King Richard III Trivia Quiz

Answer: King Henry VI, Part III

The three parts of "King Henry VI" recount the Wars of the Roses, which are at length concluded at the end of "King Richard III" by the marriage of Henry, Earl of Richmond (crowned Henry VII) to Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, thus joining the red rose of Lancaster to the white rose of York (Henry was somewhat of Lancastrian blood). Richard figures in all three of these plays, most prominently in the third.

Here, he develops his persona of ruthless, smiling villain, as defined in his lengthy speech in Act III ("Why I can smile, and murder whiles I smile"), where he compares himself to the sea-deity Proteus and boasts that he can "...set the murderous Machiavel to school".

In another speech in the play's penultimate scene, he ruthlessly sets forth his plan to eliminate any obstacles between himself and the throne, beginning with Clarence.

Answer: John Morton, bishop of Ely

John Morton, for whom More had served as a page at Lambeth Palace, appears to have been a wily and manipulative character, though not without some courage. His ardent support of the Lancastrian cause had gotten him imprisoned in the Tower, from which he escaped and headed to France.

He accompanied Queen Margaret to Tewkesbury, where the fatal battle took place in which Margaret's son Edward fell. Despite his support of the Lancasters, Morton served King Edward devotedly as financial minister and adviser, but was disdainful of Richard who, in his turn, distrusted the Bishop, apparently with good reason. According to Thomas More's account, it was Morton who counselled Buckingham to betray Richard. Morton was created Archbishop of Canterbury in 1486 the year after Richard's death; in the ensuing decade he became Cardinal and Chancellor of Oxford.

He died in 1500. Morton is best remembered for having financed the central tower of Canterbury Cathedral (known as the "Angel Steeple") and for a distinctly unscrupulous Catch 22 fund-raising stratagem he used which became known as "Morton's Fork", whereby a man with spendthrift habits would be told that since he spent much, he could clearly afford to give much; whereas a man who spent little would be told that, having saved much, he too could afford to give much. Morton's hatred of Richard no doubt colors More's account, which bolsters the "Tudor myth" by presenting the last Plantagenet ruler as a monster (the "Tudor myth" held that the bloody "Wars of the Roses" were England's punishment for the deposition of Richard II, and that God had anointed Henry Tudor to slay the monster Richard III and restore the kingdom to its former glory.

There was hard practicality behind the creation of this myth, since Henry Tudor's lineal claim to the throne was much weaker than Richard's). Some have opined, however, that Morton's feelings about Richard may have had some justification.

Answer: True

Most of Shakespeare's plays begin with two or more characters in conversation. Some begin with a prologue delivered by a "chorus" (as in "Romeo and Juliet"), an allegorical character ("Rumour" in "King Henry IV, Part II", or a historical character who is not actually involved in the play (Gower in "Pericles, Prince of Tyre"). Several of Shakespeare's villains, at one point or another, unfold their thoughts to the audience (Macbeth, Claudius in "Hamlet", Iago in "Othello", Edmund in "King Lear", etc.). "Richard III" is unique in having the play begin with the villain-protagonist take the audience into his confidence and making them, as it were, co-conspirators in his fiendish machinations throughout the play.

It helps that Richard is easily the wittiest of Shakespeare's villains; as repugnant as one may find his actions, it is hard not to be amused by such lines as: "Simple plain Clarence! I do love thee so that I will shortly send thy soul to heaven, if heaven will take the present at our hands." Or, after his seduction of Lady Anne: "Was ever woman in such humour woo'd? Was ever woman in such humour won?"

Answer: George

Richard had actually begun plotting the demise of his brother Clarence, who "...keep'st me from the light", in the penultimate scene of "King Henry IV Part III" "For I will buzz abroad such prophecies that Edward shall be fearful of his life; and then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death." Shortly after "King Richard III" begins, we learn that King Edward has been told by a "wizard" that his issue would be disinherited by someone with the initial G. Since Clarence's first name is George, and he stands next in line to inherit the throne after Edward's sons, he is the obvious prime suspect (Edward fails to note that G could also stand for Gloucester, of which Richard is duke).

