Historical Readings of Ambition and Kingship in Beowulf and Macbeth

Shakespeare‟s Macbeth is a tyrant, traitor and murderer, but in Shakespeare‟s source material, he was a worthy and honorable king. Raphael Holinshed‟s 1587 Chronicles depicts Macbeth as a just and beneficent king, who rid Scotland of many “disordered persons” and restored young people to “vertuous maners” after the “féeble and slouthfull administration of Duncane” (Holinshed).