Anne Neville is the widow of Edward of Westminster (the son of Queen Margaret and the previous king Henry VI). She mourns the death of her husband and her father-in-law, both of whom were killed by Richard, during Act 1 Scene 2, cursing Richard as well as his future wife and any of his prospective children to suffer a terrible fate. This is ironic as she is unknowingly cursing herself, as she will become Richard’s wife later in the play. When Richard interrupts her lamentation, Anne launches into a tirade of insults, demonstrating how much she despises him and further reinforcing Shakespeare’s villainous depiction of Richard. Richard and Anne engage in a stichomythic war of words, where Richard responds to Anne’s hateful phrases such as “mortal poison for thy sake” with clever retorts that flatter her such as “never came poison from so sweet a place.” In this sense, Shakespeare uses Anne to illustrate how much skill Richard has over language and manipulation as she is wooed by Richard’s seductive wordplay and marries the man who killed her husband and her father-in-law.
