South Atlantic Modern Language Association
"Macbeth": King James's Play
Author(s): George Walton Williams
Source: South Atlantic Review, Vol. 47, No. 2 (May, 1982), pp. 12-21
Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language Association
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Macbeth:KingJames'sPlay
GEORGE
WALTONWILLIAMS
SOME THIRTYYEARSAGO in a study entitled TheRoyalPlayof
Macbeth(1950), Henry N. Paul argued that Shakespearehad written Macbethwith the intention that it should be a compliment to
King James.' In 1978Mr. MarvinRosenberg, in his magisterialand
penetrating examinationof TheMasksof Macbethquestioned Paul's
thesis, arguing that there are many aspects of the play which
would not have pleased Jamesat all.2My own sense of the matter
is that Shakespearedid indeed write to please his king, but I intend
here to bring forth no evidence of new sources that Shakespeare
might have used to compliment his king;3 I propose rather to
examine the play itself in an attempt to argue that its structure
exhibits the influence of James upon its composition.
In the first place, there is nothing inherently impossible or
unlikely in the propositionthat Shakespeareshould write a play to
please his king. Shakespearedid not, in fact, live in a vacuum, and
stage performancesdid not invariablyeschew all mattersof topical
or public interest. Shakespeare had been born in 1564, five years
into the reign of Elizabeth.He had known one single monarchyfor
39 years when Elizabeth died, and the arrivalof a new monarch
could not have been inconsequential or unnoticed. Furthermore,
King James adopted Shakespeare's acting company, the Lord
Chamberlain'sMen, as his own and gave it his royal patronage.
The King's Men, as the Company then became, marched in
James's coronation procession through the streets of London in
1604, having received an allotment to purchase liveries for the
occasion, and again in 1606, shortly before the presumed first
performanceof Macbethon the occasion of the state visit of King
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13
Christianof Denmark, James'sbrotherin law.4 Ten years after the
change of monarchs in 1603, Shakespearewrote a splendid tribute
to the dead queen in HenryVIII,and eight years before 1603he had
made an overt allusion to the "imperialvotaress" in A Midsummer
Night's Dream,a compliment to the queen who was almost certainly present at the original performanceof that play.
There is no reason then to hold that Shakespeare would have
been unready, unwilling, or unable to write a play that had special
reference to the reigning monarch, and I am prepared to believe
that he did undertake the writing of Macbethin 1605-1606 with
James in mind, to please his patron the king. It is immaterial
whether or no that purpose was paramountin the original artistic
conception or that it remained steady throughout the composition
of the play, and I will not speculate as to whether or no the result
did please James. Had that monarch been attentive to the play as
he watched it in 1606, he might well have found things in it that
did not please.5
But that is another story. My thesis is that regardless of Shakespeare's originalintention and regardless of James'sreception, the
influences of James and of James's interests are evident, as Paul
and others have observed, in narrative, theme, image, and language. I suggest that they are present also in the structure of the
play, and that they are there in so commanding a manner as
severely to strainthe coherence of the play. Macbethis King James's
play in a way that Shakespeare never intended and of which he
was perhaps unaware.
The narrative account that lies behind Shakespeare's Macbeth
derives, of course, from Holinshed's Chronicles
of England,Scotland,
and Ireland,the same volumes from which Shakespeare drew the
stories of Lear, of Cymbeline, and of RichardII and his successors.
It is not easy to say what Shakespearewas looking for in his search
through the Chronicles,but what he found was the 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.6 It was the familiar story of murder and
retribution which Shakespeare had utilized not long before in
writing JuliusCaesarand (with a difference)in Hamlet.This legend
would provide the framework of a play which could present a
succession of kings, a mirror for a magistrate, in which James
might observe the good King Duncan, the wicked King Macbeth,
and the good King Malcolm, and so observing might be instructed
14
GeorgeWaltonWilliams
on the necessity of vigilancebefore envious courtiers.It would be a
suitable lesson to set before a king, especially a new king, especially-as later events were to prove-James.7
In the legend of Mackbeth,Shakespearefound also referencesto
Banquho, the Thane of Lochquhaber,a friend of Mackbeth's,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 apparell";they had prophesied that of
Banquho "those shall be borne which shall governe the Scotish
kingdome by long order of continuall descent." He learned that
Mackbethkilled 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 indeed come after many
generations to govern Scotland "by long order of continuall descent."8
It is apparentthat in the legend of Macbethand in the legend of
Banquowe have two parallelfables:Macbethkills Duncan and his
descendant returns immediatelyto claim the throne; Macbethkills
Banquo and his descendant returns after many generations to
claim the throne. Both of these legends are featured in the cavern
scene with the witches (IV.i):on the one hand, the three apparitions that rise from the cauldronand, on the other, the pageant of
the eight kings. The two sets of magic trickery and spectacular
stage effect are relatedthrough that characteristicof Macbeth'sthat
we observe in Act I-the desire to know more. Aside from this
association in human psychology-not negligible of course-the
two sets have no necessary association with one another, though,
together, they contributemightily to the tone of ominousness and
mystery, sharing thereby a common function.
