ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Richard II and Richard III implicate the practice of monarchical succession with a view to inviting audiences and readers not only to protect themselves from exploitation, but also to revise and construct more effective rites. In Richard III and Richard II both the strong and the weak perform dazzling maneuvers that shuttle between the archive and repertoire, drawing on cultural memory to question rites of succession. Richard III boasts more citizens voicing their opinions than Richard II. The chapter provides to recover some of the bodily vocabulary alive in the cultural memory of Shakespeare, his actors and his audience. It suggests that Shakespeare's political criticism is subtle insofar as he mobilizes this gestural choreography obliquely in his scenarios of succession. The chapter shows how Shakespeare conjures memories of the legal repertoire to question rites of succession.
