但是亨利国王的政府——现在由玛格丽特和她的议会统治——完全没有任何能力。面对贫穷和灾难，普通的英国人都渴望约克的回归。于是在1460年的六月，华威和马契伯爵爱德华——公爵的长子——朝伦敦进军，并与打算重新夺取王位的约克会合。而这一次，议会裁定约克家族的首领应该成为倒霉的亨利六世的继承人。但是玛格丽特并没有被抑制住。她成功地在北方建立了一支强大的军队，并在威克菲尔德遇到了约克人。这一战中，公爵殒命。由于爱德华只是一个18岁的少年，华威成了白玫瑰党的首领。在接下来的一年里，这位新领袖在圣奥尔本斯的第二次战役中惨败。尽管如此，华威还是设法与爱德华联手占领了伦敦。由此，玛格莱特失去了胜利的果实。年轻的爱德华被约克郡的公民和贵族宣布为国王。并毫不犹豫地继承了王位，虽然这还没有构成合法的选举。

后来的一系列事件都站在爱德华这一边。1461年5月29日，玛格丽特引导的兰开斯特军队在约克郡的陶顿附近被打败，亨利和他的儿子逃往苏格兰。而在1464年，爱德华完全掌控了英格兰。尽管如此，他与伊丽莎白——理查·伍德维尔一个寡居的女儿——的婚姻还是损害了他的地位。他的主要支持者华威由于伍德维尔家族是兰开斯特的亲戚，且华威自己已经几乎完成的让英国君主与法国的路易十一的妻妹结婚的计划泡汤而大怒。而在爱德华四世以牺牲内维尔家族为代价，偏袒他妻子的亲戚时，事态急剧恶化。在1465年。亨利回到英格兰，并被安置在伦敦塔内。之后不久，这位前国王被释放了，爱德华被迫逃亡荷兰。而多亏了勃艮第的查尔斯的支持，爱德华得以召集了一支部队，并返回了英国。不幸的亨利再一次被囚禁，而华威的军队被打败，伯爵自己被杀。而最后的关键，在1471年5月4日，兰开斯特人在图克斯伯里遭到了毁灭性的打击。玛格丽特被活捉，年轻的王子死亡。亨利六世本人被称作是死于“完全的悲伤与忧郁”，但也有很大可能是爱德华四世下令将他处死。

在理查三世的悲剧中，莎士比亚从克拉伦斯公爵被剥夺公权开始写起。他迎娶了华威的一个女儿，并在1469年到1471年为自己的岳父效力，因此与国王和另一个弟弟格罗斯特的理查有着持续的争执。不可避免的，剧中提到了相关的早期事件。

A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION
The history of this period dating from the reign of Richard Il to the defeat of Richard III at Bosworth Field in 1485 was dramatized in two tetralogies. The first includes Richard Il (1595), the two Henry IV plays (1597-98), and Henry V(1599)（Here and elsewhere the generally accepted dates of composition are given.） In these plays Shakespeare presented the tragic fortunes of Richard Il which culminated in his deposition and murder: the rebellions which harassed the reign of the usurper and regicide, Henry IV; and the triumph of Henry V, who escaped punishment in this world for the sins of his father because he engaged English forces in a war against a foreign enemy, France, winning his famous victories. The second tetralogy includes the three Henry VI plays (1590-92)(Whether Shakespeare was actually the sole author of the Henry VI plays is still disputed, but there is little doubt that they are substantially his works.) and Richard III ( 1593). Obviously, the latter plays predate those comprising the first tetralogy, but there is sufficient evidence, external and internal, that Shakespeare, like his contemporaries,saw in the deposition of Richard Il, a lawful anointed ruler, the source of England's troubles during the entire period. This is a point worth keeping in mind because it makes understandable why the descendants of Lancastrian Henry IV as well as the members of the Yorkist party should be made to suffer grievously.

学术性导读。
从理查二世的统治到理查三世在1485年博斯沃斯之战战败的这段历史，被戏剧家写成了两个四联剧。第一个四联剧包括了《理查二世》（1595）和两部《亨利四世》（1597-1598），以及《亨利五世》（1599）（这这里集居住的地方给出的是通常接受的作品完成日期。）。在这几部剧中莎士比亚呈现了理查二世的悲惨命运，最终在他的废黜和谋杀之处达到了高潮：叛乱者、弑君者亨利四世被纠缠了整个统治期间的叛乱、亨利五世的胜利——由于他对外敌法国发战并取得了著名的成就，逃脱了他父亲的罪孽的惩罚。第二个四联剧包括了三部《亨利四世》（1590-1592）（莎士比亚是否是亨利六世戏剧的唯一作者仍然存在争议，但毫无疑问，戏剧的大部分出自他之手。）戏剧和《理查三世》一剧。显然，之后的四联剧药要比前一部四联剧的作品写得更早。但也有充分的内部外部证据证明，莎士比亚从他同时代的人一样，在理查二世的废黜中看到他是合法的统治者，而这，是英格兰在这个时期纠纷的根源。这是一个值得牢记在心的一点，因为这使兰开斯特人亨利四世以及约克派的成员应该遭受痛苦折磨可以理解。

