MacbethThe Thug Who Would Be

King

Holinshed’s Chronicles: largely fictionalized account of Macbeth’s life

Published twice: 1577 and 1587

Background

Shakespeare altered Holinshed’s account 4 reasons:

1) a more exciting story than is found in the sources (drama)

2) a more complex characterization of Macbeth (theme/artistic)

3) cater to the beliefs of the reigning monarch, King James (politics)

4) Convey idea that there is a divine right of kings, and that to usurp the throne is a crime against humanity (again with the politics)

Writes Macbeth between 1605-1606Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England,

Scotland, and Ireland (1577), authoritative historical text – used as source of real Macbeth, among others

Shakespeare + Macbeth

Political Drama1034 Malcolm II

murdered @ Glamis by friends + possibly grandson Duncan

Duncan killed rivals + took throne

Children: Malcolm + Donald “Bane”

Duncan I

The Real Macbeth

Macbeth mac Findlaech (McFinley)

Dad: Findlaech: Mormaer (ruler) of Moray in northern Scotland

1020 Findlaech killed + throne taken by nephew Gillacomgain (Gill)

Mormaer = second only to king in Scotland

(Side Note) King Duff killed by Donwald (nagged by his wife to do so) a century before Macbeth

Macbeth Makes AllianceThorfinn of Orkney:

a Norse Viking

Thorfinn Sigurdsson called:

Thorfinn Skull-Smasher Thorfinn the Black Thorfinn Raven-Feeder

- pretty well-known for success on battlefield

August 1040 Thorfinn + Macbeth defeat + kill Duncan I in battle

Thorfinn rules northern + Macbeth ruled southern Scotland

Macbeth = good king, strict but fair

1032 Gill + 50 ppl burned to death for murder of Fin (Macbeth no doubt in on this revenge)

Lady Macbeth: Gruoch – originally married to Gill + had son Lulack the Simple

Macbeth marries her after killing her husband

Real Macbeth continued…

King Malcolm II - reigned (1005-34)

Macbeth - reigned (1040-57)

Killed by Macbeth in

battle

Killed by Malcolm III in battle

Duncan I – reigned (1034-40) 

Married GruochOne son – Lulack the

Simple

Malcolm III - 1058

Lulack the Simple – king for about 5

minutes (murdered at

Malcolm’s order)

Scotland

Blunt Force Trauma/Head Slice - or Both!

Weaponry with which to keeeel you…

What else can we do

with our time???

No clubs, movies, Xbox…

Besides, 45 is just old…

1054, Earl Siward of Northumberland, who spirited Malcolm to England after Duncan's death, invaded Scotland.

Met and defeated Macbeth at the battle of Birnam Wood / Dunsinane (July 27).

Most of Macbeth's army were killed, but Macbeth escaped. Siward's son and nephew were also killed.

Macbeth continued to reign but was killed in 1057 by Duncan's son Malcolm near Aberdeen. Thorfinn II survived until 1064.

Macbeth’s Downfall

MalcolmAmbushes/kills Lulack

when he claims throne Aggressive +

successful Invaded England many

Xs (thus thanking his benefactor) + was killed in Northumberland

A treacherous soldier, pretending to hand him a key on a spear, put the spear through his eye socket

Is king twice (deposed for a time by Duncan II (his brother’s son), who he later defeated and killed)

Finally defeated, imprisoned, blinded by King Edgar, another son of Malcolm

Duncan’s Sons “They were such sweet boys…” said Grandma.

Donald “Bane”

James Stuart was King James VI of Scotland when Queen Elizabeth's death made him James I of England

With many people convicted of witchcraft on no physical evidence. James I, who believed the witch hysteria, wrote a book about hidden world of witches: Demonology.

The "witches" of the play exist for their role in Macbeth's fictionalized story.

A Matthew Gwynn held a pageant to greet James I, in which three boy-actors played Sibyls + prophesied his future greatness + mentioned Banquo

James supposedly reported that before the execution of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, there was an apparition of "a bloody head dancing in the air"

An accused witch (after torture) told James and his court that on Halloween of 1590, two hundred witches sailed into the town in sieves.

Political Uses for Witches!

Henry Garnet: a Jesuit and priest, implicated in the Gunpowder Plot, wrote A Treatise of Equivocation about how to mislead and answer ambiguously under oath.

Executed, he may be the "equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven." (Act I – porter scene)

James wrote in his book that witches would give deceptive and double-meaning

prophecies.

Macbeth deals with the fictional ancestors of the Stuart line (Banquo, Fleance)

Presents Banquo more favorably than the play's sources. (In Holinshed, Banquo is Macbeth's active accomplice.)

The procession of kings ends with a mirror (held by Banquo rather than another king)

James could see himself, thus becoming part of the action. Macbeth says he sees more kings afterwards.

That Shakespeare…