Richard III

Alarums. The battle begins. Catesby: 'Rescue my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue! The King enacts more wonders than a man, daring an opposite to every danger. His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights, seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.' Then Richard's most famous line: 'A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!' Catesby: 'Withdraw my lord, I'll help you to a horse.' Richard: 'Slave, I have set my life upon a cast, and I will stand the hazard of the die. I think there be six Richmonds in the field, five have I slain today, instead of him. A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!' They fight. Richard is slain. Richmond enters with Derby and lords. Richmond: 'God, and your arms be praised victorious friends; the day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.' Derby brings the crown: 'Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee. Lo, here these long usurped royalties, from the dead temples of this bloody wretch, have I plucked off, to grace thy brows withal. Wear it, and make much of it.' Richmond: 'Great God of heaven, say Amen to all. But tell me, is young George Stanley living?' Derby: 'He is my lord, and safe in Leicester town.' Richmond asks who died: Norfolk, Ferrers, Brokenbury, Brandon. Richmond: 'Inter their bodies, as become their births. Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled.' Then his great unification speech: 'As we have taken the sacrament, we will unite the white rose and the red. Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction, that long have frowned upon their enmity.' 'England hath long been mad, and scarred herself; the brother blindly shed the brother's blood; the father, rashly slaughtered his own son; the son compelled, been butcher to the sire. All this divided York and Lancaster.' 'O now, let Richmond and Elizabeth, the true successors of each royal house, by God's fair ordinance, conjoin together. And let thy heirs enrich the time to come, with smooth-faced peace, with smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days.' 'Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again. That she may long live here, God say, Amen.' The tyrant is dead. The Wars of the Roses end. Peace returns. Justice prevails.