Answer: False

Actually Anne is following the bier of her father-in-law King Henry VI ("Poor key-cold figure of a holy king, pale ashes of the house of Lancaster"), her husband Edward (who had actually been stabbed by the three Plantagenet brothers; Edward, Clarence, and Richard) having been interred earlier.

She is appalled when Richard, Henry's murderer, abruptly appears in her path and bids the attendants to set down the bier. Richard's astounding verbal seduction of the grief-stricken Anne is one of the most memorable scenes in Shakespeare.

Historically, Henry VI was murdered in the Tower by order of Edward IV, almost certainly not by Richard, who also played no active part in the slaying of Edward (though Clarence did). Most historians, including the pro-Tudor ones, agree that Richard, whatever his other faults may have been, was a devoted husband to Anne and was genuinely grief-stricken at her death.

Answer: Queen Margaret

Margaret of Anjou, the French-born consort of Henry VI, was sent into exile in France in 1475, four years after the Battle of Tewkesbury, and never returned to England. Devastated and thoroughly demoralized by the death of her son Edward, as well as the subsequent assassination of her husband, she spent her remaining years in poverty and misery and died in 1482, the year before Richard ascended the throne.

In the play, she acts as a sort of sybil, taking grim pleasure in the sufferings of her enemies and prophesying doom for many of Richard's victims, many of whom mistakenly put their trust in him or underestimate his villainy.

Her first appearance among the bickering Woodvilles and Plantagenets in Act I, scene III astonishes them. Richard reminds her that she had been banished upon pain of death, to which she replies "I was; but I do find more pain in banishment than death can yield me here by my abode." The two film versions of "Richard III" (Olivier's and Ian Mc Kellan's) eliminated Queen Margaret; Ian Mc Kellan's version divides some of her more memorable lines between the Duchess of York (Richard's mother, played by Maggie Smith) and Queen Elizabeth.

Answer: Buckingham

Margaret curses virtually everyone present in Act I, scene III, but she is fond of the "princely Buckingham" and warns him against Richard ("O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog! Look when he fawns he bites"). When Buckingham shows solidarity with Richard and rebuffs her warning, she is both hurt and angered and makes this doleful prediction: "O, but remember this another day, when he shall split thy very heart with sorrow, and say poor Margaret was a prophetess!" Before his execution in Act V, Buckingham exclaims "Thus Margaret's curse falls heavily on my neck", and quotes her warning to him.

Answer: Richard accidentally knocked him out of a boat.

"Simple, plain Clarence" senses subconsciously that his brother is a danger, but persists in thinking of him as a well-meaning bumbler. In his dream, he escapes from the tower and flees by boat towards Burgundy. Richard appears in the boat with him and tempts him from his cabin onto the deck.

As they gaze toward England, Richard stumbles and falls against Clarence, accidentally pushing him overboard. Clarence them describes, in vivid detail, the horror and pain of drowning. In the play, Clarence is stabbed by an assassin, who then vows "If all this will not do, I'll drown you in the malmsey butt within." In historical fact, Clarence was formally executed on King Edward's orders.

A persistent tradition has it that he was subsequently "pickled" in a vat of malmsey wine (possibly as the result of a last request?).

Answer: A boar

Richard's heraldic emblem was the "blancsanglier", or white boar. Historically, this may have arisen out of his supposed devotion to St. Antony of Egypt, who was said to have been protected in the wilderness by a wild boar; a boar, or large pig, figures in the saint's iconography.

