Usurpation and kingship

Who has the right to rule?

In The Tempest, Shakespeare repeatedly separates possessing power from having a rightful claim to it. Usurpation means taking someone else’s position of authority without a legitimate right. Antonio has become Duke of Milan, but Prospero remains its rightful duke. Meanwhile, Prospero’s control of the island raises a more difficult question: does being wrongfully dispossessed himself make his treatment of others just?

Three linked plots develop this theme. Antonio’s successful overthrow of Prospero happened twelve years before the play begins. On the island, Antonio encourages Sebastian to overthrow Alonso, while Caliban recruits Stephano and Trinculo to overthrow Prospero. Shakespeare makes these stories mirror one another, then brings them together in an ending that restores Prospero’s dukedom without completely removing doubts about human ambition.

The opening storm unsettles royal authority

In Act 1 Scene 1, the Boatswain challenges the nobles who interrupt his work: ‘What cares these roarers for the name of king?’ The ‘roarers’ are the storm’s raging waters and winds. His rhetorical question makes royal status seem powerless: the sea does not recognise titles, and practical seamanship matters more than noble birth when everyone may drown.

The phrase ‘name of king’ distinguishes a title from effective power. The Boatswain’s prose and urgent commands cut through the courtiers’ expectations of respectful obedience. On stage, the noise, confusion and movement temporarily overturn the normal hierarchy: a working sailor tells a king and his companions what to do.

This can be read as a challenge to inherited authority, since survival depends on skill rather than rank. Yet the Boatswain is not trying to seize the crown. He is doing his job and protecting everyone aboard. Shakespeare therefore distinguishes necessary practical authority from selfish usurpation. The later revelation that Prospero ordered the storm also changes our understanding: behind the king’s apparent helplessness stands the duke whom he helped overthrow.

Antonio’s crime: betraying a brother and a state

In Act 1 Scene 2, Prospero tells Miranda how Antonio took Milan from him. Prospero had entrusted government to his brother while concentrating on his studies. Antonio used this delegated authority to secure the loyalty of officials and eventually behave as though he were the true duke.

Prospero calls him ‘Thy false uncle’. The adjective ‘false’ condemns both political deception and betrayal within the family. ‘Uncle’ reminds Miranda that this was not simply an attack by a foreign enemy: someone who should have protected her helped endanger her life.

Antonio made an agreement with Alonso, King of Naples. In return for help overthrowing Prospero, he promised annual tribute and homage: payments and acknowledgement of Naples’s superior authority. His ambition therefore cost Milan its independence as well as Prospero his position. Antonio opened Milan’s gates to an army, and Prospero and the young Miranda were removed at night and abandoned in an unseaworthy boat. Gonzalo supplied necessities and books that helped them survive.

Shakespeare presents this history through Prospero’s extended verse account rather than staging the overthrow. The audience first meets him as an apparently poor island-dweller, then learns his political identity. This delayed revelation invites sympathy for the wronged ruler and explains why the shipwrecked nobles matter to him.

However, Prospero also admits his own neglect: ‘The government I cast upon my brother’ in Act 1 Scene 2. His withdrawal allowed Antonio to gain practical control. This does not excuse Antonio’s betrayal, but it suggests that rightful birth alone is insufficient: a ruler must also attend to the responsibilities of government.

Later in Act 1 Scene 2, Prospero accuses Ferdinand of claiming a title that does not belong to him: ‘thou dost here usurp / The name thou owest not’. Ferdinand believes his father has drowned and therefore considers himself King of Naples; the audience knows Alonso survived. Here, ‘owest’ means ‘own’. Prospero’s accusation echoes Antonio’s real crime, but his asides reveal that he is deliberately making the young lovers’ courtship difficult. This contrast shows that accusations of usurpation can themselves become tools of control: Ferdinand is not another Antonio.

Sebastian’s plot repeats Antonio’s example

In Act 2 Scene 1, Alonso and the other courtiers fall asleep, leaving Antonio and Sebastian awake. Antonio turns the sleeping king’s vulnerability into an opportunity. He assumes Ferdinand has drowned and dismisses Claribel, Alonso’s daughter and the next heir, because she is far away as Queen of Tunis. Neither claim gives Sebastian a rightful title; Antonio is finding excuses to bypass the succession.

Antonio tempts Sebastian with the image ‘My strong imagination sees a crown / Dropping upon thy head’. The crown symbolises kingship, while ‘Dropping’ makes obtaining it sound effortless, almost like a gift from above. The enjambment carries the sentence across the verse line break, moving the imagined crown down towards Sebastian’s head. Antonio’s attractive fantasy disguises the murder needed to achieve it.

