Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury. Earl of Richmond, afterwards King Henry VII. Bishop of Ely. Lord Hastings. Sir Thomas Vaughan. 12. to the Queen] to Queen Elizabeth Theob. 14. Gray] Gray, Son to Queen Eliza beth Theob. 15. Cardinal Bourchier] Added by Сар. Bourchier] Cap. Var. Mal. Steev. 15 19 Var. '03, '13, Dyce i, Sta. Cam. Bouchier Var. '21 et cet. 17. Bishop...] John Morton, Bishop Steev. et seq. 19. Sir Thomas Vaughan] Added by Theob. ...a Friend to the Queen's Family. Han. 10. Duke of Norfolk] FRENCH (p. 221): This is the first time that a member of the house of Howard, destined to take the highest rank next to princes of the blood, is brought upon the scene in one of Shakespeare's plays. The father of this character was Sir Robert Howard, a zealous Lancastrian, who married Margaret Mowbray, eldest daughter of the banished Duke of Norfolk in King Richard II. The male line of the ancient Mowbrays having become extinct in 1475, Richard III. created John Howard, the character in this play, Duke of Norfolk, June 28th, 1483, and Earl Marshal of England, honours which have remained in the family of Howard to the present day. This date is well worthy of remark, as it was only six days after the time which is usually given for the death of Edward the Fourth's second son, Richard, Duke of York, who was also Duke of Norfolk. Was not King Richard, therefore, certain that his nephew was no more before he raised his own friend to that young prince's dignity? 14. Lord Gray] FRENCH (p. 225): This character, sometimes styled the 'Lord Richard Grey,' was, strictly speaking, only of knightly degree, Sir Richard Grey, youngest son of Elizabeth Woodville and Sir John Grey. 15. Cardinal Bourchier] FRENCH (p. 217): This prelate was Thomas Bourchier, second son of William Bourchier, Earl of Eu, by his wife Anne Plantagenet, daughter and eventually sole heir of Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of Edward the Third. Thomas Bourchier was appointed to the see of Worcester in 1434, and promoted to Canterbury in 1454. He died in 1486 very soon after he united Henry VII. to Elizabeth of York. 17. Bishop of Ely] See CAMPBELL, Lives of the Chancellors, i, 388-396. 18. Lord Hastings] MALONE (Note on III, iv, 117): William, Lord Hastings was beheaded on the 13th of June, 1483. His eldest son by Catherine Neville, daughter of Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, and widow of William, Lord Bonville, was restored to his honors and estate by Henry VII. in the first year of his reign. The daughter of Lady Hastings by her first husband was married to the Marquis of Dorset, who appears in this play. 20. Sir Richard Ratcliff] MARSHALL: It seems that to Ratcliff was entrusted the charge of all Richard's interests in the north of England. In the Paston Letters is one from Richard Duke of Gloucester to Lord Neville, dated June 11th, 1483 (No. 874), in which he requests that he 'wyll yef credence to.. Richarde Ratclyff, thys beerrer, whom I nowe do sende to you, enstructed with all my mynde and entent' (vol. iii, p. 306). This Lord Neville was probably the heir to the earldom of Westmoreland. 22. Catesby] FRENCH (p. 235): This character in the play married Margaret, daughter of Lord Zouch of Harringworth, by whom he had a son, George Catesby, to whom his father's forfeited estates were restored, by Henry VII., probably through the interest of that king's minister, Sir Richard Empson, George Catesby's father-in-law. After his death Margaret married Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote and their grandson is the Justice Shallow of Shakespeare's time. 24. Sir William Stanley] At Stanley's first entrance (I, iii, 21) he is called Derby. THEOBALD says: "This is a blunder of inadvertence which has run through the whole chain of impressions. It could not well be original in Shakespeare, who was most minutely intimate with his history, and the intermarriages of the nobility. The person here called "Derby" was Thomas Lord Stanley, Lord Steward of Edward the Fourth's household. But this Thomas Lord Stanley was not created Earl of Derby till after the accession of Henry the Seventh; and accordingly, afterwards, in the Fourth and Fifth Acts of this play, before the Battle of Bosworth-field, he is everywhere called Lord Stanley.'-R. G. WHITE: Theobald's reason for changing 'Derby' to Stanley is insufficient, as there can be no doubt that the mistake was Shakespeare's, and an editor is not justifiable in substituting what his author should have written for what he did write. But as the personage in question is called Stanley thirteen times during the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Acts in the Folio, and as the variation has no essential importance, and Stanley has held possession of the Text for a century and a quarter, it may, under protest, be allowed to remain.-CAMBRIDGE EDD.: The error must have been due to the author, who would not have written 'my lord of Stanley,' and, therefore, we have retained 'Derby' wherever both Quarto and Folio agree in reading it.