Vox Meditantis

Hampton Court Palace, Middlesex, England – 7th August 1606

Scene I:
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair”

The shadows behind the makeshift stage felt heavier tonight, as though they carried the weight of kingdoms within their folds. William Shakespeare pressed himself against the oak-panelled wall of Hampton Court Palace’s Great Hall, his fingers unconsciously worrying the worn leather binding of his manuscript—the very pages that had birthed this evening’s entertainment, or catastrophe, depending upon how the next few hours unfolded.

Through gaps in the hastily erected screen of tapestries, he could observe the courtiers filing into their appointed places with the measured precision of a funeral procession. Candlelight danced across their faces, transforming familiar features into grotesque masks that flickered between shadow and illumination. The scent of beeswax mingled with the sharper notes of wine and perfumed oils, whilst the rustle of silk and velvet created a susurrus of anticipation that made his skin prickle.

God’s wounds, he thought, what folly possessed me to pen such words?

The royal chair—more throne than seat—dominated the hall’s far end, its carved lions seeming to snarl in the wavering light. King James had not yet made his entrance, but his presence already suffused the chamber like incense, heavy and inescapable. Shakespeare’s throat constricted as he recalled their previous encounters: the monarch’s sharp intelligence, his fascination with witchcraft, his barely concealed paranoia about threats to his crown. How could he have imagined that a Scottish play dripping with regicide and supernatural malevolence would prove suitable entertainment for such a man?

The memory surfaced unbidden—November past, when news of the Gunpowder Plot had sent shockwaves through London’s streets. He had been in his lodgings near Silver Street, quill poised over fresh parchment, when the cries reached his window: “Treason! Papist devils would have blown Parliament to Hell!” The image had seized his imagination with terrible clarity—not the failed conspiracy itself, but the psychology of men who would murder a king, the weight of ambition that could corrupt a noble soul into something monstrous.

That same night, he had begun crafting the Scottish thane’s tragedy, weaving together the historical chronicles of Holinshed with his own fevered imaginings. He had thought himself clever, choosing Macbeth’s tale to honour James’s ancestry whilst exploring themes that seemed safely distant from contemporary politics. The flattery had appeared seamless: Banquo, the king’s supposed forebear, portrayed as noble and pure; Malcolm’s restoration echoing James’s own peaceful succession to Elizabeth’s throne.

Now, watching the assembled courtiers shift restlessly in their seats, Shakespeare wondered if his cleverness had been nothing more than artistic blindness.

A flourish of trumpets announced the royal entrance. The hall fell to respectful silence as James Stuart strode through the great doors, his slight frame somehow commanding the vast space through sheer force of divine authority. Shakespeare studied the king’s face as he settled into his chair—that aquiline nose, those intelligent eyes that seemed to catalogue every detail of his surroundings, the carefully groomed beard that failed to disguise the weakness of his chin.

The players had taken their positions. Richard Burbage, magnificent even in the crude robes that would transform him into the Scottish general, stood ready for his entrance. The boy who would play Lady Macbeth smoothed his borrowed gown with trembling hands, his painted face a pale mask of nervous concentration.

Shakespeare’s pulse quickened as the first scene commenced. The three weird sisters materialised from the shadows like fragments of nightmare made flesh, their voices weaving incantations that seemed to coil around the hall itself:

“When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

The words struck the assembled court with almost physical force. Shakespeare watched James lean forward slightly, his knuckles whitening as they gripped the arms of his chair. The king’s fascination with the supernatural was well documented—his treatise on demonology, his persecution of supposed witches in Scotland—but seeing those scholarly interests transformed into visceral reaction sent ice through the playwright’s veins.

A woman in the front row crossed herself surreptitiously. Lord Salisbury’s expression remained diplomatically neutral, but his fingers drummed against his thigh in an unconscious rhythm of discomfort. The very air seemed to thicken, as though the fictional prophecies carried real power within these ancient walls.

What have I wrought? Shakespeare wondered, his mouth dry as parchment. The players continued their dark ballet, summoning Macbeth and Banquo to receive their fatal predictions, but the playwright’s attention remained fixed upon the royal box. Each line seemed to strike James like a personal accusation, each supernatural manifestation drawing his frame more rigid.

The scene concluded, and courtly applause rippled through the hall—polite, restrained, tinged with uncertainty. But James’s hands remained motionless in his lap, his gaze fixed upon the stage with an intensity that transformed entertainment into interrogation.

Shakespeare pressed himself deeper into the shadows, already dreading the moments yet to come: Duncan’s murder, Macbeth’s coronation, the gradual transformation of noble thane into tyrant king. Each scene would hold up a mirror to uncomfortable truths about power, ambition, and the terrible weight of crowns.

