Beyond+the+Text+-+Macbeth+Background

__Shakespeare’s Macbeth (Play History and parallels) __ Shakespeare presented them as evil personified – and Elizabethans would have understood this too. Malcolm discusses the Kingly aspects needed to make a King humble and wise. (Information summarized from teaching notes ‘Macbeth’ by William Shakespeare publisher unknown)
 * Written 1606. To show what might happen if a king were to be murdered. His play would have embodied the worries and fears of the English people at the time. (Queen Elizabeth had died in 1603 after a long, peaceful reign)
 * Shakespeare took the basic story of Macbeth from Raphael Holinshead’s Chronicles of England published in 1577. He changed and simplified the material to suit his purpose.
 * The real Macbeth had ruled Scotland from 1040 to 1057 and for much of that time had been a good and just king.
 * King James of England believed in witches and wrote a treatise on Demonology. A coven of witches had once tried o upset his ship as he had been travelling to Denmark to marry Christian’s sister, Ann. One of the witches Agnes Seaton had confessed to this in court.
 * In 1604 an act was passed in parliament making witchcraft a capital offence.
 * Predestination – are our lives predetermined – was a current theme of the time that King James and his court would have enjoyed. ‘If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me without my stir.”
 * In a later scene a truth King James would have liked the nagging question Macbeth asks the witches “shall Banquo’s issue ever reign in this kingdom.” The witches show the last of Banquo’s descendents carrying two orbs and a sceptre.(This was King James himself – the two orbs symbolised the uniting of England and Scotland. King James used three sceptres at his coronation. Shakespeare knew this as he had marched as one of the King’s Men in his coronation.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Shakespeare strongly upheld the divine authority of the king in Macbeth.