It is instructive to note how Bolingbroke takes the news—
Bol. Why, bishop, is Norfolk dead?
Carl. As surely as I live, my lord.
Bol. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
Of good old Abraham. Lords appellants,
Your differences, etc.
The feeling that the poet's mind saw the clash as the clash between the common and the uncommon man is strengthened by the Queen's speech to Richard as he is led to prison—
"thou most beauteous inn,
Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodged in thee,
When triumph is become an alehouse guest?"
King Richard III.
Written. 1594 (?)
Published. 1597.
Source of the Plot. The play is founded on the lives of Edward IV, Edward V, and Richard III, as given (on the authorities of Edward Hall and Sir Thomas More) in Holinshed's Chronicles. Shakespeare may have seen a worthless play (The True Tragedy of Richard III) which was published in 1594, by an unknown author.