. . . since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary: Act I, scene i
Richard, the duke of Gloucester, speaks in a monologue
addressed to himself and to the audience. After a lengthy civil
war, he says, peace at last has returned to the royal house of England.
Richard says that his older brother, King Edward IV, now sits on
the throne, and everyone around Richard is involved in a great celebration.
But Richard himself will not join in the festivities. He complains
that he was born deformed and ugly, and bitterly laments his bad
luck. He vows to make everybody around him miserable as well. Moreover, Richard
says, he is power-hungry, and seeks to gain control over the entire
court. He implies that his ultimate goal is to make himself king.
Working toward this goal, Richard has set in motion various schemes
against the other noblemen of the court. The first victim is Richard’s
own brother, Clarence. Richard and Clarence are the two younger
brothers of the current king, Edward IV, who is very ill and highly
suggestible at the moment. Richard says that he has planted rumors
to make Edward suspicious of Clarence.
Clarence himself now enters, under armed guard. Richard’s rumor-planting
has worked, and Clarence is being led to the Tower of London, where
English political prisoners were traditionally imprisoned and often
executed. Richard, pretending to be very sad to see Clarence made
a prisoner, suggests to Clarence that King Edward must have been
influenced by his wife, Queen Elizabeth, or by his mistress, Lady
Shore, to become suspicious of Clarence. Richard promises that he
will try to have Clarence set free. But after Clarence is led offstage
toward the Tower, Richard gleefully says to himself that he will
make sure Clarence never returns.
Lord Hastings, the lord Chamberlain of the court, now
enters. He was earlier imprisoned in the Tower by the suspicious
King Edward, but has now been freed. Richard, pretending ignorance, asks
Hastings for the latest news, and Hastings tells him that Edward
is very sick. After Hastings leaves, Richard gloats over Edward’s
illness. Edward’s death would bring Richard one step closer to the
throne. Richard wants Clarence to die first, however, so that Richard
will be the legal heir to power. Richard’s planned next step is
to try to marry a noblewoman named Lady Anne Neville. An alliance
with her would help Richard on his way to the throne. Lady Anne
recently has been widowed—she was married to the son of the previous
king, Henry VI, who recently was deposed and murdered, along with
his son, by Richard’s family. Anne is thus in deep mourning. But
the sadistic and amoral Richard is amused by the idea of persuading
her to marry him under these circumstances.
Read a translation of
Act I, scene i →
Analysis
In the play’s well-known opening lines, Richard refers
to events that Shakespeare chronicles in his earlier plays Henry
VI, Parts One, Two, and Three, and with which he would
have expected his viewers to be familiar. The Henry VI plays
detail an exhausting civil war for the throne of England, which
boiled down to a contest between two families: the House of York
and the House of Lancaster. This civil war is known as the Wars
of the Roses, because of the white and red roses that symbolized
the houses of York and of Lancaster, respectively. Richard’s side,
the House of York, eventually wins, and Richard’s oldest brother,
Edward, is now King Edward IV.
This knowledge of the recent civil war helps us make
sense of the opening lines, spoken by Richard: “Now is the winter
of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York; /
And all the clouds that loured upon our homes / In the deep bosom
of the ocean buried” (I.i.1–4). Richard’s
brother Edward is the “son of York” who has brought “glorious summer”
to the kingdom, and Richard’s “winter of our discontent” is the
recently ended civil war. The “house” is the House of York, to which
Richard and his brothers Edward and Clarence belong, and which now
rules the kingdom.
