Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance several philosophers tried to articulate practical and just theories of governance and self-governance the most famous including: Dante, who’s theory of leadership is outlined in his work Inferno, Machiavelli who’s theory of leadership is outlined in his work The Prince, and Martian Luther, who’s theory of leadership is outlined in his work To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation. Similarly, another Renaissance work often held up as dealing with both political maneuvering and the question of what makes a good leader is William Shakespeare’s Richard III which recounts the depraved Duke of Gloucester’s raise to power by way of murder, blackmail and deception. Despite these three philosophers taking different approaches to the problem of what makes a good leader (a moral-political approach, a political approach and a moral approach respectively), and having different temporal and religious background, they all would criticize Richard as terrible ruler.

In his poem the Inferno, Dante outlines through his description of Hell a grand version of morality in which the more serious a sin is the further it separates one from God. However, by connecting the political decline of his native Florence with its rampant sinful ways, he gives a political dimension to his moral theory. Another key feature of Dante’s theory is the structure of Dis, which separates those sins of “incontinence from more mortal ones such as murder, blasphemy, fraud and treason. All of Richard’s vices can be mapped onto the circles of Dis, showing him as not only the furthest separated from God but also the source of the greatest political degradation. We first encounter one of Richard’s key crimes in the First Ring of the Seventh Circle where tyrants and murders “who plunged their hands in blood and plundering reside” (Dante 170).

Richard certainly did this when he killed his sister in law’s entire family at Pomfret Castle to secure his reign. He then kills the Lord Hastings for “not yield[ing] to our complots”( Richard III.i.189). Richard also secures his reign by committing several kinds of one the worse sin in Dante’s ranking, fraud. It is considered so because “Fraud is man’s particular vice” or the most connected to man’s fallen state(Dante 95). It is then particularly damning that Richard secures power by tapping into his fallen nature in two major ways: The first type of fraud Dante details is hypocrisy, which Richard uses throughout the play, declaring “ I clothe my naked villainy with old odd ends stolen from holy writ” ( I.iii.336-337) . Later in order to convince the nobles he’s a pious man with no interest in kingship he takes a ”prayer book in..[ his] hand and ...[stands] betwixt two churchmen”( III.vii.41-42) and thus uses a show of piety to mask his evil. While it’s difficult to claim Richard’s causing his country to fall into civil war makes him guilty of treason it certainly causes him to be considered one of the “sowers of dissension”(259).

Dante condemns in the ninth pouch of the Eighth Circle especially due to Dante placing “ Curio who was once audacious in his talk”(296) there as Curio similarly caused a civil war. Lastly, and most damningly, the key stratagem Richard uses to obtain the throne is simple fratricide, having assassins kill his brother Clarence, the death of whom indirectly kills his other brother Edward due to Edward’s grief weakening his already ill body. Not content with merely being Lord Protector, he also has Edward’s young sons and heirs murdered to cement his hold on the crown. For Dante, this betrayal of kinship, was one of the worst sins one could commit meriting the lowest circle of Hell and the furthest from God: Treason. In particular Dante would place Richard in Cainia with shades such as Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti who despite “ [coming] out of one body” (295) murdered one another as Richard did for political gain. Dante would condemn Richard for indulging in the worst and most societally harmful sins in both his rise to power and his reign.

Richard has often been described as Machiavellian due to his manipulation of those around him and his violent squashing of any challengers to his rule. After all Machiavelli does recommend in his treatise The Prince that the prince” Destroy all the families of the rulers he had despoiled “ ( Machiavelli 26) and “ There is nothing so important as to seem ... [to be kind and religious ]”(58) . With quotes people argue that Richard follows Machiavelli to the letter and thus Machiavelli would praise the fictional Richard’s reign as pragmatic and prudent with only a turn of fortune ending his reign . However , such an argument belies a superficial reading of Machiavelli, for he also says “We can say that cruelty is used well when it is employed once and for all and one’s safety depends on it ...Cruelty is badly used is that which ... rather than disappearing grows in intensity “(Machiavelli 32) With this statement alone it is possible to deconstruct Richard’s rule.

