Macbeth: Witchcraft, Succession and Jacobean Rule
Use witchcraft, succession, kingship and gender contexts to sharpen precise interpretations of Shakespeare’s dramatic choices.
Context as interpretive pressure
Context becomes useful when it changes what a dramatic choice means. A fact about James I or Jacobean England earns its place only if it helps to explain a word, contrast, action, stage image or whole-play pattern.
Use this sequence:
- Establish the dramatic moment: who speaks, what has happened and what choice is available?
- Select the smallest useful textual or performance detail.
- Add one precise contextual fact.
- Explain how that fact sharpens the interpretation, then preserve any important limit or alternative.
| Pressure in the play | Precise grounding | Interpretive question |
|---|---|---|
| Witchcraft | James VI published Daemonologie in 1597, and a 1604 English statute made dealings with evil spirits a serious criminal matter. Sceptical writing also existed. | Why can the Sisters feel culturally dangerous without controlling Macbeth? |
| Succession | The childless Elizabeth I was succeeded in 1603 by James VI of Scotland, who also became James I of England. The two kingdoms shared a monarch but remained separate states. | Why does a crown with no continuing family line feel insecure? |
| Kingship | James defended God-derived monarchy and also wrote about the duties of a ruler. | How does the play test both the source and the conduct of royal authority? |
| Gender | Courage, violence, feeling and authority were strongly gendered, while women's roles on the professional English stage were played by boys or young men. | How do characters use manhood and womanhood as arguments in performance? |
These are not four labels for four separate paragraphs. In Macbeth, prophecy concerns who will rule next; royal succession raises questions of legitimate kingship; and gendered language pressures characters to turn thought into action. The connecting idea is agency under pressure.
Use the complete play linked in the reading section for surrounding passages. Act and scene references remain stable, but line numbering, punctuation and a few readings vary because the 1623 First Folio is the only early authoritative printed text and modern editors must make decisions.
Reading the play
Study all five acts of Macbeth, following the action from service and prophecy in Act 1, through regicide in Act 2 and insecure rule in Act 3, to tyranny and resistance in Act 4 and defeat in Act 5. Check act, scene and speaker when selecting whole-play evidence; line numbers can differ between editions.
Witchcraft, influence and choice
In Act 1, scene 3, the Sisters greet Macbeth with titles, including a future crown, and tell Banquo that his descendants will be kings. They create a field of possibilities; they do not give Macbeth an instruction to kill Duncan. That difference matters.
Witchcraft could carry legal, religious and political force early in James I's reign. James had taken an interest in the North Berwick witch trials, published Daemonologie, and ruled when the 1604 Witchcraft Act criminalised forms of conjuration and dealing with evil spirits. Yet Reginald Scot's earlier Discoverie of Witchcraft had challenged many accusations and beliefs. It is therefore safer to say that the Sisters enter a culture of intense argument and fear than to claim that every Jacobean spectator believed the same thing.
Shakespeare makes responsibility visible through contrast:
- Macbeth tells the Sisters to stay and demands more. In his aside, the possibility of kingship quickly draws his imagination towards an act so troubling that it horrifies him.
- Banquo hears an equally personal prophecy but warns that dangerous powers may tell small truths in order to cause greater harm.
- When Macbeth later seeks the Sisters in Act 4, scene 1, his return is itself a choice. He has moved from being surprised by prophecy to trying to use forbidden knowledge as political intelligence.
This contrast is also performable. Macbeth can lean towards the Sisters, pursue them as they leave, or seem inwardly captured by the new title; Banquo can watch him as carefully as he watches them. Different staging choices alter the strength of the influence, but Banquo's alternative response remains present on stage.
A strong interpretation can therefore hold two ideas together: the prophecy is powerful because kingship, witchcraft and treason are culturally charged, and Macbeth remains responsible because the play shows him interpreting, pursuing and acting on it.
Read the passages
Text
Macbeth — Act 1, Scene 3
By William Shakespeare
[1] FIRST WITCH.
