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Duncan
came to the throne by the decree of his dying grandfather Malcolm
II in the year 1034. The impetuous Duncan's ascension to that lofty position did not go down too well with others such as the Macbeth of Moray and Thorfinn of Caithness and Orkney factions. They felt that their own merits were better than that of Crinan's brood, and time was to prove them right to a point. Shakespeare would have us believe that Duncan was a kindly, rather elderly gentleman who had a fatherly love for his subjects, but nothing could be further from the truth. The early chroniclers John of Fordun and Andrew Wyntoun whose works Shakespeare gleaned for the play, wrote roughly the same glowing reports for whatever reason, but history and the facts paint a different picture. Obviously Shakespeare's villain had to be Macbeth for the play's sake otherwise it wouldn't have worked, but Fordun's version is intentionally misleading perhaps because he was an historian at the court of Duncan's ancestor not too far down the ages. Lets face it would anyone who wanted the patronage of a king write some pretty nasty things about his past relations. I would doubt it very much. |
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was known that Duncan was impetuous, arrogant and rather selfcentred.
Could it have been that when the boys were younger and because he was
the eldest aspirant to the throne that his wiley old grandfather tended
to spoil him in a way which he never seemed to outgrow. We know that he
attacked Thorfinn's northern domain on two occasions only to be soundly
beaten. He didn't have the best of relationships with Macbeth either,
for Moray was a hotbed of unrest. The anger of certain nobles was building
and would later boil over in violence.
Duncan's next disaster was a full scale incursion deep into Northumbria where many a good man was left lifeless, for he was again humbled at the siege of Durham. Retreating north, information reached him of further disaster in Moray, for his chief lieutenant had just been soundly thrashed by Thorfinn, so he hastened to sort that one out. Some sources say that Macbeth was the leader of the trouble, some say Thorfinn was responsible and others say both. Whatever, Duncan was met in battle and killed at Pitgaveny near Elgin, not in his bed as the play would have us believe. I feel that the nobles with him had, had enough, and, the fight just wasn't worth any more shed blood for a man who seemed to court disaster wherever he went, and, with whom they had become disallusioned. |
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Duncan was no more and his sons Donalbain and Malcolm fled back south, some say to their uncle Maldred in Cumbria, and some say to Siward in Northumbria. Siward would certainly play a good part in their restoration. That time would come later but meanwhile, Macbeth was given the throne by the popular demand of the nobles. Duncan's legacy to Scotland was one of fame, perhaps unjustly, through the works of an English playwright. A fame that lasts as long as English literature survives. |
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