R I C H A R D I I I 1471-1485 / Wars of the Roses 1455-1485 NOTES ON KEY CHARACTERS - Updated

HOUSE OF LANCASTER (Red Rose)

King Henry VI: (Murdered before the start of the play.) Former King imprisoned in the Tower of London prior to the Battle of Tewkesbury and murdered by Richard prior to the start of the play; last Lancastrian King of the War of the Roses; “a wise man in the wrong place”; ”better fitted to be a monk than to rule.”

Queen Margaret: Widow of King Henry VI; surprisingly still at court, she acts as a dark chorus in the play; “foul, wrinkled witch” (Richard); “remember Margaret was a prophetess” (Buckingham); ten of her eleven prophesies in Act I, Sc 3 come true in the play; after seeing most of her curses come to fruition she escapes “these English foes” and returns to her native France before the decisive battle ending the War of the Roses and giving birth to the dawn of a new Tudor Period.

Edward, Prince of Wales: (Slain before the start of the play.) King Henry VI’s eldest son; Richard and Clarence stab the Prince of Wales to death on the battlefield at Tewkesbury.

Lady Anne: Widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, daughter-in-law of King Henry VI of which she was especially fond; seduced more through fear than lust by Richard over the coffin of King Henry en route to his internment; later marries Richard to become Queen Anne and gives birth to one son who dies at age eleven.

HOUSE OF YORK (White Rose)

Duchess of York: Mother to King Edward IV, Clarence and Gloucester; very protective of her young grandchildren – the young son and daughter of Clarence and the two sons of King Edward IV: Edward the Prince of Wales and Richard, Duke of York – the “young princes” murdered most probably by Richard in the Tower of London.

King Edward IV: Eldest son of Plantagenet Richard, Duke of York and presumptive usurper of the throne following the execution of Lancastrian King Henry VI and the battlefield murder of his successor, Edward, Prince of Wales; “the wanton Edward” (Margaret); “weakened by gluttony and debauchery” he died of natural causes at age forty thus clearing the way for Richard’s brutal journey to the throne.

Queen Elizabeth: Widow of King Edward IV and mother to the “young princes” along with five daughters including her eldest, also Elizabeth, who later marries the new King Henry VII (former Earl of Richmond) ending the War of the Roses; Queen Elizabeth is the sister of Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers and the mother of two sons from a prior marriage to Lancastrian John Grey: the Marquis of Dorset and Lord Grey; although a loyal & fruitful wife, Elizabeth suffered with the fact that the King had a whole series of mistresses, mostly arranged by William, Lord Hastings who was eventually imprisoned in the Tower by the Queen and her Woodville family, later released but later murdered by Richard; Richard harbors anti-Woodville venom & considers the family dangerous to his rise to the throne.

George, Duke of Clarence: Third of four sons (eldest brother Edmund was slain with his father on the battlefield), George “was ambitious and faithless”, having deserted Edward and siding with forces against Edward at one point and then launching a second double-cross later by returning to his Yorkist brother when he felt the opposition was set to loose; with some of the characteristics in reality that Richard was later slanderously described as having, it proved easy for Richard to turn King Edward against their brother, George, sending him to the Tower and soon thereafter plotting his murder by drowning in a barrel of sweet malmsey wine, too late for Edward to pardon; George’s speech relating the nightmare of his own death is the most poetic section of the play.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester: “Misshapen in body as in mind, but facially handsome and sinister” Richard started at young age to covet the throne, and upon the death of his brother, King Edward IV in 1483, Richard at age thirty-one knew that his way forward was blocked by six rightful successors each of which he managed to ruthlessly eliminate and then usurp the throne in short order only to meet his own death at the hands of Henry, Earl of Richmond, thus ending the York dynasty and indeed the thirty-year War of the Roses.

Lady Anne: (See above)

Edward, Prince of Wales: The elder son of the dead King Edward IV, son Edward was thirteen at the time of his father’s death and was first in line to succeed to the throne; in his dying days King Edward assigned his then-loyal brother Richard as Protector of his two young sons; Richard accompanied young Prince Edward to London from Ludlow then lured his younger brother, the Richard, Duke of York, away from the Queen, their mother; he then “housed” both young princes in the royal apartment in the Tower of London awaiting the Prince’s coronation as the new King Edward V; both princes were never seen again; it was assumed by the court and the populace that both boys were murdered by Richard due mainly to his lack of response to the claims; over the years, responsibility for the disappearance of the boys has been placed on Richard or on the new King Henry VII two years later; the skeletons of two male children were discovered in a box during excavations of the Tower years later.

Richard, Duke of York: At age eleven the younger of two sons of the dead King Edward. (See information directly above).

