Shakespeare & The Great Elizabethan Fear
“O, thou well-skilled in curses, stay awhile, and teach me how to curse mine enemies.”
“O, thou well-skilled in curses, stay awhile, and teach me how to curse mine enemies.” — Richard III, Act IV, Scene 4, Lines 119-120
The year is 1597.1 Queen Elizabeth I is sixty-four years old, and it is more than unlikely that she’ll bear an heir. Succession is uncertain. And, given that the country is barely a hundred years past the bloody civil war known as the War of the Roses, people are afraid. And not only are they terrified, but the crown has made it illegal to discuss that fear. So what does Shakespeare do?
He wrote a horror movie, er, play.
The last time succession in England had been uncertain was during the War of the Roses, which began when Richard III’s brother, Edward IV, became king, and ended when Richard III was killed in battle. That history was the latent fear in Elizabethan’s minds as they watched their “virgin” Queen trudge ever closer to death. So Shakespeare played upon that fear by making Richard III even more conniving and monstrous to haunt his audience’s dreams. And then, like Sarah Michelle Gellar or any other adorable final girl, Henry VII rode to the rescue and slayed the monster.
So, in honor of the best season (spooky season), let’s talk Richard III.
(And yes, I know it’s three weeks until Christmas, but I carved Christmas trees into a jack o’ lantern last week, so cut me some slack)
The Shake-Scene
The play opens with Richard, currently Duke of Gloucester, stepping alone onto the stage to conspire with his audience, and I should warn you, while he may be a boogeyman, he’s a damn charming boogeyman. He tells us that he’s “deformed” and unfit for peaceful times. This likely added to Elizabethan horror and has been interpreted by directors in a variety of ways over the years. The classic approach is to make him hunchbacked. Antony Sher tied crutches to his arms. The Public Theatre merely cast a woman of color (a commentary on what society finds to be ‘deformed’). Personally, I performed the monologue a week ago and made much of my (almost) 4’11” height. Regardless of the choice of “deformity”, Richard is judged harshly by other characters in the play but never the victim.
Richard the third brother, behind King Edward IV and Clarence. We learn that Edward IV is very ill and has been convinced (through Richard’s machinations) that his middle brother, Clarence, is to blame. Richard sees Clarence being led to the Tower of London and feigns concern for him. But, once alone on stage again, Richard confesses that the suspicion of Clarence is all his doing. He needs Clarence to be killed before Edward dies, so that Richard has a claim to become king. And to bolster that claim? He’s going to woo the daughter-in-law of the former king. The king that he and his brothers deposed and killed. The widow of that king’s son whom they also killed. But hey, that’s politics.
The corpse of Henry VI is brought in and Lady Anne follows the body to mourn. Richard enters and begins his war of words with Lady Anne. She calls him the devil, taunts him, and curses him for having killed Henry VI. But instead of becoming defensive or arguing back, Richard calls Anne an angel and praises her. He argues that it was her beauty (not the crown) that drove him to murder her husband and father-in-law. She, rightfully, spits at him. So, he gives her an ultimatum: either kill him or marry him. Finally, she is convinced that he is penitent and agrees to marry him.
Poor girl.
We then find Queen Elizabeth (no, not that one — nor that one neither). This Queen Elizabeth is Edward IV’s wife (Richard’s sister-in-law). She’s concerned because if Edward IV dies, Richard will become the “protector” of her young sons until the eldest is old enough to become king. Richard stokes the unrest, accusing Elizabeth of having caused Clarence’s imprisonment and sows distrust of her among the noblemen. But his plot is forestalled by the arrival of Margaret, the widow of the recently-deposed and murdered former King Henry VI. She arrives like a ghost of that former monarchy (perhaps as James — who eventually became James I — was a ghost of his mother Mary Queen of Scots in Elizabethan England). She haunts the scene by addressing the audience before finally confronting Queen Elizabeth and Richard. Cursing them with fates that an Elizabethan audience would know did come to pass. Richard even calls her a witch and hag, perhaps adding to that sense of otherworldly unrest. Margaret even tries to convince Buckingham to distrust Richard, but her words have no effect. Everyone but Richard leaves, and he is soon joined by the murderers he sends to kill Clarence in the tower.
Meanwhile, Clarence has been plagued with dreams of death and purgatory and hell, tormented by his actions during the war that led to his brother Edward being made King. He falls asleep in the tower and the murderers arrive. Weirdly, the murderers are clowns. They have a whole Laurel and Hardy sketch about damnation until Clarence wakes up and sets about trying to persuade them not to murder him. Clarence argues that God would not want them to murder, but they respond that he murdered in the war. Again reminding the Elizabethan audience of the bloodshed that may come, and the discomfort of determining the “rightful” ruler. Not to mention discussing the topic they’ve all been threatened not to discuss — succession. Ultimately, one murderer is convinced. The other is not. Sorry Clarence.
