ANGLICA SANTI

DNI: 20029315
UNSAM Subject: English Literature I
Lecturers: Dra. Gabriela Leighton
Lic. Patricia Moglia

Occasional
Macbeth: King
James and
Witchcraft
 Table of Contents

Page

Introduction...2

I. Macbeth the Legend...4

II. King Jamess Daemonologie ..6
III. Witchcraft in Macbeth........9

Conclusion...16

Notes..18

Works Cited..22

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Introduction

In Shakespearean Tragedy, A.C. Bradley claims that Macbeth is distinguished

by its grandeur in simplicity. The two great figures indeed can hardly be called simple

but in almost every other respect the tragedy has this quality. Its plot is quite plain.

(163) He also reflects that the shortness of the play has suggested to some, that

Shakespeare was hurried and, throwing all his weight on the principal characters, did

not exert himself in dealing with the rest. (163)

This brings up to the question of whether Macbeth can be called an occasional

play, that is to say, it was written on the occasion of some important event. Provided

that is the case, it can also be said that the play is occasional in two senses. First,

because it is said that Shakespeare would have never written on a Scottish subject if a

Scottish king had not came to the throne. Second, and more specifically, some

scholars believe that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth as a homage to King James on the

occasion of King Christian VI of Denmarks visit to his brother in law from July 17th to

August 11th, 1606. Such royal visit included many dramatic performances as well as

bear-baiting and demonstrations of fencing and wrestling. Although it was unusual for a

theatre play to be premiered at court or written for a specific royal presentation,

economic necessity due to the closing of theatre because of the plague, might have led

Shakespeares company, The Kings Men to present Macbeth there first.1

Only hypothesis and circumstantial evidence join Macbeth with either James

accession or Christians visit, yet it is the purpose of this monograph to present some of

these evidence in order to establish a relationship between the plays structure,

narrative, themes, imagery and language and the influences of James and of James's

interests in Shakespeares writing of Macbeth as well as to expose some political or

personal benefits Shakespeare might have aspired to obtain as a result of its writing. I

will resort to Donald Tyson, The Demonology of King James I; Jan Kott, Shakespeare,

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Our Contemporary and A.C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy as main sources of

theoretical background. I will divide the analysis in three main parts: (I) the facts around

Macbeth, the legend; (II) a brief comment on the most relevant ideas in King Jamess

book, Daemonologie and; (III) a more detailed description of the role the Witches play

in the tragedy.

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 I. Macbeth the Legend

Before Macbeth, English dramatists always depicted Scotsmen as a comical,

dangerous and barbaric people. The historic Franco-Scottish alliance made these two

countries seem likely to take advantage of any English internal dissension at that time.

Some surviving documents tell the dark tale that surrounded this ancient rivalry. At the

beginning of Holinsheds Chronicles there is a Description of Britaine by William

Harrisons that comment on the Scots in chapter 4 2 portraying them as cannibalistic

and violent. It is also said that both the English and the Lowland Scots considered

Highlanders, dwellers of the parts of Scotland where Macbeth takes place, especially

savage and uncivilized. King James VI himself, following these views, cautioned his

infant son Prince Henry about the Highlands in Basilikon Doron, and advised him on

how he should deal roughly with Highlanders when he became the king 3. What is most

contradictory is that it was the same James that claimed to believe that he descended

from one Banquo, Thane of Lochaber in the eleventh century when Scotlands king was

Macbeth.4

In Macbeth: King James's Play, George Walton Williams explains that also in

Holinsheds Chronicles, there is a story of a Scottish thane Mackbeth, who killed his

King Duncane, became king himself, and was eventually destroyed by the old king's

son Malcolme Cammore. He continues explaining that in the legend of Mackbeth,

Shakespeare found also references to Banquho, the Thane of Lochquhaber,

Mackbeth's friend, who gathered the finances due to the king. Banquho, Shakespeare

discovered, had been with Mackbeth when he met the three women in strange and wild

apparel; they had prophesied that of Banquho those shall be borne which shall

governe the Scotish kingdome by long order of continuall descent." 5 He learned that

Mackbeth killed Banquho, but that Banquho's son, "by the helpe of almightie God

reserving him to better fortune, escaped that danger," and that his descendants did

4
indeed come after many generations to govern Scotland "by long order of continuall

descent."6 Two parallel fables derive from the legend: Macbeth kills Duncan and his

descendant returns immediately to claim the throne; Macbeth kills Banquo and his

descendant returns after many generations to claim the throne.

