Act III, Scenes 5-7: The Propaganda Machine — Richard III

Richard and Buckingham enter in rotten armor and coach each other to tremble like terrified innocents. When the Mayor arrives they play at siege until Lovell and Ratcliffe bring Hastings's head. Richard weeps that he loved the plainest harmless creature, then insists law and England's peace forced the execution. Buckingham laments the mayor came too late to hear Hastings confess.

Richard sends Buckingham to Guildhall with a script: Edward's children are bastards, Edward was lustful and tyrannous, and touch sparingly that Edward himself may not be York's son because Richard's mother lives. A scrivener enters with Hastings's indictment, written in eleven hours from a precedent sent the night before, while Hastings still lived untainted and free. Who is so gross that cannot see this palpable device, yet who so bold but says he sees it not.

Buckingham returns: citizens stood like dumb statues and would not cry God save King Richard until his own plants hurled caps at the hall's lower end. Richard calls them tongueless blocks. Buckingham coaches him to take a prayer book, stand between two churchmen, and play the maid's part, still answer nay. The Mayor finds Richard on his knees between reverend fathers, too holy for worldly suits, as the propaganda machine shifts from blood to piety.