The Shakespeare Code

[It’s best to read PART ONE first]

STEWART

So what was REALLY going on in the kirk at North Berwick?

Well, I can tell you, the academic world doesn’t have a clue.  

Perhaps, at this late stage, we may never know. But what it important for us is what people THOUGHT was going on.

James really believed in witches. He describes them in his Demonologie as….

KING JAMES (Mike Burnside)

Detestable slaves of the Devil!

STEWART

….and says, of witchcraft, that…..

KING JAMES

Such devilish arts have been and ARE!!!

STEWART

In 1597, though, James had his doubts. One poacher-turned-gamekeeper, the great witch of Balwelly, Margaret Aitken, declared that she could tell a fellow witch by looking into her eyes. Dozens of women were sent to their deaths.

James only discovered that she was a fraud when she declared the same woman to be both a witch and not a witch on successive days….

James, to his credit, called off that whole witch hunt. But he tightened the witch laws in England when he became King there in 1603 and witchcraft became punishable by death.

James never for a second lost his belief that witches, and wise women, could see into the future……

….. and he tried to gain that power for himself.

John Harington, Queen Elizabeth’s godson……

……..famous for having invented the water-closet……….

……..recorded a remarkable conversation he had with the King in 1607………

JOHN HARINGTON

He inquired much of my learning, and showed me his own, in such manner, as made me remember my examiner at Cambridge afore-time. His Majesty did much press for my opinion touching the power of Satan in matter of witchcraft; and asked me, with much gravity…..

KING JAMES

Do you truly understand why the devil works more with ancient women than others?

HARINGTON

I did not refrain from a scurvy jest…..

AMANDA (as herself)

 But we will refrain from it here at the Grosvenor Chapel….

HARINGTON continues….

More serious discourse did next ensue, wherein I wanted room to continue, and sometime room to escape; for the Queen, his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, was not forgotten, nor Davison, neither….

KAREN (as herself)

William Davison was Queen Elizabeth’s secretary, whom Elizabeth blamed for Mary’s execution…

KING JAMES

My mother’s death was visible in Scotland before it did really happen. It was spoken of in secret by those whose power of sight presented to them a bloody head dancing in the air…..

HARINGTON

He then did remark much on this gift, and said he had sought out of certain books a sure way to attain knowledge of future chances himself. Hereat he named many books, which I did not know, or by whom written…..We next discoursed somewhat on religion…I made courtesy hereat, and out at the gate.

…..I did forget to tell, that his Majesty much asked concerning my opinion of the new weed tobacco, and said….

KING JAMES

It will, by its use, infuse ill qualities on…. the BRAIN! No learned man ought to taste it. I wish it forbidden.

STEWART

By 1607, James was Shakespeare’s boss and William and his acting company Grooms of the Chamber. But as we have seen, Shakespeare had already met James in Edinburgh in 1599. So why was he there?

The answer, as ever, was politics.

Those who have been coming to these talks, since Father Oakley asked me to start them six years ago, will know that I believe that Shakespeare was an intimate friend of the Earl of Southampton……

…… and part of his entourage…..

This meant he was also friends with Southampton’s friends – the Earl of Essex, (the Queen’s favourite)

 

…….Baron Mountjoy (the Queen’s ex-favourite)……..

 

…….and the beautiful, dark-eyed, Lady Penelope Rich (the Queen’s bête-noire).

Lady Penelope was also Essex’s sister, Mountjoy’s lover and Shakespeare’s leading lady in some of the first, private, performances of his plays at Titchfield.

Southampton, Essex, Mountjoy and Penelope were the Elizabethan Gang of Four, bound in friendship – and FEAR!

Queen Elizabeth refused point blank to name her successor. They were terrified Civil war would break out when she died. Or, worse still, a foreign king or queen would take over the throne….

So the Gang wanted to ensure that King James of Scotland would become King James of England as well….

He was Catholic-friendly – which pleased Shakespeare and Southampton – and he wanted to unite Scotland with England which pleased them all.

So in 1598, Essex and Penelope started to write secretly, in code, to King James. Queen Elizabeth was referred to as……

Venus

…..and Essex….

the Weary Knight……..

…..weary of trying to satisfy the massive sexual desires of the aging queen….

Penelope called herself

Rialta

…..and King James was given the codename……

Victor…

Victor, it was hoped, over Elizabeth…..

By the autumn of 1599, though, things were looking desperate for the Gang. Essex was entirely out of favour with Elizabeth. He’d not only failed to quell the rebellion over in Ireland: he’d had a secret parley with the rebel leader, the Earl of Tyrone….

