MACBETH OF SCOTLAND

'Mac Bethad mac Findlaích' (1005–15 August 1057), known in English as 'Macbeth', was King of Scots (or Alba) from 1040 until his death. He is best known as the subject of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Macbeth'' and the many works it has inspired, although the play is historically inaccurate.

Contents

Origins and Family

Mormaer and ''dux''

High-King of Alba

Karl Hundason

Final years

Life to Legend

Notes

References

Primary sources

Secondary sources

Further Reading

Origins and Family

Main articles: Mormaer of Moray

Mac Bethad was the son of Findláech mac Ruaidrí, Mormaer of Moray. His mother is sometimes supposed to have been a daughter of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda. This may be derived from Andrew of Wyntoun's ''Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland'' which makes Mac Bethad's mother a grand-daughter, rather than a daughter, of Máel Coluim. ^[1]
Mac Bethad's paternal ancestry can be traced in the Irish genealogies contained in the Rawlinson B.502 manuscript:
This should be compared with the ancestry claimed for Máel Coluim mac Cináeda which traces back to Loarn's brother Fergus Mór.^[2] Several of Mac Bethad's ancestors can tentatively be identified: Ailgelach son of Ferchar as Ainbcellach mac Ferchair and Ferchar son of Fergus (correctly, son of Feredach son of Fergus) as Ferchar Fota, while Muiredach son of Loarn mac Eirc, his son Eochaid and Eochaid's son Báetán are given in the ''Senchus fer n-Alban.'' So, while the descendants of Cináed mac Ailpín saw themselves as being descended from the Cenél nGabráin of Dál Riata, the northern kings of Moray traced their origins back to the rival Cenél Loairn.^[3]
Mac Bethad's father Findláech was killed about 1020 - one obituary calls him king of Alba - most probably by his successor, his brother Máel Brigte's son Máel Coluim.^[4] Máel Coluim died in 1029, the circumstances are unknown, but violence is not suggested; he is called king of Alba by the ''Annals of Tigernach.''^[5] However, ''king of Alba'' is by no means the most impressive title used by the Irish annals. Many deaths reported in the annals in the 11th century are of rulers called ''Ard Rí Alban'' - High-King of Scotland. It is not entirely certain whether Máel Coluim was followed by his brother Gille Coemgáin or by Mac Bethad.
Gille Coemgáin's death in 1032 was not reported by Tigernach, but the ''Annals of Ulster'' record:
Some have supposed that Mac Bethad was the perpetrator.^[6] Others have noted the lack of information in the ''Annals,'' and the subsequent killings at the behest of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda to suggest other answers.^[7] Gille Coemgáin had been married to Gruoch, daughter of Boite mac Cináeda, with whom he had a son, the future king Lulach.
It is not clear whether Gruoch's father was a son of Cináed mac Duib (d. 1005) or of Cináed mac Maíl Coluim (d. 997), either is possible chronologically.^[8] After Gille Coemgáin's death, Mac Bethad married his widow and took Lulach as his step-son. Gruoch's brother, or nephew (his name is not recorded), was killed in 1033 by Máel Coluim mac Cináeda.^[9]

Mormaer and ''dux''

When Canute the Great came north in 1031 to accept the submission of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda, Mac Bethad too submitted to him:
Some have seen this as a sign of Mac Bethad's power, others have seen his presence, together with Iehmarc, who may be Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, as proof that Máel Coluim mac Cináeda was overlord of Moray and of the Kingdom of the Isles.^[10] Whatever the true state of affairs in the early 1030s, and it seems more probable that Mac Bethad was subject to the king of Alba, Máel Coluim died at Glamis, on 25 November, 1034. The ''Prophecy of Berchan'' is apparently alone in near contemporary sources in reporting a violent death, calling it a kinslaying.^[11] Tigernan's chronicle says only:
Máel Coluim's grandson Donnchad mac Crínáin was acclaimed as king of Alba on 30 November, 1034, apparently without opposition. Donnchad appears to have been ''tánaise ríg'', the king in waiting, so that far from being an abandonment of tanistry, his kingship was a vindication of the practice. Previous successions had involved strife between various ''rígdomna'' - men of royal blood.^[12] Far from being the aged King Duncan of Shakespeare's play, the real Donnchad was a young man in 1034, and even at his death in 1040 his youthfulness is remarked upon.^[13]
Perhaps due to his youth, Donnchad's early reign was apparently uneventful. His later reign, in line with his description as "the man of many sorrows" in the ''Prophecy of Berchán'', was not successful. In 1039, Strathclyde was attacked by the Northumbrians, and a retaliatory raid led by Donnchad against Durham in 1040 turned into a disaster. Later that year Donnchad led an army into Moray, where he was killed by Mac Bethad on 15 August 1040 at Pitgaveny near Elgin.^[14]

