The relationship between The Witch and Macbeth is rendered still more complicated by the fact that two possible mistakes in Ralph Crane’s transcription of The Witch – e.g. III.iii.71: ‘steepe’ for ‘steeple’; V.ii.70: ‘againe’ for ‘a grain’ – can be deduced from William Davenant’s Restoration adaptation of Macbeth, which includes the Hecate additions and songs. Davenant worked for the King’s Men in the 1630s, and it is assumed that he used a playhouse copy of Macbeth as the basis for his adaptation.

TOPICAL SATIRE

A summary of the sensational events of the scandal involving Frances Howard, the Earl of Essex, Robert Carr and Sir Thomas Overbury will help demonstrate their relevance to The Witch.11

Frances Howard was married to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, in 1606, when she was thirteen and he was fourteen. Because of their youth, the marriage was not consummated, and the Earl went travelling in Europe. When he returned in 1609 Frances was no longer interested in him. She had been leading a lively existence at court and may have had an affair with Prince Henry, James I’s eldest son, before starting an affair with Robert Carr. On 25 September 1613, Frances secured a divorce from Essex – after much active support and lobbying by James I – and on Sunday, 26 December 1613, Frances married Carr. The wedding celebrations included a masque by Middleton (now lost) called The Masque of Cupid.12 The grounds for the divorce were that Essex was subject to witchcraft and could not have sex with his wife, although he was not rendered incapable in relation to other women. The claim that Essex had been bewitched occasioned much gossip, particularly because the ‘proof’ included a test for Frances’s virginity; she was physically examined by several women, but the fact that she appeared for the examination veiled led to speculation that she knew she could not pass the test and persuaded another woman to take her place.