Requiem of the Rose King

Episode 6

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,/Old Time is still a-flying:/And this same flower that smiles to day,/To morrow will be dying. Although Robert Herrick wouldn't publish those lines in his poem “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” until 1648, nearly two hundred years after the events described in Requiem of the Rose King, there's a certain poignancy to his lines if we apply them to this story. (And yes, the first line actually is sourced from the Bible.) Everyone involved in the Wars of the Roses could be said to be gathering their rosebuds as quickly as they possibly can, all too aware of the fact that the “flower that smiles to day/To morrow will be dying.” Perhaps that's why Warwick is so keen on painting his white roses red – after all, he's not much of a kingmaker if the man he put on the throne is so foolish as to allow the crown to be lifted from his head.

The problem with this swift gathering of roses is that roses, as you may have heard, have thorns, and picking them without care can lead to blood being shed. While Warwick's rage at Edward marrying Elizabeth Woodville instead of Lady Bona is understandable from a political point of view, allowing his fury to override the fact that Edward is, in fact, king and therefore the highest authority in the land may not have been the move of a man dedicated to keeping his head. Though Warwick may be seen to be acting out of hubris instead of anger – he put Edward on the throne, so why shouldn't it be up to him to remove the man as well? And if he can manipulate George, Duke of Clarence, into helping with his dirty work, so much the better.

And there's definitely manipulation going on, although whether it's George or Edward, Prince of Wales, he's manipulating it's hard to say. (Probably both; Warwick seems to think that hedging his bets will keep him safe.) He's plainly trying to keep both men in his pocket, allowing George to marry Isabelle against King Edward's express wishes and also promising Anne to Prince Edward rather than to Richard. This will ensure that no matter which of the two men he plants on England's throne he'll have a fatherly relationship with, which is a perfect illustration of what it was like to be a noblewoman with an ambitious father back in the Medieval era. Daughters are uterus-wielding pawns for the betterment of their fathers' ambitions – or, as Richard demonstrates when he puts on a dress to escape the camp, simply prey for men to devour.

Even if Richard wasn't intersex, it's not hard to see why he would prefer to embrace his masculine attributes – life was not good for women, even those like Margaret or Elizabeth who manage to claim a little power for themselves. Margaret, as we see by her prostrating herself before the King of France, can only go so far under her own power, and Elizabeth is basically at the mercy of anyone who cares to go after her since she has not yet borne an heir for Edward. Her pregnancy both protects her on the York side and makes her a much more attractive target on the Lancaster side – and as Warwick says, pregnant women die so very easily.

The problem that no one except Buckingham is thinking about is Richard himself. Buckingham has his own reasons for deciding that Richard will be his king, but even had he not, the fact that Richard is on his radar at all makes him at least a little smarter than those around him. George and Edward could be forgiven for just thinking of Richard as their baby brother, but Warwick and Margaret ignore him at their peril. Richard possesses the only truly calculating mind among the cast, and that's backed up by fierce loyalty from Catesby and maybe even Buckingham – the sort of loyalty that none of the other Plantagenets enjoy, and that's not counting the devotion of Prince Edward and Henry as well. Richard is playing his own game – and it's the kind of thing that could trap both the life and conscience of a king if the others take too long to realize that he's even on the gameboard.

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Requiem of the Rose King is currently streaming on Funimation.