High-King of Alba

On Donnchad's death, Mac Bethad became king. No resistance is known at this time, but it would be entirely normal if his reign were not universally accepted. In 1045, Donnchad's father Crínán of Dunkeld was killed in a battle between two Scots armies.^[15]
John of Fordun wrote that Donnchad's wife fled Scotland, taking her children, including the future kings Máel Coluim III and Domnall Bán with her. Based on the author's beliefs as to whom Donnchad married, various places of exile, Northumbria and Orkney among them, have been proposed. However, the simplest solution is that offered long ago by E. William Robertson: the safest place for Donnchad's widow and her children would be with her or Donnchad's kin and supporters in Atholl.^[16]
After the defeat of Crínán, Mac Bethad was evidently unchallenged. Marianus Scotus tells how the king made a pilgrimage to Rome in 1050, where, Marianus says, he gave money to the poor as if it were seed.

Karl Hundason

The ''Orkneyinga Saga'' says that a dispute between Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Earl of Orkney, and Karl Hundason began when Karl Hundason became "King of Scots" and claimed Caithness. The identity of Karl Hundason, unknown to Scots and Irish sources, has long been a matter of dispute, and it is far from clear that the matter is settled. The most common assumption is that Karl Hundason was an insulting byname (Old Norse for "Churl, son of a Dog") given to Mac Bethad by his enemies. ^[17] Skene's suggestion that he was Donnchad mac Crínáin has been revived in recent years. Lastly, the idea that the whole affair is a poetic invention has been raised.^[18]
According to the ''Orkneyinga Saga'', in the war which followed, Thorfinn defeated Karl in a sea-battle off Deerness at the east end of the Orkney Mainland. Then Karl's nephew Mutatan or Muddan, appointed to rule Caithness for him, was killed at Thurso by Thorkel the Fosterer. Finally, a great battle on the south side of the Dornoch Firth ended with Karl defeated and fugitive or dead. Thorfinn, the saga says, then marched south through Scotland as far as Fife, burning and plundering as he passed. A later note in the saga claims that Thorfinn won nine Scottish earldoms.^[19]
Whoever Karl son of Hundi may have been, it appears that the saga is reporting a local conflict with a Scots ruler of Moray or Ross:

Final years

In 1052, Mac Bethad was involved indirectly in the strife in the Kingdom of England between Godwin, Earl of Wessex and Edward the Confessor when he received a number of Norman exiles from England in his court, perhaps becoming the first king of Scots to introduce feudalism to Scotland. In 1054, Edward's Earl of Northumbria, Siward, led a very large invasion of Scotland. The campaign led to a bloody battle in which the ''Annals of Ulster'' report 3,000 Scots and 1,500 English dead, which can be taken as meaning very many on both sides, and one of Siward's sons and a son-in-law were among the dead. The result of the invasion was that Máel Coluim - not Máel Coluim (III) mac Donnchada - "son of the king of the Cumbrians" was restored to his throne, i.e., as ruler of the kingdom of Strathclyde.^[20] It may be that the events of 1054 are responsible for the idea, which appears in Shakespeare's play, that Máel Coluim III was put in power by the English.
Mac Bethad certainly survived the English invasion, for he was defeated and mortally wounded or killed by Máel Coluim mac Donnchada in battle at Lumphanan, on the north side of the Mounth in 1057. The ''Prophecy of Berchán'' has it that he was wounded and died at Scone, sixty miles to the south, some days later.^[21] Mac Bethad's stepson Lulach mac Gille Coemgáin was installed as king soon after.
Unlike later writers, no near contemporary source remarks on Mac Bethad as a tyrant. The ''Duan Albanach,'' which survives in a form dating to the reign of Máel Coluim (III) mac Donnchada calls him "Mac Bethad the renowned". The ''Prophecy of Berchán'', a verse history which purports to be a prophecy, describes him as "the generous king of Fortriu", and says:

