Shakespeare's play Richard II uses the Tower as a stage for Richard's finale, which sets up the beginning of the Tudor myth. Richard II, the first play in the cycle in historical chronology (although part of the Second Tetralogy, written after 1, 2, and 3 Henry VI and Richard III) makes Westminster Hall the place of Richard's abdication. This locale is historically incorrect but reflects Elizabethan conceptions of geography and justice. Westminster Hall, where Parliament met, was the main place of law and government in Shakespeare's time. Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV, awaits Richard's abdication within Westminister Hall: "Fetch hither Richard, that in common view / He may surrender" (4.1.156-57)
Following his abdication Richard II makes his way from Westminster Hall to the Tower, thus reversing the path of the coronation procession. Richard is imprisoned in the Tower by Bolingbroke, which may be interpreted as a metaphorical imprisonment by the past: "This way the King will come. This is the way / To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower, / To whose flint bosom my condemned lord / Is doomed a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke" (5.1.1-4). Since the Tower is a representation of the past, Richard's reign is quickly relegated to English history and the age of a new king has begun. The Tower is the stage on which Richard II makes his final performance, playing a king who says farewell to his Queen and the throne: "Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate / A twofold marriage twixt my crown and me, / And then betwixt me and my married wife" (5.1.71). Richard's finale is the beginning of the Tudor myth and reflects the cyclical nature of the history plays itself. Though Richard II's reign is ending, the Wars of the Roses will begin, and it is not until the end of Richard III's reign that the suffering will cease.
In Shakespeare's Richard III, hereditary rights to the throne have passed from Lancaster to York at various times. As a representation of history and lineage, it is fitting that Richard III involves the Tower extensively. Richard becomes the Tower's stage manager, dictating the fates of the royalty and nobility around him: "Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, / By drunken prohecies, libels and dreams" (1.1.32). Though Richard seems to have control over what happens in the Tower, he is still playing upon Shakespeare's stage, hence paving the way for later redemption. Richard proclaims himself king after locking away the young heir Prince Edward among the walls of history and past glory of the Tower. Edward is relegated to the tradition of the past before he has become a king of the present. He and his brother are murdered by Richard III and, as known historically, buried within the walls of the Tower.
Richard cannot remain king because he represents the antithesis of glorification of Britain's history, strong lineage, and all that is embodied by the Tower: "That foul defacer of God's handiwork, / That excellent grand tyrant of the earth/ That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls, / Thy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves" (4.4.51-54). Richard does not uphold and pass on Britain's glory, but rather destroys it systematically. Ironically, Richard's misuse of the Tower brings about his downfall at the Battle of Bosworth Field. The sin of Henry IV's usurpation of Richard II's throne and country is redeemed through Henry VII's victory over Richard III, thereby bringing the historical narrative, and the Tower's role in it, full circle.
-- Althea Fletcher, 2000