Edward, Earl of Warwick: The young son of George, Duke of Clarence; despite his young age of three at the time of his father’s murder, the young Earl was of course another in the line of succession to the throne; Richard imprisoned the young boy and, sadly, kept him there throughout his reign; historians claim that it was “the habit of the time” and that “Richard was merely a realistic politician, and not an unusual monster, for doing as others did.”; the Earl was never seen again.

Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury: The older sister at age five of Edward, Earl of Warwick and only daughter of the murdered George, Duke of Clarence, brother of King Edward VI and brother/murderer Richard; referring to her as one of the “brats of Clarence” Richard assigns one of his henchmen to “enquire me out some mean poor gentleman whom I will marry straight to Clarence’s daughter” (Act VI, Sc 1, Lines 53-54) thus removing one more of the rightful successors to the throne.

Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers: Brother of Queen Elizabeth; even though Rivers was forever loyal to King Edward IV, he was always hated by Richard for joining with the Queen in imprisoning William, Lord Hastings, mainly for his role as middleman to the King to satisfy his propensity for mistresses throughout his reign; eventually he was abruptly murdered by order of Richard at Pomfret along with his nephew, Lord Grey, and Sir Thomas Vaughan, counsellor to the “boy king”, Edward, Earl of Warwick.

Marquis of Dorset: The older son of Queen Elizabeth from her first marriage to Lancastrian John Grey, and therefore a member of the “Woodville clan” of which Richard was both suspicious and venomous; as soon as his mother hears that Richard will be crowned the new King she sends him Dorset to Lancastrian Henry, Earl of Richmond in France to escape his sure fate at the hands of Richard; his escape proved to be the only one of eleven grim prophesies of old Queen Margaret which did not come true (she prophesied that both of Queen Elizabeth’s sons would die.)

Lord Grey: The younger son of Queen Elizabeth was murdered by Richard’s order with his uncle, Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers and Counsellor, Sir Thomas Vaughan, at Pomfret by Richard’s order thus reducing the number of key Court members from the Lancastrian Woodville family.

Duke of Buckingham: A key figure in the play is “the deep-revolving, witty Buckingham” (IV.2) who exerts great effort in helping Richard to the throne; late in the play he is warned of Richard’s probable malice, he grows angry with Richard over a broken promise of the return of rightful lands, escapes the court and raises a Welsh army to combat Richard; his tragic error was returning to Richard in failure hoping to retain his position; Richard refuses his audience, has him arrested and immediately executed; Buckingham was a key courtier dying too early to impart his revenge. (The role is the second longest in the play.)

William, Lord Hastings: The conniving Lord Chamberlain is also referred to as a “pursuivant, follower, Officer of the College of Arms”; in addition to many roles in the Yorkist court and especially loyal to the deceased King Edward IV Hastings is most center stage as the middleman to the King to satisfy his propensity for mistresses throughout his reign; as the result of Richard’s intensely suspicious nature, Hastings was another significant courtier abruptly murdered by order of Richard. Sir James Tyrrel: The “discontented gentleman” who honors Richard’s order to murder the two young boy Princes of the dead King Edward IV & Queen Elizabeth and direct heirs to the throne; his soliloquy quoting one of the murderers who described the children as they lay in each other’s arms is especially moving; Tyrrel was most probably murdered after reporting back to Richard confirming the suffocation of the boys who were never seen again. (But, DID Richard order them killed? See “Grain of Salt” document for some historical doubt.)

HOUSE OF TUDOR (Combined the Houses of the Red Rose & The White Rose)

Henry, Earl of Richmond then King Henry VII: The former Henry, Earl of Richmond who defeats Richard III on the battlefield at Bosworth Field thus ending the War of the Roses; Richard has been referred to as the “Tudor equivalent of St George destroying the dragon”; the last Lancastrian King Henry VI prophesied that Richmond would “someday be king”; it was this prophesy that hovered over the brutal machinations of Richard; after the decisive battle at Tewksbury, Richmond fled to Brittany in northern France; years later upon his landing in Wales he was easily successful in mounting an army -- “around him all the Lancastrian remnant had rallied and, further, all those who had been Yorkists but who for one reason or another opposed Richard III”; bad weather had aborted his first attempt with the planned help of Buckingham’s forces to topple Richard; the stakes were much higher on the second more vehement attempt at Bosworth Field; viciously defeating Richard, Lancastrian Richmond the was crowned King Henry VII at age twenty-six; his soon marriage to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of former Yorkist King Edward IV lawfully combined the two Houses, ended the War of the Roses and gave birth to the new Tudor Period of comparative peace and prosperity.

Queen Elizabeth: The eldest of five daughters of the last Yorkist King Edward IV and his Queen Elizabeth, young Elizabeth’s marriage to Richmond changed the course of English history. (See notes on Henry, Early of Richmond then King Henry VII above)