Sebastian eventually declares, ‘Thy case, dear friend, / Shall be my precedent’. A precedent is an earlier example used to guide a later action. He treats Antonio’s successful betrayal as permission to repeat it. Shakespeare makes the structural parallel explicit: one brother’s overthrow becomes the model for another brother’s attempted regicide.

Sebastian then promises Antonio a reward: ‘Draw thy sword: one stroke / Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest’. The imperative ‘Draw’ moves the conversation from fantasy into action. ‘One stroke’ minimises the violence, presenting murder as a quick route to freedom from payments to Naples. Their alliance is based on mutual advantage, not concern for the people they would govern.

The stage action exposes the deception. Antonio and Sebastian promised to guard Alonso, but draw weapons against him and Gonzalo. Ariel wakes Gonzalo, who wakes the king, preventing the killings. There is dramatic irony when the plotters claim they were defending the sleepers from wild animals: the audience knows that the real danger came from their supposed protectors.

Their renewed plotting in Act 3 Scene 3 shows that this is not a momentary temptation. Their asides allow the audience to hear a conspiracy concealed from the other characters. Shakespeare presents usurpation as a pattern of conduct that can spread when a successful crime becomes an attractive example.

Why rebellion mattered in James I’s England

The Tempest was probably written in 1610–1611 and was performed before James I in 1611. James defended the divine right of kings: the belief that royal authority came from God. He described kings as ‘God’s lieutenants upon earth’, meaning God’s representatives. Within this belief, resisting a king meant resisting divinely appointed authority.

This context makes Sebastian’s planned murder of Alonso more than a private family betrayal. It threatens a political and religious order. Antonio’s earlier crime similarly violates established rule, although Prospero is a duke, not a king: the two positions should not be treated as identical.

Divine-right arguments also involved responsibility. James maintained that rulers should govern according to their laws, and that a ruler who abandoned lawful government became a tyrant. He nevertheless rejected rebellion as the people’s remedy. This tension helps illuminate Shakespeare’s questions: subjects may suffer under oppressive authority, but does violently replacing the ruler produce anything better?

The comic rebellion exposes the same appetite for power

In Act 3 Scene 2, Caliban describes Prospero as an illegitimate ruler: ‘I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer’. ‘Subject’ places him beneath political authority, while ‘tyrant’ challenges the justice of that authority. His account offers a contrast to Prospero’s story: the wronged Duke of Milan can appear to someone else as the ruler who has wrongfully taken power.

Caliban’s grievances have substance. Prospero controls him through threats and painful punishments, and Caliban claims the island through his mother. Prospero, however, defends his treatment of Caliban by recalling Caliban’s attempted sexual assault on Miranda, which Caliban openly wishes had succeeded in Act 1 Scene 2. Shakespeare gives the audience reasons to question both the ruler’s conduct and the rebel’s intentions.

Caliban’s proposed remedy is brutal: he instructs his allies to seize Prospero’s books and murder him while he sleeps. The planned attack on a sleeping ruler mirrors Sebastian and Antonio’s conspiracy.

Stephano agrees: ‘Monster, I will kill this man’. He imagines that ‘his daughter and I will be king and queen’ in Act 3 Scene 2. These are fragments of prose, not verse lines. His blunt declaration reduces Prospero to an obstacle and treats Miranda as part of the reward, without asking what she wants. A drunken butler’s fantasy of becoming king comically imitates Sebastian’s ambition.

The humour does not make the threat harmless. Stephano already orders others about, threatens Trinculo and expects Caliban’s service. Caliban’s search for release therefore risks replacing one oppressive master with another.

In Act 4 Scene 1, Stephano and Trinculo become distracted by glittering clothes instead of carrying out the murder. Their attraction to the outward appearance of grandeur recalls Antonio’s satisfaction with his new ‘garments’ in Act 2 Scene 1. Shakespeare makes ambition look ridiculous as well as dangerous. Spirits shaped like hounds drive the conspirators away, defeating the comic rebellion.

These parallels support two readings. The failed plots can affirm established order by showing rebels as violent and unfit to govern. Alternatively, their resemblance to Antonio’s successful crime can make elite ambition look no nobler than a drunkard’s greed. Caliban’s complaints also prevent a simple division between virtuous rulers and wicked subjects. A persuasive interpretation recognises both the injustice of oppressive rule and the inadequacy of these proposed replacements.

