Weird Sisters
The Discovery of Witchcraft in Macbeth
The next module of my video course on Shakespeare and his World turns to Macbeth and Scotland, with a particular focus on the fact that this is a Jacobean tragedy. It was written after the accession of King James of Scotland to the throne of England, and it reflects many of his interests — a problem for believers in the conspiracy theory that the true author of the play was Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who died in 1604 before such events as the Gunpowder Plot and the unfolding of James’s plan to unite the kingdoms (a key policy for the understanding of the division of the kingdoms in King Lear, which was played before His Majesty at Whitehall on 26 December 1606).