Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII, became King of England by defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Apart from that, Henry’s claim to the throne was tenuous.
Henry VII, Queen Elizabeth's grandfather.
This made Elizabeth’s own claim tenuous as well.
Princess Elizabeth, Henry VII's grand-daughter.
Many Roman Catholics also thought that Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, had not been properly married to Anne Boleyn, so Elizabeth was a bastard.
The Jesuits even claimed that Anne Boleyn was Henry VIII’s own illegitimate daughter. So Elizabeth was also an incestuous bastard.
Elizabeth’s cunning spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham and her lover, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, formed a company of star actors in 1583 called the Queen’s Men. Liveried in red, and paid more than any other performers, their job was constantly tour England to shore up the position of the Queen.
To justify Henry VII’s defeat of Richard III, they turned Richard into a devil-worshipping monster. In their version of The True Tragedy of Richard III he’s not only a serial murderer, he’s Hannibal Lector as well:
I hope with this lame hand of mine to rake out that hateful heart of Richmond, [Henry VII] and when I have it, to eat it panting hot with salt, and drink his blood luke warm though I be sure will poison me…
By defeating Richard, the play argues, Henry VII was carrying out the will of God and the whole universe:
‘The sun by day shines hotly for revenge
The moon by night eclipseth for revenge
The stars are turned to comets for revenge
The planets change their courses for revenge
The silly lambs sit bleating for revenge
The screeking raven sits croaking for revenge
Whole heads of beasts come bellowing for revenge
And all, yea all the world I think
Cries for revenge, and nothing but revenge…’
In a preposterous act of prophesy, a character in the play even foresees the dazzling reign of Henry VII’s grand-daughter, Queen Elizabeth:
‘She is the lamp that keeps fair England light
And through her faith her country lives in peace
And she hath put proud Anti-Christ to flight
And been the means that civil wars did cease.
Then England kneel upon thy hairy knee,
And thank that God that still provides for thee…
For if her Grace’s days be brought to end
Your hope is gone, on whom did peace depend.
Did Shakespeare’s version of Richard III serve the same political
purpose as that of the Queen’s Men?
The Shakespeare Code argues emphatically ‘NO
(It’s best to read Part Two now.)
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