Richard III challenges notions of how history is created and presented. Shakespeare's play depicts the infamous Richard not only at odds with the other characters, but also striving for a different interpretation of history. Richard and Margaret function as two characters opposite each other as far as the story is concerned; Richard tries to cover up the past while Margaret tries to expose it. However, much of the creation and acceptance of the story relies on more common characters. In particular, the editor, a seemingly minor character, becomes a figure in his own right who creates the documentation of the story, consolidating the written version as truth. The Editor, charged with drafting the documents falsely accusing Hastings at Richard's request, approaches the audience in Act III, Scene 6 and laments his position of falsely creating a legal document interpreted as the truth and manifesting the complicated truth of history. The position of the editor as the figure responsible for the written truth is clearly opposed both to Richard's approach to history through his language and to the play as a whole – a figurative text with propagandistic interests in the Tudor line. The scrivener scene, focusing on documented history, exposes Richard's verbal tricks and the play's reliability as a historical document. While critics, notably Paige Martin Reynolds and Linda Charnes, have identified Richard and Margaret of Anjou as characters who engage with and distort history, lesser characters serve similar vital functions. Overall, Charnes and Reynolds contribute a lot to the conversation about the story in the text and are essential to this particular reading, but the level at which the editor as a character works contributes to...... middle of paper..... .g in their favor, and in the creation of the Hastings indictment, must create another "device" to place public opinion in the hands of the court (3. 6. 11 ). The public, however, knows that the bias is in place, illustrated by the questions the editor asks of the public. In the depiction of this character, the editor calls on the audience to recognize the author's control over historical narratives. The question remains what the public should think of this muddling of historical accounts. Should they attribute to this whole ordeal a lack of Derridanian truth? Should they posit historical significance outside the context of Richard III, relying only on finite historical texts that the editor questions? What remains to be addressed here is the question of meaning with characters who both create and challenge the very nature of truth in history and drama..