Act 1, Scene 2

London. Another street.

[Enter the corpse of King Henry the Sixth, borne in an open coffin, Gentlemen bearing halberds to guard it; and Lady Anne as mourner.]
Lady Anne
166 Set down, set down your honourable load,—
167 If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,—
168 Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament
169 Th' untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.—
170 Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!
171 Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!
172 Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!
173 Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,
174 To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
175 Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter'd son,
176 Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these wounds!
177 Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life,
178 I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes:—
179 O, cursed be the hand that made these holes!
180 Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it!
181 Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!
182 More direful hap betide that hated wretch
183 That makes us wretched by the death of thee,
184 Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,
185 Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!
186 If ever he have child, abortive be it,
187 Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
188 Whose ugly and unnatural aspect
189 May fright the hopeful mother at the view;
190 And that be heir to his unhappiness!
191 If ever he have wife, let her be made
192 More miserable by the death of him
193 Than I am made by my young lord and thee!—
194 Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,
195 Taken from Paul's to be interred there;
196 And still, as you are weary of this weight,
197 Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.
[The Bearers take up the Corpse and advance.]
[Enter GLOSTER.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
198 Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.
Lady Anne
199 What black magician conjures up this fiend,
200 To stop devoted charitable deeds?
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
201 Villains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,
202 I'll make a corse of him that disobeys!
First Gentleman
203 My lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
204 Unmanner'd dog! stand thou, when I command:
205 Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,
206 Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot
207 And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
[The Bearers set down the coffin.]
Lady Anne
208 What, do you tremble? are you all afraid?
209 Alas, I blame you not; for you are mortal,
210 And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.—
211 Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!
212 Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,
213 His soul thou canst not have; therefore, be gone.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
214 Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.
Lady Anne
215 Foul devil, for God's sake, hence and trouble us not;
216 For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,
217 Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.
218 If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
219 Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.—
220 O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds
221 Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh!
222 Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity;
223 For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood
224 From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;
225 Thy deeds, inhuman and unnatural,
226 Provokes this deluge most unnatural.—
227 O God, which this blood mad'st, revenge his death!
228 O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his death!
229 Either, heaven, with lightning strike the murderer dead;
230 Or, earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,
231 As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood,
232 Which his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered!
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
233 Lady, you know no rules of charity,
234 Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
Lady Anne
235 Villain, thou knowest nor law of God nor man:
236 No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
237 But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
Lady Anne
238 O wonderful, when devils tell the truth!
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
239 More wonderful when angels are so angry.—
240 Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
241 Of these supposed crimes to give me leave,
242 By circumstance, but to acquit myself.
Lady Anne
243 Vouchsafe, diffus'd infection of a man,
244 Of these known evils but to give me leave,
245 By circumstance, to accuse thy cursed self.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
246 Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have
247 Some patient leisure to excuse myself.
Lady Anne
248 Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make
249 No excuse current but to hang thyself.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
250 By such despair I should accuse myself.
Lady Anne
251 And by despairing shalt thou stand excus'd;
252 For doing worthy vengeance on thyself,
253 That didst unworthy slaughter upon others.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
254 Say that I slew them not?
Lady Anne
255 Then say they were not slain:
256 But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
257 I did not kill your husband.
Lady Anne
258 Why, then he is alive.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
259 Nay, he is dead; and slain by Edward's hand.
Lady Anne
260 In thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw
261 Thy murderous falchion smoking in his blood;
262 The which thou once didst bend against her breast,
263 But that thy brothers beat aside the point.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
264 I was provoked by her slanderous tongue
265 That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.
Lady Anne
266 Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind,
267 That never dreamt on aught but butcheries:
268 Didst thou not kill this king?
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
269 I grant ye.
Lady Anne
270 Dost grant me, hedgehog? then, God grant me too
271 Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!
272 O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
273 The better for the king of Heaven, that hath him.
Lady Anne
274 He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
275 Let him thank me that holp to send him thither,
276 For he was fitter for that place than earth.
Lady Anne
277 And thou unfit for any place but hell.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
278 Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.
