A comparison between Shakespeare's Plays: Henry V and Richard III

Some of you probably know by now that I like  Analyzing and Interpreting Literature.  As these were two plays I read by my own free will back in high school, I thought I would post about them.
 Shakespeare's Henry V, is my favorite play of the great playwright. In fact the military speech that Henry V gives at Agincourt is the most famous military speech from  world literature.
 Richard III on the other hand is a really good play about a villain rather than a hero.  I'd give it a strong second place.
                                                                         Henry V:
 Set during the later years of the Hundred Years' War, Henry V is talked into by several notable bishops of his kingdom, to invading France. The invasion takes several years and after much weariness, the English begin to feel down. Henry rallies his men though by a stirring speech at Agincourt. The speech has such an effect upon his men, that they beat a force that has outnumbered them 5 to 1.
 After the war is finished, Henry marries Princess Katherine of France, by whom he is given divine right as king over both kingdoms.

   
                 The courtship of Princess Katherine is in of one of the last scenes of the play.

  Several film adaptions have been made of Henry V over the years. I can I think of at least four. The picture above is from the 1944 version with Lawrence Olivier that inspired thousands of British soldiers in the Second World War. 

Unlike the high spirited glorious version of 1944, Kennath Branagh took on a darker version of the tale in 1989. Rather than show the English so gloriously victorious at Agincourt, the film despics the horrors and gruesome fighting so common to Medieval warfare. 

 All that said of Henry, I now proceed to the next play, Richard III.
                     

                                                                           Richard III:


This play is set a little after the Hundred Years' War. The Wars of the Roses has already taken place in the settings of Richard III. This story is set just England, rather than England and France and revolves around a hunchback sinister villain that will do anything to gain the crown for himself.
 Richard III kills his two older brothers and marries a woman that he later murders. He is not without a rival though, Henry Tudor prepares an army to drive Richard from the throne.  It is widely believed that his two nephews that went missing, and had more right to the throne than he, have now been found in a chest with only their bones left. Richard III's body however, was also recently found under a parking lot, which may finally determine where the Battle of Bosworth took place.
 Richard rules a tyrannical rule over England that eventually brings him to his own doom on the fields of Bosworth. ''A horse a horse, I'd give a kingdom for a horse!'' he cries, as he surrounded by the rebel forces.  Richard is killed, and the play implies the coming victory and reign of Henry Tudor.

                                               Lawrence Olivier as Richard III


                                                                    A final comparison:


 Whereas, Henry V is the noble hero that wins the heart of a woman and a kingdom, Richard III is the villain that is brought to his own doom by his own lust for power. Unlike the glorious victory at Agincourt that the English experience in Henry V over the French, the Battle of Bosworth fields in Richard is much more complicated between two English factions fighting for the same throne; and the very glory of it is watching Richard fall to his deadly end.
 There is romance between Henry V and Katherine in the former play, romance only exists in Richard III in the mad king's wooing of woman to help ensure his throne.
 Both plays are set in the 15th century, and both are essential to the context of the late Medieval World. 


 All in all, these were great plays, and necessary reads to any Medievalist.