[2] All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
[3] SECOND WITCH.
[4] All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
[5] THIRD WITCH.
[6] All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter!
[7] BANQUO.
[8] Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear
[9] Things that do sound so fair?—I’ th’ name of truth,
[10] Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
[11] Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
[12] You greet with present grace and great prediction
[13] Of noble having and of royal hope,
[14] That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not.
[15] If you can look into the seeds of time,
[16] And say which grain will grow, and which will not,
[17] Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
[18] Your favours nor your hate.
[19] FIRST WITCH.
[20] Hail!
[21] SECOND WITCH.
[22] Hail!
[23] THIRD WITCH.
[24] Hail!
[25] FIRST WITCH.
[26] Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
[27] SECOND WITCH.
[28] Not so happy, yet much happier.
[29] THIRD WITCH.
[30] Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
[31] So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
[32] FIRST WITCH.
[33] Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
[34] MACBETH.
[35] Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.
[36] By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis;
[37] But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,
[38] A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
[39] Stands not within the prospect of belief,
[40] No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
[41] You owe this strange intelligence? or why
[42] Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
[43] With such prophetic greeting?—Speak, I charge you.
Notes
Numbers identify lines of this supplied extract, not universal verse numbers.
Text
Macbeth — Act 1, Scene 3
By William Shakespeare
[1] MACBETH.
[2] [Aside.] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor:
[3] The greatest is behind. [To Ross and Angus.] Thanks for your pains.
[4] [To Banquo.] Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
[5] When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me
[6] Promis’d no less to them?
[7] BANQUO.
[8] That, trusted home,
[9] Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
[10] Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But ’tis strange:
[11] And oftentimes to win us to our harm,
[12] The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
[13] Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
[14] In deepest consequence.—
[15] Cousins, a word, I pray you.
[16] MACBETH.
[17] [Aside.] Two truths are told,
[18] As happy prologues to the swelling act
[19] Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.—
[20] [Aside.] This supernatural soliciting
[21] Cannot be ill; cannot be good. If ill,
[22] Why hath it given me earnest of success,
[23] Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor:
[24] If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
[25] Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
[26] And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
[27] Against the use of nature? Present fears
[28] Are less than horrible imaginings.
[29] My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
[30] Shakes so my single state of man
[31] That function is smother’d in surmise,
[32] And nothing is but what is not.
[33] BANQUO.
[34] Look, how our partner’s rapt.
[35] MACBETH.
[36] [Aside.] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me
[37] Without my stir.
Notes
Numbers identify lines of this supplied extract, not universal verse numbers.
Succession and the empty crown
Succession asks what happens after a ruler dies. This was conspicuous when Macbeth was written: Elizabeth I died unmarried and childless in 1603, and James VI of Scotland became James I of England. A single monarch now wore both crowns, although England and Scotland did not become one state in 1603.
The play makes royal time uneven:
| Macbeth receives | Banquo is promised |
|---|---|
| a title in the present | a royal line in the future |
| a crown he can seize | descendants he does not need to enthrone himself |
| power that depends on continued violence | a promised line that remains possible when Fleance escapes |
In Act 3, scene 1, Macbeth calls his crown "fruitless" and his sceptre "barren". Both adjectives transfer the language of fertility to objects of government, but each does slightly different work. "Fruitless" makes the crown yield no future result; "barren" makes the sceptre, a sign of authority, incapable of producing a continuing line. The paired images expose the limit of force: Macbeth can take a throne, but he cannot make history inherit from him.
This fear changes behaviour. Macbeth arranges the attack on Banquo and Fleance, not simply because Banquo is suspicious, but because Fleance represents a future Macbeth cannot control. Fleance's escape and the procession of kings in Act 4, scene 1 then stretch that failure across the play.
The Stuart resonance needs care. Holinshed's Chronicles, a major source for the play, presents Banquo as involved in Duncan's murder; Shakespeare removes that complicity. James claimed descent from Banquo, so the change and the later royal procession could have been politically tactful. However, Banquo's status as James's ancestor belongs to legendary genealogy, and a possible compliment to the king does not prove that the whole tragedy is simple propaganda.