Lady Anne
279 Some dungeon.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
280 Your bed-chamber.
Lady Anne
281 Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
282 So will it, madam, till I lie with you.
Lady Anne
283 I hope so.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
284 I know so.—But, gentle Lady Anne,—
285 To leave this keen encounter of our wits,
286 And fall something into a slower method,—
287 Is not the causer of the timeless deaths
288 Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,
289 As blameful as the executioner?
Lady Anne
290 Thou wast the cause and most accurs'd effect.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
291 Your beauty was the cause of that effect;
292 Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep
293 To undertake the death of all the world,
294 So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.
Lady Anne
295 If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,
296 These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
297 These eyes could not endure that beauty's wreck;
298 You should not blemish it if I stood by:
299 As all the world is cheered by the sun,
300 So I by that; it is my day, my life.
Lady Anne
301 Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
302 Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.
Lady Anne
303 I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
304 It is a quarrel most unnatural,
305 To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.
Lady Anne
306 It is a quarrel just and reasonable,
307 To be reveng'd on him that kill'd my husband.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
308 He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,
309 Did it to help thee to a better husband.
Lady Anne
310 His better doth not breathe upon the earth.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
311 He lives that loves thee better than he could.
Lady Anne
312 Name him.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
313 Plantagenet.
Lady Anne
314 Why, that was he.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
315 The self-same name, but one of better nature.
Lady Anne
316 Where is he?
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
317 Here.
[She spits at him.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
318 Why dost thou spit at me?
Lady Anne
319 Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
320 Never came poison from so sweet a place.
Lady Anne
321 Never hung poison on a fouler toad.
322 Out of my sight! thou dost infect mine eyes.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
323 Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.
Lady Anne
324 Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead!
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
325 I would they were, that I might die at once;
326 For now they kill me with a living death.
327 Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,
328 Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops:
329 These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,
330 No, when my father York and Edward wept,
331 To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made
332 When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him;
333 Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,
334 Told the sad story of my father's death,
335 And twenty times made pause, to sob and weep,
336 That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks,
337 Like trees bedash'd with rain; in that sad time
338 My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;
339 And what these sorrows could not thence exhale,
340 Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.
341 I never su'd to friend nor enemy;
342 My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;
343 But, now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,
344 My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.
[She looks scornfully at him.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
345 Teach not thy lip such scorn; for it was made
346 For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
347 If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,
348 Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;
349 Which if thou please to hide in this true breast
350 And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
351 I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,
352 And humbly beg the death upon my knee,
353 Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry,—
[He lays his breast open; she offers at it with his sword.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
354 But 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.
355 Nay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward,—
[She again offers at his breast.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
356 But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.
[She lets fall the sword.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
357 Take up the sword again, or take up me.
Lady Anne
358 Arise, dissembler: though I wish thy death,
359 I will not be thy executioner.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
360 Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.
Lady Anne
361 I have already.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
362 That was in thy rage:
363 Speak it again, and even with the word,
364 This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love;
365 Shall, for thy love, kill a far truer love;
366 To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary.
Lady Anne
367 I would I knew thy heart.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
368 'Tis figured in my tongue.
Lady Anne
369 I fear me both are false.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
370 Then never was man true.
Lady Anne
371 Well, well, put up your sword.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
372 Say, then, my peace is made.
Lady Anne
373 That shalt thou know hereafter.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
374 But shall I live in hope?
Lady Anne
375 All men, I hope, live so.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
376 Vouchsafe to wear this ring.
Lady Anne
377 To take is not to give.
[She puts on the ring.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
378 Look, how this ring encompasseth thy finger,
379 Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;
380 Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.
381 And if thy poor devoted servant may
382 But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,
383 Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.
