MACBETHBACKGROUND

Divine Right of Kings

God gives rulers the right to reign

An act against a king is an act against God

Acting against the King can disrupt the natural order of things and create disturbances in nature and society.

Gunpowder Plot

1605 plot to blow up the King and houses of parliament

Father Garnet, a Jesuit priest, prayed “for the good success” of the plot “concerning the Catholic cause”

Father Garnet executed in 1606 The same year Shakespeare wrote Macbeth

Plot reveals the period’s religious and political tensions

Witches 247 witch trials during the reign of Queen

Elizabeth I. According to a German visitor to England in 1592,

“Many witches are found there who frequently do much mischief by means of hail and tempests.”

King James I believed in witches. His book Daemonologie discusses a wide range of supernatural and demonic creatures.

Shakespeare drew from accounts of witchcraft for Macbeth, but he also appears to have taken details from Reginald Scot’s skeptical analysis of these cases, The Discoverie of Witchcraft.

Common Beliefs about Witches in England in the early 1600’s Witches typically had familiars, which were

demonic servants that took the form of animals such as cats, dogs, frogs, and apes.

Witches could fly through the air. Witches could control the winds. Witches concocted charms and potions out

of herbs and demonic ingredients. Witches cast spells that sickened

animals and withered crops.