Regarding this as a first connection to the significance of Macbeth as an

occasional play, I will use as a starting point of discussion what A.C. Bradley states in

Shakespearean Tragedy, when responding to a doubt about the exact date of

Macbeths appearance. Bradley resorts to a comparison of metric and style in

Shakespeares work. the date is not earlier than that of the accession of James I. in

1603. The style and versification would make an earlier date almost impossible. (222)

He continues his paralleling by relating now to the second point of reference to the

occasional play, which deals with themes, topics and motifs of the play:

the allusions to 'twofold balls and treble sceptres' the descent of Scottish kings

from Banquo; the description of touching for the King's Evil ; and the dramatic use

of witchcraft, a matter on which James considered himself an authority. (222)

Also related to the stereotypes about Scotsmen that impregnated the context in

which Shakespeare might have written the play, Bradley explains that in many parts of

Macbeth there is in the language a peculiar compression, pregnancy, energy, even

violence; the harmonious grace and even flow, often conspicuous in Hamlet, have

almost disappeared. Highlanders depictions of the time, as it has been described

before, might have inspired Shakespeare to create cruel characters [who] seem to

attain at times an almost superhuman stature. The diction has in places a huge and

rugged grandeur, which degenerates here and there into tumidity. (140)

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 II. King Jamess Daemonologie7

Historians have long attempted to explain why and how the European witch

craze that spread around Europe between the 15th and 18th century took such strong

force. One of the most active centres of witch-hunting was Scotland, where up to 4,000

people were put to the flames. This was more than double the execution rate in

England. The ferocity of the Scottish persecutions could be attributed to royal witch-

hunter James VI and I and his obsession with witchcraft, which could be traced back to

his childhood. The violent death of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, seems to have

inspired in him a dark fascination with magic. Two years after Marys execution, another

dramatic event deepened Jamess growing obsession with magic and witchcraft. In

1589 he was betrothed to Anne of Denmark, but she almost lost her life in a violent

tempest when she set sail across the North Sea to meet her new husband. In an

unexpected display of chivalry, James resolved to sail across to Denmark and collect

her in person. But on their return voyage the royal fleet was battered by more storms

and one of the ships was lost. James immediately placed the blame on witches,

claiming that they must have cast evil spells upon his fleet. As soon as he reached

Scottish shores, James ordered a witch-hunt on a scale never seen before, an event

that came to be known as the North Berwick trials. After they ended, James

commissioned Newes from Scotland, a pamphlet that transmitted the whole saga in

shocking language aimed at intensifying popular fear of witches.

But he did not stop there. With all the force of his passion, James set about

convincing his subjects of the evil that lay among them. Daemonologie was published

in 1597 and made James the only monarch in history to publish a book about

witchcraft. Daemonologie (literally, the science of demons) was the result of a detailed

work on Jamess part that might have taken years to complete. It became so influential

that during the first year of his reign, Daemonologie was reprinted twice.8

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 In his book, The Demonology of King James I, Donald Tyson states that James

compensated with keenness of intellect the weakness of his body (1). Tyson also

adds that James was a strong believer in the supernatural but did not recognize what

was sometimes termed as "white magic. For him, the use of herbs and stones was a

matter of medicine and science. For James, there was the power of God, on the one

hand and the power of Satan on the other. Tyson claims that The supernatural must

have terrified him at least as much as the political intimidations used by his Scottish

nobles. (5) The purpose of his book, according to Tyson, was to increase the

persecution of witches in Scotland and England. As strong was his belief that shortly

after assuming the English throne in 1603, James ordered a new edition of his book to

be published in London so that he could expand his battle against witchcraft to

England. A year after his coronation, James succeeded and a new statute was

approved that included harder punishments for witches and practitioners of magic. The