Lady Anne
384 What is it?
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
385 That it may please you leave these sad designs
386 To him that hath most cause to be a mourner,
387 And presently repair to Crosby Place;
388 Where,—after I have solemnly interr'd
389 At Chertsey monastery, this noble king,
390 And wet his grave with my repentant tears,—
391 I will with all expedient duty see you:
392 For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you,
393 Grant me this boon.
Lady Anne
394 With all my heart; and much it joys me too
395 To see you are become so penitent.—
396 Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
397 Bid me farewell.
Lady Anne
398 'Tis more than you deserve;
399 But since you teach me how to flatter you,
400 Imagine I have said farewell already.
[Exeunt Lady Anne, Tress, and Berk.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
401 Sirs, take up the corse.
Gentlemen
402 Towards Chertsey, noble lord?
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
403 No, to White Friars; there attend my coming.
[Exeunt the rest, with the Corpse.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
404 Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
405 Was ever woman in this humour won?
406 I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.
407 What! I that kill'd her husband and his father,
408 To take her in her heart's extremest hate;
409 With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
410 The bleeding witness of her hatred by;
411 Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
412 And I no friends to back my suit withal,
413 But the plain devil and dissembling looks,
414 And yet to win her,—all the world to nothing!
415 Ha!
416 Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
417 Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
418 Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
419 A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,—
420 Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,
421 Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,—
422 The spacious world cannot again afford:
423 And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
424 That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,
425 And made her widow to a woeful bed?
426 On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
427 On me, that halt and am misshapen thus?
428 My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
429 I do mistake my person all this while:
430 Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
431 Myself to be a marvellous proper man.
432 I'll be at charges for a looking-glass;
433 And entertain a score or two of tailors,
434 To study fashions to adorn my body:
435 Since I am crept in favour with myself,
436 I will maintain it with some little cost.
437 But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave;
438 And then return lamenting to my love.—
439 Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
440 That I may see my shadow as I pass.
[Exit.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 168archaic vocab
“obsequiously lament”
'Obsequiously' here means 'in the manner of obsequies' — that is, as a funeral rite or mourning duty. Anne is not being servile; she is performing the ceremonies proper to the dead. An 'obsequy' (from Latin obsequium, dutiful service) was an early modern term for a funeral rite.
TLN 170archaic vocab
“key-cold figure of a holy king”
'Key-cold' is an intensifying compound meaning as cold as a metal key — the proverbial standard for something icy to the touch. Applied to Henry VI's corpse, the phrase stresses that the body has already lost body heat, turning the king's warmth into an image of death's finality.
TLN 173cultural context
“lawful that I invocate thy ghost”
Anne asks whether it is ritually lawful to call upon Henry's ghost before his burial. In early modern belief, the soul of an unburied or recently dead person lingered near the corpse. Invoking ('invocating') it was a formal act of address to the dead, somewhere between prayer and conjuration, whose propriety depended on the spirit's sanctity.
TLN 177rhetorical device
“windows that let forth thy life”
Anne calls the stab wounds in Henry's body 'windows' — metaphorical openings through which his life (i.e., his blood) poured out. The metaphor turns the corpse's wounds into apertures, which then lets her eyes become the vessel pouring tears back into them as a kind of helpless, substitute balm.
TLN 186archaic vocab
“abortive be it, Prodigious, and untimely brought to light”
'Abortive' means prematurely born or misborn — a creature brought into the world before its time, deformed or dead at birth. 'Prodigious' does not mean 'very large' here but 'monstrous' or 'portentous' — something unnatural taken as an evil omen. Anne is cursing any future child of Richard's to be born a deformed monster.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 194historical topical
“towards Chertsey with your holy load, Taken from Paul's to be interred there”
Henry VI's body is being moved from St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London to Chertsey Abbey in Surrey for burial. The historical Henry VI was first buried at Chertsey (1471) after his murder in the Tower; Henry VII later had the body translated to St George's Chapel, Windsor, in 1484. Shakespeare uses the procession from St Paul's to signal that Henry has only just been publicly displayed, and Richard's interception of the bier is a calculated insult.