 

When word of this reached the Court, Essex rushed back to England and burst into the Queen’s bed-chamber. Elizabeth was furious – not so much because Essex had deserted his post but because he’d seen her without her wig and make-up….

Essex was placed under house arrest and Mountjoy sent to Ireland replace him.

The Gang conceived a daring plan. Mountjoy would bring over from Ireland one half of the Queen’s army, King James would march, at the head of his, to the Borders of Scotland. There he would publish an open letter to the English government of his right to the Succession… If his demand was refused, he would invade….

To persuade James to take part, they sent him their secret weapon – William Shakespeare – and HIS secret weapon – the tragedy of Macbeth….

Now I know most people think that Macbeth was written and performed during the English reign of James. But the great Shakespeare scholar, John Dover Wilson, produced a massive body of evidence to show that not only was Macbeth written during the reign of Elizabeth – but it was also first performed in Edinburgh. The only difference between us is that Dover Wilson thinks it was 1601 – and I, following Guthrie of Brechin, think it was 1599.

My belief is that Shakespeare RETURNED to Scotland in 1601….

But why did Shakespeare and the Gang think Macbeth would persuade James to invade England? It’s important to know that James believed what many people at the time believed – that time was cyclical. As he wrote to his son, Prince Henry…

KING JAMES

By reading of authentic histories and chronicles, you shall learn experience by theoric, applying the by-past things to the present estate, quia nihil nunc dici aut fieri, quod non dictum et factum fit prius…Since nothing is spoken or done which has not been spoken or done before….

STEWART

So when James watched Macbeth he would be automatically comparing it with events in his own life-time. This resonance was made even more powerful by the fact that Banquo was the founder of James’s own line of Kings – the Stuarts.

In Holinshed, Banquo helps Macbeth murder King Duncan – but in Shakespeare’s version Banquo is loyal, wise and brave – just like King James – or rather, how the Gang of Four wanted King James to be….

For the truth of the matter is that James, naturally bookish, would scream if anyone drew a sword in his presence. He even advised his son to wear light armour in battle so he could the more easily run away….

So, one of Shakespeare’s aims in writing Macbeth was to show King James that war was glorious. Shakespeare had written Henry V earlier in the year……..

…… and Macbeth does for Scottish patriotism what Henry V had done for English patriotism. 

War is shown in the play as an opportunity to display bravery and loyalty. 

Macbeth, the soldier, without hesitation, ‘unseams’ the rebel Macdonwald ‘from the nave to the chops’ then cuts off his head and fixes it on the castle’s battlements. For this he is rewarded by King Duncan with a new title and he enjoys the…….

…..golden opinions……

….. of his countrymen and women……

By implication, these ‘golden opinions’ would also be won by King James if he were to invade England…

But Shakespeare needs to convince James of the rightness of the action as well: Queen Elizabeth, after all, was related to James through King Henry VII.

Elizabeth herself was also an anointed monarch….

……and James believed in the Divine Right of Kings.

Shakespeare sets about his task by employing codes. Scotland, in the topsy-turvy, fair is foul world of Macbeth is really England.  And England is really Scotland…

When England invades Scotland to put down Scottish tyranny, it’s really Scotland invading England to put down English tyranny…

The murder of the saintly King Duncan, when a guest in the home of the Macbeths, is a coded re-run of the execution of James’s mother, Mary Queen of Scots, when she had been a ‘guest’ in the land of Queen Elizabeth.

Lord and Lady Macbeth, as the play progresses, begin to embody many of the characteristics of Queen Elizabeth….Here are eight of them….

(1.) Her hesitation.

Macbeth hesitates before killing Duncan, weighing up the pros and cons……

MACBETH

He’s here in double trust:

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

Strong both against the deed; then as his host,

Who should against his murtherer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself.

STEWART

Elizabeth, described by contemporary historian, William Camden, as…..

….a woman naturally slow in her resolutions…

…..dithered about the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in the same way…

In the midst of these doubtful and perplexed thoughts, which so troubled and staggered the Queen’s mind that she gave herself over wholly to solitariness, sat many times melancholic and mute and frequently sighing muttered to herself, ‘Aut fer aut feri’…..either bear with her or smite her… And ‘ne feriare, feri’ – Strike lest thou be stricken

These troubled speech patterns are echoed in many of Macbeth’s speeches:

MACBETH

This supernatural soliciting

Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,

Why hath it given me earnest of success,

Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,

Against the use of nature…..

(2.) Her assumption of a masculine role……….

Lady Macbeth says…..

LADY MACBETH (Kate Godfrey)

Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry ‘Hold, hold!’

 

Elizabeth would often refer to herself as a ‘Prince’ and in 1560 said to the Swedish Ambassador….