Here is a complete evidence-to-analysis chain:
The paired sterility images make Macbeth's kingship temporally empty: the "crown" names present possession, while the "scepter" should transmit authority but is "barren". After a childless queen had been succeeded by James VI/I, continuity of the royal line had immediate political resonance. This sharpens Macbeth's fear from private jealousy into dynastic insecurity: violence has won him a title but cannot manufacture legitimacy or a future. His attack on Banquo's family tries to force succession, yet Fleance's escape exposes the attempt as self-defeating. A Stuart compliment is possible, but it is a resonance rather than proof of Shakespeare's single intention.
Read the passages
Text
Macbeth — Act 3, Scene 1
By William Shakespeare
[1] MACBETH.
[2] Bring them before us.
[3] [Exit Servant.]
[4] To be thus is nothing,
[5] But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo
[6] Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
[7] Reigns that which would be fear’d: ’tis much he dares;
[8] And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
[9] He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
[10] To act in safety. There is none but he
[11] Whose being I do fear: and under him
[12] My genius is rebuk’d; as, it is said,
[13] Mark Antony’s was by Caesar. He chid the sisters
[14] When first they put the name of king upon me,
[15] And bade them speak to him; then, prophet-like,
[16] They hail’d him father to a line of kings:
[17] Upon my head they plac’d a fruitless crown,
[18] And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
[19] Thence to be wrench’d with an unlineal hand,
[20] No son of mine succeeding. If’t be so,
[21] For Banquo’s issue have I fil’d my mind;
[22] For them the gracious Duncan have I murder’d;
[23] Put rancours in the vessel of my peace
[24] Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
[25] Given to the common enemy of man,
[26] To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings!
[27] Rather than so, come, fate, into the list,
[28] And champion me to th’ utterance!—Who’s there?—
[29] Enter Servant with two
[30] Murderers.
[31] Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.
[32] [Exit Servant.]
Notes
Numbers identify lines of this supplied extract, not universal verse numbers.
Sacred authority and royal duty
James VI/I defended a form of divine kingship: royal authority came from God, and the monarch was answerable to God. That belief could make regicide a spiritual violation as well as a political crime. It did not mean that every king was automatically wise or that Shakespeare had to present royal power without criticism.
Act 1, scene 7 builds the offence through obligations. Before Lady Macbeth enters, Macbeth admits that he is Duncan's kinsman, subject and host. These are three relationships in which he should protect the king, so the speech makes him understand the duties he is about to reverse. Duncan's virtues are imagined as pleading against the murder, but Duncan has also misjudged the former Thane of Cawdor and then Macbeth. Legitimate authority and imperfect judgement can coexist.
Act 4, scene 3 asks what rule should look like after tyranny. Malcolm's list of "king-becoming graces" includes justice, truth, temperance, courage, patience and mercy. The compound "king-becoming" is important: these qualities suit and help to constitute a king. Rule is judged by conduct, not only by possession of a title.
The final scene restores Malcolm, but it does not erase the cost of restoration. He is supported by an English force, Macduff enters with Macbeth's severed head, and Scotland has suffered under repeated violence. A production can make Malcolm's accession feel hopeful, militarised, fragile or several of these at once. Divine and ethical kingship therefore sharpen the play's political judgement without requiring a perfectly reassuring ending.
An expert chooses evidence for the exact pressure being analysed. The natural disturbance after Duncan's death can support an argument about violated order, but the "fruitless crown" is more precise for succession, and the "king-becoming graces" are more precise for royal responsibility. The broader evidence is not wrong; the smaller evidence makes the reasoning easier to prove.
A compact reasoning frame is: dramatic duty -> violated relationship -> precise kingship context -> altered judgement -> qualification. Applied to Act 1, scene 7, Macbeth's three duties make the murder a conscious betrayal; God-derived monarchy raises its spiritual and political stakes; Duncan's fallibility prevents the argument from becoming blind praise of any ruler.
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