Everything on the GCSE English Literature Macbeth: Context - Divine Right, Witchcraft and James I poster is written out below, section by section. Use it to search the sheet, copy parts into your own notes, or check a fact quickly.
To gain AO3 marks, connect each contextual point to a specific moment in the play. Facts on their own do not score.
Divine right of kings
The Jacobean doctrine that a king ruled by God's appointment, was answerable only to God, and could not be removed by his subjects. So killing a king was sacrilege, not just treason.
James I argued this in The True Law of Free Monarchies (1598).
Why it matters
Regicide was seen as more than a political crime: it was an attack on God's order. Macbeth's murdering Duncan therefore makes him not just a traitor, but a sacrilegious ruler who has broken the bond between heaven, king and country.
Malcolm's return restores legitimate kingship.
James I as patron
James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603. He gave Shakespeare's company royal patronage at once and they became the King's Men.
Macbeth was written for him in 1606. James traced his line to Banquo, shaping Shakespeare's adaptation of the source material.
Why it matters
In Holinshed's source, Banquo helps Macbeth commit the murder. Shakespeare changes him into a noble figure who resists evil.
James I claimed descent from Banquo, so the play makes the king's supposed ancestor look honourable.
Fleance's escape keeps the royal line alive.
Daemonologie
James I's 1597 treatise on witchcraft, reprinted in London on his accession in 1603, argues witches are real, in league with the devil, and deserve execution. James wrote it after the North Berwick witch trials of 1590-91. The play departs from the book: James blamed witches for harm, where Shakespeare's witches only prophesy.
Why it matters
James I believed witches were real servants of the devil, but Shakespeare's witches are more ambiguous. They tempt Macbeth with half-truths rather than directly control him. This keeps Macbeth morally responsible: the witches plant ideas, but Macbeth chooses murder.
The natural order
The Jacobean picture of a fixed hierarchy from God downward, with the king at the head of human society.
Cosmic and political order were continuous, so disrupting the human hierarchy would ripple into unnatural disorder in nature.
Why it matters
Jacobean audiences often saw political disorder and natural disorder as connected. After Duncan's murder, Scotland becomes unnatural: darkness covers the day, animals turn violent, and Macbeth's rule is associated with sickness, fear and chaos. Nature reflects the broken kingdom.
The Gunpowder Plot
5 November 1605: Catholic conspirators tried to blow up Parliament and kill James I.
Father Henry Garnet was executed in 1606 for hiding his knowledge of the plot. His trial made "equivocation" famous, meaning speech that is vague in order to hide the truth, like the witches' prophecies.
Why it matters
The plot made fears of hidden treason especially powerful. Equivocation became associated with deception and betrayal. The Porter mocks an "equivocator", and the witches' prophecies mislead Macbeth by sounding true but concealing danger.