Hamlet and the Scottish succession?

Surveying earlier topical interpretations of Tudor drama, David Bevington observed in 1968 that "Hamlet offers a rich field for topicality...and reveals perhaps most clearly the basic error of the lockpicking sleuth." Among the theories that were no longer "given serious attention" was Lilian Winstanley's, in "Hamlet" and the Scottish Succession, published in 1921. Winstanley maintained that Hamlet employed "historical analogues" that were "important, numerous, detailed and undeniable" in an effort "to excite as much sympathy as possible for the Essex conspirators, and for the Scottish succession." Indeed, Winstanley explicitly identified Hamlet with Essex--and King James VI of Scotland.(1)

Since Bevington's Tudor Drama and Politics appeared twenty-five years ago, historical criticism of Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama has undergone a transformation and revitalization; as Leah Marcus has observed of the 1980s, "historicism is nearly everywhere." But despite the advent of the "New Historicism,"(2) many critics remain uneasy about topicality in Shakespeare: as Marcus points out, "even for Renaissance specialists it carries

faint but distinct odor of disreputability."(3) Critics interested in Shakespearean topicality today must attempt to reconstruct what Marcus terms the "local" dimensions of the plays in ways that will inform, rather than determine (or supplant), interpretation.

I would like to suggest that Winstanley's title, though not her thesis, deserves reconsideration. As I will argue, the late Elizabethan succession question--specifically the anticipation that James VI of Scotland might succeed the aging Elizabeth--figures importantly in Hamlet. An awareness of English politics with regard to the succession can help us better comprehend the play, particularly the threat from abroad as personified in Young Fortinbras, and, more generally, the unhealthy political climate of Denmark, which extends beyond the corruption of Claudius.

One could begin at the beginning, on the ramparts outside Elsinore, where a jittery watch is unsure about what the feverish preparations for war portend. I would like to begin instead at the end, with Hamlet's death and the arrival of Fortinbras, returning from Poland at the head of a conquering army. With his last words Hamlet prophesies that "th'election lights / On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice" (V.ii.360-61).(4) And Fortinbras, upon viewing the dismal sight, asserts his claim to the Danish throne:

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune. I have some rights of memory in...