Restoration is not complete reconciliation

In Act 5 Scene 1, Alonso tells Prospero, ‘Thy dukedom I resign and do entreat / Thou pardon me my wrongs’. Alonso relinquishes Naples’s claim over Milan, established through Antonio’s agreement to pay tribute and do homage. He recognises Prospero’s right and asks forgiveness for helping dispossess him. Antonio, however, is the brother who holds the stolen dukedom and must surrender it.

Prospero’s demand to Antonio is firmer: ‘require / My dukedom of thee’. ‘Require’ insists upon a right rather than asking a favour. The line break carries the demand directly into ‘My dukedom’, emphasising what Antonio must surrender. Prospero forgives his brother, but forgiveness does not mean allowing him to keep stolen power.

The ending can suggest that legitimate rule is strongest when combined with mercy rather than revenge. Prospero’s plan to return to Milan reverses his exile, while Miranda and Ferdinand’s intended marriage joins the next generation of Milan and Naples through affection instead of conspiracy. Their union offers a peaceful alternative to the rebels’ pursuit of crowns through murder.

Yet political settlement does not guarantee moral change. Antonio gives no apology in response to Prospero and later joins Sebastian in mocking Caliban. His continued contempt makes the reconciliation uneasy. Caliban, by contrast, recognises his mistake in trusting Stephano and promises to be wiser. The ending restores rightful authority, but leaves the audience to judge how securely that authority can rest on people who have not all visibly reformed.

Using the theme in Edexcel’s two-part question

Part (a) assesses language, form and structure in the printed extract: AO2, worth 20 marks. A close reading might explain how Antonio’s crown imagery and enjambment make power seem easy to acquire, or how drawn swords contradict the conspirators’ promise to protect Alonso. Context is not assessed in this part.

Part (b) assesses an argument about the play elsewhere, supported by references: AO1, worth 15 marks, and relevant context: AO3, worth 5 marks. Use remembered moments to develop your interpretation, tying context to their significance rather than adding a separate historical paragraph. Detailed language analysis is not assessed in this part.

Worked paragraph: part (b)

Shakespeare suggests that rightful authority involves responsibility for others, not merely inherited status. In Act 1 Scene 1, the Boatswain challenges the importance of the king’s title because the nobles are obstructing the sailors’ work. His temporary authority serves everyone’s survival, unlike Antonio’s seizure of Milan, which serves his own ambition and makes the state subordinate to Naples. Although James I defended kings as God’s representatives, he also maintained that rulers had duties to govern lawfully. Shakespeare’s contrast between the useful sailor and the self-interested usurper therefore encourages us to judge how authority is exercised as well as who possesses it. Prospero’s eventual decision to forgive rather than kill his enemies offers a further example of power used with restraint. The restoration of his dukedom supports legitimate rule, but the play also asks rulers to deserve obedience through responsible conduct.

Central argument

Shakespeare separates rightful authority from power seized through ambition. Prospero’s restoration resolves the political conflict, but oppressive rule and unrepentant ambition complicate the ending.

Follow the parallel plots

• Act 1 Scene 1: the Boatswain’s practical authority protects lives; it is not an attempt to seize the crown.
• Act 1 Scene 2: Antonio’s past overthrow of Prospero, aided by Alonso, costs Milan its independence. Prospero admits neglecting government.
• Act 2 Scene 1: Antonio persuades Sebastian to kill Alonso; Ariel prevents the murders. They renew their plan in Act 3 Scene 3.
• Act 3 Scene 2: Caliban recruits Stephano and Trinculo to murder Prospero while he sleeps. Clothes distract them in Act 4 Scene 1; spirit hounds defeat them.
• Act 5 Scene 1: Alonso relinquishes Naples’s claim over Milan and asks forgiveness. Prospero demands the dukedom from Antonio, who gives no apology.

Evidence anchors

• Boatswain, Act 1 Scene 1: ‘name of king’ — rank cannot command the storm.
• Prospero, Act 1 Scene 2: ‘Thy false uncle’ — betrayal of family and state; his accusation that Ferdinand usurps a title is a deliberate test, not another genuine conspiracy.
• Antonio, Act 2 Scene 1: the crown dropping onto Sebastian’s head — ambition disguises the violence required.
• Sebastian, Act 2 Scene 1: Antonio’s crime becomes his ‘precedent’; removing tribute supplies Antonio’s reward.