Hamlet's uncle and nemesis in Shakespeare's play who secretly murdered his own brother (Hamlet's father) and slimily marries his brother's widow Gertrude to assume Denmark's throne. Claudius hires Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on the troublingly deranged Hamlet and to carry out his plot to have Hamlet executed in England. In Stoppard's play, Claudius is an intermittent but sinister and domineering figure whose orders Rosencrantz and Guildenstern accept without knowing how to fulfill them.