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Ask most non Scots to name a Scottish king, and they will eventually remember this fellow Macbeth, who murdered a kindly old man for his crown, egged on by his shrew of a wife who then went crazy
and killed herself. It is small wonder that this story has all but smothered the true one. Since Shakespeare wrote his famous play (more than 500 years after the real Macbeth ruled), brillient actors from Burbage to
Barrymore, Garrick to Gielgud, have persuaded thousands, in a range of accents from American to conscientiously drilled urban Glasgow, that this was, indeed, a slice of actual Scottish history. Actresses such as Sarah
Bernhardt, Vivien Leigh, Diana Rigg and Judi Dench have brought their own ardour, ferocity and intensity to the role of Lady Macbeth on the stage. This has all come into being because of Shakespeare's play, not because
Macbeth himself, but because of the play, the real life of Macbeth has been obscured. The evil portrayed in the play has even come to represent a threat to those who act in it. Macbeth has long been considered an
unlucky work, with injury, fire and trouble allowing in its wake. It is never named in the acting profession, but referred to obliquely as 'The Scottish Play'. When the superstition first arose is not known, but some
like to believe, even today, that the witches song has the power of working evil. Investigation shows, none the less, that the witches song is an invention, and the true tale of Macbeth has nothing to do with witches or
witchcraft at all. The real Macbeth, who died in 1057, was not regarded as a villain in the bald monkish records that survive from his time. So far as one can tell, the legends surrounding his reign began four or five
hundred years after his death. While Macbeth lived, his name as a warrior prince must have carried some weight among the other rulers of the countries within reach of Alba, his Scotland. Because of its situation between
Scandinavia, England, Ireland, and the continent, Alba was the place of strategic importance. In Macbeth, it seemed to have found a capable and imaginative king who held the throne in disturbing times for 17 years and
was able, indeed, to leave his shores for a very long time without fear of upheavals behind him - something Edward the Confessor was never able to do. In fact, Macbeth went to Rome - an event about which Shakespeare
knew nothing. We know the date, 1050, from the chronicle of an Irish monk writing in Germany, and we know that Macbeth was free with his gold when he got there, scattered his alms 'like seed'. He may have visited Rome
as a pilgrim, but his reasons were more likely to do with the benefits a Roman association might offer a country backward in development, which has hitherto relied on the care and protection of the Celtic pastoral
church. Macbeth and his kingdom stood at the hub of a power struggle in which the Norse and the Danes, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Saxons of England, the Norman's and Flemings and the Celts of
Brittany, Cornwall, Wales and Ireland all played a part, with the pope in Rome courting them all. None of this could be guessed from the enclosed, claustrophobic world Shakespeare created, for which he gutted a
recent and unreliable history, 'The Chronicles of England', 'Scotland and Ireland', published in 1577 by Raphael Holinshed, enhancing and twisting it, telescoping battles and years. What did Shakespeare change?
For a start, King Duncan was not an old and wise man, according to Holinshed. He was likely, in fact, to have been in his mid 30s or younger when he met his death on campaign, having spent the previous months in a
disastrous attempt to capture the city of Durham in England. His grandfather had failed in this acquisition, and so did he. What drew him to travel from Durham to his death in north Scotland is not recorded,
although it is most likely that his army went with him.  |