Life to Legend

Main articles: Macbeth

Mac Bethad's life, like that of Donnchad, had progressed far towards legend by the end of the 14th century, when John of Fordun and Andrew of Wyntoun wrote their histories. Hector Boece, Walter Bower, and George Buchanan all contributed to the legend.
The influence of William Shakespeare's ''Macbeth'' towers over mere histories, and has made the name of Macbeth infamous. Even his wife has gained some fame along the way, lending her Shakespeare-given title to a short story by Nikolai Leskov and the opera by Dmitri Shostakovich entitled ''Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk''. The historical content of Shakespeare's play is drawn from Raphael Holinshed's ''Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland'', which in turn borrows from Boece's 1527 ''Scotorum Historiae'' which flattered the antecedents of Boece's patron, King James V of Scotland.
In modern times, Dorothy Dunnett's novel ''King Hereafter'' aims to portray a historical Macbeth, but proposes that Mac Bethad and his rival and sometime ally Thorfinn of Orkney are one and the same (Thorfinn is his birth name and Macbeth is his baptismal name). John Cargill Thompson's play ''Macbeth Speaks 1997'', a reworking of his earlier ''Macbeth Speaks'', is a monologue delivered by the historical Macbeth, aware of what Shakespeare and posterity have done to him. Scottish author Nigel Tranter based one of his historical novels on the historical figure (''MacBeth the King'').

Notes

1. Hudson, ''Prophecy of Berchán'', pp. 224–225, discusses the question, and the reliability of Wyntoun's chronicle.
2. Rawlinson B. 502 ¶1696 ''Genelach Ríg n-Alban.''
3. Duncan, ''Kingship of the Scots'', p. 32; Sellar, "Moray".
4. ''Annals of Tigernach'' 1020.8; ''Annals of Ulster'' 1020.6.
5. ''Annals of Tigernach'' 1029.5; ''Annals of Ulster'' 1029.7.
6. Sellar, "Moray".
7. Duncan, ''Kingship of the Scots'', p. 32.
8. See Duncan, ''Kingship of the Scots'', p. 345; Lynch, ''Oxford Companion'', p. 680; Woolf, "Macbeth".
9. ''Annals of Ulster'' 1033.7. The victim is reported as ''M. m. Boite m. Cináedha'', which is variously read as "the son of the son of Boite" or as "M. son of Boite".
10. Compare Duncan, ''Kingship of the Scots'', pp. 29–30 with Hudson, ''Prophecy of Berchán'', pp. 222–223.
11. Hudson, ''Prophecy of Berchán'', p. 223; Duncan, ''Kingship of the Scots'', p. 33.
12. Donnchad as ''tánaise ríg'', the chosen heir, see Duncan, ''The Kingship of the Scots'', pp. 33–34; Hudson, ''Prophecy of Berchán'',pp. 223–224, where it is accepted that Donnchad was king of Strathclyde. For tanistry, etc., in Ireland, see Ó Cróinín, ''Early Medieval Ireland'', 63–71. Byrne, ''Irish Kings and High-Kings'', pp. 35–39, offers a different perspective.
13. Annals of Tigernach 1040.1.
14. Hudson, ''Prophecy of Berchán'', p.223–224; Duncan, ''The Kingship of the Scots'', pp.33–34.
15. ''Annals of Tigernach'' 1045.10; ''Annals of Ulster'' 1045.6.
16. Robertson, ''Scotland under her Early Kings'', p. 122. Hudson, ''Prophecy of Berchán'', p. 224, refers to Earl Siward as Máel Coluim mac Donnchada's "patron"; Duncan, ''The Kingship of the Scots'', pp. 40–42 favours Orkney; Woolf offers no opinion. Northumbria is evidently a misapprehension, further than that cannot be said with certainty.
17. However Mac Bethad's father may be called "jarl Hundi" in ''Njál's saga''; Crawford, p. 72.
18. Anderson, ''ESSH'', p. 576, note 7, refers to the account as "a fabulous story" and concludes that "[n]o solution to the riddle seems to be justified".
19. ''Orkneyinga Saga'', cc. 20 & 32.
20. Florence of Worcester, 1052; ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,'' Ms. D, 1054; ''Annals of Ulster'' 1054.6; and discussed by Duncan, ''The Kingship of the Scots'', pp. 38–41.
21. The exact dates are uncertain, Woolf gives 15 August, Hudson 14 August and Duncan, following John of Fordun, gives 5 December; ''Annals of Tigernach'' 1058.5; ''Annals of Ulster'' 1058.6.

