The Wars of the Roses
The death of this king established the reign of Edward IV, and thus shortly precedes the historical events covered in the play Richard III.
Who is Henry VI?
Since his plots (or his direct actions) are responsible for their deaths, this is what the eleven ghosts that appear to Richard III advise him to do at the end of the play.
What is "Despair and die"?
This is the term for a long speech by one speaker, which makes sense, since it derives from the Greek for "one" and "word."
What is a monologue?
Thou cam’st on Earth to make the Earth my hell.
A grievous burden was thy birth to me;
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;
Thy school days frightful, desp’rate, wild, and furious.
Who is the Duchess of York, Richard's mother?
This character creates a false prophecy about a "G" seeking the deaths of Edward IV's heirs... which he nevertheless fulfills in his own way.
Who is Richard, Duke of Gloucester?
He was the direct heir of Edward IV.
Who was Edward V (Edward, Prince of Wales)?
This is where Edward, the Prince of Wales, and Richard, the Duke of York, are imprisoned during the middle of the play.
Where is the Tower of London?
This word, which as an Elizabethan stage direction tells people to make loud noises signifying the start of battle, derives from an Italian call to weapons, although its modern usage is as an alert that often indicates that it is time to find safety (or maybe just to wake up).
What is an alarum (alarm)?
Whose hand soever launched their tender hearts,
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction.
No doubt the murd’rous knife was dull and blunt
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
Who is Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth Woodville)?
This character curses any woman Richard marries... and then becomes his wife, thus "prov[ing] the subject of [her] own soul’s curse."
Who is Lady Anne?
The wife of Henry VI, her power struggles against Richard, the third Duke of York, for control of the throne during Henry VI's bouts of madness sparked the Wars of the Roses.
Who was Margaret of Anjou (Queen Margaret)?
This alienates the Duke of Buckingham from Richard.
What is Richard's plotting his nephew's death? Or, What is Richard's refusal to give Buckingham the earldom he had promised?
This Latin word is used as a stage direction for multiple people leaving the stage. When used alone, (or with "all" or "omnes,") it indicates that everyone on stage should leave, which usually ends the scene.
What is "exeunt" (the plural of "exit")?
Thou wast provokèd by thy bloody mind,
That never dream’st on aught but butcheries.
Didst thou not kill this king?
Who is Lady Anne?
This character curses the future of others in her bitterness and spite so successfully that other women eventually ask her to teach them how to do it.
Who is Queen Margaret?
This man's reign started the Tudor dynasty, which was still in power when Shakespeare wrote Richard III.
Who is Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond (later Henry VII)?
He was "made a sop of" by drowning (or having his corpse disposed of) in a cask of malmsey (a sweet wine).
Who is George, Duke of Clarence?
Since this play was first written and performed in the mid-1590s, its success may have helped raise the money needed for the building of this large outdoor public playhouse in 1599 by Shakespeare's acting troupe.
What is the Globe Theater?
...curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent...
Into this breathing world scarce half made up...
Who is Richard himself?
On the way to his execution, this character says both, "This is the day which, in King Edward’s time, / I wished might fall on me" and "Thus Margaret’s curse falls heavy on my neck."
Who is the Duke of Buckingham?
The War of the Roses was influenced by, and in turn influenced, this much longer war of England against France.
What is the Hundred Years' War?
Richard's plans to marry this woman to strengthen his tenuous claim to the throne are never carried out.
Who is his niece, young Elizabeth, daughter to King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth?
This is a monologue given by a character who is alone on the stage, presumably musing to himself. (While Richard has several in this play, the one in Henry VI, Part III, where he describes how he will kill his way to the throne over the freshly slain body of the king, comes in at a whopping 173 lines--Shakespeare's longest of these by far!)
What is a soliloquy?
[T]ake heed of yonder dog!
Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death.
Who is Queen Margaret?
In Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part Three, the eponymous king prophesies about this character, "This pretty lad will prove our country’s bliss. / His looks are full of peaceful majesty, / His head by nature framed to wear a crown," a prophecy remembered by both Henry's ghost and Richard in Richard III.
Who is Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond (later Henry VII)?