Richard Iii Quotes

“I should like to freeze in time all those I do love, keep them somehow safe from the ravages of the passing years..."Rather like flowers pressed between the pages of a book!”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“I think the day might come, Bess, when all men will know of Dickon is what they were told by Tudor historians like Rous."
"Jesú, no!" Bess sounded both appalled and emphatic. "You mustn't think that. Whatever the lies being told about Dickon now, surely the truth will eventually win out. Scriptures does say that 'Great is truth and it prevails,' and I believe that, Grace."
Bess straightened up in the bed, shoved yet another pillow against her back. "I have to believe that," she said quietly. "Not just for Dickon's sake, but for us all. For when all is said and done, the truth be all we have.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Bad is the world, and all will come to naught
when such ill-dealing must be seen in thought.”
― William Shakespeare, Richard III

“I sit on the bed and kick off my shoes, and he kneels before me and takes the riding boots, holding one open for my bare foot. I hesitate; it is such an intimate gesture between a young woman and a man. His smiling upward glance tells me that he understands my hesitation but is ignoring it. I point my toe and he holds the boot, I slide my foot in and he pulls the boot over my calf. He takes the soft leather ties and fastens the boot, at my ankle, then at my calf, and then just below my knee. He looks up at me, his hand gently on my toe. I can feel the warmth of his hand through the soft leather. I imagine my toes curling in pleasure at his touch.

‘Anne, will you marry me?’ he asks simply, as he kneels before me.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Kingmaker's Daughter

“And – I think you know, don’t you? – that I love you, Anne.’

I feel as if I have been living in a loveless world for too long. The last tender face I saw was my father’s when he sailed for England. ‘You do? Truly?’

‘I do.’ He rises to his feet and pulls me up to stand beside him. My chin comes to his shoulder, we are both dainty, long-limbed, coltish: well-matched. I turn my face into his jacket. ‘Will you marry me?’ he whispers.

‘Yes,’ I say.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Kingmaker's Daughter

“Richard, might I ask you something? We've talked tonight of what you must do, of what you can do, of what you ought to do.But we've said nothing of what you want to do.Richard, do you want to be King?"
At first, she thought he wasn't going to answer her. But as she studied his face, she saw he was turning her question over in his mind, seeking to answer it as honestly as he could.
"Yes," he said at last. "Yes...I do.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Richard knew, of course, that his was thought to be an unlucky title; only twice before had a Richard ruled England, and both met violent ends.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Francis stared down at the Duchess of York's letter. He swallowed, then read aloud in a husky voice, "It was showed by John Sponer that King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was through great treason piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this City."
As Margaret listened, the embittered grey eyes had softened, misted with sudden tears.
"My brother may lie in an untended grave," she said, "but he does not lack for an epitaph.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.”
― William Shakespeare

“What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by.
Richard loves Richard; that is, I and I.”
― William Shakespeare, Richard III

“O thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile
And teach me how to curse mine enemies!
QUEEN MARGARET. 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.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. My words are dull; O, quicken them with thine!
QUEEN MARGARET. Thy woes will make them sharp and pierce like mine.
DUCHESS. Why should calamity be fun of words?
QUEEN ELIZABETH. Windy attorneys to their client woes,
Airy succeeders of intestate joys,
Poor breathing orators of miseries,
Let them have scope; though what they will impart
Help nothing else, yet do they case the heart.
DUCHESS. If so, then be not tongue-tied. Go with me,
And in the breath of bitter words let's smother
My damned son that thy two sweet sons smother'd.
The trumpet sounds; be copious in exclaims.”
― William Shakespeare, Richard III

“Say yes,’ he whispers. ‘Marry me.’

I hesitate. I open my eyes. ‘You will get my fortune,’ I remark. ‘When I marry you, everything I have becomes yours. Just as George has everything that belongs to Isabel.’

‘That’s why you can trust me to win it for you,’ he says simply. ‘When your interests and mine are the same, you can be certain that I will care for you as for myself. You will be my own. You will find that I care for my own.’

‘You will be true to me?’

‘Loyalty is my motto. When I give my word, you can trust me.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Kingmaker's Daughter

“But shall we wear these glories for a day?
Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?”
― William Shakespeare

“I have learn'd that fearful commenting
Is leaden servitor to dull delay;
Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary.
Then fiery expedition be my wing,
Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king!
Go, muster men. My counsel is my shield.
We must be brief when traitors brave the field.”
― William Shakespeare, Richard III

“I love violent Shakespeare. It is to me what steak is to some people: the bloodier the better.”
― Mara Wilson, Where Am I Now?

“Sapphires for my bride-to-be and a severed head for the king my brother," said Duke Richard cheerfully. "As St Paul pointed out, gifts may vary but the spirit is the same. In the present instance, a spirit of goodwill.”
― Reay Tannahill, The Seventh Son

“Grant paused in the act of turning the thing over, to consider the face a moment longer. A judge? A soldier? A prince? Someone used to great responsibility, and responsible in his authority. Someone too-conscientious. A worrier; perhaps a perfectionist. A man at ease in a large design, but anxious over details. A candidate for gastric ulcer. Someone, too, who had suffered ill-health as a child. He had that incommunicable, that indescribable look that childhood suffering leaves behind it; less positive than the look on a cripple’s face, but as inescapable. This the artist had both understood and translated into terms of paint. The slight fullness of the lower eyelid, like a child that has slept too heavily; the texture of the skin; the old-man look in a young face.
He turned the portrait over to look for a caption.
On the back was printed: Richard the Third. From the portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. Artist Unknown.”
― Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time

