RESURRECTING LILIAN WINSTANLEY/HISTORY TODAY
In 1567, the Earl of Bothwell and his lover Mary Queen of Scots murdered her husband Lord Darnley, the father of the future James VI of Scotland, later James I of England. That is in part the historical substance Shakespeare's play ``Hamlet'', as posited Professor Lilian Winstanley in her groundbreaking book ``Hamlet and the Scottish Succession: Being an Examination of the Relations of the Play of Hamlet to the Scottish Succession and the Essex Conspiracy''.This assassination and cover-up was still on the about to be regime changed minds of the audience in attendance of ``Hamlet'' in 1600 and 300 miles south of the crime scene in Stratford on Avon. This Elizabethan audience was concerned not just with ``old regicides'' as Darnley was considered informally the King; but also the peaceful succession to its Queen Elizabeth, as well as two possible invasions--one from the north in Scotland, and one from the southwest, the Spanish Armada.
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