Macbeth, King of Scots (1040-1057): History Behind Shakespeare

Macbeth, in Gaelic Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, was king of Scots from 1040 to 1057. He came to the throne after killing King Duncan I, apparently in battle, on 14 August 1040, and went on to rule for seventeen years, long enough to make a pilgrimage to Rome. More than five centuries later, Shakespeare turned him into the guilt-ridden murderer of his tragedy, and that image has overshadowed the real king ever since.

Background: the kingdom of Alba and Moray

In the eleventh century the kingdom of the Scots, known in Gaelic as Alba, covered much of what is now central and eastern Scotland. It had grown from the union of Pictish and Gaelic lands associated with Kenneth MacAlpin in the ninth century. The kingship did not pass automatically from father to son: different branches of the royal kin competed for it, and violence between them was common.

North of the Mounth, the mountain barrier of the Grampians, lay Moray, a powerful region ruled by its own mormaers, a Gaelic title often translated as “great steward” or earl. Some Irish annals even called the rulers of Moray kings. Macbeth’s father Findláech was mormaer of Moray and was killed by his own nephews in 1020.

The rise of Macbeth

Macbeth was probably born in the early eleventh century. After his cousin Gille Coemgáin, who had been involved in his father’s death, was burned to death with fifty of his men in 1032, Macbeth became mormaer of Moray. He married Gille Coemgáin’s widow, Gruoch, a granddaughter of a tenth-century king, and became stepfather to her son Lulach. Gruoch’s royal descent may have strengthened Macbeth’s own claim.

Around 1031, the English record that Cnut the Great came north and received the submission of King Malcolm II of Scots and two other rulers, one named in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as “Mælbæþe”. Many historians identify him with Macbeth, which links him to Cnut’s North Sea empire.

The death of Duncan I

Malcolm II died in 1034 and was succeeded by his grandson Duncan I. Duncan’s reign was unsuccessful. In 1039 he led an army against Durham in northern England and was defeated, and in 1040 he invaded Moray.

On 14 August 1040, Duncan was killed by Macbeth at a place recorded as Bothnagowan, usually identified with Pitgaveny near Elgin. The sources suggest a battle or its immediate aftermath rather than a secret murder. Macbeth then became king. Duncan’s young sons, Malcolm and Donald, were taken to safety outside the kingdom.

By the custom of the time, Macbeth had a reasonable claim of his own. He may have been descended from the royal line through his mother, and his wife’s ancestry gave him a second link to earlier kings. To many contemporaries, the killing of a weak king by a powerful rival may have looked like an ordinary way for the kingship to change hands.

A long and stable reign

By medieval Scottish standards, Macbeth’s seventeen-year reign was a success. In 1045 he defeated and killed Crínán, abbot of Dunkeld and father of Duncan I, who had risen against him.

In 1050 Macbeth travelled to Rome. The Irish chronicler Marianus Scotus, writing in Germany, recorded that the king of Scotland scattered money “like seed” to the poor there. A ruler who could leave his kingdom for months without losing it was clearly secure. Macbeth and Gruoch also gave land to the Culdee community of St Serf’s on Loch Leven, a grant that survives in a later copy.

Little is known about how Macbeth governed day to day. A medieval Gaelic verse text, the Prophecy of Berchán, praises a generous red-haired king, usually identified with Macbeth, under whom Scotland was prosperous. This suggests that his early reputation was not that of a tyrant.

Around 1052 Macbeth gave refuge to Norman knights who had been expelled from England during the conflict between Edward the Confessor and Earl Godwin.

Siward’s invasion and the fall of Macbeth

Duncan’s young sons had been taken abroad after their father’s death. The elder, Malcolm, found support in England. In 1054 Earl Siward of Northumbria invaded Scotland and defeated Macbeth in a bloody battle on 27 July, the feast of the Seven Sleepers. Siward’s son Osbjorn was killed. Later tradition placed this battle at Dunsinane, but the contemporary sources do not name the site.

Macbeth survived and kept his throne for three more years. On 15 August 1057 he was killed by Malcolm at Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire. His stepson Lulach was made king but was killed by Malcolm on 17 March 1058. Malcolm then reigned as Malcolm III until 1093. Tradition holds that Macbeth was buried on Iona, the burial place of earlier Scottish kings.

From history to Shakespeare

The legend grew in stages. In the early fifteenth century Andrew of Wyntoun’s verse chronicle introduced three weird sisters, who appear to Macbeth in a dream. In 1527 Hector Boece’s Latin history of Scotland added Banquo and his son Fleance, presented as ancestors of the Stewart kings. Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles, in the edition of 1587, retold Boece’s version in English.

Shakespeare used Holinshed when he wrote Macbeth, probably around 1606, early in the reign of James VI and I, a Stewart king. The play suited its political moment. In the legend, James was descended from Banquo; the king had written a book on witchcraft; and he had survived the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. A drama about the punishment of a king-killer and the prophecy of Banquo’s royal descendants was well suited to the time.

He made major changes: he moved details of another murder, that of King Duff, into the story of Duncan; turned Duncan into an elderly, saintly king; compressed seventeen years of reign into what feels like a few months; and made Lady Macbeth the driving force of the crime.

Myths and facts

Myth: Macbeth murdered Duncan as a guest in his castle. Duncan was killed in a military campaign in Moray.

Myth: Macbeth was a short-lived tyrant. He reigned for seventeen years and was secure enough to visit Rome.

Myth: he died at Dunsinane. He was killed at Lumphanan, three years after Siward’s invasion.

Myth: Macbeth was a usurper with no right to the throne. In a kingdom where the crown rotated among rival branches of the royal kin, his claim was not unusual, and Duncan’s own succession in 1034 had been far from secure.

Fact: Lady Macbeth was a real woman. Gruoch is recorded as Macbeth’s wife in their grant to the Culdees of Loch Leven, but almost nothing is known of her personality.

Timeline

• 1020: Macbeth’s father Findláech, mormaer of Moray, is killed.
• c. 1031: Cnut receives the submission of Malcolm II and probably Macbeth.
• 1034: Duncan I becomes king of Scots.
• 1040, 14 August: Duncan I is killed by Macbeth near Elgin; Macbeth becomes king.
• 1050: Macbeth travels to Rome.
• 1054, 27 July: Earl Siward defeats Macbeth in battle.
• 1057, 15 August: Macbeth is killed at Lumphanan.
• 1058, 17 March: Lulach is killed; Malcolm III becomes king.
• c. 1606: Shakespeare writes Macbeth.

Why it matters

The real Macbeth was a capable king of a fragile kingdom, not the monster of the stage. Comparing him with Shakespeare’s character shows how history can be reshaped by later politics and storytelling, and how strongly a great play can replace the record in popular memory.