Delving deeper into the character of King Claudius in Shakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet, we find a character who is not totally evil but rather a mixture of morally good and evil elements. Let's explore the various dimensions of this multi-faceted character. Peter Leithart in “The Serpent Now Wears the Crown: A Typological Reading of Hamlet,” considers the gravity of Claudius's principal crime: Claudius's murder of King Hamlet, the act catalyzing the drama of the play, it is presented as a sin of a primordial nature and with cosmic implications. Claudius confesses that his fratricide parallels Abel's murder: Oh, my offense is grave, it stinks to high heaven; carries the oldest curse, the murder of a brother (3.3.36-38).[. . .] Claudius not only committed fratricide, but regicide. Since the king is peculiarly the image of God, regicide is a sort of deicide. At the very least, it is an act of rebellion against divine authority. Claudius is therefore not only Cain but Adam.[7] Claudius' sin has, at least for Hamlet, transformed Denmark into a fallen Eden; thorns and thistles dominate the landscape. (n. pag.) The play opens after Hamlet has just returned from Wittenberg, England, where he was a student. What brought him home was the news of his father's death and the rapid accession of his father's brother to the throne of Denmark. Philip Burton in “Hamlet” talks about Claudius' sudden accession to the Danish throne upon the death of King Hamlet I: The fact that Claudius became king is not really surprising. Only later in the play does Hamlet complain that his uncle had "intervened between the election and my hopes." The country was in a nervous state awaiting an invasion by the young Fortinbras, leading a band of lawless adventurers, in revenge for the death of his father at the hands of King Hamlet. A new strong king was immediately needed; the election of Claudius, especially in Hamlet's absence, was inevitable. On the other hand, it was immediately justified, because Claudius manages to avert the threat of invasion by appealing to the king of Norway to keep his nephew Fortinbras in check; the ambitious young soldier was all the more ready to cancel the planned invasion because the object of his revenge, Hamlet's father, was now dead, and in exchange he received free passage through Denmark to fight against Poland.