Shakespeare, Papal Temporal Power, Resistance Theory, Regicide, and Tyrannicide

Abstract

ABSTRACT The socioreligious context of Shakespeare’s plays was shaped by the international contest for authority precipitated, first, by popes’ exercise of their supposed deposing power in the 1570 and 1580 excommunications of Queen Elizabeth, and, second, by Protestant and Catholic theories of political resistance. As a dramatist who repeatedly included regicide in his plays, Shakespeare was aware of the contemporary political and religious relevance of king-killing. Avoiding the familiar forms of overt Protestant propagandizing, he staged a confrontation between English monarchical and papal power in King John, but in other plays he explored regicide and tyrannicide against the background of resistance theories that implied the need for a monarch to maintain a sufficient degree of popular support to claim legitimacy. At a time of nation-state formation, Shakespeare celebrated English nationalism, but turned a critical eye on the behavior of particular rulers, leaving his audiences free to interpret his plays’ religiopolitical complexities.