1. Elizabethan Beliefs The Great Chain of Being Divine Right of Kings
Primogeniture
Ghosts
Machiavelli
Elizabeth I

2. The Great Chain Concept
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

3. The Elizabethan View
There were three levels of attachment within the great chain
Macrocosm
Mesocosm
Microcosm

4. The Great Chain of Being
Macrocosm
God
Angels
People
Animals
Lion
Dog
Plants
Inanimate
Gold
Dirt
Mesocosm (Earthly) (3 groups in red)
Microcosm = the Individual
Church Pope Archbishops Bishops Priests
Laity or those not of the clergy
Family Husband | Wife | Son | Servants
The State King Dukes Earls, etc Knights
Middle Class
Spirit (reason)|
Passion

5. The English Class System
The Nobility
The King Dukes Marquises Earls Viscounts Barons
The Gentry Baronets Knights Esquires Gentlemen
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

6. 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.”).

7. 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).

8. 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).

9. 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.

10. 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

11. Ghosts!
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.
Hamlet seeing his murdered father’s ghost

12. 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.

13. Shakespeare’s Plays Question Machiavelli
His histories and tragedies ask who is the rightful ruler and why
Does the end truly justify the means?