So who was Macbeth really?

Thanks to Shakespeare, Macbeth is one of the better-known of the early kings of Scotland - or Alba as it was then known. Supposedly, he was a murderous regicide influenced by witchy hags, who quickly met his deserved fate. Well... that was Shakespeare's story and a good one at that.

 But it is not quite what happened.

 Mind you, Macbeth (or, more correctly, Mac Bethad mac Findlaìch) was a man on whose bad side you did not want to be. His story really starts in 1032 with his killing of Gille Coemgáin mac Maíl Brigti, Mormaer (the Scottish equivalent of an earl) of Moray, in a house-burning that killed him and 50 of his men. Mac Bethad became Mormaer and married Brigti's widow, Gruoch, a year later, adopting her son by Brigti.

Mac Betha's overlord was Malcolm II, King of Alba, and then his second-in-command and successor, King Duncan I. An important thing to know about royal succession in the Kingdom of Alba is that it was by tanistry, inheritance by the second-in-command, not by primogenitor. For a while, things went all right for King Duncan until, in 1039, he was attacked by the Northumbrians. When he led a retaliatory attack against Durham, it was a total disaster that he barely escaped with his life. In medieval times, a king who could not win battles rarely remained king long.

The next year, Mac Bethad took advantage of King Duncan's weakened position to raid Duncan's lands. Duncan led a retaliatory raid into Moray, where he met Mac Bethad in the Battle of Bothagowan near what is now Elgin. He was killed in battle on 14 August 1040. Duncan's two sons fled, but there is considerable debate about where they fled to.

 Mac Bethad immediately took the throne of Alba with no opposition. Did I mention that if a king could not win battles, he did not stay king - or alive - long?

Although there was no immediate opposition, Duncan's father and brother were killed in battle against the army of Alba in 1045. Otherwise, matters in the kingdom were peaceful, with no opposition to Mac Bethad's rule within Scotland. In 1050, his kingdom was so peaceful that he took a year to travel to Rome, where he scattered coins to the poor as though they were grains of seed. His marriage may not have been so successful since he and Gruoch had no children. He named his adopted son Lulach as his successor, violating the laws of tanistry.

He returned to a Scotland no longer peaceful. Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Jarl of Orkney, pillaged and burned as far as Fife. Since Mac Bethad survived as king, it is safe to say he pushed back Thorfinn's invasion.

However, only a short time later, in 1052, Siward, Earl of Northumberland, invaded Alba with a large army. He met Mac Bethad's army in a bloody battle. There were tremendous deaths on both sides, including Siward's sons and son-in-law, but they still restored the man the English preferred to the throne of Strathclyde. This was a severe blow to Mac Bethad's prestige, but he was still largely admired. He was still referred to as "Mac Bethad the renowned."

But having lost once, he was on a rapid downward slide. After all, having ruled for seventeen years. He was no longer a young man at the height of his battle strength. The eldest son of King Duncan I (remember Mac Bethad killing him?) Malcolm III, Maol Chaluim mac Dhonnchaidh, continued the invasion after Siward's death and killed Mac Bethad in battle at Lumphanan in August 1057.

Poor King Lulach, given the sobriquet the Feeble Minded, was crowned but survived only a few months. His coronation was against the rules of tanistry, so whether his assassination by Malcolm III was unlawful might be open to question. But certainly, Malcolm was no innocent child who had been deprived of his throne by murder. And it is beyond question that Mac Bethad or Macbeth was no tyrant.

So why did Shakespeare claim that Macbeth was a tyrant who only ruled for a short time? Because King James I of England (King James VI of Scotland) traced his ancestry to Malcolm III. It was good, old-fashioned political propaganda done by one of the world's greatest authors. Successful propaganda is when, hundreds of years later, people still believe the lies.