Richard III is the most performed of all Shakespeare's plays.
Edward 1V is king, but sickly and dying. In line for the throne are his two young sons, and after them in line of succession is Edward's brother George, Duke of Clarence. Only after Clarence would Richard, Duke of Gloucester, gain the crowd. The trouble is, Richard badly wants to become king.

And so Richard manipulates Edward into suspecting Clarence of treason so that Edward locks Clarence in the tower. Clarence, even when held prisoner, believes his brother Richard is his champion up until that minute his assassins inform him Richard has ordered his death.

With Clarence dispatched and Edward on his death bed, Richard spreads rumors his young heirs are bastards, not eligible to succeed the king. And so Richard is appointed to the job, all the while pretending to accept it reluctantly.

Once made king he has the young princes, whom he calls cousins, killed. By then, even Richard's mother wishes him dead, this son whose hunchback and withered arm seem to have marked him from birth as unnatural and evil.

Richard's heraldic symbol is the boar, and throughout the play his detractors refer to him derogatorily as a boar as well as a toad, a devil, a cadodemon (evil spirit), a cockatrice (an evil mythical spirit that kills with a glance), and a traitor. Richard is, indeed, all of these as he slaughters indiscriminately.

His grotesque appearance is the outward and visible indication of his inward and hidden ugliness. The night before he falls in battle, ghosts of his victims haunt his dreams and call upon him to despair and die. Nobody has pity in the end for this man who never showed pity to anyone else.

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