The three apparitionsfrom the cauldronderive directlyfrom the
story of Mackbeth in the Chronicles.Their prognostications are
specified there, issuing from "certeine wizzards" and "a certeine
witch, whome hee had in great trust," and whom Mackbeth
consulted on several occasions. The manifestations that the three
"masters" take are Shakespeare's own-the armed head, the
bloody babe, and the crowned child-and we can readily understand why Shakespearewould choose such concrete and dramatic
props.
The show of the eight kings derives or grows from the germ of
the prophecy in the Chronicles,"the long order of continuall descent." When he sees this royal procession, Macbeth'sreaction is
electric:"Horriblesight!" (IV.i.122),and the witches depart, slith-
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15
ering through the trap to follow their cauldron down to the lower
regions.
In response to the three apparitions from the cauldron, Macbeth
determines to kill Macduff. In response to the show of Kings,
Macbeth determines to kill Macduff's family. The narrative line of
the play is clear here. The apparitions from the cauldron alert
Macbeth to the danger of Macduff and lure him into a sense of
security, "mortals' chiefest enemy" (III.v.33), so that he is incapable psychologically of coping with the later discoveries that Macduff is not of woman born and that Birnam Wood has indeed come
against high Dunsinane hill. The show of kings produces in
Macbeth a frenzy of despair in which he proposes the destruction
of the future-anything that represents a genealogical succession.
Macbeth's frenetic energy which in terms of the show of history
should have been aimed at Banquo's issue, Fleance, or, more
profitably in terms of the play, at Duncan's issue, Malcolm, dissipates itself fruitlessly and gratuitously against Macduff's issue,
young Macduff, from his mother's arms untimely ripped. The
news of the murder of young Macduff, as it reaches Malcolm and
Macduff in England after they have agreed to march against
Scotland, is medicine to their great revenge but not an instrument
in their decision. Though the arrival of that news adds powerfully
to the tone of the scene in England, it does not contribute to its
narrative progress. In truth, the show of historical kings, for all its
genealogical splendor, has no narrative or structural coherence
with the end of the play; its coherence lies rather with the beginning of the play.
The beginning of the play is the moment of the engagement of
the action. It embraces the meetings of the witches with Macbeth
and with Banquo; it embraces both meetings because Shakespeare
wishes to tell two legends. The meeting of the witches with
Macbeth is first in time, primary in importance to the play, and
secondary in importance to history; the meeting of the witches
with Banquo is second in time, secondary in importance to the
play, and primary in importance to history. Both meetings are
defined in terms of prophecies of the witches: for the prophecies to
Macbeth there is an immediate reaction; for those to Banquo there
is no immediate reaction. The attention of the audience
very
properly fixes on the prophecies to Macbeth and on Macbeth's
reactions to them, yet it is a dramatic truism that a prophecy voiced
on stage must be fulfilled in the play. The prophecy that Macbeth
shall be king is fulfilled and displayed in the ceremonial
royal
16
GeorgeWaltonWilliams
banquet in Act III, the middle of the play, the scene that coheres
structurallyto the beginning of the story of Macbeth, the tragic
hero. The prophecy that Banquo shall get kings is fulfilled and
displayed in the pageant of the eight kings in Act IV, the scene that
coheres structurallyto the beginning of the story of Banquo.
It is noteworthy in this play written, ostensibly, in the normal
revenge pattern of murder and retributionthat the murder of the
king occurs in Act II not in Act III, the middle of the play. We
should have expected, I suggest, the same pattern as that in Julius
Caesarwhere Caesaris killed in Act III, scene i. But we must listen
to the prophecy: the witches prophesied that Macbeth should be
king hereafter. There is nothing here that indicates, as the late
ProfessorHarbagehas well said, that in order to be king hereafter
Macbethmust be murdererfirst. No. The kinging of Macbethis the
business of the first part of the play-the exact fulfilling of the
prophecy-and it is complete in the scene of the royal banquet,
III.iv.The death of Duncan is indeed a necessity in that fulfillment,
but Macbeth'schoice to effect that death by murderis not: "Chance
may crown me," says Macbeth, "Without my stir" (I.iii.143-4).