-DYCE (ed. ii): Grant White's is, I think, the best method of dealing with this difficulty. suppose that Shakespeare would have called the same person 'Derby' in some places of the play, and Stanley in other places, appears to me a most extravagant idea: nor have I any doubt that the confusion of the names was occasioned by the conflicting texts of the Tragedy.-SPEDDING (Sh. Soc. Trans., 1875-'76; p. 67): If the Quarto had kept to 'Darby' all through, the explanation would have been comparatively easy. I should have thought that the corrector of the Folio had To observed the anachronism and meant to remove it; that he had begun his work of correction in the Third Act, and had completed it for the remainder, as far as the dialogue was concerned; but that he had forgotten or postponed the two first Acts, and had not attended to the stage-directions and marginal names in the two last. For it is to be observed that Stanley is never called 'Derby' in the dialogue after the Second Act.-W. W. LLOYD: Stanley shares a portion of the mental qualifications of Richard; but he approaches him only as nearly as simulation to dissimulation, coolness to daring, prudence of caution to that of adventurousness. Much of the value of the character would be due to his being seen on the stage when he was not heard. In Act I, Sc. iii, he makes conciliatory reply to the Queen's accusation of his wife,-the Queen who risks affronting him as she pursues vindictively Hastings, the only other lord who had the disposition to protect her son. Richard enumerates Stanley among his dupes, but there is no proof of it, and Stanley's silence is marked, and was designed to be remarkable, throughout the scene of weak wrangling with Margaret and weaker part-taking with Richard against her by Dorset and the rest. Not less significant is his silence when Hastings, who had rejected his counsel, is arrested, and he follows with the rest to Gloster's invitation, 'The rest who love me rise and follow me.' Thus he foils the penetration even of Richard, who trusts him with suspicion but still trusts him, with pledge in keeping; thus he carries on the important negotiations between Richmond and Elizabeth, and at last, at the decisive and very latest moment, he lays aside the mask, though his son's life may be the forfeit, and the fortune of Bosworth Field is decided. 30. Two Children] WRIGHT: The two children of Clarence were Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, who was beheaded by Henry VII., Nov. 21, 1499, and Margaret Plantagenet, afterward Countess of Salisbury and mother of the famous Cardinal Pole. She suffered the same fate as her brother, May 27, 1541. 32. Sir Christopher] FRENCH (p. 239): Lysons says (Environs of London, ii, 475): 'Christopher Urswick, presented to the rectory of Hackney, by Bishop Hall, anno 1502, was a man of very considerable eminence. His abilities as a statesman which had been evinced in his successful endeavor to promote the union between Henry VII., to whom he was chaplain, and Elizabeth of York, induced the King to employ him in various important negociations and embassies. He was installed Dean of Windsor in 1495, and enjoyed at the same time the archdeaconry of Richmond and Yorkshire.' 36. Queen to Edward IV.] FRENCH says (p. 243) that in only one instance has he 'met with the time of Elizabeth Woodvile's death, and then it was merely stated to have occurred the Friday before Whitsuntide. As Easter Day in 1492 fell on the 22nd of April, the exact date of her decease was the 8th of June. Her will, dated April 10, 1492, exhibits a touching picture of her maternal affection, and her poverty, having nothing but her blessing to bequeath to her children, for—“I have no worldly goods" is her mournful confession. She was buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.'-STRICKLAND (iii, 346): That Elizabeth died destitute of personal property is no proof of previous persecution, since several queens who were possessed of the undivided dower appanage, and whose children were provided for, died not much richer. (The creditors of Eleanora of Castile and Marguerite of France were not paid till long after the deaths of those queens. Queen Phillippa died in debt.) Edward IV. had endowed his proud mother as though she were a queen-dowager; while his wife was dowered on property to which he had no real title.—OECHELHAÜSER (Einführungen, i, 149): Next to Richard's, Elizabeth's may be considered the principal rôle. With due regard to her having two grown sons, Dorset and Grey, by her former husband, she should not be represented as too young (perhaps the latter half of her thirtieth year), yet still lovely and charming. The chroniclers lay great stress on the loveliness of her character, her charm, and well-chosen speech. [Oechelhaüser has, perhaps, been herein slightly misled by the chroniclers, Hall and Holinshed, who systematically, and purposely, lightened the characters of all those in opposition to Richard III. Later historians give a different account of Elizabeth, describing her as utterly selfish and unscrupulous where the advancement of her relatives was at stake. MISS STRICKLAND says there doubtless never was a queen 'who had a more unfortunate faculty of making enemies.'