statute of James made it a crime punishable by hanging to: (1) invoke , consult,

covenant with, entertain, employ, feed, or reward any evil spirit for any purpose, (2)

take any dead body, or any part of a dead body, for use in any witchcraft, sorcery,

charm, or enchantment, (3) practice any form of witchcraft, enchantment, charm, or

sorcery in which any person is killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined, or lamed in

the body, or any part of the body and, (4) aid, abet, or counsel others in any of the

above acts. The punishment for witchcraft in England was hanging, the same as for

other more common felonies such as murder. In Scotland, witchcraft was punished by

burning, but the custom was to strangle the condemned witch at the stake before

lighting the fire, and in this way to lessen the suffering of the witch.

In Book I, Chapter III, James explains the difference between necromancy and

witchcraft. The character Philomathes asks What difference is there between this art

and witchcraft? (67) To what Epistemon answers the witches are servants only,

and slaves, to the Devil, but the necromancers are his masters and commanders. (68)

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But setting this difference between masters and servants, he then adds that any of

those men specially addicted to the Devils service can, on the other part obtain the

fruition of their body and soul, which is the only thing he hunts for. (68) Further on,

about the effect and secrets of necromancy, he explains that there are two sorts of folk

... enticed to this art For diverse men, having attained to a great perfection in

learning ... assay to vindicate unto them a greater name to claim to the knowledge of

things to come thereby. (68-69).

Details about witchcraft are developed in Book II, Chapter III of the treatise.

James deals with the witches ' actions, which might be divided into two parts: the

actions proper to their own persons and their actions towards others. He also talks

about the form of their conventions when adoring their master. James even explains

that the Devil himself in person teaches his disciples how to work all kinds of mischief

and where to carry them out: ... often times makes his slaves to convene in these very

places which are destined ... for the convening of the servants of God and witches

oftentimes confess .... His convening in the church with them, but his occupying of the

pulpit; ... to be the kissing of his hinder parts. (117) As regards the witches actions

used toward others, the character Epistemon illuminates Philomathes by explaining

that the Devil teaches them to make powders by mixing things he gives unto them, to

some others he teaches how to make pictures of wax or clay, to cause in the people

that they bear the name of be continually melted or dried away by continual sickness.

To some he gives stones or powders that will help to cure or cast on diseases. And,

finally, to some others, he teaches rare kinds of rude poisons that cannot be

understood by regular doctors, and can only be cured by by earnest prayer to God, by

amendment of their lives, and by sharply pursuing every one, according to his calling,

of these instruments of Satan, whose punishment to the death will be a salutary

sacrifice for the patient. (132)

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 III. All these being said, there seems to be no doubt as to why witch-hunting

was a respectable, moral, and highly intellectual pursuit through much of the

fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.9 Witchcraft in Macbeth

In Shakespeares England, belief in witchcraft, magic and the supernatural was

not limited to the lower or uneducated classes. Macbeth is a powerful man of high

estate, and though at times he questions the validity of the three witches and their

prophecies, he ultimately accepts the potential of witchcraft and magic. One of Queen

Elizabeths courtiers, Sir Walter Raleigh, described witches as women controlled by the

Devil. Others, such as Reginald Scot, author of The Discoverie of Witchcraft, were far

more skeptical. He argued against the existence of supernatural witchcraft and claimed

that some accused witches were women with mental illnesses while others may have

been scam artists. Indeed, at the height of the witchcraft trials almost all of those

accused were women, and many of them poor or economically vulnerable who, like the

witches of Macbeth, might beg their neighbours for something to eat. But unlike the

stage witches, who, in Act 4, Scene 1, truly can conjure powerful magic, while some of

those accused were convinced they were able to do so, ability to perform such magic

was only on stage.10 The play opens with the entrance of the three witches surrounded

by inclement weather; they speak of thunder, lightning, fog and filthy air. Bradley

explains that the Witches dance in the thick air of a storm, or, 'black and midnight

hags,' receive Macbeth in a cavern. (140) Thunder and lightning, as well as other

types of meteors, were associated to witches doings, as King James explains in his

treatise Daemonologie. (130) It might be inferred then that Shakespeare creates a

chaotic atmosphere to introduce the Weird sisters so as to match the ones that James

portray in the second Book of the mentioned treatise, more specifically, in Chapter V. 11

Even their words seem to contradict each other for this purpose: Fair is foul, and foul

is fair,/ Hover through the fog and filthy air (I.i.12-13). Everything is not what it seems.

