Steel nor poison, domestic malice nor foreign levies, could hurt him any longer. While these things were acting, the queen, who had been the sole partner in his wickedness, in whose bosom he could sometimes seek a momentary repose from those terrible dreams which afflicted them both nightly, died, it is supposed, by her own hands, unable to bear the remorse of guilt and public hate; by which event he was left alone, without a soul to love or care for him, or a friend to whom he could confide his wicked purposes. He grew careless of life and wished for death; but the near approach of Malcolm’s army roused in him what remained of his ancient courage, and he determined to die “with armor on his back.” Besides this, the hollow promises of the witches had filled him with a false confidence, and he remembered the sayings of the spirits, that none of woman born was to hurt him, and that he was never to be vanquished till Birnam wood should come to Dunsinane, which he thought could never be. So he shut himself up in his castle, whose impregnable strength was such as defied a siege. Here he sullenly waited the approach of Malcolm.