Elizabethan Beliefs
 The Great Chain
of Being
 Divine Right of
Kings
 Primogeniture
 Ghosts
 Machiavelli
Elizabeth I
1558 - 1603
God
The Great
Chain
Concept
 One chain without branches links the universe
 A chain link determines your distance from God
 English society is based on the idea that everyone
and everything has a place
 If you leave your place, you disrupt the chain
(rebellion and discord happen)
 If passion controls your reason or if you take
another’s spot, you get knocked down the chain
 Nature will reflect any disorders in the chain
The Elizabethan View
There were three levels of attachment
within the great chain
1. Macrocosm
2. Mesocosm
3. Microcosm
The Great Chain of Being
Macrocosm
•God
•Angels
•People
•Animals
•Lion
•Dog
•Plants
•Inanimate
•Gold
•Dirt
Mesocosm (Earthly) (3 groups in
red)
•Church
Family
The State
Pope
Husband
King
Archbishops Dukes
|
Bishops
Wife
Earls, etc.
Priests
|
Knights
Son
Laity or those Middle Class
|
not of the
Servants
clergy
Microcosm =
the Individual
•Spirit (reason)|
• Passion
The English Class System
The Nobility The Gentry
Baronets
The King
Knights
Dukes
Esquires
Marquises
Gentlemen
Earls
Viscounts
Barons
Commonalty (1)
Middle People
Citizens
Burgesses
Yeomen
Professionals
Merchants
Lawyers
Administrators
Clergy
Commonalty (2)
Small merchants
or retailers
Day-laborers,
husbandmen,
artisans
The poor, infirm,
and unemployed
Everyone has a place and harmony is everyone in his place
Nature will reflect any disharmony in this chain
King James
“Shakespeare was a great entertainer
who knew his audience, and the primary
audience member for Macbeth was King
James I. This young and energetic King
of Scotland took the English throne in
1603, and Shakespeare’s company was
renamed the King’s Men that year in
honor of James” (Caraway, Amanda. “What’s
A Thane to Do? The Story of A Thane to
Placate a King.”).
Macbeth is set in Scotland during the reigns of
Duncan and Macbeth, who were kings of Scotland
between 1037 and 57 C.E. Shakespeare alters the
historical accounts in order to write a story that will
flatter King James. The Chronicles of Holinshed,
Shakespeare’s primary source for Macbeth, links
Banquo to the Stuart line of Kings, from which James I
is descended (Evans, G. Blakemore, The Riverside
Shakespeare, 2nd edition [Boston, New York:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997], 1356).
King James
James thought of himself as a fighter of
evil and a true man of God with the
Divine Right to Rule. He is remembered
for ordering a new translation of the
Bible, known as the King James Version
of the Bible. He considered himself to be
a “scholar of witches and witchcraft”
(Garber, Marjorie B, Shakespeare After
All, 1st ed. [New York: Pantheon Books,
2004], 697).
Divine Right of Kings
"…the figure of God's majesty,
His captain, steward, deputy-elect,
Anointed, crowned,…" (Richard II, 4.1)
The theory of the Divine Right of Kings aimed at instilling
obedience by explaining why all social ranks were
religiously and morally obliged to obey their government.
Monarchs ruled because they were chosen by God to do so
and these kings were accountable to no person except God.
They were considered to be divinely chosen.
Primogeniture
 Families transferred their right to rule by
this practice of inheritance
 The eldest son of the ruling family inherits
all power, titles and lands of the family
Ghosts!
Hamlet seeing
his murdered
father’s ghost
 Elizabethans, like people
today, had mixed beliefs in
their existence.
 However, everyone then
knew that a murdered
person’s ghost would have
no rest until the murderer
was brought to justice!
 This idea resulted from the
chain of being in that nature
reflected the disorder created
by murder. Hamlet and
Julius Caesar play upon this
belief.
Machiavelli (1469 – 1527)
 He writes The Prince in
1513
 He concludes that some
“virtues” will lead to a
prince’s destruction
whereas some “vices”
will allow him to
survive.
 His ultimate conclusion
for keeping power is that
the end justifies the
means.
Shakespeare’s Plays
Question Machiavelli
 His histories and tragedies ask who is the
rightful ruler and why
 Does the end truly justify the means?