Everything is baffling, unclear, and foggy. It seems that this is the moment of the

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engagement of the action. The meetings of the witches with Macbeth and with Banquo

seem to convey that Shakespeare wishes to tell two legends. The meeting of the

witches with Macbeth is first in time and of fundamental importance to the play,

although secondary in importance to history; the meeting of the witches with Banquo is

second in time, minor in importance to the play, and basal in importance to history. The

witches prophecies define both meetings, the prophecies to Macbeth are followed by

an immediate reaction; but those to Banquo result in no instant reaction. These first

scenes might have had a huge impact on a society that believed in witchcraft, as it was

explained before, where witches are seen as scary creatures, casting evil spells, and

plunging people into turmoil with mysterious predictions of the future. Even the three

apparitions from the cauldron seem to derive directly from the story of Mackbeth in the

Chronicles. Their divinations are also detailed there, from "certeine wizzards" and "a

certeine witch, whome hee had in great trust," and whom Mackbeth consulted on

several occasions. Shakespeare seems to have inspired in the manifestations that the

three of them take and uses them in his own Macbeth: the armed head, the bloody

babe, and the crowned child.12 In his book Shakespeare, Our Contemporary, Polish

literary critic Jan Kott states that the witches in Macbeth are part of the landscape and

squeak at crossroads to incite to murder. Adding to the hectic atmosphere, he writes:

The earth shivers as if in fever, a falcon has been pecked to death in flight by an owl,

horses break out of enclosures in a mad rush, fighting and biting one another. (63)

Describing chaos all around, Kott characterizes Macbeths world after the

encounter with the witches as loveless, poisoned with the thought of murder. Even

language resembles that of the existentialists. Macbeth states: and nothing is / But

what is not (I.iii.142-143). Highlighting the ambiguous nature of the verb be

Macbeths world revolves in a constant contradiction between existence and essence,

being for itself and being in itself.

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 As it was said before, Macbeth's reactions to the prophecies is instantaneous

and the attention of the audience very properly fixes on them. Following the rule that a

prophecy voiced on stage must be fulfilled in the play, the prophecy that Macbeth shall

be king is achieved and depicted in the ceremonial royal banquet in Act III, just in the

middle of the play, being this scene structurally coherent to the beginning of Macbeth

and in consequence, to the beginning of the story of this tragic hero. The prophecy that

Banquo will get kings is fulfilled and displayed in Act IV, during the pageant of the eight

kings, being again the scene that coheres structurally to the beginning of the story of

Banquo. As it was explained previously, witches have been described variously in the

course of history, even by King James himself. In Macbeth, Banquo describes them as

creatures so withered and so wild in their attire, / that look not like th'inhabitants o' th'

earth, / and yet are ont? (I.iii.38-40) He judges their appearance as unusual, strange.

It is not fortuitous then that Shakespeare's witches have no names: they are referred to

as the 'Weird Sisters'. Delving up more on the word 'Weird'- or to be precise, 'Werd',

with a dieresis on the i, which probably indicates how the word was pronounced, is also

spelled 'weyard'. It comes from the Old English word 'wyrd', Middle English 'werd',

which means 'fate'.13 Bradley also expands on Shakespeares use of language to

enrich the witchcraft related imagery of the play and its crafty metaphors. As it was

mentioned in the previous paragraphs, witches meet in an eerie environment. He

explains that darkness, or more precisely, the blackness, flocks around this tragedy.

