Shakespeare’s Greatest Con Job?

Shakespeare was not writing history when he penned Macbeth around 1606. He was writing for his job security. The playwright understood his audience with surgical precision, and his most important audience member had just ascended the English throne three years prior. James VI of Scotland had become James I of England in 1603. Shakespeare needed the new royal patronage. The new Scottish king needed legitimacy on English soil.

The Match Made in Theatrical Heaven

The Historical Macbeth

Mac Bethad mac Findlaích ruled Scotland from 1040 to 1057. That was seventeen years of stable rule in medieval Scotland. This was unheard of in the Scotland of the 1000’s where kings were routinely murdered, deposed, or challenged. Tyrants did not last seventeen years.

The historical Duncan I bears no resemblance to Shakespeare’s wise, elderly, benevolent king. The real Duncan I was young, weak, and foolishly aggressive. He invaded Macbeth’s territory of Moray in 1040. Macbeth slew him in the of Battle of Pitgaveny near Elgin. Warrior to warrior – an honorable death between combatants rather than the stabbing of an elderly sleeping guest in his bedchamber.

Macbeth possessed legitimate claim to the Scottish throne through his wife, Gruoch, granddaughter of King Kenneth III. Under the tanistry system of Scottish succession, Macbeth’s claim stood as valid as Duncan’s. Arguably stronger.

During his reign, Macbeth made a pilgrimage to Rome in 1050 to meet with the Pope – a pilgrimage possible only by a secure monarch. Chroniclers of the period recorded that he “scattered money like seed to the poor.” A guilt-ridden, paranoid murderer does not leave his kingdom for months to distribute charity abroad. Only a secure, prosperous, pious king would do so at the time.

The real Macbeth wore regal clothes. Shakespeare stripped them off and dressed him in villain’s rags.

Why the Lies?

Follow the money. Follow the power. This is how we uncover truth in any century.

James I needed several things when he took the English throne. He needed legitimacy, as a Scottish king ruling England was hardly popular with English subjects. He needed cultural acceptance. He craved flattery of his royal lineage. And he demanded entertainment that reinforced his divine right to rule.

Shakespeare delivered all of it with the precision of a master.

By making Duncan righteous and murdered, James’s ancestor became the martyred good king whose death must be avenged. By making Macbeth the evil usurper, anyone who would challenge rightful succession became damned by association. By making Banquo noble and prophesied to father a line of kings, Shakespeare flattered James’s other claimed ancestor as the hero whose bloodline fulfilled destiny. By adding witches and supernatural elements, the playwright appealed directly to James’s obsession with witchcraft. The king had written Daemonologie and fancied himself an expert on the subject. And by showing divine punishment for regicide, Shakespeare reinforced James’s claim to rule by divine right.

This was not art. This was propaganda dressed in iambic pentameter. Magnificent propaganda, certainly. Effective beyond measure. Propaganda, nonetheless.

The Matilda Connection

After Macbeth’s death in 1057, Malcolm III assumed the Scottish crown. This is the “Malcolm” who defeats Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play, the son who avenges his father Duncan’s death. Malcolm married Margaret of Wessex, an Anglo-Saxon princess who fled to Scotland after the Norman Conquest of England.

Their daughter, Edith of Scotland, was born around 1080. When Edith married King Henry I of England in 1100, she changed her name to Matilda. The name sounded more Norman, more acceptable, less conspicuously Scottish to English ears.

This Matilda, born Edith, became the crucial bridge between kingdoms. Through her, Duncan’s blood flowed into the English monarchy via Malcolm III. Through her mother Margaret, descended from Alfred the Great, Anglo-Saxon royal blood joined the mixture. Matilda became the convergence point of Scottish and English royal heritage.

Matilda’s daughter, Empress Matilda, fought for England’s throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. Her descendants became the Plantagenet kings who ruled England for centuries. The bloodline continued its steady march through history.

When Elizabeth I died childless in 1603, James VI of Scotland possessed the strongest claim to the English throne precisely because of these bloodlines. They traced back through the centuries, through Matilda the name-changer, through Margaret of Wessex the refugee princess, through Malcolm III the avenger, through Duncan the historical king Shakespeare would later slander.

James was not merely some Scottish king seizing an English throne. He represented the convergence of Scottish, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman royal blood meeting in one person. His legitimacy ran deep, and he knew it. He needed others to know it as well.

Shakespeare ensured they did.

A Small Digression

The Shakespeare 2020 Project founded by author, Ian Doescher, had a complete syllabus and timeframe for reading. I read and listened fast and thoroughly, then dug deep into historical relevance. I often listened to the plays while walking my dogs along the magnificent trails of parks and paths in my area. When I arrived at my ‘magiclands’ to find them closed due to the dread virus, I ushered the dogs back into their seats in my car and drove non-stop to a closer park. Furious, I decided that NOW was the time to hear Macbeth! Hear it, I did! We walked for the entire reading. When I returned to my book – I read it in its entirety with the readings still ringing in my ears. Yet, the play was enough. It did not send me on a single rabbit trail. I was too mesmerized by the psychological depth to worry about historical veracity. Until now, that it. Why? Nothing terribly intellectual – a short YouTube video addressing the very topic. I was hooked and the rabbit trail led me to rooms and rooms of pre-1000’s Scottish, English, and Norman history to the assertion of the throne by Macbeth.

What happened to King Macbeth? He was killed at the Battle of Lumphanan by Malcolm Canmore (later Malcolm III), son of Duncan I.

Why has Macbeth been an ill-fated play – sets fell, and actors died then theatrically referred to as simply “that Scottish Play?” Marginalizing and demonizing a past king? Lincoln quoted lines from Macbeth, “Out, out brief candle…” following the fall of Richmond on April 9, 1865. On April 15, 1865, SIX days later, he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth who had played the title role in Boston two years earlier. Exactly who assassinated Lincoln? Booth or Macbeth?  Where is Macbeth’s reach?

Perhaps we should view all historical narratives with a skeptical eye. Whether from 1606 or from 2025, those who write the story control what becomes truth. Those who flatter power shape how the past is remembered.

The Lesson

I love Shakespeare for his poetry, his psychological insight, his timeless exploration of ambition, guilt, and the human condition. He was a genius wordsmith. In reality – he was a businessman, a survivor, a man who understood power and how to serve it while appearing to entertain.

Macbeth is splendid theater. The poetry soars across centuries. Lady Macbeth’s guilt, the dagger speech, “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” are extraordinary achievements in dramatic writing. The play deserves its place in the canon.

History? Not close.

The real Macbeth deserves better than four centuries of slander. He ruled well. He ruled long. He had legitimate claim to his throne. He was pious enough to pilgrimage to Rome and generous enough to scatter money to the poor. History should remember him as he was, not as Shakespeare portrayed him.

Politicians make promises. Playwrights craft myths. The winner writes history. The powerful control narratives.

Whether the emperor wears clothes or stands naked before us depends entirely on who holds the pen.

I like to see for myself.