The first Quarto of Richard III (1597) provides the only external evidence for dating the play, but internal evidence is suffciently great to point to the earlier date of composition cited above. Certainly the close relation to Henry VI, Part Three, wherein the character of Richard of Gloucester is fully established, indicates that the play was written soon after that chronicle history reached an appreciative public. The style is unmistakably that of early Shakespeare-the poet-dramatist who was still under the influence of his predecessors. As Sir Edmund K. Chambers pointed out (William Shakespeare, Vol. I. 1930, p. 302), it is a highly mannered, rhetorical style marked by frequent exclamations, violent and vituperative speeches, cumulative passages of parallel lines with parisonic endings and beginnings, as in these lines spoken by Queen Margaret:
I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;
I had a husband, till a Richard kill'd him:
Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;
Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard kill'd him.
(IV.iv.40-43)

理查三世的第一个四开本（1597）是唯一能够证明这出戏剧写作日期的外部证据，而内部的证据则充分的证明作品的完成时间还早于上面提到的日期。由于在亨利六世第三部分中，格罗斯特的理查的角色已经完美地设定了。这密切的联系意味着这出戏写在以上编年历史被公开鉴赏之后不久。毫无疑义是早期莎士比亚的风格，带有诗意与戏剧性——这依然深受前辈的影响。如埃德蒙·K·钱伯斯爵士所指出的，这是一场非常中规中矩、极为夸张的风格。里面充斥着频繁的感叹、猛烈、指责性的演说。结尾与开头成平行线的大量段落叠加的雏形，例如玛格丽特王后的台词：
我有一个爱德华，被一个理查杀害了，
我有一个好夫君，被一个理查杀害了；
你有一个爱德华，被一个理查杀害了，
你又有一个理查，被一个理查杀害了。
(IV.iv.40-43)

The elaborate imagery, repetitions, quibbles, and conceits in the wooing scene (I.ii) provide good examples of the early playwright who is rather pleased with his cleverness rather than wholly concerned with character portrayal. All of these stylistic devices may be found in later Shakespeare, to be sure, but never in such abundance. Significant also is the fact that the blank verse in this play is largely end-stopped- that is, there is a grammatical or rhetorical pause at the end of most lines rather than an overrunning of sense from one line to another, which gives a more naturalness to the discourse. The student will find it useful to read aloud and to compare Richard's opening soliloquy with any of those in the late tragedies to appreciate the stylistic difference.

Certain elements of style in Richard III are to be traced to the Roman dramatist Seneca, and these merit notice here. The ten tragedies attributed to Seneca were available in translation by 1581; indeed the first dates from 1559. These had great influence upon many of Shakespeare's predecessors and contemporaries. The tone and temper of the Roman's works, his sensationalism and moralizing, his stress on the tragedy of the individual had wide appeal. Comparatively ignorant of the Greek tragic writers, Shakespeare's generation found in Seneca inspiration and, to an appreciable extent, the model for their own tragedies. As for style, the self-revealing soliloquy, the long speeches characterized by full-blown rhetoric, the often epigrammatic alternating lines of speech and reply called stichomythia (as in the dialogue between Richard and Anne beginning "1 would I knew thy I.ii.193 ff.) all found a place in Elizabethan tragedy, including Richard III. Likewise with reference to the sensationalism in developing the theme of murder and revenge. Indeed Elizabethans went beyond Seneca, in whose plays violence is reported or described, not presented onstage. More often than not, such violence was depicted before the eyes of Elizabethan audiences. Among the Senecan trappings of tragedy are ghosts, foreboding dreams, signs and omens of impending catastrophe - all of which appear in Richard III.

