This is a study of "guilt after or before evil deeds" in Richard III. Shakespeare creates five distinct ways of relating to this basic question of conscience in the presence of evil. First, in public, Richard the King displays a strong conscience, but in private he shows no conscience whatsoever. Second, the Second Murderer, Edward IV, Dighton, and Forrest express a strong sense of conscience prior in the presence of evil deeds. Third, Clarence, Rivers, Grey, Vaughan, Hastings, and Buckingham commit evil deeds in spite of conscience and are moved to express remorse only when they are caught and judged. Fourth, Queen Margaret, Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess of York, and Queen Anne keep the question of conscience and justice before everyone through their curses and accusations. Finally, Henry Tudor rids the kingdom of moral uncertainty and restores justice to its rightful place.
Richard III is the final play in a tetralogy which begins with the three Henry VI plays. Although the play opens with the kingdom at peace, Yorkists and Lancastrians have fought each other so passionately, both on and off the battlefield, that all the principal characters in the play remain morally tainted by some evil deed committed during the war. Guilt arises from the awareness of moral responsibility for evil deeds. Richard III can be seen as a succession of evil acts and moral judgments on the offenders. To be evil, a deed must be morally wrong. The characters define themselves by the manner in which they confront their moral obligations. Guilt is tied up with remorse and remorse with expiation and retribution. Even in the most callous criminal, the pangs of conscience may suddenly break through, and with them, remorse and eventual expiation.
The fifteenth century was a deeply troubled period in English history, a time of political disorder stemming largely "from feminine misrule" (Moulton 254). In Richard III, the pendulum swings to the other extreme...