Standing the Hazard of the Die
Cowards Risk Nothing

ELIZABETH GEORGE
Mar 27, 2026

If you were to ask those who know me well to name my favorite character in the plays of William Shakespeare, you would probably receive the same answer: Richard, Duke of Gloucester, ultimately Richard III. While so many things have faded from my memory over the years, what hasn’t faded is the first time I saw Richard III on stage in the late 1960s. The place was Los Gatos, California, in a theatre located in an old mission-style building where hippies threw pots upstairs and, in the summer, actors performed Shakespeare below. I distinctly remember how the play began: with the eponymous actor in silhouette in various poses while above him identifying characteristics appeared: Hero in War was one. Villain in Peace was another. And as the play unfolded, I first became aware of Shakespeare’s most diabolical villain and England’s most controversial king.

Shakespeare depicted Richard as unrepentant and irredeemable, a man who could as easily order a minion to “give out that Anne my wife is like to die” as he could swat a fly. He could order the deaths of his two nephews in one moment and offer himself in marriage to their sister in the next. He could help orchestrate the death of his brother George, Duke of Clarence, and arrange the execution—unshriven—of his old friend Hastings. When he meets his own death on the field of battle at the hands of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, it seems to the audience that the deformed “bunch-backed toad” of Margaret of Anjou’s declaration has met an end that indeed reflects the horrors of his accension to the throne and his time as England’s ruler.

But here’s the rub of it all: When Shakespeare wrote his play, the monarch was Elizabeth I, the granddaughter of Henry VII, previously known as that very same Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. Knowing what side of his crumpet bore the butter, Shakespeare was not about to depict Elizabeth I’s grandfather in anything other than an heroic light: the savior of England. For centuries in people’s minds, then, Richard III was the foul youngest brother of Edward IV, the Yorkist king. He was supposedly born with a full set of teeth, self-described as “deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time/into this breathing world scarce half made up” and as such he lived in people’s minds for 500 years, until his remains were found and his only “deformity” turned out to be scoliosis. Prior to that discovery, his image as England’s prime murderous monarch had already been challenged by historians, scholars, and thousands of people who became known as “Ricardian Apologists.”

I loved teaching this play because I loved looking at both sides of Richard’s story with my students. On the one hand we had Shakespeare’s Richard, who was scheming, betraying, and slaying his way into power. On the other hand we had the Richard who commanded the armies of England when he was 19 years old, who was fair-minded and beloved by the inhabitants of Yorkshire where he and his wife lived, who loyally served his brother the King both in battle and at court, who was deeply religious, and who—according to the laws of Church and State at the time—was supposed to be the anointed monarch upon the death of the King he’d served.

When Shakespeare decided to write about this figure from history, more than 100 years had passed since Richard’s death. There were few contemporaneous accounts of Richard’s time on the throne. Those that did exist were fragmentary at best, politically charged and biased at worst. So Shakespeare chose a depiction of Richard that was engaging to watch on stage and film (Laurence Olivier’s version makes Richard particularly worthy of a dreadful death) but not necessarily reliable with regard to the nature of the real man.

Yet even Shakespeare’s Richard has his moments, and it’s one of those moments in the play that I would like to look at: the events of the Battle of Bosworth Field, where Richard dies at the hands of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond.

In the scenes depicting the battle, there’s a thrilling moment in which one of Richard’s attendants suggests that he leave the field and, essentially, live to fight another day. For at this point, Richard is about to be betrayed by Lord Stanley who has so far refused to bring his troops into the battle despite being ordered to do so. Richard’s alliances with other nobles are being shredded as well. But rather than leave the field, Richard decides that he will not retreat, that whatever is going to be decided about the monarchy will be decided on this day. He says the following:
Slave, I have set my life upon a cast/ And I will stand the hazard of the die. (These are among my favorite lines in all of Shakespeare’s plays). He compares what’s happening to a throw of the dice. He says he is prepared to accept the result of his decision: I will stand the hazard of the die.

With his personal contingent of knights, then, he storms across the battlefield toward Henry Tudor. Shakespeare depicts this encounter as hand-to-hand combat between the two men with Henry emerging triumphant. The reality is that Henry Tudor was untested in battle. He knew he was no match for the man who had commanded the armies of England from the time he was a teenager. So Henry hid in the midst of armed combatants. In an attempt to fool the opposing army, he also sent into the field other soldiers dressed like him. He wanted to be king, but he did not want to fight for the throne. For him to become Henry VII, someone was going to have to hand him the crown. The traitorous Lord Stanley was only too happy to do the honors.

The idea of “standing the hazard of the die” exists no longer. It especially exists no longer in America as we see and experience political leadership today. There is no sterling example among our leaders of taking upon their individual shoulders the weight of decisions they themselves have made. And because of this, there is nothing within them for us to emulate or admire. Not one of them is a Richard putting his life on the line because he believes in something greater than himself. Least of all is our current president such a man. Our current president is a Henry Tudor, cowering behind others for protection. He is a pitiful man waiting for someone to rescue him from facing the consequences of his own decisions.

And this is our national tragedy, being played out on the world stage. In the guise of Leader of the Free World, we have as president a man who believes in nothing and, thus, would die for nothing. That he would see every one of us perish before he would risk a single hair on his head to save us is a fact that we must somehow endure and through which we must attempt to live, hoping that on the other side of this nightmare period which we’re experiencing is an individual who knows what it means to stand the hazard of the die and is willing to do it.

© 2026 Elizabeth George
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104