Shakespeare · GCSE English Literature
Duncan and Malcolm
GCSE Duncan and Malcolm: the kingship standard Macbeth destroys, the planting metaphor, Malcolm’s king-becoming graces, and the England scene that tests what a true king should be.
Duncan plants; Macbeth rips up the garden — Malcolm lists the graces of a king in England before Scotland can grow again.
The important bits
What you need to know
- 1
Duncan is the standard of gracious kingship: generous, trusting, a guest in Macbeth’s castle. His virtues make the crime worse, not naïve-only.
- 2
The planting metaphor (“I have begun to plant thee”) imagines rule as nurture and growth. Macbeth will be a blight, not a gardener.
- 3
“There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face” is dramatic irony: Duncan cannot read the traitor, and will fail again with Macbeth.
- 4
Malcolm and Donalbain flee, which looks like guilt and is actually survival. Appearance versus reality stains even the true heirs at first.
- 5
The England scene (IV.3) is where Shakespeare defines kingship in a list: the “king-becoming graces” — justice, verity, temperance, stableness, bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, devotion, patience, courage, fortitude.
- 6
Malcolm tests Macduff by pretending to be lustful, greedy and cruel. A true subject’s despair proves both men; a tyrant would have hired that confession.
- 7
Edward the Confessor’s healing touch in the same scene offers a foil: a king as medicine, not as disease. Use it as contrast, not as a history essay on England.
- 8
Restoration at the end is Malcolm’s invitation to “plant” again — the metaphor returns. Structure: garden, blight, replanting.
Quotations worth analysing
Short evidence. Real method.
“I have begun to plant thee, and will labour / To make thee full of growing.”
Duncan’s metaphor makes kingship fertile and reciprocal. Macbeth is being grown as a loyal thane. The later barrenness of his rule — no issue, a country bleeding — inverts the image.
“There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face.”
Duncan admits he misread the previous traitor. The line is a warning the play immediately repeats: Macbeth’s face will hide the serpent. Trust is a virtue that the play’s world punishes.
“The king-becoming graces, / As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, / Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, / Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude.”
A checklist against which Macbeth fails on almost every count. Shakespeare pauses the plot to teach the standard. Quote two or three graces and match them to Macbeth’s opposite deeds.
Go deeper
Duncan as standard, not as fool only
Students sometimes mock Duncan for trusting Macbeth. The play does show his failure to read faces, twice. That is dramatic irony, and it is also a definition of a good king in peacetime: he rewards service, visits subjects, speaks in gifts and planting. If he were already a tyrant, Macbeth’s crime would be a coup against a monster and the moral plot would collapse. Shakespeare needs Duncan meek and clear (“hath borne his faculties so meek”) so that “bloody instructions” look like a fall from a real height. Use him as the measure of kingship in Act 1 and 2, then let Malcolm inherit the measuring-stick in Act 4. Do not spend a page calling Duncan stupid; spend it showing what his language of growth makes Macbeth’s language of blood look like.
Go deeper
The England scene is not a digression
IV.3 feels long because it is doing theme-work. Malcolm’s pretended vices force Macduff to say what Scotland cannot survive: a king who is lust, greed and falsehood in a crown. When Malcolm reveals the test, we have watched a future king value truth and a subject value the country over flattery. That is the opposite of Macbeth’s court, where the banquet is a failed show and spies sit in every house. The “king-becoming graces” give you a ready-made comparison grid for any kingship question. Pick three graces. Pair each with a Macbeth scene (mercy vs Macduff’s children, temperance vs vaulting ambition, verity vs fair/foul faces). Then the England scene has earned its pages.
Go deeper
Planting, blight, and divine right
Divine right helps only if it changes the reading: killing Duncan is not only a crime against a man but against a God-ordered office, which is why the night itself seems disordered. James I’s interest in legitimate succession makes Malcolm’s restoration politically warm for a 1606 audience. Then get back to metaphor. Duncan plants; Macbeth’s Scotland is a place where “good things of day begin to droop and drowse”; Malcolm ends by inviting the thanes to see what is needful and to grow the state again. Kingship in this play is fertility versus sterility, medicine versus disease, a face that matches a mind versus a serpent under a flower. Duncan and Malcolm are that argument’s positive pole.
See the idea in action
Question: How does Shakespeare present kingship? Opening: “Shakespeare presents rightful kingship as nurture rather than seizure: Duncan’s planting metaphor grows a loyal thane, Macbeth blighted that garden with a guest-murder, and Malcolm’s ‘king-becoming graces’ in the England scene restore a checklist of justice and mercy against which the tyrant fails on every count.” Then: I.4 plant, II.3 disorder, IV.3 graces, V.9 invitation to grow.
Exam technique
Turn knowledge into marks
In a kingship essay, Duncan is the standard, Macbeth the inversion, Malcolm the restoration. If you only write about Macbeth’s badness, you have described tyranny without defining the thing it replaced.
Common mistakes
Do not give these marks away
- 01
Calling Duncan only naïve and missing why his goodness deepens the tragedy.
- 02
Skipping IV.3 because it “isn’t exciting”, then lacking any definition of a good king.
- 03
Bolting on divine right without a planting image, a grace, or a disordered night.
What is the England scene (IV.3) mainly for?
AComic relief after the witches
BDefining kingship through Malcolm’s test and the king-becoming graces, against Macbeth’s tyranny
CShowing Fleance crowned in London
DExplaining how to plant actual trees at Dunsinane
Show the answer
Defining kingship through Malcolm’s test and the king-becoming graces, against Macbeth’s tyranny. The scene pauses action to teach the standard. Macduff’s despair and Malcolm’s honesty rebuild an idea of rule Macbeth has destroyed.
Quick questions
If this is the bit you searched
Why does Malcolm lie to Macduff?
To test whether Macduff is a spy or a true patriot. A tyrant’s court has taught him suspicion. The lie is a tool of caution, revealed as soon as loyalty is proved.
Is Duncan a weak king?
He is a trusting king, which the play treats as virtue and vulnerability. Weakness would be cruelty or indecision; he is decisive in rewarding Macbeth. The art he lacks is reading faces.
How do I remember the king-becoming graces?
You do not need all twelve in the exam. Learn four you can invert: justice, mercy, temperance, verity. Match each to a Macbeth crime.
Where does Edward the Confessor fit?
A brief foil: a king whose touch heals. Macbeth’s kingship infects. One sentence of contrast is enough unless the question is kingship in detail.