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Levin, Carole. “Witchcraft in Shakespeare's England.” The British Library, The British Library, 13 Apr. 2016, www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/witchcraft-in-shakespeares-england#.

Waters, Howard. “Ghosts, Witches, and Shakespeare.” Utah Shakespeare Festival, Utah Shakespeare Festival, 11 June 2015, www.bard.org/study-guides/ghosts-witches-and-shakespeare.

“Witches - Beliefs and Superstitions - KS3 English Revision - BBC Bitesize.” BBC News, BBC, www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zmjnb9q/revision/3.

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There were several ways to identify a witch at a trial, including a mark on a woman’s body placed by the Devil. As previously mentioned, water was also used as it was seen as a pure substance. Another way to prove someone was a witch was to get a confession from those who had feared for their lives or were tortured to confess.

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In 1542, about fifty years before Shakespeare had written Macbeth, the Witchcraft Act was passed and witchcraft became punishable by death.This Act was repealed in 1547 but was later restored with a more severe one in 1563. The most severe punishment was passed in 1604, after James IV of Scotland became the king of England.

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Many innocent people were proven guilty, despite never having done witchcraft and thousands lost their lives. During this time, many citizens believed that witches could harm them through evil and sinister means. The British Library claims that “cultural anxieties” (Levin) had provided enough proof to prove these people guilty, a tragic yet unsurprising outcome.

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Bard.org claims that Elizabethan people were “an emotional lot” who liked fierce entertainment such as “Bear-baiting” (Waters). Thus, Shakespeare took inspiration as a good playwright and violence within his plays were said to be “clearly directed” at such an audience. Perhaps Shakespeare had a similar idea with witches, and decided to add them in as mischievous beings to catch the attention of his audience.

Bear-baiting was an event where a bear was chained to a stake while a group of dogs would bait or fight the bear.

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During Shakespeare’s time, witches and ghosts were commonly accepted to be real and those who thought otherwise were considered ‘foolish’ and likely to be cursed. According to Bard.org, ghosts had three “basic varieties” (Waters) recognized by the Elizabethans, including the “false ghost” (Waters) which was capable of multiple types of manifestations and the “authentic ghost who had died without opportunity of repentance”.

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Although some had believed in witches during Shakespeare’s time, others, like Reginald Scot, were skeptical that witchcraft actually existed at all and claimed that “some accused witches were women with mental illness while others may have been con artists” (Levin).

Reginald Scot was the author of The Discoverie of Witchcraft, a book published in 1584 that questioned the existence of witches of the early modern witchcraft era.

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According to BBC UK, witches were people who had contacted the Devil for ‘supernatural powers’. Most of the women suspected to be witches were old and poor women who could have had a reason to do such a thing. A few ways to test for a witch were by tying them up and seeing if she floated in the river. If she floated, she was a witch and would be burned at the stake- though most of them were said to have drowned.

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This was the practice of witches getting revenge in Shakespeare’s England, but it was also a common charge against suspected witches brought to trial. The British Library says that due to the witches’ mischief in Shakespeare’s play, people’s fears of witches performing the same mischiefs in daily life grew.

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James had become fascinated with the study of witchcraft, also known as Demonology with the end of the trials. When he became the king of England in 1603, Shakespeare took inspiration from the Holinshed’s Chronicles and wrote Macbeth piece to please his new king.

Holinshed’s Chronicles was about the history of the three regions of England, Scotland and Ireland.

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James VI was convinced that witchcraft would cause great danger to him, which led to trials that started in 1591 and ended in 1597. According to the British Library, James VI had thought that a group of powerful witches were plotting to murder him and “were in league with the Devil” (Levin).