HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF MACBETH
VIKING INVASIONS AND DANELAW
from Wikipedia
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Viking raiders struck England in 793
and raided Lindisfarne, the monastery that held Saint Cuthbert’s relics. The raiders
killed the monks and captured the valuables. This raid marks the beginning of the
“Viking Age of Invasion”, made possible by the Viking longship. There was great
but sporadic violence from the last decade of the 8th century on England’s
northern and western shores: Viking raids continued on a small scale across
coastal England. While the initial raiding groups were small, it is believed that a
great amount of planning was involved.
Most of the English kingdoms, being in turmoil, could not stand against the
Vikings. In 867 Northumbria became the northern kingdom of the coalescing
Danelaw, after its conquest by the brothers Halfdan Ragnarsson and Ivar the
Boneless who installed an Englishman, Ecgberht, as a puppet king. By 870 The
Great Summer Army arrived in England, led by a Viking Leader called Bagsecg
and his Five Earls; aided by the Great Heathen Army which already had overrun
much of England from its base in Jorvik, and Bagsecg, who added his forces, and
making allies with Halfdan, the combined Viking forces raided much of England
until 871, when they planned an invasion of Wessex.
On January 8, 871 Bagsecg was killed at The Battle of Ashdown along with his
Earls resulting in many of the Vikings returning to northern England, where Jorvic
had become the center of the Viking kingdom but Alfred of Wessex managed to
keep them out of his country. Alfred and his successors continued to drive back
the Viking frontier and take York.
A new wave of Norwegian Vikings appeared in England in 947 when Erik
Bloodaxe captured York. The Viking presence continued throughout the reign of
the Danish King Cnut the Great (1016–1035), after which a series of inheritance
arguments weakened power of his descendants. By 1012, the Vikings were in
service in England as Thingmen, a personal bodyguard to the King of England.
They were offered payment, the Danegeld, which lasted from 1012 to 1066 and
stopped Viking raids for almost twenty years. The Viking presence dwindled until
1066, when the Norsemen lost their final battle with the English at Stamford
Bridge. Ironically, the Normans, descended from Norsemen, defeated the English
nineteen days later at the Battle of Hastings.
A large-scale map of southern England (up to York) in the reign of King Æthelred
the Unready (978-1016; c. 1000), showing the boroughs, bishoprics, and mints
known to exist at that time.
KING CANUTE
from Wikipedia
Cnut the Great[2] (Old Norse: Knūtr inn rīki;[3] c. 985 or 995 – 12 November
1035), also known as Canute, was a king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts
of Sweden. After the death of his heirs within a decade of his own and the Norman
conquest of England in 1066, his legacy was largely lost to history.
Cnut was of Danish and Polish descent. His father was Sweyn Forkbeard, King of
Denmark (which gave Cnut the patronym Sweynsson). Cnut's mother was the
daughter of Mieszko I, the first ruler of Poland; her name may have been
Świętosława (see: Sigrid Storråda),[4][5][6] but the Oxford DNB article on Cnut
states that her name is unknown.[7]
As a prince of Denmark, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of
centuries of Viking activity throughout the British Isles. His accession to the Danish
throne in 1018 brought the crowns of England and Denmark together. Cnut held
this power-base together by uniting Danes and Englishmen under cultural bonds
of wealth and custom, rather than sheer brutality. After a decade of conflict with
opponents in Scandinavia, Cnut claimed the crown of Norway in Trondheim in
1028. The Swedish city Sigtuna was held by Cnut.[8] He had coins struck which
called him king there, but there is no narrative record of his occupation.
THE HISTORICAL MACBETH
from http://www.srvc.net/engl154/html_files/Mac_Lecture.htm
The historical Macbeth had become king in the year 1040 when he killed the
previous king, Duncan, in battle. To put this in a historical context, this is hardly
the Middle Ages; it's still the Dark Ages, as historians have termed the various
stages of European history. It is 26 years before the Norman invasion of England,
which is generally considered to be the beginning of the medieval period in Britain.
In 1040 Macbeth became king and ruled for 17 years until he was overthrown and
killed by Duncan's son, who became King Malcolm III. Malcolm is famous
primarily because he married an English princess named Margaret who was later
made a saint. According to the Scottish historian Archibald Duncan, little is known
about Macbeth and his lovely wife Grunnich, except that they were pious and
endowed a religious house at St. Andrew's (which is probably the caddy shack on
the fourth green of that famous golf course -- joke). The couple went on a religious
pilgrimage to Rome where, the chroniclers said, "they sowed money like seed."
(Many of us when we go on vacation do the same thing.) That's all we know for
certain about the real Macbeth.
Now the fact that Macbeth killed the previous king was not a big deal. Of the eight
Scottish kings who ruled during this time, seven had died unnatural deaths,
including several who burned to death until suspicious circumstances. It was
highly unusual for a Scottish king to die of natural causes in bed. This violent
record was largely the result of how Scottish kings came to power. There was no
fixed process of succession from one king to the next. In effect, when an old king
died every male who was related to the royal family, no matter how distant the
relationship, had an equal chance for the throne. It was a kind of royal free-for-all
with the last man standing getting to be the king until he was done in by the next
ambitious claimant. Macbeth is overthrown in 1057, still nine years before the
Norman French invasion of England under William the Conqueror.
