Assassination and Execution
During the Renaissance, Executions were a public affair, where men and women would gather to watch the criminals be hung or drawn and quartered (Dobson 96). Shakespeare used Assassination of Royalty as a message to other characters, or to advance one who was seeking the throne. In Shakespeare's play these sinister acts rarely took place in the public eye. Characters like King Richard III, who connived and skulked around in the shadows to kill anyone who got in his way, including sitting kings and young child princes. The punishment for characters like him are usually brought to justice in similarly brutal ways.
Below is a list of assassinations and executions from Shakespeare's different plays along with a short description of the death:
Assassination and Execution
When in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lies as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
Th' unguarded Duncan? What not put upon
His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?
Lady Macbeth (1.7.68-73)
Hamlet's Father (Hamlet)
Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, assassinated Hamlet's father by pouring the "juice of cursed hebenon" (1.5.63) in his ear while he slept in his orchard. Hebenon is a folk name for Henbane, the expressed juice of the fresh plant, Hyoscyamus niger. Other folk names for Henbane include Black Nightshade, Cassilago, Devil's Eye, and Jupiter's Bean. The death of Hamlet's father was inspired by a real event in 1538, when the Duke of Urbino was killed by a poisoned lotion rubbed into his ears by his barber.
Duke of Clarence (Richard III)
The pitiful Clarence is wrongfully arrested and jailed in the Tower by his brother, Richard. One night as he awakens from a terrifying nightmare, two henchmen sent by Richard burst into his cell. Clarence pleads for his life but one of the assassins stabs him. To ensure Clarence is dead, the first murderer drowns him in a "malmsey-butt", a cask of sweet wine also containing the severed heads of two hogs.
Richard II (Richard II)
King Richard II, usurped by Bolingbroke, later Henry IV, is taken to the Tower of London. Contemplating remarks made by Bolingbroke, a nobleman named Exton mistakenly believes that Bolingbroke desires Richard dead, and he takes his henchmen to Richard's cell and kills him.
Henry VI (3 Henry VI)
The pious but ineffectual Henry VI is stabbed to death in his Tower of London cell. His assassin is the villainous Richard, Duke of Gloucester, soon to become Richard III.
Coriolanus (Coriolanus)
A group of merciless conspirators, spurred on by the leader of the Volscians, Aufidius, surround and stab Coriolanus in the play's final scene.
Julius Caesar (Julius Caesar)
Conspirators fearing a return to tyranny close in on Caesar and stab him to death.
Duncan (Macbeth)
The noble King of Scotland is murdered in his sleep by Macbeth during his visit to Macbeth's castle, Dunsinane.
Aaron (Titus Andronicus)
Aaron, sentenced to death by the new emperor, Lucius, is to be buried up to his neck in the sand and starved to death.
Suicide
Murder
Death in Combat
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