Almost all the scenes take place either at night or in some dark locale. Bradley explains

that the blackness of night is to the hero a thing of fear, even of horror; and that which

he feels becomes the spirit of the play. (140) Many events occur at twilight or at the

hour when light thickens, / And the crow makes wing to throoky wood (III.ii.51-52)

The naming of the crow is also a direct reference to witches and an undeniable

association to witchcraft. Shakespeare, through Macbeth, continues with the

metaphorical spell: whiles night's black agents to their prey do rouse (III.ii.53)

11
referring to the moment when the wolf begins to howl, the owl to scream and murder

slowly and quietly sets to his work. Lady Macbeth also calls:

Come, thick night, / And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, / That my keen knife

see not the wound it makes, /Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, (I.v.48-

51)

By comparing the dark to a blanket, Lady Macbeth seems to be relying on these evil

elements as her allies to commit the crime her husband and herself were plotting.

Bradley also comments on these ghostly use of blankness and darkness, which he

claims are the lights and colours of the thunderstorm in the first scene; of the dagger

hanging before Macbeth's eyes and glittering alone in the midnight air; of the torch

borne by the servant when he and his lord come upon Banquo crossing the

castlecourt to his room; of the torch, again, which Fleance carried to light his father to

death, and which was dashed out by one of the murderers; of the torches that flared in

the hall on the face of the Ghost and the blanched cheeks of Macbeth; of the flames

beneath the boiling caldron from which the apparitions in the cavern rose; of the taper

which showed to the Doctor and Gentlewoman the wasted face and blank eyes of Lady

Macbeth.

Furthermore, Bradley explains that, above all, the colour is the colour of blood.

It should not be forgotten that blood is a key element in witchcraft and Shakespeare

might have been willing to account for that. It is not by accident that the image of blood

is imposed on us continually, not merely by the events themselves, but by

Shakespeares full descriptions and reiteration of the word in unlikely parts of the

dialogue. As when Macbeth is plotting with Lady Macbeth the murder of Duncan, when

we have markd with blood those sleepy two. (I.vii.75) Shakespeare seems to be

making reference to a Jacobean court custom, by which appointed members of the

bedchamber attended the kings personal needs. Or in Macbeths soliloquy regarding

the spotting of a dagger that could be the tool for performing the criminal deed:

12
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, / Which was not so before. Theres no

such thing; / It is the bloody business which informs / Thus to mine eyes. (II.i.46-48)

Shakespeares overuse of the word blood might become an important device for setting

the tone around the events to come. But, undoubtedly, the most horrible lines in the

whole tragedy are those of Lady Macbeths clamour: Yet who would have thought the

old man to have had so much blood in him? (V.i.4-35) Lady Macbeths flat, almost

disinterested phrasing might suggest despair, guilt as well as helplessness.

Although most modern readers would agree that Duncan's murder is directly linked to

Macbeth's ambition together with the pressure placed on him by Lady Macbeth,

Jacobean audiences would have had a much different view, relating it directly to the

powers of darkness. It seems probable that at the point of constructing the play

Shakespeare altered the sources in order to adapt it to this deep and prevalent belief in

the occult and King Jamess interests. In Chronicles, Holinsheds sisters are creatures

of the elderwood ... nymphs or fairies. (268) Nymphs are generally regarded as

goddesses of the mountains, forests, or waters, and they possess a great deal of

beauty. And similarly, fairies are defined as enchantresses, commonly taking a small

and dainty human form.14 Holinsheds illustration of the creatures Macbeth encounters

is nothing like the depiction Shakespeare gives us through Banquo: by each at once

her choppy finger laying / Upon her skinny lips: you should be women, / And yet your

beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so. (I.iii.42-44) Shakespeare transforms

the weird sisters into ugly, androgynous harpies, and they take on a more sinister role

than was assigned to them in Holinsheds Chronicles. Shakespeares sisters are far

more theatrically captivating than the nymphs found in Holinsheds text.

Apart from the Weird Sisters, which, as it has been said previously, have no

name, Shakespeare presents us readers to Hecate; she is the only witch with a name:

... witchcraft celebrates / Pale Hecate's off'rings (II.I.52). Hecate is the Goddess of

13
classical and medieval witchcraft and sorcery; she can be traced back to Greek

mythology. In Shakespeares plays Hecate seems to personify the supernatural and

especially in this part of the play, in which Macbeth is about to perform the bloody

deed. Her name also appears in other parts of the play to picture a dark and sinister

atmosphere:

...ere the bat hath flown / His cloistered flight, ere to black Hecate's summons / The

shard-born beetle / there shall be done / A deed of dreadful note (III.ii.41/ 44).