historical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 201historical topical
“by Saint Paul”
Richard swears 'by Saint Paul' — his personal oath. More's History and the chronicle tradition both note this peculiarity: Richard was known for swearing specifically by St Paul rather than by the more common oaths (such as 'by God' or 'by Saint George'). The habit gives him a recognizable verbal tic drawn from the sources.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 220cultural context
“dead Henry's wounds Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh”
Anne points to Henry's wounds apparently reopening and bleeding at Richard's approach. This is the 'ordeal of the bier' — a widespread early modern belief that the corpse of a murder victim would bleed afresh in the presence of the murderer, as if crying out for justice. To an Elizabethan audience the detail was not mere rhetoric but a recognized supernatural sign.
TLN 223archaic vocab
“thy presence that exhales this blood”
'Exhales' here means 'draws out' or 'sucks up,' not 'breathes out.' Anne is saying that Richard's evil presence literally pulls the congealed blood out of Henry's wounds, the way the sun was thought to exhale vapours from the earth. The scientific model assumed the sun drew up moisture — so Richard is a dark parody of solar power, exhaling blood instead of vapour.
TLN 233biblical allusion
“no rules of charity, Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses”
Richard turns a Christian ethical principle against Anne: charity (the theological virtue of love) commands repaying evil with good and curses with blessings. He is misapplying Luke 6:27-28 and Romans 12:17-21 — 'Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you; bless them that curse you' — as a rhetorical weapon to disarm her grief.
TLN 236rhetorical device
“No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity”
Anne states the classical and humanist commonplace that even the fiercest animal is capable of some mercy, implying Richard is worse than a beast. Richard's riposte — 'But I know none, and therefore am no beast' — is a piece of witty sophistry: he accepts the logic and inverts it, claiming the absence of pity distinguishes him as superhuman rather than subhuman.
historical The Vice of the morality plays
TLN 240rhetorical device
“Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman”
'Vouchsafe' means 'please condescend to grant.' Richard asks Anne to grant him leave to defend himself 'by circumstance' — by laying out the facts one by one. Anne's retort ('Vouchsafe, diffus'd infection of a man') mockingly mirrors his own formal diction, substituting 'infection' for 'perfection' to match his elaborate flattery with equally elaborate contempt.
TLN 261archaic vocab
“thy murderous falchion smoking in his blood”
A falchion is a short, curved broadsword with a single cutting edge — a heavy chopping weapon common in the Wars of the Roses period. Anne says Queen Margaret saw Richard's falchion still steaming with Prince Edward's blood immediately after the murder, which contradicts Richard's claim that his brother Edward did it.
TLN 270historical topical
“Dost grant me, hedgehog”
'Hedgehog' is one of the animal insults aimed at Richard throughout the play, joining 'toad,' 'rooting hog,' and 'bottled spider.' It refers literally to his white-boar heraldic badge: at a distance, a small boar could suggest a hedgehog. More broadly it picks up the language of Margaret's curse in Act 1 Scene 3 — Richard is consistently dehumanized as a bristled, venomous creature.
historical The White Boar (Richard's Badge)
TLN 275archaic vocab
“holp to send him thither”
'Holp' is the archaic past tense of 'help' — Richard is saying 'I helped send him there [to heaven].' It is the standard Elizabethan strong-verb form; 'helped' was the newer, regularized form that was already competing with it by Shakespeare's time.
TLN 285rhetorical device
“keen encounter of our wits”
'Keen' means sharp; a 'keen encounter of wits' is a sharp debate or cut-and-thrust verbal contest. Richard names what has been happening — stichomythia, the line-by-line verbal duel in which two characters trade one-liners — and proposes stepping out of it into longer, slower argument ('a slower method'). It is a rare moment of meta-theatrical commentary on the scene's own rhetorical form.
