 Hello, and welcome back to yet another GCSE revision lesson. Now, lots and lots and lots of my students have asked me, even pestered me about the theme of kingship. They've said, Barbara, Barbara, if the theme of kingship comes up, what could I talk about? Miss, what could I mention when it comes to the theme of kingship? Lots of people, including many of you who watch in this video are absolutely convinced that kingship is gonna come up in the Macbeth exam. So, what I want to show you guys is the three top points, as well as the thesis statement to include in your essay if you're writing a grade nine response on the theme of kingship. Now, remember, always begin a really strong essay with your thesis statement. What is the message that Shakespeare is trying to impart when it comes to this really central theme, okay? Remember that Shakespeare uses King Duncan, okay? So, King Duncan, the first king, and Macbeth, who becomes, of course, the second king. He uses the characters and he juxtaposes them and contrasts them to illustrate the theme of kingship and he illustrates how a country like Scotland stays very, very powerful under the right leader. Under King Duncan's leadership, Scotland won all of the wars. Scotland was a very powerful country. However, when under the wrong leader, so the person who was not chosen by God under divine right of kings, i.e. Macbeth, Scotland descended into chaos and arguably anarchy at the end when it was consumed with chaos. Now, really, really important when you're thinking about the theme of kingship and writing about it, you have to show an awareness of the fact that there are three kings in the play. The play starts off with King Duncan, chosen directly by God through divine right of kings. Scotland is incredibly powerful. However, Macbeth, the second king, usurps him. He is not chosen. He's the wrongful leader and Scotland descends into chaos. However, order is restored by the third king, Malcolm, who has Macbeth killed, okay? It's Macduff that kills Macbeth, but then he hands the crime back to Malcolm and order is restored. And when you're crafting a response on kingship, make sure you dedicate and allocate one paragraph to King Duncan, one paragraph to Macbeth, and one paragraph to Malcolm, all three kings within the play. Now, your first paragraph, your first grade nine paragraph on King Duncan would include the following point relating to kingship. Now, of course, King Duncan illustrates the theme of kingship because we find that he was actually a very righteous king. He was a very generous king. And he generously rewarded his men through, when he saw great deeds, for instance, when he saw that Macbeth won all of these wars, including also Banquo, he rewarded them. He gave them titles and Macbeth, of course, was made a Thane of Cornwall. Does this illustrate? This illustrates that King Duncan, as the rightful king, was actually a very generous and righteous king. This is also why Scotland was so powerful under him because he rewarded his men, hence his men were very loyal back to him. And the quotes to use to illustrate how King Duncan illustrates kingship when the rightful leader is in charge is firstly, when he speaks of Macbeth and calls him valiant cousin. And even he's so humble when he sees Macbeth after he's made him Thane of Cornwall, he actually apologizes and says, the sin of my ingratitude weighs heavily on him. What does this illustrate? This illustrates that under King Duncan, the king that was rightfully chosen by God, Scotland was quite powerful and also he was a very righteous and giving king because he generously rewarded his men. Of course, you also need to mention the fact that King Duncan's major fatal flaw was that he trusted too much. He believed in appearances far too much and this is illustrated when he tells to his son, Malcolm, that there's no art to find the mind's construction in the face. This is when he's reflecting on the previous Thane of Cornwall, he trusted him too much and therefore he was betrayed. So King Duncan's fatal flaw is his gullibility. However, aside from that, he's actually presented as a perfect king, the quintessentially generous king. And when you're writing about King Duncan, make sure you add a context point illustrating the divine right of kings. Shakespeare was presenting this play to King James's court, okay? King James is a new king at this stage and he's using this idea of divine right of kings to tell all the noblemen that are present, maybe some of them are thinking of overthrowing King James, not to think about it because England and the United Kingdom by extension will fall into chaos much like Scotland fell into chaos under the wrongful king that's not chosen by God, okay? That's the first perfect paragraph to write about with kingship relating to King Duncan's character. But of course, you then need to relate your second paragraph to the second king. This is King Macbeth who takes over. So your second paragraph would now juxtapose the righteous King Duncan with of course the tyrannical King Macbeth. And the point that you wanna make is Macbeth is used by Shakespeare as a cautionary figure as he reveals what happens when the wrongful leader is in power, Scotland falls into chaos and even arguably Anarchy. I'm saying arguably Anarchy because it's not complete Anarchy. Anarchy is a country where there's no leader and it's in complete chaos. Of course there's a leader towards the end of Macbeth but the country is in complete