It seems that in Macbeth, Act III, scene V, Hecates appearances might serve to

display hierarchy in the realms of witchcraft because she scolds the Weird Sisters for

not consulting her in their trading with Macbeth, and for wasting their energy on such a

'wayward son', who only 'loves for his own ends'. 15 The number three is also related to

Hecate, as she is a Greek Goddess with three heads, symbolizing the three worlds in

which she can manifest herself: the underworld, the earth and the air. The number

'three' and its multiples is important in later witchcraft tales: in Macbeth there are three

weird sisters, and their charms are affected by thrice and nine: Thrice to thine, and

thrice to mine, / And thrice again, to make up nine. / Peace! - the charm's wound

up.(I.iii.35/ 37).

Even though, as it was stated before, the witches first meet Macbeth in foul

weather, on a dismal, lonely moor, it seems that they have chosen the right moment,

for Macbeth is in a triumphant mood after the successes in battle. The society

Shakespeare pictures, Scotland in the 11th century, is full of conflict and tyranny;

kingship is not a safe position, fighting and killing to get to the throne is not uncommon.

Macbeth cannot resist the thought of himself as king and is immediately bewitched by

the suggestion of the witches, who are using their magic power to predict his future.

Their speech is choreographed and they speak as if in one voice; as if their message to

Macbeth is written down somewhere. This makes their language very powerful. We do

not know if at this point he already considers murdering the king, but the witches'

14
predictions are excellently timed to echo his innermost desires. Banquo is not half as

impressed; he notices that Macbeth starts and is 'rapt withal'. He cannot quite

understand why, he thinks the prospect of being a king is 'fair': Good Sir, why do you

start, and seem to fear / Things that do sound so fair? (I.iii.49-50). At this point,

Macbeths mind is tormented by the witches riddles. Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell

me more (I.iii.68), is his imploring pledge to them. But they leave him unanswered.

And even though the witches have disturbed him, Macbeth does not blame them for his

desire to commit such a murderous endeavour and he visits them again on his own

accord. Again they, or better, their apparitions, seem to foreshadow what lies ahead in

Macbeth's future, as it can be seen in these three instances: Macbeth, Macbeth,

Macbeth: beware Macduff, / Beware the Thane of Fife. (IV.i.70-71), for none of

woman born / Shall harm Macbeth. (IV.i.80/81) and Macbeth shall never vanquished

be until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him. (IV.i.91-

93).

Feeling lonely, haunted by the ghost of his best friend and tormented by guilt of his
fiendish actions, Macbeth longs for support and he dubiously obtains it from the
witches. They know the mans deepest aspirations and his need for encouragement
and preservation so they proceed to play with it. Furthermore, they believe in them, and
in the sense of invulnerability they instill in them. He asks Then live, Macduff, what
need I fear of thee? (IV.i.82). He feels confident to fulfill his bloody task yet the Third
apparition admonishing forces him to reinforce that confidence: That will never be:
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree / Unfix his earthbound root? (IV.i.94-95).16
Conclusion

All things considered, it cannot be not be disputed that when the ghost of blood-

boltered Banquo smiles as the eight kings pageant and points to them, he is indicating

a series of actual personages of recent history whom the Jacobean audience would

have recognized on stage, the Stuart dynasty. And so it is their alleged ancestor

Banquo whom the kings resemble as they pass in succession, not their ancestor

Duncan. And so it is their alleged ancestor Banquo who returns as a ghost at the

banquet, not their ancestor Duncan. Presenting the Stuart dynasty and Banquo with

15
such compelling preeminence and distinction, Shakespeare has done some damage to

the coherence of the legend of Mackbeth and Duncane as he transferred it from the

Chronicles to the stage. By inserting the legend of Banquho into the middle of the

legend of Mackbeth, Shakespeare has forced the traditional structure of this type of

play. He has moved the murder of the king from its usual place, in the middle of the

play, to a position of minor importance, and he has inserted the murder of Banquo in

the king's lawful and principal place. Shakespeares words in Macbeth seem to point

clearly to that:

