The War of the Roses was a civil war fought in England from 1455 to 1485 over the control of the throne. The two houses feuding were the Yorkists and the Lancastrians; both descendants of King Edward III. Before the war the Lancastrians were in control until 1453 when king Henry VI “lapsed into insanity,” and Richard, third duke of York was appointed as “protector of the realm,” because of his position as head of “a great baronial league” (Encyclopædia Britannica).When Henry VI recovered in 1455 is when the true conflict arose between both houses as they now felt threatened by each other. The conflict was over the right of the crown, a topic that William Shakespeare's, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second” plays around with. What
First power, amongst the royal family the mother, Eleanor is the Queen; the father is King Henry, the youngest son John, middle son Geoffrey, and oldest son Richard. In the play not one, but all of these characters have power in some kind of way. King Henry spent his life conquering many regions and wants to continue to conquer by passing king down to one of his three sons. A quote from the play that shows the greed that having power can create Henry asked, “Isn’t being chancellor power enough?” Geoffrey replies, “It’s not the power I feel deprived of. It’s the mention I miss.” Geoffrey does not think he will receive enough respect if he is just the chancellor and his younger brother John is king. When he comes to Richard, the oldest brother he thinks he should be king because of his army he has behind him, but this is where futility comes into play. It is not always about war and killing people to prove your powerful, but in Richards’s ways that is the only way. Richard says, “I am a constant soldier, a sometime poet, and I will be king.” This quote describes the type of person Richard wants to be, he wants to have all the power to rein over the castle and do it through war. Each of the family members is jealous of one another especially the children of the king and queen, it is pretty much a sibling rivalry between them. Having power can be a good thing or bad thing, in this situation the king and queens children have a different view on having power and what they would do if crowned
Shakespeare constructs King Richard III to perform his contextual agenda, or to perpetrate political propaganda in the light of a historical power struggle, mirroring the political concerns of his era through his adaptation and selection of source material. Shakespeare’s influences include Thomas More’s The History of King Richard the Third, both constructing a certain historical perspective of the play. The negative perspective of Richard III’s character is a perpetuation of established Tudor history, where Vergil constructed a history intermixed with Tudor history, and More’s connection to John Morton affected the villainous image of the tyrannous king. This negative image is accentuated through the antithesis of Richards treachery in juxtaposition of Richmond’s devotion, exemplified in the parallelism of ‘God and Saint George! Richmond and victory.’ The need to legitimize Elizabeth’s reign influenced Shakespeare’s portra...
Edward IV's Reign and Success Edward’s reign was mainly stable and successful. He was the first king to die financially solvent in over 200 years due mainly to his careful avoidance of major foreign wars and by the end of his reign there was evident recovery of prosperity in the southern counties. However, Edward died too early to ensure that his heir would succeed him unchallenged. He had not created a collective commitment to the future of his dynasty that would make his heir strong enough to survive a minority reign. Although this was his main failure, he did not wholly succeed in all other actions through his reign.
“I am determined to prove a villain / and hate the idle pleasures of these days. / Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, / by drunken prophecies, libels and dreams.” Richard III, the evil Duke of Gloucester, is fighting a bloody road to the crown in Shakespeare's dramatic play. Stopped by nothing and with brilliant intelligence, Richard fights his way to the king’s position, clothing his villany with “old odd ends stolen out of holy writ.” With no one to fully trust, Richard breaks many hearts by killing all people in his way, and becomes the unstoppable villain. He hides behind a shield of kindness and care, but when he is alone, his real soul comes alive. Sending murderers, or killing people himself, he has no mercy. Manipulating Lady Anne to marry him and promising Buckingham rewards for his deeds, he knows what he is doing, and won’t stop until the crown lies at his feet.