Firstly, Machiavelli advises to get all actions which may be deemed cruel over in one blow. Richard spreads out his murders, killing Clarence then massacring Queen Elizabeth’s relatives at Pomfret Castle then executing Lord Hasting before finally committing his most cruel act, the murder of the young princes to secure his reign, the exact opposite of what Machiavelli advises. Secondly is the caveat Machiavelli gives only use cruelty when one’s safety is threatened. Now safety can be interpreted two ways: the safety of one’s rule or the safety of one’s state. If we say that he means the safety as one’s rule, Richard as the last male heir had the throne until the prince’s came of age, he could have waited until the memory of the former cruelties faded to be rid of them, of course Machiavelli advises “ set men’s minds at rest and win them over” (32). If we say that safety means the safety of the prince’s state, Richard disregards that too as his harsh rule drives England to a civil war.

Lastly, as a example of how badly Richard uses cruelty, Machiavelli rails against mercenaries calling them”disunited ..and disloyal”(40) In order to maintain his soldiers loyalty ,Richard enacts further cruelties such as threatening the Lord Stanley with the death of his son,should he not fight in the upcoming battle. This last act of cruelty causes his supporters to desert en mass. As one bit of doggerel puts it” For Dickon..is bought and sold”(V.iii.304). In other words Richard’s cruelty causes his troops to act as a loyal as mercenaries. Needless to say Machiavelli would condemn Richard for his foolish and excessive use of cruelty.

While Martin Luther’s To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation is normally look at as a call for moral reform in the Catholic Church, rather than a text on leadership. Many of the vices Richard indulgences in to consolidate power during his reign are similar in nature to the ones that Luther criticized in the Catholic Clergy. One of the most common complaint is what he charges to be Roman Avarice writing” Now that Italy is sucked dry,the Romanists are coming into Germany..until.. Not a red cent [is ] left“ (Luther 28) and ”How is it that we Germans must put up with such robbery and extortion of our goods at the hands of the pope... They lay waste to our churches” ( 29). Such imagery of sac and spoil is also used in Richmond’s railing speech against Richard” That wretched, bloody and usurping boar, That spoil’d your summer fields and fruitful vines ...and makes his trough in your embowlled bosoms” (V.iii.8-9)

Luther’s attitude on office can also be applied to Richard’s reign “ [a] candidate comes along who who brings money or else has rendered service to the pope...The pope then gives [the position ]to him (40) . Similarly Richard offers Buckingham an additional dukedom if he helps Richard with his plots. Luther’s complaint about the Church’s handling of the Bohemian heresy has a parallel in Richard’s corrupt rule” We must admit that John Huss ...[was] burned ...against the papal, Christian and imperial oath and promise of safe conduct “ (87). Similarly to the Church, Richard also murders dissidents despite promises of safe passage: his in-laws at Pomfret Castle . However the most critical parallel Between Richard and the Church is their belief that they they are are above all other powers. As Luther says” [the church claims ] that the temporal power is above the “spiritual estate” and has no right to punish it” (15). Similarly Richard constantly invokes God and St. George to punish his enemies as God’s regent on Earth despite the fact he acts in an un-Christian manner. Luther would condemn Richard (in addition for the other moral sins he commits.) for his indulgences and abuses while he was in power. As well as for the belief that his position as king allows him to flout God’s laws.

Despite the fact that Dante, Machiavelli, and Luther come from different eras and different counties, different world views, put different emphasis on morality and focus on different aspects of leadership and their relationship to the state (the connection between moral and social decline, how one cultivates and maintains power and the cause for and the methods of moral reform in religion, respectively), they would all condemn Shakespeare’s Richard the Third for being grasping power hungry, indulgent and excessively cruel at the expense of his subjects and his state.