ABSTRACT
A politic strategist must remain perpetually vigilant against an enemy’s deceptions. Deception is intricately related to both survival and prosperity in Machiavelli’s works. Deception also plays an equally potent influence in Shakespeare’s First Tetralogy, although not always driven by same motives. Certain individuals have attempted to make connections between Stanley the character and the Stanley family’s possible relationship with Shakespeare. Interestingly, many of Shakespeare’s likely sources diffuse Stanley’s role in seizing the crown, making it a move suggestive of collective will rather than individual strategy. Despite his successes, Stanley has received almost no attention from critics of Richard III. Stanley had betrayed Edward IV when Warwick had turned against him in 1470; although Stanley was publicly forgiven, he had to contend with Richard’s seizure of Warwick’s lands in the Duchy of Lancaster in the North.
