Kingship Essay - Macbeth The issue of Kingship was such an important issue of Shakespeare's time because there is a change of ruler

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Kingship Essay – Macbeth

The issue of Kingship was such an important issue of Shakespeare’s time because there is a change of ruler, which will affect the lives of the population. Queen Elizabeth was a benevolent Queen who strived for peace. She was the virgin Queen and was, in effect, married to her country; she did this in order to protect her country from another King, who could potentially start tension and war. This commitment shows Elizabeth’s love for her country, as she took on the personal commitments to defend her country. People loved her as a consequence of this. A benefit of this was that Elizabethan times were full of prosperity, advances in learning and the expansion of empire. There was no civil strife as there had been before in the war of the Roses. When Elizabeth’s long era came to an end when she died in 1603 there was debate as to who would be the next ruler. The blood line of the Tudors found King James VI of Scotland as the legitimate candidate to be King James I of England. This united England and Scotland, and Shakespeare uses the play ‘Macbeth’, to compliment King James, to promote a good image and to show the significance of the Monarchy.

        Another significant issue to the background of ‘Macbeth’ is the hierarchy in place at this time. Elizabethan’s desired stability as it meant they could move forward and could be protected from the outcome of war, which the population were afraid of. This lack of change was accepted so much so that they believed if you were born would be where you will stay, i.e. if your family were commoners, therefore you would be born a commoner and would be expected to stay and have no social mobility. The people with power supported this because it benefited them most, e.g. land owners would not want to change this stable structure of society as it could jeopardise their position and lifestyle. However I need to point out that a change in society would leave things unbalanced and a further concern would be chaos and eventually a collapse of this stable era of Elizabethan’s.

        Besides the structure of the Hierarchy, other ideas are influential in the time of the Elizabethans. The Great Chain Of Being was the traditional Elizabethan idea of natural connection of worlds. This means that the man, spiritual world, nature and animal worlds were all linked, and the Elizabethans ascribed in that any disruption of this would lead to chaos, which is similar to the Hierarchy, which I have already mentioned. Similar animalistic chaos mentioned in ‘Macbeth’, “And Duncan’s horses --- ‘tis said they did eat each other’. This shows chaos because it is going against their nature, as they are herbivores and do not eat meat, let alone each other. This is strongly linked to Macbeth killing his King and unbalancing Elizabethans theory, therefore showing that this Hierarchy has just gone through something extremely disturbed.

        A further belief of the Elizabethan time is the ‘Divine Right of Kings’. This is the belief that the King has been chosen by God to rule his country. Elizabethans suffered from indoctrination, which means they were brainwashed into thinking this, similar to the hierarchy and Great Chain of Being issues. If anyone was to kill the King by regicide, a pre-meditated murder, Elizabethans would believe they have committed sacrilege and would suffer eternal damnation, loose their soul. We can see support of this when Macduff says:

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“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord’s most anointed temple, and stole thence

The life of the building.”

The only exception is fighting in a country against country battle, where God would be seen to be on their side, and God will choose the winner. In ‘Macbeth’s’ case, he would be excommunicated, excluded from the religion, for killing Duncan. This would therefore mean no one could speak to him, and in Elizabethans time there was only one church, which was led by the King, which all of the population believed in. Therefore his ...

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