Politics and Richard III, Part 4 of 4: Political Forces
Few people familiar with Shakespeare's works will argue that he wasn't influenced by the politics of his day. In fact, many would argue that the Elizabethan (and later, Jacobean) court was one of the strongest factors determining the outcome of his plays. But even if the political climate of the day wasn't a major player in the outcome of all his plays, it can be seen clearly as a source of the gross historical discrepancies in Richard III. In the following four weeks, we will look at the differences between the historical Richard III and Shakespeare's villainous character and the politics of the late sixteenth century that influenced Shakespeare's portrayal of history. This week, we will look specifically at the political forces that caused the historical biases in Richard III.
For the past three weeks, I have brought out three major places in Shakespeare's play that historical discrepancies could be attributed to political biases on Shakespeare's part. Until now, though, I haven't really talked about the political climate in which Shakespeare wrote. In this, my final article in this series, I would like to digress a bit from the text of Shakespeare's play in order to bring to light some of the political reasons behind the historical divergence.
Last week, in my analysis of the historical Richmond, I mentioned that the fact that the reigning monarch at the time Shakespeare wrote Richard III was Richmond's granddaughter Elizabeth, and thus his bias in favor of Richmond and against Richard was inherently political. But what influence did Elizabeth really have over the life and career of Shakespeare?
Other than the obvious (demanding his head), she could exert much power over not only his career, but also over the careers of many theatre people. Thanks to the plague, the theatres were in a precarious position in the early 1590s. While Shakespeare was writing Richard III, the Queen's Company, the only troupe of hired players to be royally sanctioned, had been dissolved. In addition, the children's companies had been closed and wouldn't appear in public again until after it was written, and of the dozens of players' companies that had been performing in and around London a decade before, only three were legally permitted to perform in the city. And of the six public theatres open only two years before Shakespeare wrote Richard III, now only three were open. In short, the theatre was a precarious business, and with the plague threatening, the entire business could be destroyed in England at the nod of Elizabeth. Obviously, Shakespeare had much reason to please Elizabeth, and to do so, he would want to write a play praising her grandfather and vilifying his opponent.
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