The actual kinging of Macbeth takes place at the coronation
sometime between II.iv, when we lear that Macbeth is gone to
Scone to be invested, and III.i, when we see him as King of
Scotland. We do not see the coronation, because Shakespearehas
his own traditionalsymbol to advance, one more importantto him
than that representedby the coronation.And as we do not see that
coronation, Shakespeare makes us focus our attention on the
substitutionfor it in Act III,scene iv, the royal banquet, the symbol
of the feast, the ceremonial of brotherhood and order and peace.
As this scene is clearlythe symbolic center of the play-the broken
banquet or frustratedfeast representing the perversion of brotherhood, order, and peace-so it is, I would argue, the central
structuralscene of the play, the crisis, which concludes the actions
of the first part of the play (the kinging of Macbeth)and begins the
actions of the second part of the play (the unkinging of Macbeth).
The first part of the play presents Macbeth's meeting with the
witches, Macbeth'sgratuitousresponse in the murder of Duncan,
and Macbeth'saccession to the throne; the second part of the play
presents Macbeth's second meeting with the witches, Macbeth's
gratuitous response in the murder of Macduff's family, and Macbeth's death at the hands of Macduff. The single theatricaldevice
that concludes the first part and begins the second part is the
appearance of the ghost at the banquet. It ends the first part
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17
because it breaks the banquet; it turns all Macbeth's hopes for
order ("You know your own degrees-sit down" 1.1) to disorder
("Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once"
11.119-20)and Macbeth's royal dispensing of health ("Now good
digestion wait on appetite, And health on both!" 11.37-8)to sickness (11.52, 117);it demonstrates in short that the king, unable to
command order or to dispense health, is no king.
The ghost appears at the midpoint of the play, when the night is
"Almost at odds with morning, which is which" (III.iv.126-7),or,
in other words, at the moment when the darkness generated by
Macbethis at its apogee and the brightness of the new monarchy,
radiatingfrom Malcolm,begins its rise. Though the spectacleof the
ghost demonstratesin general terms the failureof the monarchy, it
generates in specific terms a new fear in Macbeth, the fear of
Macduff(11.128-29).Macbeth'sreferenceto Macdufffollows immediately the statement of the approach of morning and thus so
closely associates with it as virtually to signify cause and effect.
FearingMacduff, Macbethreturns to the witches, thereby shaping the actions of the second part of the play, in order to learn
more, just as in Act I. What he learns that is clear and unequivocal
is that he should fear Macduff,the sort of information-again as in
Act I-he had curiously anticipated:"Thou hast harped my fear
aright" (IV.i.74). That fear is well founded, provoked presumably
by Macduff'sfailure to participatein the coronation and to attend
the banquet. Macduffis also the thane who first discovers the dead
body of Duncan and who later is to be the retributivefigure closely
associatedwith Malcolm.When at the banquet, Macbethstartsand
seems affrighted, Lady Macbethsupposes that he has seen something like the air-bornedagger that led him to Duncan. Macduff,
Malcolm, Duncan-these are the names and this is the line that
controls the beginning and the end of the play. And, therefore, I
would ask: why does the line of Duncan not control the middle of
the play? why is the ghost not the ghost of Duncan?9
We may not rewrite Shakespeare, of course, but we are not
prohibited from examining the consequences of what he has written himself. I suggest that in no other play of Shakespeare'sis the
primary fable interrupted in its central moment by an action
irrelevantto that fable. The return of Banquo's spirit is vital to the
history of Scotland, but as an item in the developing of the primary
fable of the play-the return of Duncan's spirit in the flesh of
Malcolm-it is distinctly an aberration.Surely, the appearance of
Banquo is splendid irony: Banquo, bid to the feast, comes to the
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GeorgeWaltonWilliams
feast. This is Shakespeare'sartistryat its best. But Duncan, though
not bid, might, like the ghost of Caesar, have arrived unbidden. I
repeat the question: why is the ghost not the ghost of Duncan?