The performance was only beginning, yet already he sensed that this night would change everything—for his art, his livelihood, and perhaps his very life.

Scene II:
“Is this a dagger which I see before me”

The dagger scene unfolded with merciless precision. Burbage stood centre-stage, his voice carrying the weight of damnation as he conjured Macbeth’s fatal hallucination: “Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?” The words seemed to materialise in the very air of the Great Hall, and Shakespeare watched with growing horror as King James’s breathing grew shallow, his chest rising and falling in rapid, barely perceptible movements.

From his concealment, the playwright could observe what the assembled courtiers could not—the monarch’s face had drained of colour, leaving his complexion the waxy pallor of old parchment. James’s fingers had begun to trace invisible patterns against the carved arms of his chair, as though warding off some unseen threat. The king’s eyes never left the stage, yet Shakespeare sensed that James was no longer watching Macbeth’s soliloquy but reliving something far more personal, far more terrible.

Sweet Jesu, Shakespeare thought, what memories am I dredging from his soul?

The murder of Duncan proceeded with theatrical brutality that seemed to echo through the hall’s ancient stones. Each line struck the assembled nobility with the force of accusation, and Shakespeare could feel the atmosphere thickening like smoke before a fire. Lord Cecil shifted uncomfortably in his seat, whilst the Countess of Bedford had grown so pale that her rouge stood out like splashes of blood against porcelain.

But it was James who commanded Shakespeare’s horrified fascination. The king sat rigid as carved stone, yet his eyes betrayed a storm of recognition that made the playwright’s stomach clench with dread. What spectres was his Scottish play summoning from the royal memory? The execution of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots? The endless plots and counter-plots that had marked his youth in Scotland? The weight of a crown claimed through others’ deaths?

When Macbeth emerged from Duncan’s chamber, his hands stained with imaginary blood, James flinched as though struck. The reaction was minute—a mere tightening of facial muscles—but Shakespeare caught it, and in that moment understood with crystalline clarity that his tribute had become a torment.

The coronation scene that followed should have provided relief, yet it only deepened the chamber’s unease. As the boy playing Lady Macbeth helped crown her husband king, Shakespeare watched James’s knuckles whiten further. The parallel was unmistakable and damning—here was the very ascension that James himself had achieved, yet portrayed as the fruits of murder and betrayal.

In another life, Shakespeare found himself thinking desperately, I might have written comedies for his pleasure. Pastoral romances where shepherds fall in love and no crowns change hands through violence.

The thought struck him with unexpected force. What if he had never encountered Holinshed’s Chronicles? What if the Gunpowder Plot had never fired his imagination with visions of corrupt ambition? He could see that alternate self clearly now—a playwright content to pen harmless entertainments, trading his soul’s truth for a comfortable existence in royal favour.

But even as the fantasy beckoned, he knew its impossibility. The words had already been written, the performance was unfolding, and there could be no retreat from the precipice upon which his art had placed them all.

The second act commenced with Banquo’s murder, and Shakespeare watched James’s composure finally begin to crumble. The king’s ancestor—or so the genealogies claimed—met his theatrical death with stoic nobility that seemed to reproach the living monarch. When Banquo’s ghost materialised at Macbeth’s feast, covered in stage blood and accusation, James gripped his chair arms so tightly that Shakespeare feared the ancient wood might crack.

The court had fallen into unnatural silence, broken only by the actors’ voices and the soft hiss of burning candles. Even the servants had stopped their subtle movements, frozen like deer who sense the hunter’s approach. The very air seemed to pulse with unspoken recognition of truths too dangerous to acknowledge.

“Thou canst not say I did it; never shake thy gory locks at me!” Burbage’s voice cracked with manufactured madness, but the madness seemed to seep beyond the stage’s boundaries. James was breathing through his mouth now, quick, shallow gasps that spoke of a man drowning in memories.

Shakespeare closed his eyes briefly, overwhelmed by the magnitude of his miscalculation. He had thought himself wise to choose a Scottish tale, believing it would flatter the king’s heritage whilst providing safe distance from English politics. Instead, he had crafted a mirror that reflected James’s deepest fears with pitiless accuracy—the guilt of inherited power, the paranoia that comes with wearing a crown claimed through others’ deaths, the constant terror of retribution.

Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene arrived like an executioner’s blade. The boy actor moved through her somnambulistic torment with heartbreaking authenticity, his small hands scrubbing at imaginary stains whilst his voice carried the weight of infinite guilt: “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”

James made a sound—barely audible, somewhere between gasp and sob—and Shakespeare felt his own heart fracture. The king’s mother, Mary Queen of Scots, had reportedly raved in her final imprisonment, her mind shattered by decades of captivity and betrayal. How many nights had young James wondered if madness ran in royal blood? How many times had he feared that the crown’s weight might crush his own sanity?

The final scenes unfolded with inexorable momentum. Malcolm’s army advanced, Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane, and Macbeth met his prophesied doom. The restoration speech that Shakespeare had crafted as flattery—celebrating the righteous prince who reclaims his father’s throne—fell into the charged atmosphere like stones into still water, creating ripples of discomfort rather than applause.

When the final words were spoken and the players took their bows, the silence stretched like a drawn bowstring. A few courtiers managed scattered applause, but the sound felt hollow, mechanical, born of duty rather than appreciation. James remained motionless in his chair, his gaze fixed upon the now-empty stage where so much psychological carnage had been wrought.

One by one, the nobility began to file from the Great Hall, their conversations reduced to whispers that skittered along the walls like mice. But the king did not move, and gradually the chamber emptied until only a handful of attendants remained, hovering uncertainly near the doors.

Shakespeare pressed himself deeper into the shadows, his heart hammering against his ribs. The performance was concluded, but he sensed that the night’s true drama was yet to begin.

Scene III:
“What’s done cannot be undone”

The Great Hall had emptied save for the shadows that clung to its ancient corners like guilty secrets. Shakespeare remained pressed against the oak panelling, scarcely daring to breathe as the last courtier’s footsteps faded into the palace’s labyrinthine corridors. The candles had burned lower, their wax pooling on silver sconces and casting wavering patterns across the tapestried walls. In this diminished light, King James sat motionless upon his chair, a figure carved from marble and melancholy.

Minutes stretched like hours before the monarch stirred. With deliberate precision, James dismissed his remaining attendants—a gesture so subtle that only those versed in the intricate choreography of royal will could recognise it as absolute command. The guards retreated, the servants vanished, and silence settled over the chamber like a shroud.

“Master Shakespeare.” The king’s voice carried clearly across the hall, though he had not raised it above a conversational tone. “I know you linger there, watching. Come forth.”

The playwright’s blood turned to ice water in his veins. There could be no pretence, no escape through courtly deflection. With legs that felt constructed of spun glass, he emerged from behind the makeshift stage, his manuscript clutched against his chest like a talisman. Each footstep echoed in the vast space, marking his approach to what might prove either absolution or destruction.

James’s eyes—those intelligent, penetrating eyes that seemed to catalogue every human frailty—fixed upon him with an intensity that made Shakespeare feel transparent. The king’s face remained composed, yet something in his expression suggested a man balanced on the knife’s edge between fury and fascination.

“Your Majesty.” Shakespeare executed a bow that he hoped conveyed appropriate reverence whilst concealing the tremor in his hands. When he straightened, James was studying him with the cold attention of a natural philosopher examining a particularly interesting specimen.

“Approach closer.” The command brooked no hesitation. Shakespeare advanced until he stood within arm’s reach of the royal chair, close enough to observe the fine lines of strain around the king’s eyes, the slight tremor in his fingers that spoke of barely controlled emotion.

For a long moment, neither man spoke. The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken accusations and the weight of recent revelations. Shakespeare could hear his own heartbeat, could smell the residual incense from the chapel mixed with the dying candles’ smoky perfume.

“Tell me, Master Shakespeare,” James said finally, his Scottish accent lending gravity to each syllable, “in your mind’s theatre—that vast stage where you conjure kings and murderers, prophets and fools—can you describe your life in an alternate universe? One where you never penned this… Scottish play?”

The question hung in the air like an executioner’s blade. Shakespeare felt his throat constrict, his carefully prepared defences crumbling before the monarch’s quiet intensity. This was no mere inquiry about artistic process—it was an invitation to confession, to acknowledgement of the psychological violence he had just perpetrated upon his sovereign.

“Your Majesty,” Shakespeare began, his voice hoarse with strain, “in such a universe, I might have—” He paused, gathering courage from some hidden reservoir. “I might have remained content with pastoral comedies. Shepherds falling in love beneath painted skies, their greatest conflicts the choice between rival beauties or competing flocks.”

James leaned forward slightly, his eyes never leaving the playwright’s face. “Continue.”

“I might have crafted histories of ancient Romans, safely distant from our present troubles. Caesar’s triumphs, Marcus Aurelius’s wisdom—tales that illuminate virtue without… without piercing too deeply into the shadows of contemporary conscience.” Shakespeare’s voice grew stronger as the vision crystallised. “My alternate self might have written masques for your pleasure, allegories where virtue always triumphs and kings rule through divine favour alone, uncomplicated by the messy realities of succession and legitimacy.”

