full circle; whatever new evils might begin, the Wars of the Roses were ended." However, as will be discussed later in this report, Masefield (p. 65) is far from convinced that the portrait of Richard III created by Shakespeare is accurate; indeed, Masefield (p. 66) suggests that Shakespeare's Richard bore little resemblance to the "real" Richard of York.
As Muir and Schoenbaum (p. 132) point out, the many deaths attributed to Richard II are necessary if England is to survive and if a divinely appointed minister in the form of Elizabeth I's own grandfather, Henry VII, is to rule. In the play, Shakespeare the politician may well have deliberately intensified the vileness and cruelty of Richard II to "minimize the dubiousness of Henry VII's own claim to the throne, the usurping manner of his accession, and the historical unattra...