The Real Macbeth (Shakespeare Documentary) | Timeline

as an actor my business's words I learned them I interpret them I communicate them but there's one word no actors allowed to say just to speak it out loud would bring down a terrible curse it's two syllables it's the name of the play it's the name of a king what's the word [Music] this is where the legend started in Shakespeare's Globe Theater it was here that the men and women in the street would have stood to watch what we now call the Scottish play and what would they have got for their money treachery murder and more scariness than the Blair Witch Project double double toil and trouble here is a man who hangs out with witches and the spirits of the dead not only kills a king and murders his friend but also drives his wife mad into the bargain Shakespeare has woven a spell has created an unforgettable story but the most fascinating thing is that there really was a real king with the same name living in Scotland a thousand years ago and his story is even more compulsive now I'm used to archaeological excavation but now I'm gonna dig down into history to try to reveal the secrets behind that real King and I'm not gonna be superstitious I'm gonna say his name Macbeth and I hope st. Pierre won't mind if I reveal a few of the secrets of his most unforgettable body [Music] Shakespeare makes us feel we know this man but the real Macbeth King of Scotland from 1042-1050 7 is far more remote finding the real means embarking on a journey that takes us all over Scotland a journey that begins in the highlands with Beth's birthplace and the city for the start of Shakespeare's play and looking for Macbeth what one is is really trying to get back to her is an understanding of what the old Scotland was like he actually killed his own cousin should have gone near he killed his own cousin to get into this position the hardest thing to know in the past is what people believed and it's really hard to get in save with the AIDS of people in the party archeology can usually bring history to life but physical evidence from 11th century Scotland is pitifully thin there was no pottery or coinage at that time and all the National Museums of Scotland can offer is a solitary accident this leaves us with the written records and the problem here is that the historians were writing such a long time after the event if we say that the present day is here and the time when the real best lifts is down there at the other end of the carriage where that boats just coming in now then the moment that Shakespeare wrote his Macbeth 16:06 is about here not halfway down the carriage and Hollingshead who was the historian who Shakespeare got his information from was just 30 years earlier here so both Shakespeare and Hollenshead and the era of the present day than they were the time when the real Macbeth lived if you see what I mean but as we get nearer Hines Head sources were even earlier chronicles but still three hundred years away from a better time itself virtually nothing a few lists of Kings and animals from monasteries but often contemporary sources are the most revealing and amazingly we've got a piece of Gaelic poetry from the Beth's time called the prophecy of Birkin which gives us a description of the man himself but Beth is traditionally played on the stage as a dark sullen brooding character but the prophecy describes Macbeth as the Furious Red King meaning not his hair but his ruddy face it also talks about his flowing blonde hair in other words he was physically the complete opposite of how he's normally portrayed such a big discrepancy little burning there's a fundamental difference between fact and fiction when shall we meet again in thunder lightning or in rain humbly battle is done but the battles lost and won Shakespeare's play opens on a blasted Heath like this a storm's brewing Thunder echoes and lightning flashes this misty isolated spot is the haunt of witches where the place into this eerie world comes the Thane of Glamis the warrior but Beth he's just covered himself with glory fighting the Norwegians his King Duncan thinks he's a great guy everything's going right for him suddenly he sees three hideous hags all hail Macbeth hail to thee name of Bob for hail Macbeth hail to thee Thane of Cawdor [Music] hereafter what's more better supposed to wait a bit he's always been thane of gloves but what about the other two prophecies which is vanish and a minute later two of the king's men turn up and tell what birth he's just been made vain of corn so the word she's got to the promises right what about the third one that he be king gives the best Big Ideas [Music] it's a great start to a play just like a movie in fact audiences got so excited by it that soon people wanted to know where it was supposed to have taken place and here which is halfway between corridor and forays where Macbeth was supposed to be going became known as but Beth's look dr. Johnson and Boswell came here Ellen Terry the actress came here thing are those is pretty handy for the a 96 million marketing on the part of the Scots because actually there's no evidence whatsoever that that Hillier is anything to do with the real look best so if you can't start your search for him here where can you look called or perhaps Cawdor is a small village near inverness about 15 miles from Macbeth's hillock in the play Macbeth becomes Thane of Cawdor and people would like to think of Cawdor castle as his home right down to an alleged blood stain in the dungeon but this turns out to be another red herring