So now, Clarence is murdered, King Edward is dying, and who is left? Richard. On his deathbed, King Edward IV tries to mend the rift between his wife and her loyalists and Richard’s loyalists. He’s nearly successful but, alas, the play isn’t called Edward IV, it’s Richard III.
Richard enters, feigning a love of peace only to drop the bombshell. Clarence is dead. The King is shocked. He undid his order to kill his brother. Richard said the order came too late. But Richard is a *bleeping* liar. The King, distraught at thinking he killed is brother, is taken away. At which point, Richard takes the opportunity to whisper in Lord Buckingham’s ear — Didn’t the Queen’s men look guilty?
And by the next scene, Edward IV is dead. The Duchess of York, mother to the king and his brothers, mourns the loss of two of her sons and divulges distrust of the third. She’s either the only person in the play with half a brain, or the worst mother ever. She knows Richard is a little sh— Either way, Richard enters feigning the role of the loving uncle and suggest Edward IV’s sons, and heirs, be brought to London for their … coronation (cue villainous laughter). Now, an Elizabethan audience would be aware of the “mystery” surrounding the princes (they were almost certainly murdered), provoking a reaction much like a modern audience yelling “Don’t go into the basement!” in a horror movie. But, to no avail.
And then we cut to ordinary citizens, much like the audience members, processing the news that their King has died and once again discussing that taboo subject — uncertain succession. And boy are they right.
Richard begins imprisoning allies of Queen Elizabeth (again, not that one) and then takes her son and orders them to the Tower of London. The prince is suspicious but has no power to stop it. Meanwhile, Richard consolidates his power by executing people right and left, and as they die, they all remember the curse put on them by Margaret (Henry VI’s widow).
Richard sends his right-hand Buckingham to London to spread rumors that his brother was illegitimate (meaning Richard himself would be the legitimate heir, not his nephews). But this scheme does not work largely because of citizen apathy — who says Shakespeare isn’t relevant? But Richard had a fail safe, or — to call back to Hamlet — a dumb play.2 Richard has set up a tableau3 of praying at an altar between two priests. Buckingham then gives an impassioned plea to Richard urging him not to resign “[t]he lineal glory of [his] royal house, to the corruption of a blemished stock.” It’s a great speech. It would also ring in the ears of an Elizabethan audience trapped on the verge a civil war of the Catholics and Protestants (two priests, was it?) facing the question of succession for their barren, virgin4 Queen. Even before the ghosts (oops, spoilers), there’s terror in this play.
And the dumb show becomes a straw man as Richard pretends to make the arguments of his detractors as to why Edward IV’s children should reign and not him. While Buckingham, good puppet that he is, gives us Richard’s arguments for succession.5 And, as Act III closes, Richard agrees to become Richard III.
Meanwhile, the women — Edward IV’s widow (Elizabeth), Anne (widowed daughter-in-law to Henry VI who was wooed by Richard), and the Duchess (Richard III’s and Edward IV’s mother) come to the Tower to see the young princes, but they are denied. They’re told that Richard has forbidden it, and Anne is summoned to Westminster to be crowned his queen. Anne remembers the curse she named for Richard’s future queen and realizes she has cursed herself. Richard’s mother (again, either a cruel woman who raised a monster through lack of care or the only person in the play able to see the truth) laments:
O ill-dispersing wind of misery!
O my accursèd womb, the bed of death!
A cockatrice6 hast thou hatched to the world,
Whose unavoided eye is murderous.
Anne is carried off to Richard. The Duchess prepares and hopes for death. And Elizabeth begs the terrible Tower’s stones to guard her children who she’ll surely never see again.
Richard III is then crowned but it still isn’t enough. He calls in his loyal confidante, Buckingham, and tries to hint (but eventually has to just demand) that he kill the princes. And, shockingly, this is finally the moral line for Buckingham. The one deed he cannot do. Buckingham makes an excuse and leaves. But the monster is made and Richard is undeterred. He asks for one “whom corrupting gold will tempt unto a close exploit in death” (i.e., who he can bribe to do a murder). Someone of such ilk is sent for, but barely a moment later, word comes that one of the nobles (Dorset) has defected to “Richmond.”
Any audience member in Shakespeare’s day would know the name. For Richmond is destined to become Henry VII. Yes, the rooster-headed dragon (cockatrice) may have his throne, but the hero is gathering an army.
But Richard, ever scheming, is undeterred. He orders that rumors be spread that his wife, Queen Anne, is sick, and plots to marry the daughter of his brother, Elizabeth (not to be confused with the wife of his brother? I think… I may be Liz but all the Elizabeths get old even for me). That resolved, he sends someone to kill the princes (Edward IV’s sons).
Buckingham returns, seeking the title Richard promised him earlier, but Richard is much distract. Henry VI, the king Richard killed to make his brother king, prophesized that Richard would be killed by Richmond. Much like that certain Scottish King,7 Richard begins to fret. And, in fretting, makes mistakes. He denies Buckingham the title he had promised him, and Buckingham, taking note of the bodies piling up, decides to flee.
