Regicide in the context of "Judicial execution"

Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth (c. 1603–1607). As the wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads her husband into committing regicide, after which she becomes queen of Scotland. Some regard her as becoming more powerful than Macbeth when she does this, because she is able to manipulate him into doing what she wants. After Macbeth becomes a murderous tyrant, she is driven to madness by guilt over their crimes and kills herself offstage.

Lady Macbeth is a powerful presence in the play, most notably in the first two acts. Following the murder of King Duncan, however, her role in the plot diminishes. She becomes an uninvolved spectator to Macbeth's plotting and a nervous hostess at a banquet dominated by her husband's hallucinations. Her sleepwalking scene in the fifth act is a turning point in the play, and her line "Out, damned spot!" has become a phrase familiar to many speakers of the English language. The report of her death late in the fifth act provides the inspiration for Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech.

Lord Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis and quickly the Thane of Cawdor, is the title character and main protagonist in William Shakespeare's Macbeth (c. 1603–1607). The character is loosely based on the historical king Macbeth of Scotland and is derived largely from the account in Holinshed's Chronicles (1577), a compilation of British history.

A Scottish noble and an initially valiant military man, Macbeth, after a supernatural prophecy and the urging of his wife, Lady Macbeth, commits regicide, usurping the kingship of Scotland. He thereafter lives in anxiety and fear, unable to rest or to trust his nobles. He leads a reign of terror until defeated by his former ally Macduff. The throne is then restored to the rightful heir, the murdered King Duncan's son, Malcolm.

Lord Macduff, the Thane of Fife, is a character and the heroic main antagonist in William Shakespeare's Macbeth (c.1603–1607) that is loosely based on history. Macduff, a legendary hero, plays a pivotal role in the play: he suspects Macbeth of regicide and eventually kills Macbeth in the final act. He can be seen as the avenging hero who helps save Scotland from Macbeth's tyranny in the play.

The character is first known from Chronica Gentis Scotorum (late 14th century) and Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland (early 15th century). Shakespeare drew mostly from Holinshed's Chronicles (1587).

Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, its officials, or its secret services for a hostile foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state. A person who commits treason is known in law as a traitor.

Historically, in common law countries, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife or that of a master by his servant. Treason (i.e., disloyalty) against one's monarch was known as high treason and treason against a lesser superior was petty treason. As jurisdictions around the world abolished petty treason, "treason" came to refer to what was historically known as high treason.

King Duncan is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Macbeth. He is the father of two youthful sons (Malcolm and Donalbain), and the victim of a well-plotted regicide in a power grab by his first cousin, and trusted captain, Macbeth. The origin of the character lies in a narrative of the historical Donnchad mac Crinain, King of Scots, in Raphael Holinshed's 1587 The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, a history of Britain familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Unlike Holinshed's incompetent King Duncan (who is credited in the narrative with a "feeble and slothful administration"), Shakespeare's King Duncan is crafted as a sensitive, insightful, and generous father-figure whose murder grieves Scotland and is accounted the cause of turmoil in the natural world.

A soliloquy (/səˈlɪl.ə.kwi, soʊˈlɪl.oʊ-/, from Latin solus 'alone' and loqui 'to speak', pl. soliloquies) is a speech in drama in which a character speaks their thoughts aloud, typically while alone on stage. It serves to reveal the character's inner feelings, motivations, or plans directly to the audience, providing information that would not otherwise be accessible through dialogue with other characters. They are used as a narrative device to deepen character development, advance the plot, and offer the audience a clearer understanding of the psychological or emotional state of the speaker. Soliloquies are distinguished from monologues by their introspective nature and by the absence or disregard of other characters on the stage.

The soliloquy became especially prominent during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, when playwrights used it as a means to explore complex human emotions and ethical dilemmas. William Shakespeare employed soliloquies extensively in his plays, using them to convey pivotal moments of decision, doubt, or revelation. Notable examples include Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" speech, which reflects on life and death, and Macbeth's contemplation of the consequences of regicide. Although the use of soliloquy declined in later theatrical traditions with the rise of realism, it has continued to appear in various forms across different genres, including film and television.

A conspiracy, also known as a plot, ploy, or scheme, is a plan or agreement between people (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder, treason, or corruption, especially with a political motivation, while keeping their agreement secret from the public or from other people affected by it. In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of people united in the goal of subverting established political power structures. This can take the form of usurping or altering them, or even continually illegally profiteering from certain activities in a way that weakens the establishment with help from various political authorities. Depending on the circumstances, a conspiracy may also be a crime or a civil wrong. The term generally connotes, or implies, wrongdoing or illegality on the part of the conspirators, as it is commonly believed that people would not need to conspire to engage in activities that were lawful and ethical, or to which no one would object.

There are some coordinated activities that people engage in with secrecy that are not generally thought of as conspiracies. For example, intelligence agencies such as the American CIA and the British MI6 necessarily make plans in secret to spy on suspected enemies of their respective countries and the general populace of its home countries, but this kind of activity is generally not considered to be a conspiracy so long as their goal is to fulfill their official functions, and not something like improperly enriching themselves. Similarly, the coaches of competing sports teams routinely meet behind closed doors to plan game strategies and specific plays designed to defeat their opponents, but this activity is not considered a conspiracy because this is considered a legitimate part of the sport. Furthermore, a conspiracy must be engaged in knowingly. The continuation of social traditions that work to the advantage of certain groups and to the disadvantage of certain other groups, though possibly unethical, is not a conspiracy if participants in the practice are not carrying it forward for the purpose of perpetuating this advantage.

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of English Catholics, led by Robert Catesby.

The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on Tuesday 5 November 1605, as the prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands during which King James's nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, was to be installed as the new head of state. Catesby is suspected by historians to have embarked on the scheme after hopes of greater religious tolerance under James had faded, leaving many English Catholics disappointed. His fellow conspirators were John and Christopher Wright, Robert and Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham. Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience fighting in the Spanish Netherlands in the failed suppression of the Dutch Revolt, was given charge of the explosives.