macbeth was on the throne when macbeth was written.
who was on the throne when macbeth was written?
macbeth
when james became king of england, a feeling of uncertainty settled over the nation. james was a scottish king and the son of mary, queen of scots, a staunch catholic and english traitor. in the words of critic robert crawford, ""macbeth" was a play for a post-elizabethan england facing up to what it might mean to have a scottish king. england seems comparatively benign, while its northern neighbour is mired in a bloody, monarch-killing past. ... "macbeth" may have been set in medieval scotland, but it was filled with material of interest to england and england's ruler." critics argue that the content of the play is clearly a message to james, the new scottish king of england. likewise, the critic andrew hadfield noted the contrast the play draws between the saintly king edward the confessor of england who has the power of the royal touch to cure scrofula and whose realm is portrayed as peaceful and prosperous vs. the bloody chaos of scotland. james in his 1598 book "the trew law of free monarchies" had asserted that kings are always right, if not just, and his subjects owe him total loyalty at all times, writing that even if a king is a tyrant, his subjects must never rebel and just endure his tyranny for their own good. james had argued that the tyranny was preferable to the problems caused by rebellion which were even worse; shakespeare by contrast in "macbeth" argued for the right of the subjects to overthrow a tyrant king, in what appeared to be an implied criticism of james's theories if applied to england. hadfield also noted a curious aspect of the play in that it implies that primogeniture is the norm in scotland, but duncan has to nominate his son malcolm to be his successor while macbeth is accepted without protest by the scottish lairds as their king despite being an usurper. hadfield argued this aspect of the play with the thanes apparently choosing their king was a reference to the stuart claim to the english throne, and the attempts of the english parliament to block the succession of james's catholic mother, mary, queen of scots, from succeeding to the english throne. hadfield argued that shakespeare implied that james was indeed the rightful king of england, but owned his throne not to divine favour as james would have it, but rather due to the willingness of the english parliament to accept the protestant son of the catholic mary, queen of scots, as their king.
macbeth
no medieval account of the reign of macbeth mentions the weird sisters, banquo, or lady macbeth, and with the exception of the latter none actually existed. the characters of banquo, the weird sisters, and lady macbeth were first mentioned in 1527 by a scottish historian hector boece in his book "historia gentis scotorum" ("history of the scottish people") who wanted to denigrate macbeth in order to strengthen the claim of the house of stewart to the scottish throne. boece portrayed banquo as an ancestor of the stewart kings of scotland, adding in a "prophecy" that the descendants of banquo would be the rightful kings of scotland while the weird sisters served to give a picture of king macbeth as gaining the throne via dark supernatural forces. macbeth did have a wife, but it is not clear if she was as power-hungry and ambitious as boece portrayed her, which served his purpose of having even macbeth realise he lacked a proper claim to the throne, and only took it at the urging of his wife. holinshed accepted boece's version of macbeth's reign at face value and included it in his "chronicles". shakespeare saw the dramatic possibilities in the story as related by holinshed, and used it as the basis for the play.
macbeth