King Henry VI, Part 3

• Full-blown civil war. York claims the throne. Henry agrees to disinherit his own son — Margaret is furious • The Battle of Wakefield: Margaret's forces capture York. She mocks him, puts a paper crown on his head, then stabs him • "O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide!" — York's dying accusation against Margaret, one of Shakespeare's most famous early lines • York's sons — Edward, George, and Richard — swear revenge. Edward becomes the Yorkist leader • Battle of Towton: the bloodiest battle of the Wars of the Roses. Shakespeare stages a son who's killed his father and a father who's killed his son • Edward seizes the throne as Edward IV. Henry VI is imprisoned in the Tower • Richard of Gloucester (future Richard III) begins his scheming: soliloquy revealing his ambition, his deformity, his ruthlessness • Edward marries Lady Grey for love — alienating Warwick, his chief ally, who was negotiating a French marriage • Warwick defects to Margaret's side. Another reversal. Henry is briefly restored to the throne • Edward returns with Burgundian troops. Battle of Tewkesbury — Lancastrians crushed. Margaret's son Prince Edward is murdered on stage • Richard murders Henry VI in the Tower. The play ends with Edward IV secure but Richard already plotting • The cycle of revenge never stops — every killing demands another. Shakespeare's vision of civil war as perpetual motion machine