In the next scene, the truly heinous murder of the princes is told to Richard, and he celebrates their death and that of his wife Anne. He then reveals he means to go marry Elizabeth (his brother’s daughter — niece, the word is NIECE) before Richmond can. Let’s all just take a quiet moment to celebrate the rise of female autonomy… But, before Richard can employ his wooing prowess, word comes that that Richmond is gaining allies and Buckingham is in the field. Meaning, Birnam Wood is coming to Dunsinane… wait, wrong play. Sorry!
Yet, in this tragedy, three witches… I mean women, find common ground. Queen Margaret (widow of Henry VI who was succeeded by Edward IV), The Duchess of York (mother to Richard III and his ill-fated brothers) and Queen Elizabeth (widow of Edward IV), find a sisterhood in their grief.8 And (former) Queen Margaret wins for the most savage line of the play as she tells the Duchess of York “from forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept a hellhound that doth hunt us all to death.” Politics and war are one thing, but Richard (to them) is a monster. Chills.9
The scene may not pass the Bechdel test10 but it’s pathos is unrivaled. Queen Margaret (as stand-in for Queen Elizabeth I’s line of succession) reems out the women of the line that replaced it. Taunting their grief with her own. Both celebrating the righteousness of Elizabeth I’s lineage and terrifying an audience obsessed with that lineage’s end.
But Elizabeth (Edward IV’s widow), bereft of her two sons, begs Queen Margaret saying, “o, thou well-skilled in curses, stay awhile, and teach me how to curse mine enemies.” Perhaps, Shakespeare suggests that all powerful women are witches. Or, perhaps, he warns that the powerless are given the ability to curse. Either way, he centers the women of this play in a way that is neither the butt of comedy nor the victims of tragedy. They are power.
And Richard III marches into their web.
He is on his way to do battle with Richmond. His mother wishes she had strangled him the moment he left her womb. Elizabeth curses him for the death of her sons. They taunt him with the missing lords who he has killed. His mother berates him for the cruelty his life inflicted. She curses him with the lives he has taken, concluding “bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end. Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.” Elizabeth, having no greater words, says “amen.”
But Richard has no shame. And one with no shame, does not cow to curses. Instead, full of gall, he seeks to marry Edward IV’s daughter (also Elizabeth… apologies— but maybe all the “Elizabeth” echoes are part of the spookiness). The Queen Elizabeth (not the Shakespeare one, earlier) offers to scar her daughter’s beauty or malign her parentage. Anything to save her from Richard.
Richard offers his smoothest charms. And Queen Elizabeth (no, not that one) retorts with her cruelest derision. After an impressive skirmish of words, Elizabeth leaves. Richard believes he has won. I believe the women have learned.
And as Elizabeth leaves, word is brought that Richmond comes nearer.
At the open of Act V, Buckingham is led to execution and tells us that it is All Soul’s Day, a day to commemorate the dead. And perhaps that is why, as Richard and Richmond sleep the night before their battle, the ghosts of those Richard has slain visit them both. They cheer Richmond and curse Richard to “despair and die.”
And so he does. Richard loses his horse in battle — ‘A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!’ And is ultimately killed by Henry VII — Queen Elizabeth I’s grandfather.
And the audience rejoices, right? Except Henry VII’s son, Henry VIII broke from the Catholic church, destabilized the monarchy, and led to the moment they are in now. Where succession is no longer assured.
Who is the villain now?
Speak the Speech, I Pray You
Bring Shakespeare’s words into your own life by:
Threatening the dish that’s burned your hand;
Raging in rush-hour; or
Cursing the referee who makes calls against your team:
Additional Resources
Find a copy of the entire play here.
Read about the historical figure of Richard III here.
Check out the Hollow Crown version of the play starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
The play was first published in 1597, but likely written in 1592-93.
A dumb play is a theatrical device where the players act out an action without speaking. I’m being a bit facetious with the allusion, but then again, that’s my style.
Sorry, another fancy theater term for where the actors stand in a pose without movement or speaking meant to evoke a meaning — like a live-action picture.
Maybe…
The way Richard denies the crown is also reminiscent of Julius Caesar — perhaps some cross-marketing on the Bard’s part?
Basically, a dragon with a rooster’s head.
Richard III was likely written about 10 years before Mac—Scottish Play. Interestingly, Henry VII is Elizabeth grandfather and Fleance (whose father is murdered by… that Scottish fella’) is James I’s. Shakespeare certainly knew how to play the field.
Side note, I am now incredibly tempted to do a comparison of Richard III and Mac—Play. The echoes seem almost purposeful…
There is probably a critique to be done from an ableist perspective, but I don’t have the means to make those arguments here. Feel free to comment if you do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test