...historical background set forth in the film, with the broad details of the attempted rebellion propelled by Queen Eleanor and led by Richard and Geoffrey are accurate, as is the attempt by Philip of France to undermine the Angevin Empire to regain the provinces acquired by Henry through his marriage to Eleanor. As depicted in the film, the indecision, faced by Henry II in attempting to determine which son to name as successor resulted from his desire to have the empire that he had created remain intact, rather than dividing the empire between his sons and this, in turn, led to the fracturing of both family and political cohesion, leaving the empire vulnerable to outside forces. Both Richard and John eventually ruled the empire, supported and influenced by their mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was released from her Salisbury prison upon the death of King Henry II.
In this play of challenge and debate, could it be possibly suggested that King Richard had a part to play in the murder of his uncle the Duke of Gloucester? Could the reader possibly pick up this assumption having known nothing about the play? These are all factors that one must find by reading in between the lines, noticing and understanding the silence that is exchanged. For the silence is just as important as the speech.Why is it assumed that King Richard II has anything to do with the murder? Let us review a scene from the play were Gaunt accuses Richard of being accountable for Gloucester's death.
to behave in the same way as King Richard, and since he is acting this way, the
Henry VI's Incompetence as the Cause for the Outbreak of the Wars of the Roses
... bloody pathway to kingship. Filled with scorn against a society that rejects him and nature that curses him with a weakened body, Richard decides to take revenge and ultimately declares a war between himself and the world. By achieving goals for the mere sake of self-advancement, a self-made hero, an ambitious king, and an atrocious villain were created. Richard assumes that love forms a bond which men can break, but fear is supported by the dread of ever-present pain (Machiavelli ch. XXIV); thus, for true success the hero must be a villain too. Richard III becomes one of literature’s most recognized anti-heroes under the hands of Shakespeare as he has no objective or thought to take up any other profession than the art of hatred; however, ironically being a representative of a heroic ruler sent by God, he is made to commit murder to redeem society of their sins.
Written during a time of peace immediately following the conclusion of the War of the Roses between the Yorks and the Lancasters, William Shakespeare’s play Richard III showcases a multi-faceted master of linguistic eloquence, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, a character who simultaneously manages to be droll, revolting, deadly, yet fascinating. Richard's villainy works in a keen, detestable manner, manifesting itself in his specific use or, rather, abuse of rhetoric. He spends a substantial amount of time directly interacting and therefore breaking the fourth wall and orating to the audience in order to forge a relationship with them, to make members not only his confidants of murderous intentions, but also his accomplices and powerless, unwilling cohorts to his wrongdoings. Through the reader’s exploration of stylistic and rhetorical stratagem in the opening and final soliloquies delivered by Richard, readers are able to identify numerous devices which provide for a dramatic effect that make evident the psychological deterioration and progression of Richard as a character and villain.
main participants of the Wars of the Roses will be displayed in this paper. In Shakespeare’s Richard III the participants in the
Henry IV is a play that concerns itself with political power and kingship in English history. References to kingship are prevalent throughout the play, especially in the depiction of the characters. Although most of the characters in this play could teach us about kingship, I would like to focus my attention to Prince Henry. I think that this character helps us to best understand what kingship meant at this particular time in history.
The War of the Roses impacted Britain's situation of eminence for quite a while, in this way changing the perspective of the country. The War of the Roses was a typical war between the Place of York and the Place of Lancaster. This regular war influenced the whole country of Britain from its economy to the choose of that the English government had over Britain. The War of the Roses had such a noteworthy impact on Britain and continued for thirty-three years from 1455 until the last battle in 1487. Because of the length of the war and all the particular social events of English respectability being related with the war, the War of the Roses wound up a champion among the most crushing wars to ever happen ever.
From the beginning of the play, Richard II is apathetic at best in his royal role. By exiling Bolingbroke and...
“Have not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.” (Mabillard 1). The Wars of the Roses was a furnace that was boiling, it caused many changes for England from rebellions and overthrowing multiple kings and queens, to new dynasties and causing England to change for the better with ambition and thus becoming what it is today.