Others have speculated that, since the Latin spelling of the name "York" is "Eboracum", it may have been something of a play on words. In the play, of course, the boar is used to far different symbolic effect; it symbolizes both Richard's deformity (as when old Queen Margaret calls him "Thou elvish mark'd, abortive, rooting hog! Thou that was sealed in thy nativity the slave of nature and the son of Hell!") and his ferocious, predatory nature, as foreseen by Lord Stanley's prophetic dream, related to Hastings, in which "the boar had rased off his [Hasting's] helm."

Answer: Richard II

The murder of Richard II while imprisoned at Pontrefract castle following his enforced abdication was held by Tudor apologists to be the "original sin", as it were, for which the bloody tyranny of Richard III was the final punishment. Rivers, in this scene, recalls that "Richard the Second here was hack'd to death". Earl Rivers is Queen Elizabeth's brother and Lord Grey her son by her previous marriage.

The Woodvilles, the kindred of Queen Elizabeth, were greatly resented for their influence at the court of King Edward IV; in the play Richard conducts a whispering campaign holding them responsible for Clarence's murder (for which he is responsible). Following Edward IV's death, Richard has Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan (a chamberlain) imprisoned and executed. Richard's strategy in seizing them is both to crush opposition to himself and to weaken the protective cordon around the young Princes, his chief obstacles to the throne, though he claims to be protecting them from the plotting of their Woodville kin.

Answer: Strawberries

Richard, at this point, is disguising his ambition by feigning disinterest in the impending coronation; he arrives a little late, claiming to have overslept, and nonchalantly asks the Bishop of Ely to send for some strawberries from his garden. According to the Ribner-Kittredge edition of Shakespeare's works "In medieval iconography strawberries were conventional symbols of treachery, since they were usually depicted hiding an adder."

Answer: If

Richard is determined to remove any obstacles to the throne; chief of which, at this point, are the two young Princes; he doubts that Hastings will be unscrupulous enough to support him in his schemes. When Buckingham, in Act III, scene I, asks what shall be done if Hastings appears too soft, Richard bluntly replies "Chop off his head!". Later that night a messenger from Lord Stanley relates to Hastings Stanley's grisly dream that Hastings had been done to death by a boar.

In scene V, Richard tells the lords of the Council, including Hastings, that his arm is "...like a blasted sapling, wither'd up" as a result of witchcraft practiced upon him by Queen Elizabeth and Mistress Jane Shore (Shore was the late Edward's mistress, who is now Hasting's lover. Elizabeth Woodville was, historically, rumored to have been a witch and to have used enchantment on Edward to entice him to marry her, against the will of the influential Earl of Warwick, his chief counsellor). Hastings diplomatically begins to respond to this surprising allegation; he gets no further than "If they have done this deed, my noble lord-" before Richard angrily explodes: "If? Thou protector of this damned strumpet, talk'st thou to me of if's? Thou art a traitor. Off with his head!".

He orders the stunned Hastings' summary execution. Historically, Hastings' beheading was the first recorded execution in the Tower.

Answer: The Tower

Queen Elizabeth's speech to the Tower, one of the most moving in Shakespeare, runs thus: "Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes whom envy hath immur'd within your walls- Rough cradle for such little pretty ones! Rude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow for tender princes- use my babies well! So foolish sorrow bids your stones farewell."

Answer: His wife, Anne

Richard hints to Buckingham that he wants the two princes out of the way; when Buckingham fails to construe his meaning, he chides him: "Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull. Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead, and I would have it suddenly performed," After dismissing Buckingham, he calls Catesby to his side and orders him to spread abroad a rumour that his wife Anne is grievously ill and at the point of death. Privately, he muses that "I must be married to my brother's daughter [Elizabeth], or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass." He clearly intends to do away with Anne (probably by poison) in order to make Princess Elizabeth his wife; this will secure his position since, theoretically, Clarence's son has a better claim on the throne. Though we never hear any details of Anne's death, she has clearly died by Act IV, scene IV, when Richard brazenly asks Queen Elizabeth for her daughter's hand. Elizabeth notes that, in order to free himself to marry her daughter, Richard "...mads't quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.", an indication that Richard brought about Anne's death.