The immediate answer to this question is that the ghost is the
ghost not of Duncan but of Banquo because Banquo is James's
ancestor. It is not enough. James was descended as much from
Duncan and from Malcolm as he was from Banquo and from
Fleance. A ghost of Duncan would have supplied an ancestral
appropriateness as well as a ghost of Banquo and would have
provided a much tighter dramaticlink to the history of Duncan's
death and retributionthan ever a ghost of Banquo could. The full
answer lies not in the normal genealogical tradition.
When James came to the throne of England, he came with a
claim based on his "Birthrightand lineal descent," further elaborated in his speech before Parliamentin 1607 in which he urged
that the "King's descent [should be] maintained, and the heritage
of the succession of the Monarchywhich hath been a kingdom to
which I am in descent three hundred years before Christ."10The
claim derives from the figure of King Fergus I, the first king of
Scotland, who flourished in 330 B.C. Modern historians discount
many of James'sancestors as being mythical figures, but Jamesdid
not; we may be sure that, for the purposes of this play, Shakespeare did not. James'sclaim to England by his lineal descent was
accepted by the English as fully justifying his right to the English
throne, and that claim by descent was frequently cited in the
documents assuring his accession. In 1608 the Lord Chancellor
phrased it thus: "The king our Soveraigne is lawfully and lineally
descended... and that by so long a continued line of lawfull
descent, as therein he exceedeth all the Kings that the world now
knoweth." James claimed, and proudly, a royal descent from
Fergus I. James was the 108th king in that descent. Malcolm was
the 86th; Duncan the 84th. Banquo and Fleance, not kings, were
not in that royal succession. Their line had joined the royal line a
triflingnine generationsbefore James,but their line was the Stuart
line, the name of the royal house. Fleance's descendant in the
seventh degree, Walter, had become the Steward of the famous
king of Scotland Robert the Bruce, the 99th king in the royal
succession. Walteradministeredthe office of steward so carefully,
that soon he became King Robert's son-in-law, in which capacity
he begat RobertII who, taking his father'soffice for his name, was
the first of the Stuartkings. Furthermore,the line from Fergus to
Banquo had passed according to the myth-makersfrom father to
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son for seventy-five generations and the line from Fleance to
Walter had continued the direct male succession for seven more
and the line from RobertIIto JamesVI had continued that tradition
with the single exception of Mary, James's mother, for still eight
generations more.1l
It cannot be denied, I believe, that when the ghost of blood-boltered Banquosmiles as the eight kings pass in review and points to
them as his, he is indicating a series of actual personages of recent
history whom the Jacobeanaudience would have recognized on
stage, the Stuart dynasty-the ninth member of which sat in
England's royal chair at that very moment. And so it is their
ancestor Banquo whom the kings resemble as they pass in succession-not their ancestor Duncan. And so it is their ancestor
Banquo who returns as a ghost at the banquet-not their ancestor
Duncan.
Presentingthe Stuartdynasty and Banquowith such compelling
primacyand prominence, Shakespearehas done some harm to the
coherence of the legend of Mackbeth and Duncane as he transferredit from the Chronicles
to the stage. By inserting the legend of
into
the
middle
of
the legend of Mackbeth, Shakespeare
Banquho
has strained the traditionalstructure of this sort of play. He has
transferredthe murderof the king from its accustomed position in
the middle of the play to a location of secondary significance, and
he has inserted the murder of Banquo in the king's rightful and
central place. The ghost of Banquo, pushing Macbeth from his
stool at the banquet,"2pushes Duncan's ghost out of the play so
that James might contemplate his Stuart ancestry at its head. At
this emphasis, James would have been pleased.'3
Duke University
NOTES
This paper was delivered as the Presidential Address at the Annual Convention
of the Association, November 6, 1981, in the Gait House Hotel, Louisville, Kentucky.
'Henry N. Paul, The Royal Play of Macbeth (New York: Macmillan Co., 1950),
passim: e.g., "The play was a royal play specially written for performance before
King James" (p. 1). See also John W. Draper, "'Macbeth' as a Compliment to James
I," Englische Studien, LXXII (1938), 207-220. Quotations are taken from Alfred
Harbage's edition of the play in The Complete Works (Pelican Text) (Baltimore:
Penguin Books, 1969).
