Shimei Character Analysis

The most powerful of Achitophel’s men. Shimei is a dishonest crook who steals and cheats the Jews every chance he gets, but the Jews appoint him as their magistrate anyway. Shimei stacks juries to punish David’s supporters and set his enemies free, and during his tenure as magistrate, treason is not a crime. Shimei is one of David’s tormentors in the Bible, and in Dryden’s poem he represents Slingsby Bethel, the sheriff of London and a member of Parliament during Dryden’s time who also supported the Exclusion Bill.