Richard III

Act II centers on the death of King Edward IV, which is an opportunity for Richard to seize power. This moment of political transition could have been peaceful, but the unhealed divisions caused by the Wars of the Roses prevent the aristocracy from rallying around the young Prince Edward as a worthy successor to his father, which will enable The Violent Cycle of Civil Unrest to ultimately continue. Shakespeare balances Richard’s manipulations in this act with the perspective of the women at court, indicating that they are more able to perceive his true intents, but that they lack the power and influence to stop him.

The first scene of Act II portrays Edward attempting to mend the divisions between his courtiers before his death, hoping to leave his son with a more stable realm to govern. Richard pretends to go along with this plan, telling the court the following:

[I]f any here

By false intelligence or wrong surmise

Hold me a foe,

If I unwittingly, or in my rage,

Have aught committed that is hardly borne

By any in this presence, I desire

To reconcile me to his friendly peace (2.1.55-61).

However, his seemingly peaceable words have the opposite effect when he reveals that his brother George has been murdered in prison. Despite his apparent openness to reconciliation, he actually creates greater conflict when he implies that Queen Elizabeth’s relatives might have been behind the murder.

King Edward IV is deeply affected by the news of his brother’s death, and he gives up on promoting peace and forgiveness due to his own bitterness toward the lords who failed to advise him wisely. He admonishes the nobles, criticizing them for constantly asking him to pardon their own factions while goading him into imprisoning his own brother:

All this from my remembrance brutish wrath

Sinfully plucked, and not a man of you

Had so much grace to put it in my mind.

But when your carters or your waiting vassals

Have done a drunken slaughter and defaced

The precious image of our dear Redeemer,

You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon,

And I, unjustly too, must grant it you (2.1.121-128).

King Edward IV’s disenchantment with the nobility further weakens the political system that his son will inherit. Shakespeare therefore implies that holding on to grudges and pursuing revenge will not lead to true justice, but will only create conflict that allows tyrants to claim power.

The aftermath of King Edward IV’s death shifts the focus from Richard and onto Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of York, female characters who both perceive the coming disaster, but cannot stop it. Shakespeare uses the women of the royal family to convey the emotional devastation of the Wars of the Roses, not just the weakening of political systems. For example, when Queen Elizabeth mourns her husband’s death, her language focuses on grief and helplessness, rather than concern for England’s future:

If you will live, lament. If die, be brief,

That our swift-wingèd souls may catch the King’s,

Or, like obedient subjects, follow him

To his new kingdom of ne’er-changing night (2.2.42-47).

Rather than thinking about the future king, she urges all of England’s subjects to follow King Edward IV to death, indicating the personal devastation that she feels. The Duchess of York reflects similarly upon the death of her son, combining the personal and the political in her language to indicate the human cost of civil war. The Duchess of York reminds the audience that the Wars of the Roses are primarily a war between families and that women lose political influence and safety when their male relatives die. She laments:

My husband lost his life to get the crown,

And often up and down my sons were tossed

For me to joy, and weep, their gain and loss.

And being seated, and domestic broils

Clean overblown, themselves the conquerors

Make war upon themselves, brother to brother,

Blood to blood, self against self (2.4.62-68).

The repetition of words underscores how unnatural the civil war is, reinterpreting the conflict as a form of self-harm between members of the same family. However, the Duchess of York remains unable to stop The Violent Cycle of Civil Unrest. Her gender allows her to survive, giving her the wisdom to sense the coming danger, but she lacks the political agency to do anything about it.