理查三世中这种特定的风格元素可以追溯到罗马的戏剧家塞内卡，而这些优点标记在这里。在1581年，塞内卡的时代悲剧已经有了可见的翻译版本，事实上最早的可以追溯到1559年。这些都对莎士比亚许多前辈与同时代的人产生了巨大影响。罗马作品的基调与情感、追求轰动效应与说教性、对个人悲剧的强调具有广泛的吸引力。莎士比亚这代人对希腊悲剧作家的了解相对较少。他们在塞内卡的作品中找到灵感，客观的程度上形成了自己的悲剧模型。而风格上，自我表露性的自言自语、成熟的修辞手法为特征的长段演讲、暗藏不少警句的演讲与答复交替的诗行。——又称为轮流对白——（例如理查与安妮以“我希望我知道你的心”开头的一段对话），在伊丽莎白一世时代的悲剧中都能找到，包括理查三世。同样的还有在发展谋杀与复仇的主题时出现的轰动效应。当然，伊丽莎白时代已经超越了塞内卡，在这些戏剧中，暴力行径是通过语言描述而形容的，而不会在舞台上展现。通常情况下，这些暴力行径都是通过描述出现在伊丽莎白时代的观众面前。塞内卡式悲剧的标志有鬼魂、不祥的梦、预示着即将到来的灾难的征兆——这些都出现在了理查三世中。

With the stress on the individual, Seneca pointed the way to the one－man play, the drama in which the protagonist almost completely dominates the action. Because Shakespeare followed this lead he achieved a unity theretofore unknown in chronicle history plays. The Henry VI plays, for example, are notably epic in structure. The shifted emphasis to the titular hero makes justifiable the title The Tragedy of Richard III. This brings us to the hero-villain and the second line of influence, a knowledge of which adds appreciably to an understanding of the play. The reference is to the stage Machiavel. It has been argued that Machiavelli, author of The Prince (1513), was actually an early political idealist seeking to unify Italy by appealing to the ambitions of the Renaissance princes. But for most Elizabethans the Machiavellian was practically equated with the Devil. Political cunning, overreaching by diplomacy and intrigue came to be known as Machiavellianism, the philosophy of which seems to have been that the end justified the means, however cruel they may be. Christopher Marlowe brought the Machiavellian villain to the stage in his The Jew of Malta and The Massacre of Paris. In Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part Three (Ill.iii. 124-95), Richard of Gloucester soliloquizes, identifying himself as one whose criminal ambitions will lead him to "set the murderous Machiavel to school." He thus early emerged as the complete Machiavellian villain hero. The specific characteristics of this type must await our comments on Richard himself.

理查三世中这种特定的风格元素可以追溯到罗马的戏剧家塞内卡，而这些优点标记在这里。在1581年，塞内卡的时代悲剧已经有了可见的翻译版本，事实上最早的可以追溯到1559年。这些都对莎士比亚许多前辈与同时代的人产生了巨大影响。罗马作品的基调与情感、追求轰动效应与说教性、对个人悲剧的强调具有广泛的吸引力。莎士比亚这代人对希腊悲剧作家的了解相对较少。他们在塞内卡的作品中找到灵感，客观的程度上形成了自己的悲剧模型。而风格上，自我表露性的自言自语、成熟的修辞手法为特征的长段演讲、暗藏不少警句的演讲与答复交替的诗行。——又称为轮流对白——（例如理查与安妮以“我希望我知道你的心”开头的一段对话），在伊丽莎白一世时代的悲剧中都能找到，包括理查三世。同样的还有在发展谋杀与复仇的主题时出现的轰动效应。当然，伊丽莎白时代已经超越了塞内卡，在这些戏剧中，暴力行径是通过语言描述而形容的，而不会在舞台上展现。通常情况下，这些暴力行径都是通过描述出现在伊丽莎白时代的观众面前。塞内卡式悲剧的标志有鬼魂、不祥的梦、预示着即将到来的灾难的征兆——这些都出现在了理查三世中。

The dramatized story of Richard had wide appeal, and Shakespeare's play was not the only one based upon his career. Other versions were per formed in the public theaters and at Cambridge University. As late as 1602 Ben Jonson started to write a play entitled Richard Crookback. It is not only the fact that the evil character of Richard was bound to be fascinating for so many and that the accompanying sensationalism had quite as great an appeal; English history had its special attraction for the Elizabethans.
And was not the queen's grandfather the man who defeated Richard and established the Tudor dynasty? Most Englishmen were deeply interested in plays which dealt with the dynastic question, for Elizabeth I never had named her successor. Dissension and civil war, it was feared, might well follow the death of the aging queen.

理查戏剧化的故事具有很广的吸引力，而莎士比亚的戏剧并不是唯一一部同职业的人写的戏剧。其他的版本则在公共剧场或剑桥大学中表演出来。到1602年，本·琼森开始写一部命名为《驼背理查》的戏剧。这不仅是因为理查的邪恶性格对许多人来说都具有十足的吸引力，而且伴随的轰动效应也有极大的吸引力。英国历史对莎士比亚时代具有特殊的吸引力。难道不是女王的祖父打败了理查并由此建立了都铎王朝吗？绝大多数的英国人都对处理王朝问题的戏剧十分感兴趣，因为伊丽莎白一世从未明确过继任者，人们担心，随着年迈女王的死亡，随时有可能爆发纠纷与内战。