#Who was macbeth series#

Supposedly, a coven of witches were trying to personally attack him, which was high treason, so James had them tracked down, forced them to confess to witchcraft, tortured them, and had them burned at the stake.

#Who was macbeth series#

Witchcraft seems to have been a real obsession of James, as he was heavily involved in a series of witch trials in 1590. In fact, much of the witchcraft in Macbeth was actually taken directly from Daemonologie, probably as a form of flattery to the king himself. In 1597, the king published a book called Daemonologie it was a study of witchcraft, necromancy, demons, werewolves, vampires, and all sorts of other spooky things. James I was an avid scholar of all things strange, weird, and superstitious. Then there’s all the supernatural elements. Though there are other Scottish characters in Shakespearean plays, there are none with so many as in Macbeth. James I of England was actually from Scotland as well he ruled over both England and his own home country, where he was called James VI. For one thing, the play is entirely set in Scotland, based on Scottish history and legend, and populated with Scotsmen. Shakespeare’s Macbeth was pretty obviously a nod (and not a subtle one) to King James I. But there’s one play that was clearly written with a monarch in mind. There are many stories, mostly apocryphal, that connect this play to that monarch for example, one popular story says that Queen Elizabeth, upon learning that John Falstaff dies in Henry V, demanded that Shakespeare write a new play for Falstaff, one in which he falls in love- resulting in The Merry Wives of Windsor (whether or not this is a true story, it’s definitely entertaining). It’s commonly held that Shakespeare wrote his plays for the monarchs of England.