shambles. It's in war. Macbeth is only focused on killing people. In contrast with King Duncan, who was very generous, he rewarded men with titles. He even tried to empower his men. Macbeth on the other hand, becomes very greedily focused on hoarding all of the power to himself because it's the wrongful king. And he even focuses on eliminating any single threat to him. He ends up killing King Duncan, Banquo, McDuff's family. He goes on this killing rampage. What does this illustrate? This illustrates what happens when the wrong leader is in charge. Again, remember that Shakespeare is trying to show this to King James' audience. He's trying to warn them when the wrongful person is in power, they're just gonna get consumed by their ambition. Now the quotations you want to tie this into are firstly, when Macbeth considers his vaulting ambition. So this is before he kills King Duncan. However, we can see that he considers the idea of kingship. He sees it as something that's a very alluring idea, okay? So he's very tempted by the idea of kingship and he knows that this ambition is something that maybe he might not be able to handle. However, we learn that he's not able to handle it because once he becomes powerful, all he focuses on is eliminating any threat to his power rather than maybe even elevating his men because this is illustrated in the quotation when he tells his wife, we've scorched the snake, not killed it. So here he's thinking, okay, we've already killed King Duncan, but now I need to make sure I kill my best friend, Banquo, because the witch has said his kids will be king so I need to make sure Banquo and Flayence are dead. What this is illustrating is he's the wrongful leader. He's paranoid by the fact that God hasn't chosen him to be king and he's trying to control the outcome of the witch's prophecies. The final quotations to also illustrate that Macbeth is the wrongful king is what Macduff says about him in act four, scene three, when Macduff calls him an untitled tyrant and he says as a result of his leadership, his wrongful leadership, Scotland is bleeding because he says, bleed, bleed, poor country. Now, when talking about Macbeth, you can make this paragraph a theme related paragraph. The perfect theme to tie this into is ambition. Chaser wants to illustrate that ambition is a very corrupting force. It triggers people like Macbeth to try to subvert the great chain of being so they're trying to go above the position of the natural hierarchy and this not only corrupts them and leads their downfall because ambition is Macbeth's ha-marshire, his fatal flaw, but of course also it leads a powerful country like Scotland to descend and fall into chaos. The third paragraph and the third point, of course, you're illustrating an awareness that there's also a third king at the end of the play is Malcolm, okay? Now, in contrast to his father, Malcolm is not like King Duncan. He's not gullible, okay? So actually when the play ends, we kind of sense that Scotland not only is order restored but also Scotland is gonna become a bit more powerful simply because it's now gonna be led by leader who's also not gullible. Now, the third point to make is we sense that Malcolm will be the perfect king. He's firstly presented as a very dubious person who's able to be quite perceptive. He's able to think beyond just what people say to his face, he's able to think a little bit and think, can I trust him? Can I not? This is illustrated even when Macduff comes to England to try and help him raise an army, Malcolm tests him first. He tests him and then later apologizes and says, be not offended. He's testing him because he doesn't trust everybody just based on their surface appearances, unlike his father. Equally, he never trusted that the true killers were found after they said that the groomsmen, the people that were guarding King Duncan had been killed, okay? So even we find from even early on in the play in Act two, scene two, he doesn't trust what people are saying, which is, oh, we find the true killers because he runs off to England. He says his state specifically, all to England. Now, of course, the final quotation you can relate which illustrates that Malcolm will be the perfect king because he is also very perceptive. He doesn't trust appearances is when he states, modest wisdom plucks me from over credulous haste. What does this illustrate? What does he mean when he says this? When Malcolm says this, this is when he's talking to McDuff. He says that he is trying to be wise about who he trusts and who he offers power to. But equally, he's not going to be too quick in trusting the generals around him because he understands that this very trusting nature might lead him to end up like King Duncan. And of course, also here, what you want to talk about, especially in terms of context, this you can relate to Shakespeare's Jacobean audience. This is Shakespeare's message, which is very loud and clear to the new king that this new king also should be respected. So Malcolm is a new king, should be respected much like King James, his kingship and his power should be respected. So if you want to talk about the theme of kingship, make sure you start off with this thesis statement. And of course, also make sure you have a discussion on King Duncan, Macbeth, who of course becomes King Macbeth and Malcolm at the end. So hopefully that helps when understanding what the perfect essay looks like when it comes to the theme of kingship in Macbeth.