Shakespeare was the MSM of his day, just doing the bidding of King Henry VII. Replace Richard III with George W Bush, and you’ll get the picture...
Interesting theory, but as far as I know Henry VII was dead more than 50 years before Shakespeare was born.
Now, it’s true, Shakespeare might have been including things that would make Queen Elizabeth and King James I happy. To openly make them unhappy may not have been a good idea. But, check it out, there are a lot of people who think that he was being subversive, if not openly so. And there’s a good case to be made Shakespeare thought those kinds of things to be trivia, to what he considered his real art. You make hims sound like some kind of spokesman for the Tudors.
A few months back I saw a live performance of Richard III — anyone who watches the denouement to that play has to realize that it was political agitprop. Lame-assed text he was required by the regime to include (”The Master of the Revels”, as portrayed in that great chick-flick “Shakespeare In Love”, was a real job, and a lucrative one) is not confined to Richard III.
Michael Wood’s documentary on Shakespeare is delightful, btw; I love how he points out that, later in his career, Shakespeare helped open a second theater, Blackfriars, that had been the site of the proceedings against Henry VIII’s first wife — and the company performed his “Henry VIII” there.
Henry VII was a usurper, that should be clear and obvious — Richard III was the recognized monarch, confirmed and reinforced by parliament, Henry landed with an army. Henry was a ruthless schemer who married the sister of the little princes in order to have a claim to the throne — but she had to be relegitimized, and that process would also relegitimize the little princes, nullifying his grasp. So, they had to die. Richard III, who had been murdered on the field by traitors in the employ of Henry, made the ideal fall guy.
Of course, all this is of only historical interest, since monarchy is itself both antiquated and illegitimate.
Thanks all!
Henry VII - died 1509. Shakespeare - born 1564.