2Marvin Rosenberg, The Masks of Macbeth (Berkeley: University of California,
1978), passim: e.g., pp. 386, 521, 557-8. In a recent review of this volume, Kenneth
20
George Walton Williams
Muir suggests that although Paul "doubtless exaggerated..., there is no doubt
that Shakespearehad taken the trouble to read several of James's works" before
Studies,XIII[1980],p. 312).
writing the play (Shakespeare
3Stillmore compelling evidence of Shakespeare'sadapting his play to the king's
interests has newly been advanced by Stanley J. Kozikowski in "The Gowrie
ConspiracyAgainst James VI: A New Source for Shakespeare'sMacbeth,"ShakespeareStudies,XIII(1980),197-213. Kozikowskidemonstrateshow much the annual
celebration,August 5, of his escape from the conspiracyof the Gowries meant to
James.In 1606,on August 5, "the morningwas spent in thanksgiving,the preacher
being Dr. LauncelotAndrewes"(p. 209). (Andrewes'sermon has not survived, but
eight others of his "Sermonsof the Conspiracyof the Gowries"have. In the firstof
these, preached in 1607, Andrewes refers to his sermon of the preceding year
[Ninety-SixSermons(Oxford:Parker,1841),IV, 6]). The evening was spent in "plays,
was first
dancing, and the like" (Paul,p. 328). ThoughPaulargueswell that Macbeth
performed on August 7 of this year (1606), it is not impossible that it was first
performedon August 5. Paul thinks that date "too early" (p. 41), but for a special
commemoration,special efforts could have been made.
4Paul,pp. 325, 329, 330.
5A.C. Bradleyin his Shakespearian
Tragedy(London:Macmillan,1904)has pointed
to the progressive deteriorationof the characterof Banquo, remarkingthat "it is
curiousthat Shakespeare'sintentionhere is so frequentlymissed" (p. 379 et seq.)(it
could well have been missed by James). Leo Kirschbaumhas argued against that
progress, finding Banquo'scharacter"consistent"("Banquoand Edgar:Character
or Function," Essaysin Criticism,VII [19771,1-21).
as Usedin Shakespeare's
Plays
6Allardyce& Josephine Nicoll, Holinshed'sChronicle
(London:J. M. Dent 1927, repr. 1959), pp. 207-24.
7James'ssusceptibilityto opportunistsand flatterersis a well-known characteristic of his reign; see RobertAshton, JamesI by his Contemporaries
(London:Hutchinson, 1969),esp. pp. 105-39, "Whomthe Kingdelightethto Honour."If the thesis of
this paper is correct,Shakespearehimself is guilty of having been a flattererof his
king.
8Nicoll, pp. 207-8, 210, 216.
9Thecriticwho has most clearlyrecognizedthis difficultyis RobertF. Willson,Jr.,
"Macbeththe PlayerKing:The BanquetScene as FrustratedPlay within the Play,"
114 (Weimar,1978), 107-14, esp. p. 111: the Thanes "might
Jahrbuch,
Shakespeare
naturally conclude that if... [Macbeth]is in fact seeing a ghost, the spirit is
Duncan's and not Banquo's."
1?Paul,pp. 169-70;the materialin this paragraphderives fromPaul, pp. 150-225,
esp. pp. 150-51, 205.
"Ibid.,p. 170n.When he sees the processionof kings, Macbethasks:"will the line
stretchout to th' crackof doom?"(IV.i.117).On the morningof November 6, 1981,
the day this paper was delivered, the public press of the English-speakingworld
announced that the Prince and Princess of Wales were to be blest with issue.
Banquo's royal line is not exhausted yet.
12Inspite of the staging of some productions, it should be noted that Banquo's
ghost takes his seat not in the throne but at the table. We must suppose that the
setting includes the two royal thrones apart from the table at which the king's
subjectsare to sit. Though Lady Macbeth"keeps her state," sitting in her throne,
Macbethdoes not sit in his throne, for he will "play the humble host" (III.iv.4,5).
He does not sit in the throne-to which he has no spiritualright;he does expect to
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21
sit at the table-a level to which he does have a right. There is "a place reserved"
there;it is reserved for Banquo,who accepts his invitationto dinner and takes the
place (11.37.1-2, 45-6). It would be scenicallyawkwardfor Banquo'sghost to sit in
the throne reserved for Macbeth, because Lady Macbeth is still in the adjoining
chair;but Banquo, unlike Macbeth, knows his own degree and sits where he is
supposed to sit. Since Banquois to be no king, though he will get kings (I.iii.67),it
will not be appropriatefor him to sit in Scotland'sroyal seat. The king's throne is
empty throughoutthe scene, demonstratingto the eye as the verbalimagerydoes
to the ear that there is no king in Scotland.
"3Willsonsuggests that "this scene [III.iv],almost more than any other in the
play, was intended to please James's moral vision" (p. lln).