What happens
Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess of York, and Lady Anne arrive at the Tower to visit the young princes, but Brakenbury refuses them entry on the king's orders. Lord Stanley arrives with urgent news: Richard has been crowned king, and Anne must go to Westminster to be crowned his queen. The women lament the deaths of the princes and other murdered relatives. Elizabeth sends Dorset to Richmond and prepares to seek sanctuary, while Anne faces her unwanted marriage with dread.
Why it matters
This scene marks the moment when Richard's crimes become irreversible and his power solidifies into tyranny. The women's blocked access to the Tower—the very place where the young princes are imprisoned—signals that Richard has sealed off all routes to truth or mercy. Brakenbury's refusal, technically following orders, becomes complicit in the larger crime. The arrival of Stanley with news of Richard's coronation transforms the scene from domestic grief into political catastrophe. Anne's forced marriage to Richard, announced without her presence or consent, represents the final degradation of her agency; she will be crowned as Richard's queen even as she grieves for the brother-in-law and nephew he murdered. The irony is brutal: her beauty and royal blood, which Richard praised in Act 1, now serve only to legitimize his stolen throne.
The women's lamentation in this scene creates a chorus of suffering that echoes Margaret's curses from earlier acts. Elizabeth, the Duchess, and Anne each mourn different losses—husbands, sons, brothers—yet their griefs converge on Richard as the common source of their destruction. Elizabeth's decision to send Dorset to Richmond plants the seed of Richard's eventual defeat; she sees clearly that Richard's rule is doomed and acts to preserve her family line. Lady Anne's bitter soliloquy about the marriage—her wish that the crown were red-hot steel to sear her brain—shows a woman trapped between two forms of death: the physical death Richard inflicts on others, and the living death of being bound to him. The scene's power lies in showing how Richard's ambition, once unleashed, devours everything in its path, turning wives into widows and mothers into mourners.
