Tyrrell is the person who Richard hires to murder the two princes in the Tower. After he is given the task, Tyrrell then hires two of his own men, Dighton and Forrest, to carry out the actual killing. He is sycophantic and behaves obsequiously towards Richard for personal gain, acquiring favour and reward from the king by doing the clandestine job he was given. However, he is also an indirect tool which Shakespeare uses to promote the Tudor Myth when he describes the murder of the princes as “the most arch deed of piteous massacre / that ever yet this land was guilty of” and recounts how Dighton and Forrest were plagued by overwhelming conscience after slaughtering such innocent children. This is all part of Shakespeare’s plan to vilify Richard by attributing such a heinous crime to him.
