Macol's Tyrannical Program of Rule

Macol's Tyrannical Program of Rule is the succession speech that makes the end of Macbett's reign no promise of relief: Macol openly declares that his country will suffer more under him, and spells out a government of confiscation, fabricated quarrels, and limitless ambition. The speech joins private appetite to public policy, presenting the new ruler's rise not as restoration but as the deliberate continuation and intensification of tyranny.

Succession as a Promise of Worse Rule

Macol speaks after the tyrant has died, addressing the crowd as the new power in the country. Rather than claim that the change of ruler will heal the damage, he announces that his “poor country” will have more vices and suffer in more ways than before under his successor. The announcement makes succession itself ominous: the fall of one tyrant does not end the political pattern but opens the way for a ruler who describes himself as more destructive.

The scene gives that declaration a stark public setting. A forest of guillotines appears upstage, recalling the First Scene, while murmurs of discontent, amazement, and despair rise from the crowd as Macol speaks. The image and the response frame his words as a threat to a population already confronted with instruments of execution. When the speech ends, the Bishop, the only other person left, exits dejectedly, and Macol remains alone. The staged departure leaves the new ruler isolated with the power he has just claimed, rather than surrounded by any visible sign of consent or celebration.

Plunder as Government

Macol describes his own disposition as already saturated with vice, then gives that confession a material and political shape. Once king, he says, he will take lands from the nobles, covet one person's jewels and another's house, and turn each acquisition into an appetite for more. Wealth does not satisfy the ruler in this account: possession becomes fuel for further possession. His program makes greed a governing principle, with the resources of the country and the property of its powerful inhabitants exposed to his desire.

The projected violence reaches beyond seizure. Macol says he will fabricate unjust quarrels against people who are good and loyal, then destroy them for their wealth. The sequence is important: the targets are not described as genuine enemies, but as loyal people against whom the ruler will manufacture grounds for attack. Political accusation thus serves private enrichment, and coercion appears not as an emergency response but as a method Macol intends to use. His candidness turns the speech into an explicit account of how he plans to rule, rather than a public justification dressed up as justice.

The Expansion of Sovereignty

Macol's ambition also seeks to enlarge the name and scale of his authority. He announces that he will first make the Archduchy a kingdom and himself its king, then turn it into an empire and make himself emperor. The titles keep escalating toward the fantasy of being “emperor of emperors.” This proposed transformation does not come with any stated change in the country's welfare or in the ruler's conduct; the expansion is presented as an increase in Macol's status and power.

The speech's political vocabulary is pointedly inverted. Macol says he will pour concord into Hell, disturb universal peace, and confound unity on earth. Harmony and peace are not aspirations he invokes but conditions he proposes to destroy. Set beside his intention to invent quarrels and dispossess the loyal, this declaration makes disorder part of the program: the ruler plans to produce instability rather than govern through shared security.

Dramatic Form and Significance

The program combines a confession of character with an inventory of intended acts. Macol first presents vice as something grafted into him; he then names confiscation, covetousness, false quarrels, and destruction for wealth as consequences of becoming king. The movement from self-description to policy makes the personal and the governmental inseparable. His greed is not merely a private failing that might be restrained by office; in the speech, taking the throne gives it instruments and targets.

The conclusion enlarges that contradiction to the scale of the whole political order. Macol announces successive changes in the state's title while promising to overturn peace and unity, so the grand language of kingship and empire accompanies an openly destructive agenda. As his speech continues, the crowd's distress remains audible; when it ends, Macol is alone and disappears into the mist. That final image leaves the promised regime without a depicted aftermath, but not without a clear direction: Macol has declared that the next ruler will deepen the country's suffering and has named the greed and manufactured violence through which he intends to do it.