the castle wasn't built until 200 years after Macbeth died but actually the starting point of the search is easier to find because the real Macbeth was never say never [Music] in fact he was never obtained at all the fame was just a local boss but Beth was a warlord who ruled with absolute power in his island stronghold he was more murmuring and this whole area was his territory [Music] just like in the play there really was a king Duncan of Scotland and the real Macbeth was vital to him politically Scotland was under continual threat from two directions the English Northumbrian zhh were pushing from the south and Macbeth in Murray was Duncan's vital northern defense against the Viking raiders who controlled much of the far north [Music] we don't know exactly when Macbeth was born sometime in the early years of the 11th century we do know that in his early teens he had to flee for his life when his cousin killed Macbeth's father and took over the moor Murshid in 1035 Macbeth took his revenge burning his cousin alive with 50 of his warriors taking his title and astonishingly marrying his widow Brewer is the woman who Shakespeare turns into Lady Macbeth and she was a member of the Royal line in her own right but she was King Duncan's aunt but does the fact that she married her husband's murderer make her as cold as she seems much she really have loved him what's love got to do with it I mean come on we are talking about the 11th century here if you're a woman from a noble or a royal bloodline you're going to be married to the person who's going to take that bloodline on and it has to be somebody who can do well in battle we know nothing about Groth as a person except her name we know her name she's the first Scottish Queen whose name we know we also know that she was very generous and that she gave land patronage to the codis a kind of Celtic monk but luckily even in Fife [Music] the real Macbeth and his wife seem to be very different from Shakespeare's characters he's not a Thane doubler awarded ruling a virtual mini Kingdom she's a saintly relative of the royal line funding the production of manuscripts by hermit monks here on a tiny island in the middle of Loch Leven but there are parallels Macbeth has got where he is by being a good fighter King Duncan is absolutely dependent on him in the fight against marauding Vikings from the north and it's here we get our first real historical link between play and person early in the play Macbeth is rewarded for defeating the Norwegian King Sweyn oh and we can prove that battle happened in the Chronicles we hear how the Scots for to see battle against raiding Vikings who never defeated decks were awash with blood and the Scots fled back to the mainland the Vikings came in sure after them and at Toth Ness just north of Inverness the Scots were thrashed again not the massive victory that Shakespeare created to bolster Macbeth and military reputation but here we have some real evidence to support the Chronicles this is Tarbert ness the 12th ness of the histories the prison churches cemetery ends here but 1300 years ago there was a massive Pictish monastery complex on this site the stretched into those Meadows over there and right down into the present a carpark over there in this funny little area here archeologists have come up with a really great find evidence of burning covering rectangular stone buildings which can be dated back to the mid 11th century which fits in beautifully with a series of Viking raids and reprisals in 1035 culminating with the Battle of toughness not only can we establish that this battle is real we can also get an idea of what it might have looked like in the 18th century the locals discovered a very old stone in forays where Shakespeare said his action it showed a battle of about the right date and knowing the Shakespeare did seem natural to them to call it sway no stone it's a masterpiece of Celtic carving and the back and mass of intricate patterns but on the other side carnage there's soldiers arriving for battle here's a battle scene got a couple of horsemen here some foot soldiers and up here a horrific post back off seen below that Hut there's a pile of severed heads and over there a row of decapitated bodies these people took no prisoners for nearly 200 years since that stone was first discovered lying in a field people have thought that it was about Macbeth's defeat of sway no but although we now know it was probably from a slightly earlier period what it does do is to give a graphic illustration of what life must have been like around what Beth's time in what people now call the marcher society for Macbeth going to war was normal rather than exceptional brutal killings were an accepted way of settling disputes and establishing status [Music] a warlord like Macbeth would expect the men folk from his lands to join in many of them without armor as protection was a luxury of the rich so what would you've used one of these pole weapons for this would have been about keeping you as far away for your opponent in an old crash course in 11th century battle from a very big weapons enthusiast besson barrel of pet what in the throat he never damaged the ligaments poking that in the top of the foot somebody's out of my leg you know yes you're starving you're slashing your upper cotton that's enroll and you're aiming for the ligaments you're catching the back of the guy's leg crunching bones obviously for piercing or slashing what's the easiest way to imagine a battle of Macbeth's time is to think of a riot situation today