TLN 291rhetorical device
“Your beauty was the cause of that effect”
Richard's claim that Anne's beauty caused him to commit the murders is a calculated absurdity: he killed Henry VI and Prince Edward years before he began courting her. The argument shifts moral responsibility from murderer to victim, making her beauty the true 'cause' and his crimes the helpless 'effect.' The rhetorical audacity — and the fact that Anne hesitates — is the scene's central psychological puzzle.
TLN 324classical allusion
“Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead”
The basilisk was a legendary serpent-king whose glance was instantly fatal. Anne wishes her eyes were basilisks so that looking at Richard would kill him. Richard's counter — he would be happy to die of her basilisk gaze ('a living death') — is another of his conversions of Anne's weapons into courtship.
TLN 330historical topical
“my father York and Edward wept, To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him”
Richard is recalling the murder of his young brother Edmund, Earl of Rutland, killed after the battle of Wakefield (1460) by Lord Clifford, who refused the boy any mercy. 3 Henry VI dramatizes the scene (1.3): the fleeing child begs Clifford for his life and is stabbed anyway. Richard uses the memory to boast that he has always been beyond tears.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 333historical topical
“thy warlike father, like a child, Told the sad story of my father's death”
Anne's father is Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick — 'the Kingmaker' — who broke down weeping over the death of Richard's father, the Duke of York. Richard is pointing out that Warwick, a famous warrior, cried for York while Richard himself did not, again performing his own emotional hardness. The detail connects this scene to 3 Henry VI, in which Warwick and the Yorkist lords mourned York's death.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 387historical topical
“presently repair to Crosby Place”
Crosby Place (or Crosby Hall) was a grand merchant's house in Bishopsgate, London, which Richard, Duke of Gloucester, leased from 1483 and used as his London headquarters during his seizure of power. Sending Anne there places her under his roof and effective control — the spatial move underlining what the wooing has just accomplished.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 403historical topical
“No, to White Friars”
Whitefriars was a Carmelite (White Friars) priory just inside the western City wall, off Fleet Street. Richard diverts Henry's corpse there rather than continuing to Chertsey — an act of casual power. Having just promised Anne he will solemnly inter Henry at Chertsey, he immediately and privately countermands the order, demonstrating that his pious promises are performance.
TLN 404rhetorical device
“Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won?”
Richard's soliloquy opens with two rhetorical questions whose near-identical phrasing ('woo'd' / 'won') enacts the speed of the conquest. The repeated 'Was ever' is an anaphora that builds triumphant disbelief, and the shift from 'woo'd' to 'won' in the space of a single syllable mirrors the scene's own shocked compression: the whole impossible victory is summarized in one word's difference.
historical The Vice of the morality playshistorical The Stage Machiavel
TLN 417historical topical
“whom I, some three months since, Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury”
Tewkesbury (4 May 1471) was the decisive Yorkist victory in which Edward, Prince of Wales — the Lancastrian heir and Anne's husband — was killed. Richard here admits he murdered the prince. The battle effectively ended the Lancastrian cause: Henry VI was killed in the Tower a few days later. Shakespeare dramatized both killings in 3 Henry VI.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 420archaic vocab
“Fram'd in the prodigality of nature”
'Prodigality' means lavish over-abundance; nature was 'prodigal' — extravagantly generous — when it formed Edward, spending all its gifts on him. The irony is that Richard uses this phrase for a man he killed, and the contrast with his own 'rudely stamp'd' self (described in 1.1 as made when Nature was in a niggard, not prodigal, mood) is implicit.
TLN 428archaic vocab
“My dukedom to a beggarly denier”
A 'denier' was the smallest French coin (a twelfth of a sou), proverbially worthless. Richard bets his dukedom against a beggarly denier — i.e., near-certain odds — that Anne has convinced herself he is handsome. 'Marvellous proper' (TLN 431) means 'wonderfully good-looking': 'proper' meant physically attractive in Elizabethan English.