When and for Whom the Play Was Written
William Shakespeare wrote Macbeth around 1606 for his acting company, which since 1603 had been called the King's Men. The new patron was James I, who in 1603 inherited the crown of England from Elizabeth I and already reigned in Scotland as James VI. For the first time the same man governed both countries, and a play about a Scottish king and about who succeeds whom touched a subject that concerned him closely. The company performed at the Globe Theatre in London. The earliest record of a performance dates from 1611: the doctor Simon Forman, who saw it at the Globe, noted the scene of the witches and the one of the ghost at the banquet (scene 4 of Act III).
A Threatened King and Faith in Witches
In November 1605, the Gunpowder Plot had tried to blow up Parliament with the king inside, and killing a king was, for that audience, the crime of crimes. The trial of the Jesuit priest Henry Garnet, in 1606, made famous the debate about speaking ambiguously to hide the truth, and the Porter of Macbeth's castle makes a joke about it: he imagines at the castle gate a Jesuit who swore on both sides and, despite his evasions, could not get into Heaven (scene 3 of Act II).
James himself took witchcraft seriously. In 1590 and 1591, in Scotland, women were tried for supposedly stirring up storms against the ship in which he was returning from Denmark, and in 1597 he published a treatise on sorcery, the Daemonologie. When one of the witches on the heath promises to torment a sailor's ship with storms (scene 3 of Act I), the audience recognized a fear of its own time, and not just a fantasy of the theater.
Where the Story Came From
The main source was the Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, by Raphael Holinshed, in the 1587 edition. Macbeth existed: he reigned in Scotland from 1040 to 1057. The oldest historical records say that Duncan died in combat, not in his sleep, and that Macbeth was defeated and killed, years later, by Malcolm, Duncan's son. In Scotland at that time, the successor was usually chosen among the king's kinsmen, and it was not certain that the son would inherit, which helps explain why Macbeth reacts to the naming of Malcolm as heir (scene 4 of Act I).
Shakespeare changed what suited his audience. In Holinshed, Banquo helps Macbeth in the crime; in the play, he suspects the witches and dies without betraying the king. The reason is political: the Scottish tradition made Banquo the ancestor of the Stuart family, that of James. In the scene in which the witches show Macbeth a line of kings descended from Banquo, the last one carries a mirror, and some carry two orbs and three scepters, which many readers take as the union of the crowns of England and Scotland (scene 1 of Act IV).
There are also real figures in English history. King Edward, who welcomes Malcolm and cures the sick with the touch (scene 3 of Act IV), reigned from 1042 to 1066, and the rite of the royal touch, which English kings went on practicing, was attributed to him. General Siward, who brings the English army, was also a real earl, who invaded Scotland in 1054.
The Text That Reached Us
Macbeth was printed only in 1623, in the First Folio, the volume that two of Shakespeare's colleagues organized seven years after his death, and there is no earlier edition. It is one of the shortest tragedies by the author. Many scholars believe that parts of the text, such as the scene in which Hecate rebukes the witches (scene 5 of Act III), were added after the first version, by another playwright.