only with both sides hacking at each other at arm's length with deadly weapons some as simple as household objects I would have been short little variability when you say short what sort of time span would have better last you're probably looking a bit 30 minutes why so short because of the small numbers it wasn't they done in a massive scale that they imagined the medieval was it was done short skirmishes she was taught mobility so the battle with the Norseman looks like it was a pretty bloody but what about an even gory a bit of the play the killing of King Duncan [Music] after the battle macbeth meets up with duncan the epitome of the gracious king he can graduates macbeth and his military success but then reveals he's going to make his son Malcolm king after him which is far as Macbeth's ambitions are concerned as a bit of a stumbling block he gets a horrifying window of opportunity when the King announces he's coming to stay with the new Thane of Cawdor and his wife [Music] but Beth Harris home to make preparations for desperate murder plot head-on by Lady Macbeth who sneers at him for being lily-livered he slaughters Duncan in his bed and pins the blame on Duncan servants who swiftly execute sensing danger Duncan sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and bet immediately accuses them of being behind the murder but best friends but duff of Banquo Oh quite so sure they know about the witch's prophecy and they suspected the finger of blame points fairly and squarely at Macbeth who's already shut off to school to be acclaimed as king [Music] it's one of the great murders of literature but when we look at the real Macbeth his path to the throne may have been different but the route is justice bloody [Music] [Music] Shakespeare's Macbeth murdered his King Duncan while he slept and spawned a cottage tourist industry for people wanting to see whether deadly deed took place Johnson and Boswell hot on the tourist trail from Betts hillock thought Inverness Carson fitted the bill perfectly sadly Johnson hadn't got as far as gullible in his dictionary there was no castle here before fourteen hundred and twelve again the earliest chronicle fragments present us with a different story the real Duncan wasn't murdered in his bed but slain on the battlefield he was fatally wounded here at Pitt Gavin II a wandering monk Mayo Bristow the Hermit who wrote a chronicle of world history just 20 years after what Beth died stays quite categorically that Duncan was killed by the warlord Macbeth and a place called the heart of the blacksmith and a later historian adds that Duncan was mortally wounded in a skirmish and carried the couple of miles to elven Cathedral to die [Applause] [Music] I'm right in the heart of the enemy's lair now this is the headquarters of the clan Duncan the very same Duncan's who trace their roots right back to the Duncan who Macbeth killed and strangely they seem to think that Macbeth had every justification for doing so Macbeth wasn't the bad guy in that Shakespeare pointed out within the terms of his own culture he was actually a good king and when he was making this bid for the throne he was only at leading to a Celtic inheritance system which was normal for the time what do you mean a Celtic inheritance system but in our system we used 2d we keep thinking of the eldest child particularly the eldest male child and Harriton the thorn directly from his father in the ancient the scott'll Pictish kingdom that wasn't the case what he actually hired was a kind of royal king good electoral college system in which a king could be selected formulas can group as long as he had been descended from one lane of the family or another okay so how did that work with the dog well okay we start well this one explained that under the age old system of the Tanis tree the kingship zigzagged between two branches of a wider royal family both tracing back to the first King Kenneth MacAlpin and both branches expresses a fair crack of the whip or into the stood Malcolm the second the greatest king in Western Europe he was described eyes and he was in the 11th century Malcolm the second committed a unilateral act of self-interest no this was quite a different pitch altogether he had no sons we hovered in defiance of tradition he announced he was putting his grandson Duncan on the throne after his grandson the Duncan yes he switched he's made sure the succession is going to that was his wish that was to him he's trying to get this direct linear system in goal and then of course Beth there comes along and kills him that would have been absolutely justifiable given the old absolutely Beth was saying hold on is my tongue yeah because she's descended from that waning of the family Macbeth what's correct and what he wanted to do killing Duncan was only the first step for Macbeth he was now vulnerable until his claim had been ratified by his peers he had to race south of the Highlands to claim his throne [Music] most people think of the crown as the ultimate symbol of kingship but a thousand years ago the real macbeth wasn't interested in it emeralds and rubies the stone that interested him was this 336 pound block of Perseus and stone the Stone of Destiny the Coronation Stone of Scotland Macbeth wasn't crowned in order to be accepted as king he had to sit on this very stone and be acclaimed by his Nobles today the stones kept with the crown jewels in Edinburgh but for the real Macbeth the political epicenter was 40 miles to the north in the little town of Scoon it's here that he raced in both play