SOURCE: Kinney, Arthur F. “Scottish History, the Union of the Crowns and the Issue of Right Rule: The Case of Shakespeare's Macbeth.” In Renaissance Culture in Context: Theory and Practice, edited by Jean R. Brink and William F. Gentrup, pp. 18-53. Aldershot, Hants: Scolar Press, 1993.

In the following essay, Kinney discusses how Shakespeare manipulated the Macbeth story in Holinshed's Chronicles to comment subtly on the political climate surrounding the succession and reign of James I.

At only one point in the entire sweep of The Historie of Scotlande, conteyning the beginning, increase, proceedings, continuance, Actes and Gouernemente of the Scottish nation, from the originall thereof vnto the yeare. 1571. Gathered and written in the English tongue by R. H. (1577) does Raphael Holinshed disrupt the flow of his narrative and leap centuries forward into his very own time. This unique temporal splicing comes at the point when Macbeth is unable...