After completing an examination of Shakespeare's life, I addressed the Elizabethan theatre, and English history focusing on Henry VIII, and the death of an heirless Queen Elizebeth. Queen Elizabeth decreed that her Scottish cousin ,James I, should succeed her, and I elaborated on the play," Macbeth" serving to legitimize the reign of James I by dramatizing the king's ancestors' rightful claim to the Crown. I then provided definitions of the words "paradox" and "soliloquy". I discussed how a soliloquy allows the audience to peer into the consciousness of the characters and how Shakespeare was the first dramatist to use the technique to create three dimensional characters whom the Elizabethan audience recognized and with whom we still empathize .Matthew raised a number of questions about royal succession which we then addressed .