and real life to be acclaimed King think of as well you can smoke this was in fact the geographic center of what was then the very prominent religious very important religious Center being the geographic center of Scotland it was here Kenneth MacAlpin brought a famous Stone of Destiny Scoon palace today would be unrecognizable to Macbeth there's a nineteenth-century Palace and chapel and a concrete replica of the Stone of Destiny chopped up on a couple of blocks and left to the mercies of the weather and tourists a thousand years ago there would have been a vast Abbey Church extending from here all the way down towards that carpark over there when Macbeth was being made King we think that something like this would have happened the Stone of Destiny would have been taken out of its usual resting place in the Abbey Church and then processed all the way along here that mound which is called Boothill and then my best would have been led in procession surrounded by bishops and other senior clerics all the way up to the top of it surrounded by his Nobles he would have sat on the Stone of Destiny which we think would have been slotted into some simple kind of throne and once he was seated a bard was recited a list of the kings of Scotland which was a pretty long list there wouldn't have been a crowning that didn't happen till a couple of centuries later instead he would have been presented with a sword with which to protect his people and then his Nobles would have acclaimed him King of Scotland in the year 1040 Macbeth had got what he wanted he reigned supreme [Music] Oh please little solemn janida well [Music] the real Macbeth came to the throat in his early 30s he and his wife Brooke presided over a united Scotland Macbeth led a peripatetic life moving through his sparsely populated Kingdom and staying in different royal halls and Abbey's which were the political centers of Celtic life in the play Macbeth reign is a disaster reality was a huge success it was popular in the country the country was wealthy but the fact is it was a safe secure and relatively prosperous Kingdom they McVeigh like rule from the islands and you know that was probably the high point of Highland culture Macbeth was the last breath Celtic King of Scotland he reigned for seventeen years that's a marvelous a collide in his time there were fertile seasons the idea that the prosperity of the Kings reign is reflected in the way that in the crops the very invention of what comes in shakespeare's macbeth actually when the themes are either joint and so on in the play Lady Macbeth drags Macbeth into murder and dies a raving lunatic but in life they were a team and Lady grew enhanced Macbeth's reputation this is a period in which kings of Scots are really fashioning themselves as kings of Scots they're having great journey ologies written about themselves linking themselves back to Kenneth MacAlpin this is what's giving them legitimacy now grok links to that bloodline she is Macbeth most important asset on top of all this success the real Macbeth also seems to have had a sincere religious belief contemporary sources tell us that in 1050 macbeth made a pilgrimage to rome it was an arduous journey of 3,000 miles indicating a great personal conviction and an incredible confidence in the stability of his kingdom if he could afford the many months needed to travel we're told that Macbeth way there in Scotland money like grains of sand to the pearl I suspect that one of the reasons for the chapter room was to try to buy in Scotland closer to the Europe unfortu to the European church Shakespeare ignores all of this in the play his Macbeth is terrifyingly different [Music] but Beth's friends know too much he has Banquo murdered and sends assassins to kill Macduff but whatever's left for England just in time the assassins kill his wife and children anyway but as the country falls apart so does Macbeth at a banquet for his Nobles he sees Banquo sitting accusingly in his chair only he can see the ghost his nobles are treated to the sight of their brave new king gibbering like a lunatic this is murder fiction Banquo and Macbeth are both legendary characters added by previous historians but the edge of Terror is given by a brilliant invention of Shakespeare's own the three witches [Music] the importance of these britches can't be overestimated all of the Macbeth's actions are motivated by their prophecy the important dimension as the issue of which is in the tang of Shakespeare and that had just been a huge wedge case of a sensational case in 15 1991 the north barrack cases is called when dozens of witches were accused of trying to destroy King James the six later King James the first through witchcraft that mean that witches were very when Shakespeare produced the play and there were resonances there which everybody would pick up on yeah there had just been a huge witchcraft case and they had tackled the most powerful personal and the fun not only as Shakespeare fixed Macbeth in mind the public he also single-handedly creating the popular image of the which is an old hag huddled over Oh God toy trouble Maya Coltrane and he may have put it in as a settlement show in the cauldron boil and I am he has these three witches with an enormous cooking pot and are throwing absolutely revolting things into a mixing it up into some foul smelling and tasting grooves heal up that I can do of wolf when Scott's preferred to eat things like soup porridge they prefer to boil the meat and he often did this in large metal parts and I personally think that