Shakespeare’s ‘Scottish play’ Macbeth is a masterpiece, full of atmospheric Scottish hassle and skulduggery. So, why is Scotland not mentioned anywhere else in his works?
Macbeth may be Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy in length (Hamlet is twice as long), but it is certainly one of his most intense, crammed with foreboding, hatred, witchcraft and madness. It is also remarkably full of authentic Scottish detail and atmosphere. But after writing Macbeth, he never mentioned Scotland again.
The Bard displays admirable knowledge of Scotland’s geography and idiom. He correctly places Dunsinane, Great Birnam Wood, Forres and Inverness. He knows the location of the lands of Fife, Glamis, Cawdor, Ross, Lennox, Mentieth, Angus and Caithness. Detailed maps of Scotland were not easy to come by, and it would take someone with local knowledge to situate these places so accurately. Many Scots then were unsure on the exact geography of their country and vague on distances. Thus, Banquo’s question: “How far is it called to Forres”? (Act I, Scene 3) displays awareness of local idiom used at the time because of such uncertainty.
Shakespeare even seems to understand Scottish weather, as for example in Act I, where Macbeth says to Banquo, “So fair and foul a day I have not seen”. A typical Scottish day, then.
It all looks as if the play had been written by a Scot, you could say. Except that it wasn’t.
So how can this be? Shakespeare never visited Scotland as far as we know. Apart from this one magnificent play, he never expressed any interest in Scotland. He never mentions the word Scotland once in any of his other works. He never puts a Scottish character or a Scottish name in any other play (he has Irish and Welsh characters in several). What’s going on?
Firstly, we must remember that during Shakespeare’s life a Scottish King (James I and VI), acceded to the English throne – in 1603. This must have provided some sort of incentive to an ambitious writer to curry favour by at least alluding to Scotland at some point in most of his plays, you would have thought. After all, James became patron of Shakespeare’s theatre company, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men allowing them to be renamed as The King’s Men.
So why did Shakespeare eschew all things Scottish, after his great outpouring of Scottishness via Macbeth, in 1606? One is forced to one of two conclusions – or maybe both. Either Shakespeare or King James discovered some special very strong reason to ignore Scotland and all things Scottish.
In Shakespeare’s case it is hard to imagine him simply disliking Scotland, a place that he apparently did not know from first hand observation, to the extent of cutting it out of his works. One must therefore conclude that he felt it prudent to desist from mentioning it having regard to the politics of the time. In other words, someone let it be known to him that the King was not keen to show his Scottish side.
King James on the other hand, would have had several good reasons to keep his Scottishness in the background.
Whatever his personal feelings, James had soon become a stranger to the country of his birth and only returned there once. He did not want to be reminded of his Scottish origin and his new English subjects did not want to be reminded of it either. He was not a popular King during his early years in England. From a young age he had known that he had the best claim to the English crown on the coming death of the childless Elizabeth I and he had done nothing before that event that might put his claim in jeopardy. He even famously failed to protest very strongly when the cold English queen finally executed his mother Mary Queen of Scots in 1587, fearing that such exertions might make his future accession more questionable.
His vision of the future went far beyond his Scottishness – he wanted to be seen as King of a united Britain and this occupied his early years after his succession to the English throne. He even designed a new flag for this new nation. He later proclaimed himself King of Great Britain.
James was very careful not to encourage anti-Scottish sentiment, and proof that this existed came with the gunpowder plot of 1605 when Guy Fawkes famously said his motivation had been: “to blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains.” A reply that James reportedly admired for its bravery but saw as a warning too.
Clearly, the Scottish King was interested in Britain rather than Scotland and did not appreciate any allusions to his Scottishness at all. Playwrights would have needed to be mindful of this at all times.
All that said, it is notable that several modern Shakespearean scholars, recognising the intensely Scottish atmosphere of the play, have suggested that the Swan of Avon did actually travel to Scotland, although there is no documentary evidence for it. They say he might have been in Scotland around 1601–2 with Lawrence Fletcher’s acting company. The fact that Shakespeare is not noted as being in London at this time is given as another indication. But this is all highly questionable conjecture with no absolute proof. Furthermore, even if it were true that the Bard went North of the border, it would make his subsequent silence about Scotland even more strange.
Oddly enough, almost from the time of his death, Shakespeare has been greatly venerated in Scotland with both Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott expressing their admiration and citing his work as their inspiration. In view of the Bard’s strange detachment from all things Scottish after Macbeth was performed in Edinburgh (thought to be 1608), this is even more surprising. But that is by the by.
Of course, another distant possibility is that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the play. Another Shakespeare authorship mystery, I hear your mutter. Let’s not go there.
So, did King James enjoy the performance of Macbeth when he first saw it, early in 1607 at Hampton Court Palace? We cannot be sure. The play includes several messages – the ruthless murder of a King must have raised a few eyebrows but on the other hand, this is followed by swift retribution dealt to the perpetrators. The audience at Hampton Court would have been mindful of the recent Gunpowder Plot and the fate of the conspirators. It seems probable that the King was not appreciative – otherwise, would he not have asked for a repeat including some further Scottishness? Instead of which, Shakespeare deserts all things Scottish for evermore. We can conclude that he must have received some pretty negative royal vibes.
After 1608, Scottish audiences would have been well justified had they shouted ‘Whaur’s Wullie Shakespeare noo?*
* Note: The audience of an Edinburgh theatre in the Eighteenth century famously shouted ‘Whaur’s yer Wullie Shakespeare noo?’ following a performance by a Scottish author (The play was John Home’s ‘Douglas’) – one that they had particularly liked.
