Page 51 - All About History 58 - 2017 UK

THE REAL
MACBETH

THE TRUE STORY OF THE RED KING’S BLOODY RISE

Was the Medieval monarch really the treacherous tyrant

Shakespeare portrayed him as?

Written by Peter Price

acbeth is one of William It is impossible to ascertain exactly how these
Shakespeare’s most famous works, kingdoms interacted with each other, but many
having kept audiences spellbound historians think that each was ruled autonomously
with its tales of murder, betrayal and by a ruler that was subservient to an overarching
Ma sprinkling of the supernatural for king of Scotland. This system would have been
centuries. It tells of an ambitious noble whose lust similar to the Irish high kings of the same period.
for power sees him kill his friend and king to gain Ruling from his seat in Alba, Malcolm II was the
the throne, spurred on by a prophecy from a trio high king of Scotland when Macbeth was born.
of witches and his ruthless wife. Macbeth’s Generations of war and dynastic conflict had
treachery sees his enemies come back for revenge seen Scotland’s crown pass from brother to brother
and he dies alone and friendless at the end. rather than the more familiar primogeniture,
We do not know a lot about the real Macbeth, which hands the crown down from father to son.
who lived from 1005-1057. But what records we With many Scottish kings in the 10th and 11th
have suggest his rise to the throne, centuries being killed by their rivals,
while quite different to Shakespeare’s “THE BARD this system ensured that someone
tragedy, was no less bloody. We find was always ready to rule without
a man whose ambition drove him DIDN’T the number of claimants to the
to become ruler of the kingdom throne growing ever larger.
of Moray and then the whole of HAVE TO However, Malcolm was a powerful
Scotland — a feat achieved over the LOOK HARD figure in the region. Killing his
slain bodies of his enemies. The predecessor, Kenneth III in 1005,
Bard didn’t have to look hard to find TO FIND and allegedly securing his territory
drama and intrigue, but he did not by defeating a Northumbrian army
tell the whole story. Macbeth was DRAMA AND at the Battle of Carham (around
not as underhanded as his literary 1016), he not only confirmed the
counterpart. He also ruled a strong INTRIGUE” Scottish hold over the land between
and stable Scotland for almost a the rivers Forth and Tweed but also
decade, putting it on the European map as a place secured Strathclyde about the same time.
of international renown. As savvy a politician as he was a general,
Scotland in the 11th century was much Malcolm saw the Norman feudal system down
different to the one we know today, made up south and decided to defy tradition — he would
of a patchwork of loosely connected kingdoms. pass the crown directly to his heir. He set about
Alba was the largest and most central state. The removing all the rival claimants to the throne in
seafaring Jarldom of Orkney, ruled by the Lord of a very direct way — by killing them. It’s highly
the Isles, encompassed the Outer Hebrides and probable Macbeth was Malcolm’s younger cousin,
the northern tip of the mainland. Strathclyde so he was lucky to survive this cull. Malcolm is
made up the area running from Glasgow to Medieval Scotland’s only real example of a serial
Penrith. Moray, where Macbeth’s family ruled, killer. His consolidation of power was arguably far
included Inverness and Aberdeenshire. worse than anything the real Macbeth ever did.
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