References

Primary sources

★ CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts at University College Cork including:

★
★ Genealogies from Rawlinson B.502 (no translation available)

★
★ Gaelic notes from the Book of Deer (with translation)

★
★ The Annals of Ulster (translation)

★
★ The Annals of Tigernach (translation in progress)

★
★ The Chronicon Scotorum reproduces a considerable part of the Annals of Tigernach and is available in translation.

★ The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Mss. D and E, various editions including an XML version by Tony Jebson.

★ The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba

★ The ''Chronicon ex chronicis'' attributed to Florence of Worcester.

Secondary sources

★ Barrell, A.D.M., ''Medieval Scotland.'' Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. ISBN 0-521-58602-X

★ Barrow, G.W.S., ''Kingship and Unity: Scotland 1000–1306.'' Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, (corrected ed.) 1989. ISBN 0-7486-0104-X

★ Byrne, Francis John, ''Irish Kings and High-Kings.'' Batsford, London, 1973. ISBN 0-7134-5882-8

★ Crawford, Barbara, ''Scandinavian Scotland.'' Leicester University Press, Leicester, 1987. 0-7185-1282-0

★ Duncan, A.A.M., ''The Kingship of the Scots 842–1292: Succession and Independence.'' Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2002. ISBN 0-7486-1626-8

★ Hudson, Benjamin T., ''The Prophecy of Berchán: Irish and Scottish High-Kings of the Early Middle Ages.'' Greenwood, London, 1996.

★ McDonald, R. Andrew, ''Outlaws of medieval Scotland: Challenges to the Canmore kings, 1058–1266.'' Tuckwell, East Linton, 2003. 1-86232-236-8

★ Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí, ''Early Medieval Ireland: 400–1200.'' Longman, London, 1995. ISBN 0-582-01565-0

★ Sellar, W.D.H., "Moray: to 1130" in Michael Lynch (ed.), ''The Oxford Companion to Scottish History.'' Oxford UP, Oxford, 2001. ISBN 0-19-211696-7

★ Smyth, Alfred P., ''Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80–1000.'' Edinburgh UP, Edinburgh, 1984. ISBN 0-7486-0100-7

★ Taylor, A.B., "Karl Hundason: King of Scots" in the ''Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland'', LXXI (1937), pp. 334–340.

★ Woolf, Alex, "Macbeth" in Lynch (2001).

Further Reading

★ Aitchison, Nick ''Macbeth'' Sutton Publishing, 2001 , ISBN 0750926406.

★ Dunnett, Dorothy ''King Hereafter'' Knopf, 1982 , ISBN 0394523784.

★ Ellis, Peter Berresford ''Macbeth: High King of Scotland 1040-57'' Learning Links, 1991 , ISBN 0856404489.

★ Marsden, John ''Alba of the Ravens: In Search of the Celtic Kingdom of the Scots'' Constable, 1997, ISBN 0094757607.

★ Walker, Ian ''Lords of Alba'' Sutton Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0750934921.