mr. Shakespeare having a slide dig at the Scots and the eating habits [Music] what Beth can't believe that the great prophecies have got him into such a mess so he goes back to the witches again to bolster his confidence this time they promised him one as your reign till Birnam wood comes to his castle at Dunsinane and two that he won't be killed by anyone born of a woman and live what need i fear [Music] the witches ability to help or harm played on the fears of Shakespeare's audience more witches were tried and burnt in the 17th century than in any other age five centuries earlier witchcraft was far less of an issue no--don't people crashed each other and who though people had charms against curses the church wasn't terribly interested in this it rather left people to sort out their magical affairs for themselves you might get the occasional exorcism you might get the occasional blessing you might get the occasional curse but the church didn't want to be seen to be tick in the old ways and the old gods too seriously they prepared to say if people said they had been riding with Diana in the night or riding with Hecate you know while they prepared to save them well you're making that a lot that's the illusions of devils they didn't want to dignify this by taking it too seriously but which is or no witches Macbeth was in trouble he'd killed Duncan in both play and real life Duncan's son Malcolm had survived who was out to avenge his father and take back the throne Malcolm had forged an alliance with the hated English and was marching north to get Macbeth it was payback time [Music] [Music] Nedim by malcolm his uncle Seawind and the good master near Birnam wood shall we will meet them what does the tyrants contain he strongly fortified some say he's mad others that lesser hate him to call it valiant fury [Music] in Shakespeare's story Macbeth is safely holed up in his castle at Dunsinane awaiting the attack of Duncan's son Malcolm and the northumbrian and here there's a fair degree of agreement with the chronicles in 1054 malcolm launched a major bid for the Scottish throne with the aid of the Northumbrian 'he's led by C wood also appears in Shakespeare but where was Macbeth was Dunsinane his stronghold this is done sin and he'll Shakespeare's Dunsinane and referred to in the chronicles as dancing or even dancing there's nothing here now except for a few stones but there are good reasons for believing that this is my best fortress [Music] you can see south to the Firth of tag and the hills close enough to Scoob - stop Malcolm taking the throne without a fight there's been no recent archaeology a trench through the middle of the site belongs to a rudimentary 19th century digger they found some iron age remains but nothing from the 11th century but it's still likely that Macbeth refortified an older hill fortress in a time of crisis we know that the summit is surrounded by multiple storm ramparts these are massive storm defenses we can imagine that Macbeth utilized the pre-existing ramparts on the hilltop which he could have strengthened topping them with some form of wooden palisade this is what Malcolm and his forces would have had to face a single pathway leading to look best fortress a formidable HQ for the king and his command center might have been Macbeth and his closest Nobles his trusted confidants and perhaps an armed bodyguards perhaps the the Norman cast Alan's who we know were acting with best courts but I think you know the majority of his army would have been elsewhere the hilltop is just too small to accommodate a sizeable army so they would have been in some forward position ready to do battle with Malcolm and Seward's forces as they advanced towards Dunsinane Macbeth would have been stuck in the hilltop he could only have won or lost [Music] the play is reaching its climax the real Macbeth trusts to military prowess but Shakespeare's villain is relying on the witch's promise that he won't lose till Birnam wood comes to Dunsinane or be killed by anyone born what he doesn't know is that Malcolm has planned a surprise attack on Dan's name using a primitive form of camouflage they cut down saplings in burn of wood and create a moving canopy of trees but Beth startled men report back to him but the wood is moving towards dancer names one prophecy towns want to go the attack begins but Beth's men are routed but he fights on until he sees Macduff in the thick of battle they square up Macbeth shouts his defiance I've got a charmed life he says no one born of a woman's gonna get me Macduff says that's fine he was born by caesarean section of all of woman at all he doesn't give up Shakespeare has him go down fighting lay on Macduff and cursed be he that first cries hold enough then he disappears offstage we actually see him die but Macduff returns with his head and Malcolm goes off to school to be acclaimed King that Shakespeare's version of Macbeth downfall how close is he to the truth well the bare-bones seemed fine many of the sources speak of the attack coming from Birnam wood or the wood moving to dance inin but there's something really strange Malcolm's Army was coming from northeast England over there and Birnam wood is right over here White Mountain follow me bypass here dance sinan before he attacked Babette one reason might have been tactical you have to remember that this landscape would have looked totally different a thousand years ago burning wood would have come much closer to here than it is now it would've been marshy difficult dangerous place for an army to move about in