-ED.] 37. Queen Margaret] MRS. JAMESON (ii, 199): Margaret, as exhibited in these tragedies, is a dramatic portrait of considerable truth, and vigour, and consistency-but she is not one of Shakespeare's women. He who knew so well in what true greatness of spirit consisted-who could excite our respect and sympathy, even for a Lady Macbeth, would never have given us a heroine without a touch of heroism; he would not have portrayed a high-hearted woman struggling unsubdued against the strangest vicissitudes of fortune; yet left her without a single quality which would excite our interest in her bravely endured misfortunesand this in the very face of history; he would have breathed into the woman some of his own sweet spirit-he would have given her a soul.-VERPLANCK (Note on [37. Queen Margaret] IV, iv, 1): As we find in Richard III., all these characteristics of Margaret are adopted and recapitulated, it is clear that this argument against the character being Shakespeare's destroys itself, by proving too much; for it would prove that this play too was not his, which no one can assert in the wildest mood of critical conjecture. Shakespeare might certainly have given a more heroic cast to Margaret of Anjou; but the truth evidently is that, having, partly from the intimation of the chroniclers, adopted this view of Margaret's ferocity and conjugal infidelity, he must have seen that he could not breathe into such a personage 'his own sweet spirit' any more than into Goneril or Regan, and therefore placed her in bold and unmitigated contrast to the mild virtues of the 'holy Henry.' The comparison of Margaret with Lady Macbeth suggests a deep moral truth, which must have been in the Poet's mind, though he has not embodied it in formal moral declamation. Our interest in Lady Macbeth is kept up in spite of her crimes, by her unflagging and devoted attachment to her husband, and their mutual and touching confidence and solace in each other, even in guilt as well as in sorrow. Margaret has no communion with Henry's heart: she scorns him, and her affections roam elsewhere. That last redeeming virtue of woman being lost, Margaret has nothing left but her talent and courage; and those qualities alone cannot impart the respect and sympathy which we continue to feel for the guilty but nobler wife of Macbeth. -MARSHALL: Students who read Shakespeare only, can discourse most eloquently on the grand idea of Margaret, the impersonation of Nemesis, glorying in the vengeance which falls on those who had been either principals or accomplices in all the horrible acts of cruelty which the Yorkist party perpetrated. But when the play is brought to the true test of a play-when it is acted-were Margaret to be represented by one who had inherited all the talent and reputation of a Siddons, added to the prestige of a popular favorite at the present day, no one would take much interest in her, or regard her otherwise than as something of a bore, who interferes with the main action of the drama.-MINTO (286): Amidst the circle of tearful, afflicted women bereaved by the multiplied villanies of Richard, Margaret stands out with irrepressible fierceness flashing through and burning up her tears, husbandless, childless, friendless, utterly impotent, but indomitable. In her young and beautiful days, when Suffolk brought her from France as 'nature's miracle,' to be the wife of King Henry, she gave ample proof that she was a woman of spirit. This was one of Shakespeare's earlier efforts; but he never again equalled the concentrated bitter fierceness of this she-wolf's hunger for revenge, fiendish laughter over its partial accomplishment, and savage prayer for its completion. Words could not hiss and sting with more envenomed intensity than in the speech that she concludes with the prayer for Richard's death: 'Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray That I may live to say The dog is dead.'-FRENCH (245): Sir Walter Scott has introduced Margaret in Anne of Geierstein in the decline of her age, and in the loss of her power, but not of her intellect; and he speaks of her as one 'who, if she occasionally abused victory by cruelty and revenge, had made some atonement by the indomitable resolution with which she had supported the fiercest storms of adversity.'-S. A. BROOKE (Trans. New Sh. Soc., 1880-86, p. 512): Margaret is a mighty figure: more Greek in conception than any other figure in Shakespeare-the Fate and Fury together of the play. She does nothing for its movement. She is outside its action, but broods above it, with arms outstretched in cursing, an evil bird of God-the impersonation of all the woe and |