Historical Macbeth (as best we know)

http://www.pathguy.com/macbeth.htm

Shakespeare got his story from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles. It's a fun read. Click here or here to read Holinshed.

Holinshed spends a lot of time on the incident in which Malcolm (who became a popular king) tests Macduff by pretending to be mean when he is really nice. Holinshed talks about the murder of King Duff by Donwald in the century before Macbeth. According to Holinshed, Donwald was nagged by his wife until he did the evil deed, and drugged the guards. Shakespeare adapted this for Macbeth.

I've read that Holinshed's section on Macbeth was largely derived from the work of one Hector Boece, Scotorum Historiae ("Chronicles of Scotland", 1526-7, translated from Latin into English by a John Bellenden in 1535).

It is evidently not online. I've also read that Boece's sources include the Chronica gentis Scotorum ("Scotichronicon") by John of Fordun in the early 1500's (he also writes about William "Braveheart" Wallace and Robin Hood), and Andrew of Wyntoun (1400's). John of Fordun seems to have been the first to record the story of the dialogue on kingship between Macduff and Malcolm. You may be able to find this book in an old university library, but I could not find it online. By the time the story of Macbeth had reached Holinshed, it was already mostly fiction.
Here's what we think really happened with Macbeth and the other characters.

In a barbaric era, population pressures made war and even the slaughter of one community by another a fact of life. Survival depended in having a capable warlord to protect life and property, prevent infighting, and protect from distant enemies. Groups of warlords would unite under the nominal leadership of one king to promote their common interests and war on more distant nations. While people pretended to believe in "the divine right of kings" and "lawful succession", continuing effective leadership was assured by warlords killing off the less capable family members.

The name "Macbeth" means "son of life", and is a Christian name rather than a patronymic (hence the "b" is lower case.) Macbeth would have signed his friends' high school yearbooks "Macbeth mac Findlaech" (McFinley). There are MacBeth families in Scotland and Nova Scotia.
Macbeth's father Findlaech was ruler ("mormaer", high steward) of Moray, at the northern tip of Scotland. Macbeth's mother's name is unknown, but she is variously said to have been the daughter of King Kenneth II or the daughter of King Malcolm II.

In 1020, Findlaech was killed and succeeded by his nephew Gillacomgain. In 1032, Gillacomgain and fifty other people were burned to death in retribution for the murder of Findlaech, probably by Macbeth and allies.

The historical Mrs. Macbeth was not named "Lady", but "Gruoch" (GROO-och). She was the daughter of a man named Biote (Beoedhe), who was in turn the son of King Kenneth III "the Grim" who Malcolm II had killed to become king. (Some say that Biote was the son of Kenneth II instead.) She was originally married to Gillacomgain. Their son was Lulach the Simple (i.e., stupid; no, Lady Macbeth didn't brain him.) After Macbeth killed Gillacomgain, he took his widow Gruoch for his own wife, and raised Lulach as their stepson. What a guy!

Centuries before Macbeth, King Kenneth MacAlpin, "founded Scotland" by uniting the Picts and the Scots, i.e., getting them to fight foreigners rather than each other. In this era, Gaelic custom required that the succession go via the male line, and that if an heir was not yet old enough to reign when the king died, the kingship went to whatever male adult was next in line. Since the succession was designed to ensure some stability in a world of warlords and infighting, this made sense. Kenneth MacAlpin's male line continued to King Malcolm II, who had at least two daughters but no sons, and he killed the last member of the male McAlpin line. One daughter, Bethoc, (Holinshed calls her Beatrice) married Abbanath Crinen, the secular hereditary abbot of Dunkeld, and gave birth to Duncan.

In 1034, Malcolm II was murdered at Glamis by his fellow warlords, possibly including his grandson Duncan. Then Duncan managed to kill his rivals and seize the throne. Duncan married Sibylla Bearsson and they had Malcolm and Donald "Bain".

--> Macbeth allied with Thorfinn of Orkney, a Norseman. Thorfinn was the son of Sigurd the Fat and Bethoc, apparently the same Bethoc who was Duncan I's father. Thorfinn Sigurdsson is variously called "Thorfinn I", "Thorfinn II", "Thorfinn Skull-Smasher", "Thorfinn the Black", and "Thorfinn Raven-Feeder" (ravens eat dead meat, including human corpses). Thorfinn and Macbeth defeated and killed Duncan I in a battle in Elgin in August 1040. Thorfinn ruled northern Scotland, and Macbeth ruled southern Scotland. According to accounts, Macbeth was a good king, strict but fair, for the first decade of his reign.

In 1054, Earl Siward of Northumberland, who spirited Malcolm to England after Duncan's death, invaded Scotland. According to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, he met and defeated Macbeth at the battle of Birnam Wood / Dunsinane (July 27). Most of Macbeth's army were killed, but Macbeth escaped. Siward's son and nephew were also killed. According to the Chronicles of Ulster, Macbeth continued to reign and was actually killed three years later by Duncan's son Malcolm. Thorfinn II survived until 1064.

After Macbeth's death, Lulach claimed the kingship and had some supporters. Lulach was ambushed and killed a few months later by Malcolm.
Malcolm went on to reign as Malcolm III "Canmore" ("big head" or "great ruler"). He took Thorfinn's widow Ingibiorg for himself, and they had a son Duncan, who later ruled as Duncan II. After Ingibiorg died, Malcolm Canmore married Margaret, a princess of the old English royal family. Margaret was a woman of great personal piety, and is now honored as a saint by Roman Catholics and Anglicans. Three of their sons became kings in their turns.

Malcolm Canmore was an aggressive and successful warrior who invaded England several times. He was finally killed in Northumberland. The story is that a treacherous soldier, pretending to hand him a key on a spear, put the spear through his eye socket.

Donald Bane, was king twice (deposed for a time by Duncan II, who he later defeated and killed). Donald Bane was finally defeated, imprisoned, and blinded by King Edgar, one of the sons of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret.