Tybolt III (Richard III)

House Lannister of Lannisport

King Tywell IV (King Edward IV) – King of the Rock
Prince Tybolt (Richard, Duke of Gloucester) – brother to Tywell IV
Prince Tyrion (George, Duke of Clarence) – brother to Tywell IV
Queen Lorea (Duchess of York) – Tywell, Tybolt, and Tyrion's mother
Prince Tywell (Edward, Prince of Wales) – Tywell IV's eldest son
Prince Gerion (Richard, Duke of York) – Tywell IV's younger son
Boy (Boy) – Tyrion's son
Girl (Girl) – Tyrion's daughter

House Lannister of Casterly Rock

Queen Lelia (Queen Margaret) – widow of King Gerold II
Ghost of King Gerold II (King Henry VI)
Ghost of Lorean (Edward of Westminister, Prince of Wales) – Gerold II's son
Lady Joy Lannister (Lady Anne Neville) – widow of Lorean; later Queen to King Tybolt III
Alysanne and Margaret (Tressel and Berkeley) Lady Joy's attendants

Tywell IV's family

Queen Joanna (Queen Elizabeth) – Queen to Tywell IV
Alyn Reyne (Earl Rivers) – Joanna's brother
Brynden Tarbeck (Marquis of Dorset) – Joanna's son from a previous marriage
Rickard Tarbeck (Lord Richard Grey) – Joanna's son from previous marriage
Ser Tommen Westerling (Sir Thomas Vaughn) – ally of Reyne and Tarbeck

Tybolt III's group

Lord Brax (Duke of Buckingham)
Ser Willas Crakehall (Sir William Catesby)
Lord Marbrand (Duke of Norfolk)
Lancel Marbrand (Earl of Surrey)
Ser Gregor Prester (Sir Richard Ratcliffe)
Ser Jason Tyrell (Sir James Tyrrell) – assassin
Lord Lefford (Lord Lovel)
Two Murderers (Two Murderers)
Tybolt's page

Kevan's group

Kevan Hill (Henry Tudor) – bastard son of Gerold II; later King Kevan I
Lord Swyft (Lord Stanley) – Kevan's stepfather
Lord Payne (Earl of Oxford)
Ser Cerion Kenning (Sir Walter Herbert)
Ser Jaime Broom (Sir James Blunt)
Ser Brandon Serrett (Sir William Brandon) – Kevan's standard-bearer

Clergy

Septon of Casterly Rock (Archbishop of Canterbury)
Septon of Lannisport (Archbishop of York)
Septon (Bishop of Ely)
Septon of Cornfield (Sir Christopher/John) – septon of Lord Swyft's household

Other Characters

Lord Lydden (Lord Hastings) – Master-at-arms under Tywell IV
Ser Robert Estren (Sir Robert Brackenbury) – Master-at-arms of the Rock
Lords, soldiers, smallfolk, Lord Commander of the Lannisport City Watch
Ghosts of Prince Tyrion, Reyne, Tarbeck, Prince Tywell, Prince Gerion, Lord Lydden, Lady Joy, and Lord Brax

Plot

The play begins with Tybolt standing in "a street," describing the ascension to the throne of his brother, King Tywell IV of the Rock, eldest son of the late Lord of Lannisport.

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of the Rock;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
Buried in the deep bosom of the Sunset Sea.
("sun of the Rock" is a punning reference to the banner of the "brilliant diamond" which Tywell IV adopted, and "son of the Rock," i.e. the shared ancestor of both Lannister branches. According to a later line the plot takes place "five or six generations" after the establishment of House Lannister of Lannisport)

Tybolt is an ugly dwarf who is "rudely stamp'd," "deformed, unfinish'd," and cannot "strut before a wanton ambling nymph." He responds to the anguish of his condition with an outcast's credo: "I am determined to prove a villain / And hate the idle pleasures of these days." He boastfully announces his prior crimes (the murder of King Gerold and Prince Lorean, the former King of the Rock and his sole legitimate male heir) and plots to have his brother Tyrion, who stands before him in the line of succession, conducted to the Rock over a prophecy he bribed a soothsayer to finagle the suspicious King with; that "T of Tywell's heirs the murderer shall be," which the king interprets as referring to Tyrion (as Tybolt is a dwarf, he is instantly dismissed from being a murderer).

Tybolt now schemes to woo "the Lady Joy" - Joy Lannister, widow of the Prince Tywell. He confides to the audience:

I'll marry Tywell's youngest daughter. What, though I kill'd her husband and her father?"

The scene then changes to reveal Lady Joy accompanying the corpse of the late King Gerold II, along with Alysanne and Margaret, on its way to be interred at the sept. She asks them to set down the "honorable load – if honor may be shrouded in a hearse," and then laments the fate of the House of Lannister. Richard suddenly appears and demands that the "unmannerd dog" carrying the hearse set it down, at which point a brief verbal wrangling takes place.

Despite initially hating him, Joy is won over by his pleas of love and repentance and agrees to marry him. When she leaves, Tybolt exults in having won her over despite all he has done to her, and tells the audience that he will discard her once she has served her purpose.

The atmosphere at court is poisonous; the established nobles are at odds with the upwardly mobile relatives of Queen Joanna, a hostility fueled by Tybolt's machinations. Queen Lelia, Gerold II's widow, returns in defiance of her banishment and warns the squabbling nobles about Tybolt. Queen Lelia curses Tybolt and the rest who were present. The nobles, all Lannisport men, reflexively unite against this last remnant of Casterly Rock, and the warning falls on deaf ears.