That, when the brains were out, the man would die, / And there an end. But now they

rise gain, / With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, / And push us from our stools

(III.iv.79-82)

The ghost of Banquo, pushing Macbeth from his stool at the banquet, pushes

Duncan's ghost out of the play so that James might contemplate his Stuart ancestry at

its head. At this reference, James would have been pleased. 17 Equally, for most of

Shakespeare's contemporary audience, Macbeth would appear to be at the mercy of

the witches and therefore not entirely responsible for his actions. In this way it might

seem easier to arouse sympathy for a person who is not entirely to blame for their

actions, as in the case of Macbeth, whose the tragedy would be more successful

provided the popular seventeenth century mentality blames the witches, as well as

Lady Macbeth, for his downfall.18 In conclusion, it is possible to establish references

and associations between Shakespeares transposition of the legend of Mackbeth from

Holinsheds Chronicles and King Jamess views on witchcraft and demonology and his

own personal background. However, as far as political implications surrounding this

writing cannot be traced through a solid study of the evidence and might only be

imagined and hypothesized. In either case, it is not surprising that Shakespeare

intended to please King James, as he insisted that Shakespeare's troupe come under

his own patronage shortly after his arrival in London. Thus giving Shakespeares

16
company a new name, The Kings Men and unlimited opportunities to become wealthy

and famous.

17
Notes

18
1 Shakespeare, William, and A. R. Braunmuller. Macbeth. New York: Cambridge UP, 2008. 8-9.
Print.
2 Holinshed, Raphael, Richard Stanyhurst, Abraham Fleming, John Stow, Francis Thynne, John
Hooker, William Harrison, Hector Boece, and Giraldus. The First and Second Volumes of
Chronicles: Comprising 1 The Description and Historie of England, 2 The Description and Historie
of Ireland, 3 The Description and Historie of Scotland: First Collected and Published by Raphaell
Holinshed, William Harrison, and Others: Now Newlie Augmented and Continued (with Manifold
Matters of Singular Note and Worthie Memorie) to the Yeare 1586. by Iohn Hooker Ali S Vowell
Gent and Others. With Conuenient Tables at the End of These Volumes. London: In Aldersgate
Street at the Signe of the Starre, 1587. Print. How and when the Scots, a people of the Scithian
and Spanish blood, should arrive here out of Ireland, & when the Picts should come unto us out of
Sarmatia, or from further towards the north & the Scithian Hyperboreans, as yet it is
uncerteine...the Scots did often adventure hither [i.e. into the British Isles] to rob and steale out of
Ireland, and were finallie called by them Meats or Picts (as the Romans named them, because
they painted their bodies) to helpe them against the Britains, after the which they so planted
themselves in these parts, that unto our time that portion of the land cannot be cleansed of them. I
find also that as these Scots were reputed for the most Scithian-like and barbarous nation, and
longest without letters...For both Diodorus lib. 6. and Strabo lib.4. doo seeme to speake of a parcell
of the Irish nation that should inhabit Britiane in their time, which were given to the eating of mans
flesh, and therefore called Anthropophagi...it appeareth that those Irish, of whom Strabo and
Diodorus doo speake, are none other than those Scots of whom Jerome speaketh Adversus
Jovinianum, lib. 2 who used to feed on the buttocks of boies and womens paps, as delicate
dishes. (5b-6a)

3 McIlwain, Charles Howard. The Political Works of James I. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1918. 22.
Print.

4 Shakespeare, William, and A. R. Braunmuller. Macbeth. New York: Cambridge UP, 2008. 3. Print.

5 Williams, George Walton. ""Macbeth": King James's Play." South Atlantic Review 47.2 (1982):
12-21. Web.
6 Williams, George Walton. ""Macbeth": King James's Play." South Atlantic Review 47.2 (1982):
12-21. Web.

King James VI and I's treatise on witchcraft, Daemonologie, published in 1597. ( Mary Evans
Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo)

8 Borman, Tracy. "Shakespeare's Macbeth and King James's Witch Hunts." History Extra. BBC,
Web. 20 Nov. 2016.

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