Did Shakespeare malign real Macbeth?
Scotland was a peaceful and prosperous place during the king’s 17-year reign, according to some chroniclers, says Susan Morrison
There’s a lot of Macbeth about at present. The Three Weird Sisters have their work cut out dispensing entirely unsolicited career advice to David Tennant on stage in London and chasing after Ralph Fiennes on tour. They’ll be glad to touch down on home turf when The Scottish Play lands in Edinburgh this week. They can hang about until the Lyceum welcomes back its 2023 Macbeth – An Undoing later in the year
Shakespeare’s hit is rarely off stage and screen, and it's easy to see why. It’s brutally direct and pretty snappy. There’s a bit of squabbling between Lord and Lady M over the small matter of murder, but once her mind is up, there’s no stopping them. None of that Hamlet-like faffing about. The play’s short, dynamic sentences are as sharp as military commands. “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” and Lady Macbeth’s plaintive “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!”
Anyone would think that Bill Shakespeare had suddenly been hanging around a bunch of people who spoke differently to him, which of course, he had. The Palace of Westminster was bung fu’ of Scottish lords who had followed their king to London. Courtly conversations must have been stilted between the erstwhile enemies, warily eyeing each other up around the throne of this waspish new monarch, whose accent set him apart from the English aristocracy.
Earls and barons jostled for position and patronage, and so did Shakespeare. He’d prospered in Elizabeth’s day, but how to keep in the good books of this new ruler from the north? James liked his drama. Shakespeare saw a sure-fire way of getting in with the king. He wrote a play that played to all of James’s strengths, and he knew just where to look for his plot, Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
It’s a familiar story. A Scottish thane Mackbeth (sic) kills the good King Duncane. He seizes the throne, but is eventually vanquished by Malcolm, prince to the old king. Shakespeare also factored in the tale of Banquo, famed virtuous knight. Banquo and his son Fleance become the target of a paranoid Macbeth’s contract hit. Banquo is slain, then gets a juicy role as a ghostly banquetbotherer. Fleance survives, to found the royal line James believed led to him. Nice touch. He made sure to flatter James the Witch-hunter and writer of the bestselling book Daemonologie. The three witches have a starring role not just in the drama but also in the plan to keep Shakespeare in favour. You can practically imagine James nodding knowingly at the appearance, the language and the coven’s treacherous advice to the doomed Thane of Cawdor.
Crucially, Shakespeare makes his villain a fallen hero, a valiant warrior until those witches and that wife get involved. Macbeth and his nobles are portrayed as impressive Scottish fighting men. Unsurprisingly, prior to this, the Scots had rarely come off well in English writing or drama.
As Macduff struck the final blow to Macbeth, doubtless James would have approved of this violent end to a witch-trusting, king-killing, thronestealing criminal. And trusted that those bejewelled courtiers around his throne got the message.
The real Macbeth didn’t haunt Shakespeare to ask for his reputation back. He probably had grounds to do so, although it's hard to find the truth about him and his lady a thousand years after their deaths.
Macbethad mac Findláech did indeed become King of Alba, and by his side there really was a formidable woman. Macbeth had married his cousin’s widow.
Her first husband, Gillecomgain, had been the powerful Lord of Moray, but got himself and 50 of his men burned to death. Careless.
Macbeth now claimed Moray in the name of his new queen, then took the throne of Scotland. Early chroniclers dispute just how that happened. A monk, Marianus Scotus lived around the same time as Macbeth. In the 1070s, he wrote of Macbeth’s 1040 rise to power in his ‘Chronicon Clara’, when "Duncan, the king of Scotland, was killed in autumn, by his earl, Macbeth, Findlaech's son; who succeeded to the kingdom”.
Looks like regicide to us, but Duncan had died on the battlefield. That was considered fair enough. Even off-pitch violence didn’t really rattle the Scots. At that time, the Scottish throne didn’t have to go to the king's oldest son. It could be the most suitable royal male. If you felt you could do a better job of winning battles than the current incumbent, then a violent showdown followed by a fast-tracked coronation was OK with the noble lads of the realm, if they endorsed you, which Macbeth seems to have been.
The Macbeths ruled for 17 years, crushing at least one attempted rising, which indicates he had enough support to raise an army. So secure were the royal couple that the king and queen undertook a pilgrimage to Rome. The Vatican guest book doesn’t record the visit, but Marianus Scotus assures us that in 1050 “the king of Scotland, Macbeth, scattered money like seed to the poor, at Rome”. The Scots have always been open-handed on holiday.
Some chroniclers describe Scotland under Macbeth as prosperous and peaceful, but it couldn’t last. In 1054, an invading army, including the banners of Duncan’s son Malcolm, had a reckoning with Macbeth at Dunsinane. He was defeated, but fought on for another three years. In 1057, The Chronicle of the Kings of Scotland states that he was “killed in Lumphanan by Malcolm, Duncan's son; and was buried in the island of Iona”. You don’t get into that sacred ground easily.
And the fate of his queen? No one tells us, but at least they left us her first name. Gruoch, Lady Macbeth.
A violent showdown followed by a fast-tracked coronation was OK with the noble lads of the realm