Political and historical research

Political and Historical research on Macbeth

Just before William Shakespeare wrote the play of Macbeth, the catholic gun powder plot had just happened. In 1605 on the 5th of November barrels of gun powder were found underneath the chamber of commons being guarded by Guy Fawkes. The plot was an assassination attempt on King James but luckily one of the Kings spies found out and it was prevented. The plot was planned by a group of Catholics who believed that King James treated Catholics unfairly and was headed by Robert Catesby. Guy Fawkes was arrested and tortured until he gave up the names of his accomplices, which he did, and they were arrested. They were all then drawn, hanged, and quartered. James' response was that he told people to celebrate by burning scarecrows of Guy Fawkes over bonfires. This is where bonfire night on the 5th of November originates from.

The first time that Shakespeare performed his play Macbeth, King James was present and its believed that the whole play was basically written for him. There are many connections between the gun powder plot and the story of Macbeth.
Firstly the play is based around treason, the overthrow of a good king and the downfall of their murderers. Sound similar James? Also King James is commonly believed to have descended from banquho the Thane of Lochquhaber, who Shakespeare's character of Banquo is questionably similar to. The witches in Macbeth tell Banquo that his ancestors are going to be kings and what do you know Banquho's ancestor, James Stuart, is king of Scotland and England. Another connection is that King James had a medal made for him of a snake hiding in some flowers and its directly referenced to in the play. Lady Macbeth talks to Macbeth about how to go about the murder of King Duncan advising him to "look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it" (act 1 scene 2).  Lastly the head of the gun powder plot Robert Catesby, admitted his plans to kill the king in a confession to Father Henry Garnet. However Garnet did not report what he was told to the authorities. His defense when he finally confessed was that he did not commit a crime as he was protecting the seal of confession and was lying for god. All of this resulted in him becoming known as the great equivocator. In act 2 scene 3 Macbeth's porter wonders what type of people get sent to hell and so pretends to be the guard at the gates of hell. He says "Faith, here's an 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: O, come in, equivocator." This is referring to Henry Garnet, inferring that he got sent to hell for his crimes.

So why did Shakespeare feel the need to have to write a whole play around King James and the gun powder plot? Good question. There are only 2 different reasons that I have concluded on. One of them being selfless and the other more selfish.
I will start with the selfless reasoning that could have been the drive behind Shakespeare's Macbeth. King James was a very new leader when the gun powder plot occurred and so was probably unsure on the best way to respond and prevent further assassination attempts. In Macbeth two different kings are presented to James a good fair king and then a wild tyrant king. Shakespeare used the character of Macbeth to show the king that he shouldn't be a tyrant leader but more like Duncan who ruled fairly and was a proper ruler. One question you may ask yourself is why does Shakespeare care about the kings reaction and the answer is that Shakespeare is believed to have been catholic himself. This means he didn't exactly want the king to go around and sought out every Catholic to question and punish them over the actions of these extremists. Shakespeare wanted James to go easy on Catholics overall because he wanted to protect them. Shakespeare warns King James the effects of acting as a tyrant leader through Macbeth as eventually his country turned on him and he was killed by people he wronged.

The above argument definitely sounds like a plausible reason however I have another slightly more contrasting logic behind Macbeth which is based around Shakespeare himself. So what many people don't know is that Shakespeare had a couple of connections to the turncoats that where involved in the gun powder plot. One of these was the friendship between his father John Shakespeare and William Catesby, who was the father of Robert Catesby who headed the attempted assassination. The two fathers shared illegal catholic papers. The second connection is that the mermaid tavern was a local pub Shakespeare drunk in, and guess who used to meet there? The very group that planned the gun powder plot. They would meet there often to discuss their plans to kill the king. So with both of these connections to the group Shakespeare was probably worried that he was going to be the next one to be questioned and possibly tortured for information he presumably didn't have. This brings me to the conclusion that maybe Macbeth was written less as a bid for King James to go easy on Catholics but more as "a perfect propaganda machine that seemed to clear Shakespeare of any suspicion" (link 1)