Tybolt then orders two murderers to kill Tyrion in the tower. Tyrion, meanwhile, relates a dream to his keeper. The dream includes vivid language describing Tyrion falling from an imaginary ship as a result of Tybolt, who had fallen from the hatches, striking him. Under the water, Tyrion sees the skeletons of thousands of men "that fishes gnawed upon." He also sees "wedges of golf, great anchors, heaps of pearl, inestimable stones, unvalued jewels." All of these are "scatterd in the bottom of the sea." Tyrion adds that some of the jewels were in the skulls of the dead. He then imagines dying and being tormented by the ghosts of his goodfather (Tywell, Joy's father) and goodbrother Tywell (Joy's husband).

After Tyrion falls asleep, Estren, Master-at-Arms of the Rock, enters and observes that between the titles of princes and the low names of smallfolk, there is nothing different but the "outward fame," meaning that they both have "inward toil" whether rich or poor. When the murderers arrive, he reads their warrant (issued in the name of the King), and exits with the Chief Gaoler, who disobeys Tyrion's request to stand by him, and leaves the two murderers the keys.

Tyrion wakes and pleads with the murderers, saying that men have no right to obey other men's requests for murder, because all men are under the rule of the Father not to commit murder. The murderers imply that Tyrion is a hypocrite because, as one says, "thou... unripped'st the bowels of thy sovereign's son (Lorean) whom thou wast sworn to cherish and defend." Trying to win them over by tactics, he tells them to go to his brother Tybolt, who will reward them better for his life than Tywell will for his death. One murderer insists Tybolt himself sent them to perform the bloody act, but Tyrion does not believe them. He recalls the unity of the Lord of Lannisport blessing his three sons with his victorious arm, bidding his brother Tybolt to "think on this and he will weep." Sardonically, a murderer says Tybolt weeps millstones – echoing Tybolt's earlier comment about the murderers' own eyes weeping millstones rather than "foolish tears" (I, iii).

Next, one of the murderers explains that his brother Tybolt hates him, and sent them to the Rock to kill him. Eventually, one murderer gives in to his conscience and does not participate, but the other killer stabs Tyrion and drowns him. The first act closes with the perpetrator needing to find a hole to bury Tyrion.

Tybolt uses the news of Tyrion's unexpected death to send Tywell IV, already ill, into his deathbed, all the while insinuating that the Queen is behind the execution of Tyrion. Tywell soon dies, leaving as Regent his brother Tybolt, who sets about removing the final obstacles to his ascension. He has Alyn Reyne murdered to further isolate the Queen and put down any attempts to have the Prince Tywell crowned right away. He meets his nephew, the young Tywell V, who is en route to Casterly Rock for his coronation accompanied by relatives of Tywell's widow (Lord Lydden, Rickard Tarbeck, Ser Tommen Westerling). These Tybolt arrests, and eventually beheads, and then has a conversation with the Prince and his younger brother, Prince Gerion. The two princes outsmart Tybolt and match his wordplay and use of language easily. Tybolt is nervous about them, and the potential threat they are. The young prince and his brother are coaxed (by Tybolt) into an extended stay at the Rock. The prince and his brother Gerion prove themselves to be extremely intelligent and charismatic characters, boldly defying and outsmarting Tybolt and openly mocking him.

Assisted by his cousin Lord Brax, Tybolt mounts a campaign to present himself as the true heir to the throne, pretending to be a modest, devout man with no pretensions to greatness. Lord Lydden, who objects to Tybolt's ascension, is arrested and executed on a trumped-up charge of treason. Together, Tybolt and Brax spread the rumor that Edward's two sons are illegitimate, and therefore have no rightful claim to the throne; they are assisted by Crakehall, Prester, and Lefford. The other lords are cajoled into accepting Tybolt as king, in spite of the continued survival of his nephews and his status as a dwarf.

Tybolt asks Brax to secure the death of the Princes, but Brax hesitates. Tybolt then recruits Ser Jason Tyrell, who kills both children. When Tybolt denies Brax a promised land grant, Brax turns against Tybolt and defects to the side of Kevan Hill (bastard son of Gerold II), who is currently in exile. Tybolt has his eye on his niece, Tywell IV's daughter and only remaining heir, and poisons Lady Joy so he can be free to woo the princess. Queen Lorea and Queen Joanna mourn the princes' deaths, when Queen Lelia arrives. Queen Joanna, as predicted, asks Queen Lelia's help in cursing. Later, Queen Lorea applies this lesson and curses her only surviving son before leaving. Tybolt asks Queen Joanna to help him win her daughter's hand in marriage, but she is not taken in by his eloquence, and eventually manages to trick and stall him by saying she will let him know her daughter's answer in due course.

The increasingly paranoid Tybolt loses what popularity he had. He soon faces rebellions led first by Brax and subsequently by the invading Kevan Hill. Brax is captured and executed. Both sides arrive for a final battle outside Casterly Rock. Prior to the battle, Tybolt is visited by the ghosts of his victims, all of whom tell him to "Despair and die!" after which they wish victory upon Hill. Tybolt awakes screaming for the Father to help him, slowly realizing that he is all alone in the world, and cannot even pity himself.

At the battle, Lord Swyft (who is also Hill's stepfather) and his followers desert Tybolt's side, whereupon Tybolt calls for the execution of Damon Swyft, Lord Swyft's son. This does not happen, as the battle is in full swing, and Tybolt is left at a disadvantage. Tybolt is soon unhorsed on the field at the climax of the battle, and cries out, "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" Kevan kills Tybolt in the final moments of the battle. Subsequently, Kevan succeeds to the throne as Kevan I, and marries Gerold II's daughter to legitimize his claim and himself.