In "Richard III." Margaret is still the same "she-wolf of France" as in the three previous plays. If Shakspere wrote those terrible lines in "Richard III.," as all scholars admit,—
"From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept
A hell-hound, that doth hunt us all to death;
That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,
To worry lambs, and lap their gentle blood;
if Shakspere wrote those lines, he wrote those like them from the same lips, in the second part of the "Contention"—
"Or, where's that valiant crook-backed prodigy,
Dicky, your boy, that with his grumbling voice
Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?
Or, 'mongst the rest, where is your darling Rutland?
Look, York, I dipped this napkin in the blood
That valiant Clifford, with his rapier's point,
Made issue from the bosom of thy boy."
The two parts of the "Contention" are admitted to be by the same hand.
Margaret, Edward IV., Elizabeth his Queen, Clarence and Gloster appear in the "Second Part" and in "Richard III."
And here, the unity of action and of characterization conclusively shows the common authorship, precisely as the same resemblance unites the first part of "Henry VI." and the "Contention."
The "Second Part of the Contention" ends thus:—