ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Margaret and the other wailing queens of Richard III, Constance in King John, and Katherine in Henry VIII. It argues the need for a more nuanced assessment of the motives behind their interventions in public life and of their contribution to the moral and political welfare of the nation. To understand what drives the female-led quest for justice we must situate this as a response to the traumas of the recent past which still convulse the respective play-worlds, whether the legacy of internecine strife from the War of the Roses that imprints itself upon the fractured court of Richard III. The women's colonization of the stage of history is also facilitated by the absence of agreed political codes or a properly functional judicial apparatus. In so doing they unwittingly act in consort with the female complainants of the other plays who similarly assume the informal roles of prosecutor, judge and jury.