Two hundred years pass by. The Norman kings are on the throne of England. A
succession of English kings and queens has tried to extend their power north into
Scotland, as generations of Scots have raided English settlements to the south.
The warfare between these two historic enemies is almost constant. In the mid1200's the English king Edward, also known as Longshanks and the Scots Killer,
has invaded Scotland determined to subjugate it once and for all. He pushes
north and reaches the holy place of Scone where the Scottish kings were
crowned. Here he seizes the holy relic called the Stone of Scone and takes it back
to London where he places it under his throne at Westminster Abbey, where it
remained for seven centuries, despite the efforts of Scottish nationalists to steal it
back. (Prime Minister Tony Blair finally returned the stone to Scotland after his
election -- a smart political move.) The film Braveheart gives you a highly dramatic
sense of the conflict at this time between the Scots and the English. The Scots
fight back unsuccessfully because they are not united in their efforts. Finally one
man arises who is able to weld the Scottish people into a single nation, Robert the
Bruce, and he is able to lead to a Scottish victory. The English have to
acknowledge the right of the Scottish State to exist. King Edward is bitterly
disappointed and when he dies, he leaves instructions that if England ever mounts
a new invasion of Scotland, his bones are to be carried at the head of the army.
So you see how bitter the hatred is between the two nations.
HISTORY OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR (King Edward in the play)
Edward the Confessor was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and
ruled from 1042 to 1066, when the Normans invaded. He succeeded Harthacnut,
Cnut the Great’s son, and put the House of Wessex back in control of England
after years of Danish rule starting in 1016. Although he was lauded by the church
for being pious and humble, some say Edward was detached and overly spiritual
for a king, and that it was his indecisive method of handling his succession that
helped the Normans take England so decisively in 1066. Others say he was
sometimes a ruthless, savvy ruler until he withdrew from the daily affairs of his job
in the 1050s. He was canonized as a saint, the first Anglo-Saxon to receive such
an honor. He was able to cure lepers and had visions of future events.
HISTORY OF SHAKESPEARE’S RELATIONSHIP WITH KING JAMES I
from www.jiffynotes.com/Macbeth
Written around 1606, Macbeth is regarded as an unusually generous tribute to the
current monarch at the time, King James I. In 1603, the first year of his reign, King
James privileged Shakespeare's theater company (then the Lord Chamberlain's
Men) above all others to be the King's Men. Shakespeare's theater company was
extremely honored by the title, and Macbeth seems to be Shakespeare's most
obvious attempt at expressing gratitude. There is a wealth of evidence in the play
to support this claim.
Before he became James I of England, he was King James VI of Scotland. As a
tribute play, it makes sense to set it in Scotland, the land of his ancestors. It is also
appropriate that this play features witches and witchcraft since King James wrote a
book about witchcraft. And as regicide and political murders are crucial to this
play, so are they are prominent in the life of King James too - both his father and
mother were killed, and a serious attempt at his life was taken in late 1605 (Guy
Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament with King James in it).
Shakespeare goes further, however, to cater to King James' self-image by
adjusting key details in his play.
Shakespeare draws historical information primarily from Raphael Holinshed's
Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1587). In Chronicles, King Duncan
is a young and ineffectual ruler, and Macbeth and Banquo conspire to assassinate
the king. After they succeed, Macbeth goes on to reign for ten years bearing
numerous children with his wife. The story in Macbeth is altogether different Duncan is an old and wise ruler, Banquo does not assist Macbeth in achieving the
throne, and Macbeth's reign is relatively short and fruitless. Banquo is not complicit
in the murder of Duncan in this play for one simple reason: Banquo is the
legendary founder of the Stuart dynasty, of which King James is the last (but, of
course, James didn't know this at the time this play was written). The effect of
these changes for the play is profound - Macbeth seems isolated as the evil
character and Banquo appears virtuous - whereas in the historical account, there
is no clear distinction between good and evil.
A couple more details in the play highlight Shakespeare's debt of gratitude to King
James. In Scene 4.1, the witches grant Macbeth a vision of a line of kings
stemming from Banquo's son that extend to a ruler with "twofold balls and treble
scepters" (IV.i.137). That is a reference to King James who was crowned twice first as the King of Scotland and later as the King of England - and therefore
carries two orbs and three scepters (since there are two scepters for the English
crown). And in Scene 4.3, Malcolm describes the English king, Edward the
Confessor, being able to cure scrofula with the "royal touch." It was believed that
King James, too, had this divine gift to cure disease with his touch.
Clearly, Shakespeare's primary focus in this play was not to point out how
magnificent King James was, but he also knew that it wouldn't hurt to sneak in a
few compliments when King James had given his theater company such a big lift.