“And would such a life have satisfied you?” The king’s tone carried unexpected gentleness, as though he genuinely sought understanding rather than mere confession.

Shakespeare closed his eyes briefly, seeing that other path with painful clarity. “It would have been… easier, Your Majesty. More comfortable. My patron’s favour assured, my livelihood secure, my sleep untroubled by questions of artistic responsibility.” He opened his eyes, meeting James’s gaze directly. “But it would have been a lie.”

“A lie?” The word carried dangerous undertones.

“The stories we tell ourselves about power, about kingship, about the price of crowns—they matter, Your Majesty. When I began writing Macbeth, I thought I was crafting entertainment, perhaps even flattery through its portrayal of your noble ancestor Banquo. But the words… they took on their own life, demanded their own truth.”

James rose from his chair with fluid grace, moving to the great windows that overlooked the palace gardens. In the moonlight, his slight frame seemed almost spectral. “Do you know what it is to inherit a throne through another’s death, Master Shakespeare? To wear a crown whilst knowing that your very existence represents someone else’s failure, someone else’s tragedy?”

The question was rhetorical, yet Shakespeare sensed an invitation to deeper understanding. “I know only what my imagination can conjure, Your Majesty. But tonight, watching your reaction to my Scottish thane’s torment, I begin to understand that the weight of such knowledge might break a lesser man.”

“My mother died for her crown,” James said quietly, his breath fogging the ancient glass. “Executed by Elizabeth for the crime of existing, of representing an alternative claim to English loyalty. I inherited both her throne and her guilt, her legitimacy and her sins.” He turned back to Shakespeare, his expression naked with admission. “Every night, I wonder if I am Macbeth or Malcolm—the usurper or the rightful heir.”

The confession struck Shakespeare like a physical blow. Here was the source of the evening’s tension, the reason why his fictional Scottish king had carved so deeply into royal composure. James lived daily with the very questions that Macbeth explored—the legitimacy of power, the weight of inherited guilt, the constant fear of retribution.

“Perhaps,” Shakespeare ventured carefully, “the question itself reveals the answer. A true usurper would not torment himself with such doubts.”

James smiled then—a expression both sad and knowing. “Or perhaps doubt is merely another form of guilt, another chain that binds the conscience.” He moved closer, studying the playwright with renewed intensity. “But you have shown me something tonight, Master Shakespeare. In forcing me to confront these questions through your art, you have proven that some truths demand telling, regardless of their comfort to those who hear them.”

“Even when such truths endanger the teller?”

“Especially then.” James’s voice carried conviction that surprised them both. “A king who punishes honesty, even uncomfortable honesty, rules through fear alone. And kingdoms built on fear…” He gestured toward the stage where Macbeth’s tragedy had unfolded. “Well, you have shown us where such paths lead.”

The weight of royal forgiveness—or perhaps royal understanding—settled over Shakespeare like benediction. Yet he sensed that something fundamental had shifted between them, that their relationship could never return to simple patron and entertainer.

“In my alternate universe,” Shakespeare said quietly, “I might have lived more safely, but I would have died more completely. The man who writes only comfort writes nothing at all.”

James nodded slowly, then moved toward the hall’s great doors. At the threshold, he paused. “Your Scottish play will not be performed again at court, Master Shakespeare. But not because it fails as art—rather because it succeeds too well. Some mirrors reflect truths too dangerous for public viewing.”

As the king’s footsteps faded into the palace’s depths, Shakespeare stood alone in the guttering candlelight, surrounded by the ghosts of words spoken and unspoken. The performance was over, but the questions it had raised would linger long after the last candle died—questions about power and responsibility, about the price of truth and the cost of silence.

In the end, he realised, there could be no alternate universe where such questions did not demand answers. The only choice lay in whether one possessed the courage to ask them.

The End

On 7th August 1606, Shakespeare’s King’s Men staged Macbeth before King James I at Hampton Court Palace; this first court performance cemented the play’s politically charged reputation. Conceived nine months after the foiled Gunpowder Plot of 5th November 1605, when 36 barrels of gunpowder were seized beneath Parliament, the drama’s themes of regicide and treason mirrored national unease. Although frequently performed, Macbeth remained unpublished until the First Folio of 1623; only 235 of the original 750 copies survive, safeguarding eighteen otherwise lost plays. Today the tragedy is produced on five continents and informs global discussions of tyranny and moral authority.

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