Figure 1.--An image shows Lady Macduff and her son just as they are about to be slaughted by order of the tyrant Macbeth. The image is a drawing by Henry Singleton (1766-1839). Click on the image for a contemporary wood cut, Raphael Holinshed's "Chronicles" (1577 edition).

An image shows Lady Macduff and her son just as they are about to be slaughted by order of the tyrant Macbeth. The image is a drawing by Henry Singleton (1766-1839). In the war against Macbeth Macduff has fled from his castle at Fife, leaving his wife and children vulnerable to attack. Lady Macduff, upset at having been temporarily abandoned by her husband, says of the boy, "Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless." A little later the murderers enter and kill Lady Macduff and all her children. Singleton's drawing depicts the worried Lady Macduff looking over her shoulder as a messenger enters to tell her of approaching danger, but of course the warning comes too late. She holds the boy to her knee in apprehension. A second image comes from Shakespeare's source for "Macbeth," namely Raphael Holinshed's "Chronicles" (1577 edition). The woodcut, by an unknown artist, shows the murdered corpses of Lady Macduff and her children.

Created: May 1, 2004
Last updated: May 1, 2004