SOURCE: “Shakespeare's Demonic Prince,” in Interpretations 20, No. 3, Spring, 1993, pp. 259-74.

In the following essay, Mindle observes that Richard III is the most Machiavellian of all of Shakespeare's protagonists, noting that unlike characters such as Macbeth and Henry IV, Richard III has no respect for morality or conscience.

Richard. Why Buckingham, I say I would be king. Buckingham. Why, so you are, my thrice-renownéd lord. Richard. Ha! Am I king? 

(IV.ii.12-14)¹

Shakespeare's Richard III is the story of a man who would be king, a chronicle of a tyrant who tries to “clothe [his] naked villainy” by setting “the murderous Machiavel to school” (I.iii.335; 3 Henry VI, III.ii.193). A murderer without a “touch of pity,” a consummate “liar,” a “subtle, false and treacherous” villain, Richard is perfectly, splendidly, and delightfully wicked (cf. Disc., I.27). His best conspiracies are conceived and executed in the spirit of...