Historically, Anne is believed to have died of tuberculosis.

Answer: To teach her how to curse her enemies.

Elizabeth, no doubt, has noted that of the various people Margaret has cursed, all have either died or come to grief (except, thus far, for Buckingham, who will come to grief shortly). She asks Margaret to teach her to curse her enemies; Margaret replies, with remarkable self-perception: "Forbear to sleep the nights and fast the days; Compare dead happiness with living woe; Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were, and he that slew them fouler than he is. Bett'ring thy loss makes the bad causer worse; revolving this will teach thee how to curse."

Answer: His mother, the Duchess of York

The Duchess of York has suffered much on Richard's account, including the loss of her son Clarence (which may have hastened the death of her other son, King Edward) and of her two grandsons, the princes. Actually, her troubles with Richard (as she reminds him in this scene) began with his birth; Richard was born by Caesarean section and, according to legend (as recounted by Henry VI in the penultimate scene of "Henry VI, Part III"), came out feet first and with a full set of teeth (which cannot have made breast-feeding easy). To put it in the Duchess' own words: "Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell.

A greivous burden was thy birth to me; Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy; thy schooldays frightful, wild, and furious; Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous; Thy age confirmed, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody, more mild, but yet more harmful- kind in hatred." She gives him her curse to take into battle, and prophesies: "Bloody thou art, bloody will be thine end."

Answer: That she give him her daughter in marriage.

At his coronation, when he begins hatching his plot to marry the young Elizabeth to secure his position, Richard realizes the degree of sheer gall this will take: "Murder her brothers and then marry her- Uncertain way of gain! But I am in so far in blood that sin will pluck on sin." When Richard, fresh from being cursed by his mother, first mentions Elizabeth to the Queen, she believes that he is threatening to remove her as yet another threat to his security (as Edward's offspring, she had some claim to the throne) and promises to disavow her daughter's legitimacy in order to save her life.

When Richard reveals his true intentions, however, the Queen is even more appalled and can barely conceal her disgust when Richard suggests that the grandchildren she will reap from this union will take the place of her dead sons. Though the Queen leaves Richard on a non-committal note, she clearly has no desire to entertain Richard's proposal.

Answer: All Souls' Day

All Souls' Day is celebrated on November 2 (the day after All Saints' Day) and commemorates the souls in Purgatory. According to tradition, the dead were able to communicate with the living on this day. Upon verifying the date with the sheriff, Buckingham reflects: "Why then All Souls' Day is my body's doomsday.

This is the day which in King Edward's time I wished might fall on me when I was found false to his children and to his wife's allies. This is the day wherein I wished to fall by the false faith of him whom most I trusted.

This, this All Souls' Day to my fearful soul is the determin'd respite of my wrongs. That All-seer which I dallied with hath turned my feigned prayer on my head and given in earnest what I begged in jest."

Answer: Clarence

Imprisoned in the Tower in Act I, Clarence related to his jailer his terrifying dream about being drowned. His dream ended with the appearance of Edward, who cried. "Clarence is come- false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence that stabb'd me in the field by Tewkesbury. Seize on him, furies, take him unto torment!" Clarence found himself surrounded by tormenting fiends, upon which he woke.

Answer: King Henry VIII

"Richard III" ends with Richard's death in the battle of Bosworth Field, after which the Earl of Richmond (now Henry VII) announces his betrothal to Princess Elizabeth of York; these two were the parents of Henry VIII. Shakespeare's "King Henry VIII" recounts that monarch's divorce from Katherine of Aragon and his remarriage to Anne Boleyn, giving little indication of the tragic denouement of their marriage.

The play ends with the christening of the future Elizabeth I and the prediction by Archbishop Cramner of her glorious reign, followed by a brief epilogue. Chronologically, it is the last of Shakespeare's historical dramas.