I have the heart of a man and I am not afraid of anything….

(3) Her blame-shifting….

Lord and Lady Macbeth put the blame for Duncan’s murder on the two innocent grooms who were guarding the King…

Elizabeth put the blame for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots on her innocent secretary, Davison.

(4) Her use of hit-men….

Macbeth hires two, then three, murderers to kill Banquo.

Elizabeth ordered Sir Amias Paulet and Sir Drue Drury to murder Mary Queen of Scots in secret. The gentlemen declined, to Elizabeth’s fury…

She claimed they were

….lacking in zeal and care….

(5) Her propensity to fits….

Macbeth suffers a fit when he sees the ghost of Banquo at the feast….

Lady Macbeth says to the guests………

LADY MACBETH

…My Lord is often thus,

And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat;

The fit is momentary; upon a thought

He will again be well……

STEWART

Elizabeth suffered from similar fits. She would lie, unconscious and speechless, for hours on end and would often swoon through sheer rage…

On 30 June, 1586, the year before the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, the Spanish Ambassador reported to Philip II how

…when the Queen was going to Chapel, as usual in full magnificence, she was suddenly overcome with a shock of fear, which affected her to such an extent that she at once returned to her apartments, greatly to the wonder of those present.

(6) Her bad dreams….

Macbeth talks about….

MACBETH

…these terrible dreams

That shake us nightly….

…and Lady Macbeth sleepwalks, trying to wash Duncan’s blood from her hands as she exclaims….

LADY MACBETH

Out, damned spot! out, I say!–One: two: why, then, ’tis time to do’t.–Hell is murky!–Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?–Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him……

STEWART

Elizabeth suffered from ‘terrible dreams’ before the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. After she had sent orders to Paulet to murder the Scottish Queen, she was awakened by a violent shriek from the lady who always slept in her bedchamber.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

What ails?

LADY IN WAITING

I dreamed that I saw the hangman strike off the head of the Queen of Scots; and forthwith he laid hands on Your Majesty, and was about to behead you as well, when I screamed with terror…

QUEEN ELIZABETH

I was at the instant you awoke me, dreaming the very same thing…

STEWART

(7) Her isolation and depression…

Macbeth separates himself more and more from his fellow beings – even his wife – and on hearing of her death, utters words of overwhelming despair…..

MACBETH

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

STEWART

Elizabeth suffered severe bouts of depression all her life. She would stay alone in her room trying to ‘shun melancholy’ by playing the lute or the virginals… 

After the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587 and the deaths, in the following year, of her lover, the Earl of Leicester………

…… and the only man who could ‘un-dumpish’ her, her jester, Richard Tarleton…….

…..Elizabeth’s depressions became acute.

Lord Burghley, on one occasion, had to smash down the doors of her bed-chamber to get her to eat.

(8) Her propensity to ‘play-act’…

When the murder of King Duncan is discovered, Lady Macbeth, feigning grief and surprise, exclaims

LADY MACBETH

What! in our house

….a response so unnatural that a suspicious Banquo remarks….

BANQUO

Too cruel, anywhere…

STEWART

Lady Macbeth then proceeds to suffer a fainting fit…

Elizabeth had knowingly signed Mary Queen of Scots’s death-warrant. She had even joked about it with her secretary, Davison.

But, according to the Regency historian, Lucy Aikin…

Elizabeth heard the news of Mary’s death with great indignation, her countenance altered, her speech faltered and failed her and through excessive sorrow she stood in a manner astonished; insomuch that she gave herself over to passionate grief, putting herself into mourning habit and shedding abundance of tears….

The same day that the people of London heard that Mary Queen had been beheaded, they made bonfires as though England had gained some victory. Elizabeth put her head out of the window and asked….

QUEEN ELIZABETH

What do these bonfires mean?

PEASANT

Mary Queen of Scots is dead, mam….

QUEEN ELIZABETH

What? Is my sister dead? And who has put her to death? They have deceived me then…

STEWART

One nobleman who was present could not help saying…..

See, there, the very trick of a play actress…

And even the contemporary historian, Camden, admits he doesn’t know if Elizabeth’s tears were feigned or not. 

Neither, probably, did Elizabeth…..

So the action of Macbeth shows that Lord and Lady Macbeth are bloodthirsty usurpers of the Scottish throne who deserve to die…

Just as Elizabeth, the bloodthirsty usurper of the English throne deserves to die as well….

James might have been convinced that an invasion of England was morally right …

…but he also needed convincing it would be successful as well….

And this is where the witches really come into their own….

(To read Part Three – the Great Witch Finale – please click: HERE! )