“As Richard mounted his horse to follow, some of his Household protested that he must not wear into battle the helmet with the golden crown, for it would mark him as the prime target for the enemy. Quietly Richard replied that he would live, and die, King of England.”
― Paul Murray Kendall, Richard the Third

“Richard appeared shortly, an officer bearing his helmet with the golden crown. In the graying darkness his face was startlingly livid, attenuated... He noticed their looks of concern. If he appeared pale, he told them quickly, it was only because he had slept little, troubled by dreams. He stood listening to the sounds of his stirring camp - clash of harness, twarnging of bowstrings, horses neighing and stamping. It was gray in the east. In the west gave promise of being warm and clear. Gloomily Richard looked at his faithful followers. There was something, he said at last, that he must tell them. The battle this day - no matter who won it - would prove to be destruction to the England they knew. If Henry Tudor was the victor, he would crush all the supporters of the House of York and rule by fear. If he, Richard, conquered, he would be equally ruthless and would use force to govern the kingdom. A moment after he had ceased speaking, one of his squires reported, falteringly, that there were no chaplains in the camp to say divine service. Richard replied that it was as he intended. If their quarrel were God's, they needed no last supplication; if it were not, such prayers were idle blasphemy.”
― Paul Murray Kendall, Richard the Third

“Uncertain way of gain. But I am in
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.
Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.”
― William Shakespeare

“Cometh The Day by Stewart Stafford

All his life, he'd just been a pawn
And each day, another false dawn
Then the vagaries of the state
Became his to dictate
And his enemies never looked so forlorn.

© Stewart Stafford, 2020. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“The Trifecta Plot by Stewart Stafford

Break moneyed bread,
and a morsel of food,
is now a parcel of land.

Entreat in obsequious sell,
and the jewel of their loins,
is wed of beauteous hand.

Purloin the coffers golden,
and a cutpurse rules as king,
with no forswearing planned.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“You may recall – perhaps you’ve experienced this in the theatre – the bewilderingly oblique way Shakespeare tends to begin his plays, via marginal characters whom we struggle to place as they recount or anticipate some major narrative event in a conversation that begins in the middle, leaving us flailing (beginning Shakespeare’s plays at their beginning is not always the easiest place to start). Not so in Richard III. The opening stage direction in the first printed edition is ‘Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester, solus’ – meaning alone – making it absolutely clear that not only does he open the play, he does so, uniquely, in soliloquy. He begins, that’s to say, by addressing the audience. From the outset, we are his creatures.”
― Emma Smith, This Is Shakespeare

“Even though – perhaps because – we are in no doubt about his ruthless self-interest, Richard establishes an immediate alliance from the outset. This intimacy with the audience will be carefully managed through a stream of asides and sardonic remarks, where only we know his true meaning, keeping us from forming any real attachment to any other character. The very title of the play seems to have succumbed to his charms and to endorse his ambitions. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, doesn’t actually become King Richard III until Act 4, but his play has no doubt he will get there: from the opening he is the king-in-waiting.”
― Emma Smith, This Is Shakespeare

“Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger;
Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart.
Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.”
― Shakespere

“Gloucester:
Why dost thou spit at me?

Lady Anne:
Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!

Gloucester:
Never came poison from so sweet a place.

Lady Anne:
Never hung poison on a fouler toad.”
― William Shakespeare

“The Hamartia of Esteem by Stewart Stafford

A clash of Roses has seared these temples grey,
The brash cur pack supplanting divinity's place,
Nightshade words aimed at codpiece not the face,
Inquisition's gauntlet strikes this judgement day.

A death warrant marked by slander's inked stain?
Scarred by a caricatured actor's grasping fear?
In a groundless play for a groundling's sneer?
Mannequin tyrant in a jailer playwright's disdain?

Time shall be your confessor and guide,
A guest casting stones at yourself in haste,
Purifying my beloved's fair hand, debased,
Redeem her undoing at a vengeful rabble's side.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead”
― William Shakespeare, Richard III

“Eduardo V tenía doce años y había recibido una buena educación. Presumiblemente sabía lo suficiente sobre la historia inglesa y sobre la naturaleza humana como para anticipar su destino. Los reyes depuestos no sobrevivían. [...] Para cuando el calor estival dejo de calcinar los muros encalados de la Torre de Londres, Eduardo, "que tenía tanta dignidad en toda su persona y tanto encanto en su rostro", había desaparecido junto con su hermano pequeño. [...] En noviembre de 1483, la política inglesa actuaba según el supuesto de que nunca volvería a verse a los Príncipes de la Torre con vida.”
― Dan Jones, The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors

“A Mountebank Muses by Stewart Stafford

Permit my monstrous vanity to grow,
As I school you in power's stratagem,
And all its dark, dripping uses.

Gentle Nature, beauteous savage,
The human beast a tool of it,
So I shall yield to primal urges.

A "hero", that convenient scarecrow,
Valourous through wicked deeds,
The "unworthy", slain with a judging sword.

Virtue signals at tyranny's bloodlust,
Rending animal flesh with your teeth,
Blind to complicit slaughter and pain.

Crowing masses at fame’s summit,
Unpruned roses of bloody slopes below,
Atrocity, the stepping stone to glory.

I shall wipe the stain off the crown,
And all the crimes that precede it,
Conferred by the fates, entitled for life.

© 2023, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford