Act V

This undramatic scene is, in fact, a ‘one-man scene’, almost a soliloquy, the Sheriff appearing purely as an attentive escort. The situation is now a familiar one; condemned to execution, their eyes at last opened, Richard's victims utter a few final words recalling and reflecting on the past (cf. III, iii; III, iv). The choric quality of this speech is similar to that of the frequent speeches in pre-Shakespearian drama uttered by those about to die. Here, as in those earlier speeches, ¹ Buckingham objectively examines himself and his situation, as though wanting to explain to the audience the significance of what has happened to him. The speakers of the Complaints in the Mirror (and Buckingham is one of them; Tragedy, 22, p. 318 ff.) had expressed themselves in much the same manner. ² Buckingham, however, does not seek, as he had done in the Mirror, to enlarge upon the whims of fickle and envious Fortuna; he speaks here of the accurate fulfilment of former portents and curses, the just expiation of his own guilt. ‘Since I acted and spoke like that, this is what I must now suffer’ is the tenor of his words (cf. 19, 25); they express much the same conception of justice as had been evident in Margaret's speeches.