Richard, Duke of Gloucester, brother of Yorkist King Edward IV, is determined to gain the crown of England for himself. He woos the widow, Lady Anne, as she accompanies the coffin of her father-in-law, King Henry VI to its last resting place. Anne is unable to resist Richard's advances and becomes his duchess while he engineers the imprisonment and murder of his elder brother, George, Duke of Clarence, in the Tower of London. Clarence tells his jailor his dream of drowning before Richard's hired assasins kill him and place the body in a cask of wine.

Edward IV is ill and Richard is appointed to govern in his place, aided by Lord Hastings and the Duke of Buckingham. Margaret, former queen of Henry VI, Queen Elizabeth, Edward's wife, and the widowed Duchess of York, Richard's mother, all mourn their state and Margaret curses Richard and the kingdom.

Richard confines the young Prince of Wales and his brother in the Tower of London while their uncle's rise to power is assisted by Buckingham who helps persuade the Lord Mayor and the people of London to support Richard's faction. When disease carries Edward off Richard is proclaimed king, and Hastings is executed for attempting to thwart him. The princes in the Tower are smothered in their sleep, and fearing for their lives, Queen Elizabeth's sons by her first marriage flee the court while their mother seeks sanctuary. Buckingham suspects Richard's role in the death of the young princes and when he is denied an earldom Buckingham seeks to raise an army against Richard. He is captured and executed. Meanwhile Richard wants Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's daughter as a new wife.

Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, heir to the Lancastrian claim to the throne, gathers an army to oppose Richard's tyrannical reign. Their armies meet at Bosworth and the night before the battle the ghosts of his victims appear to haunt Richard, while to Henry they bring dreams of encouragement for the future. Richard III is killed on Bosworth Field and Henry is proclaimed Henry VII of England. He plans to end the ‘Wars of the Roses' by marrying Elizabeth of York and so link the white rose of York to the red of Lancaster.

'Richard III' was probably written in the early 1590s. It was printed in 1597, and was was reprinted five times before the ‘First Folio' of 1623.

© Marian J. Pringle
Special Collections Librarian