Election day is approaching, and of course, there weren’t any elections in Shakespeare’s time in Britain. Oh, but there were elections of a type in those days of yore, and in particular in Denmark, when a king died and there was no clear successor. In Hamlet, the old King Hamlet is murdered by his own brother, Claudius, at a time when the crown prince, Hamlet himself, is in Wittenburg, Germany studying philosophy. By the time he gets back to Denmark, his uncle, who murdered his father and adding insult to injury, married his mother, has gotten himself elected (presumably by the aristocracy) king.

Here’s Hamlet after telling his friend Horatio that Claudius ordered the English, upon receiving Prince Hamlet as an emissary, to cut Hamlet’s head off (though Hamlet uncovered the plot and escaped it):

Horatio: “Why, what a king is this!”

Hamlet: “Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon—
He that hath killed my king and whored my mother,
Popped in between th’ election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage—is ’t not perfect conscience
To quit him with this arm? And is ’t not to be damned
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?”

Hamlet’s list of grievances includes Claudius’ manipulation of the succession while Hamlet was out of the country, but it also includes much else. We are not lacking in accusations against our political enemies, but has the list grown to such a length as to call for Hamlet’s suggested remedies? Let’s hope not.