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 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3199207 . Accessed: 07/01/2011 11:39

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http://www.jstor.org Macbeth:King James's Play GEORGEWALTON WILLIAMS

SOME THIRTYYEARS AGO in a study entitled TheRoyal Play of Macbeth(1950), Henry N. Paul argued that Shakespeare had writ- ten Macbethwith the intention that it should be a compliment to King James.' In 1978 Mr. MarvinRosenberg, in his magisterialand penetrating examination of TheMasks of Macbethquestioned Paul's thesis, arguing that there are many aspects of the play which would not have pleased James at all.2 My 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 proposition that Shakespeareshould write a play to please his king. Shakespearedid not, in fact, live in a vacuum, and stage performancesdid not invariablyeschew all matters of 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 arrival of 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 performance of Macbethon the occasion of the state visit of King SouthAtlantic Review 13

Christianof Denmark, James'sbrother in 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 cer- tainly present at the original performance of 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 paramount in 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 Shake- speare's original intention and regardless of James's reception, the influences of James and of James's interests are evident, as Paul and others have observed, in narrative, theme, image, and lan- guage. 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 Chroniclesof 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 JuliusCaesar and (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 GeorgeWalton Williams on the necessity of vigilance before envious courtiers. It would be a suitable lesson to set before a king, especially a new king, espe- cially-as later events were to prove-James.7 In the legend of Mackbeth,Shakespeare found also references to 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 de- scent."8 It is apparent that in the legend of Macbethand in the legend of Banquo we have two parallelfables: Macbethkills Duncan and his descendant returns immediately to claim the throne; Macbeth kills 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 appari- tions that rise from the cauldron and, on the other, the pageant of the eight kings. The two sets of magic trickery and spectacular stage effect are related through 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 cauldron derive directly from 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 under- stand 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 de- scent." When he sees this royal procession, Macbeth's reaction is electric:"Horrible sight!" (IV.i.122), and the witches depart, slith- South Atlantic Review 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 incapa- ble psychologically of coping with the later discoveries that Mac- duff 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, dissi- pates 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 begin- ning 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 GeorgeWalton Williams 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 Caesar is 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 Professor Harbage has 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 Shakespeare has 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 substitution for 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 brother- hood, 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's gratuitous response 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 Mac- beth'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 SouthAtlantic Review 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 sick- ness (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 spectacle of the ghost demonstratesin general terms the failure of the monarchy, it generates in specific terms a new fear in Macbeth, the fear of Macduff(11.128-29). Macbeth's reference to Macdufffollows imme- diately 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 shap- ing 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's failure 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 associated with Malcolm.When at the banquet, Macbethstarts and seems affrighted, Lady Macbeth supposes that he has seen some- thing 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 writ- ten 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 18 GeorgeWalton Williams feast. This is Shakespeare'sartistry at 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 ela- borated 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 James did not; we may be sure that, for the purposes of this play, Shake- speare did not. James's claim 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 trifling nine generations before 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. Walter administeredthe 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's office for his name, was the first of the Stuart kings. Furthermore,the line from Fergus to Banquo had passed according to the myth-makers from father to SouthAtlantic Review 19 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 RobertII to 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-bol- tered Banquo smiles 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 Jacobean audience 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 suc- cession-not their ancestor Duncan. And so it is their ancestor Banquo who returns as a ghost at the banquet-not their ancestor Duncan. Presenting the Stuartdynasty and Banquo with such compelling primacyand prominence, Shakespearehas done some harm to the coherence of the legend of Mackbeth and Duncane as he trans- ferred it from the Chroniclesto the stage. By inserting the legend of Banquho into the middle of the legend of Mackbeth, Shakespeare has strained the traditional structure of this sort of play. He has transferredthe murder of 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, Ken- tucky.

'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 writing the play (ShakespeareStudies, XIII [1980], p. 312). 3Stillmore compelling evidence of Shakespeare'sadapting his play to the king's interests has newly been advanced by Stanley J. Kozikowski in "The Gowrie Conspiracy Against James VI: A New Source for Shakespeare'sMacbeth," Shake- speareStudies, XIII (1980), 197-213. Kozikowskidemonstrates how 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 first of 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, dancing, and the like" (Paul,p. 328). Though Paul argues well that Macbethwas first 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 ShakespearianTragedy (London: Macmillan, 1904) has pointed to the progressive deteriorationof the characterof Banquo, remarkingthat "it is curious that Shakespeare'sintention here 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" ("Banquo and Edgar:Character or Function," Essaysin Criticism,VII [19771,1-21). 6Allardyce& Josephine Nicoll, Holinshed'sChronicle as Usedin Shakespeare'sPlays (London:J. M. Dent 1927, repr. 1959), pp. 207-24. 7James'ssusceptibility to opportunistsand flatterersis a well-known characteris- tic of his reign; see RobertAshton, JamesI by his Contemporaries(London: Hutchin- son, 1969),esp. pp. 105-39, "Whomthe King delighteth to Honour."If the thesis of this paper is correct,Shakespeare himself is guilty of having been a flattererof his king. 8Nicoll, pp. 207-8, 210, 216. 9Thecritic who has most clearlyrecognized this difficultyis RobertF. Willson, Jr., "Macbeththe PlayerKing: The BanquetScene as FrustratedPlay within the Play," ShakespeareJahrbuch, 114 (Weimar, 1978), 107-14, esp. p. 111: the Thanes "might 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 from Paul, 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 subjects are 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 South Atlantic Review 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 scenicallyawkward for 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 verbal imagery does 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).