but if it meant you could get much closer to Macbeth without being seen it might have been worth it the other reason was strategic and lay just a couple of miles to the north of Birnam wood this is Dunkeld on the main artery of the Tay there's a major rallying point for the relatives of Duncan's line and those opposed to the Beth if done killed was a rendezvous for Scottish opponents of Macbeth and Malcolm's English troops it would give us a reason for the tactical approach through Birnam wood which lies between here and Dan scenario and there's other evidence that the Dunkeld Birnam wood approach was just part of a clinically executed strategy the anglo-saxon chronicle records that Malcolm's army comprised both land and sea borne elements the Seabourn elements would have traveled up the east coast of England east coast of Scotland and then sailed into the first of Tay and disembarked troops would have approached and sinnin from their East the land borne elements of Malcolm's army would have wheeled around towards the sternum woods and in effect the army would have approached Dunsinane in a pincer movement from two directions take away the witches prophecies and Shakespeare got the military history just about right a carefully executed strategic advance through Birnam wood by superior forces with the element of surprise we know the battle took place on a religious festival known as the Day of the Seven Sleepers which makes it the 27th of July 1054 [Music] [Music] [Music] Malcolm won a crushing victory after 14 years of absolute power Macbeth was defeated but the end of the story is totally different from Shakespeare's play because in reality Macbeth survives and escaped back to the north with his family Malcolm did go to school to be made King so now there were two kings Malcolm in the south and Macbeth a shadow of his former self clinging on to his home territory in the islands Macbeth was back in Murray it was the ultimate north/south divide the mountains provided him with a natural defense but they also isolated him he was still popular with the Highland people but most of his troops were dead unlike Malcolm bolstered by English support he had no means of getting reinforcements Macbeth had positioned himself in lum fanon a strategic point five kilometres north of the principal pass through the mountains Malcolm could afford to bide his time three years later in the summer of 10:57 he made a forced march through the pass and launched a fatal attack [Music] Macbeth was dead in an act of symbolic vengeance Malcolm chose to attack him on the day of the Masterson marry the 14th of August the same day that Macbeth had killed Malcolm's father Duncan well the counts the battle was short and when it was finished the last remnants of what Beth's truths dragged him up to this place overlooking lamb Cannon and buried him under a pile of rocks and here it is Macbeth scanned this final resting place but what happened to Macbeth after he was dead is the most crucial part of the story the Warlord's ultimate fate was decided not by swords and spears but by the sharpened quills of historians history is written by the victors and the chroniclers naturally made Macbeth the baddie and Duncan the goody but that doesn't fully explain the black propaganda that gradually turned the fictional Macbeth into the epitome of evil when Shakespeare wrote his play in 1606 here in London he had his own special motives this is the equivalent of the Royal Box of the globe James the first of England who was also James the sixth of Scotland was Shakespeare special patron and the show opened in August 1606 just nine months after one of the most terrifying political events in James's reign 5th of November 1605 the Gunpowder Plot an evil man inspired by the forces of darkness tries to overthrow the rightful king familiar the reason that shakespeare wanted to paint macbeth as black as possible was politics in 1603 Shakespeare's company became the King's Men and this meant that they could had more opportunities of performing at court and he must have had a right of the main chance and think of an way of flattering his new employer and the Gunpowder Plot was an attempt to overthrow the mana so Shakespeare portrays a venerable King King Duncan who is overthrown and the mayhem and the crack in the world follows he did explore issues that interested King James in the play issues of kingship issues of tyranny issues of witchcraft which of those changed as fascinated in that's why shakespeare's fiction steers so far from the facts it's why the witches are all important why Macbeth has no redeeming features James thought witches were out to get him he personally interrogated them up witch trials he said Guy Fawkes was led by the devil so Shakespeare was playing up to him but Shakespeare was right in picking on Macbeth as a symbol of threat to the established order from Malcolm's time onwards he was a scary figure not for what he was but for the cultural forces he represented what Macbeth symbolized was that there was an ever-present threat from the north from the Gulf tide from garlic speaking Scotland and the kings of Scots from they know I had to keep a very careful weather eye on what was happening in the north otherwise there might be a bit from that part of the kingdom and they became quite paranoid about that down through the centuries they were very aware of this lesson threat from the nativist part of the population of Europe [Music] there's another tradition that Macbeth was disinterred from his grave in lung Fannin by loyal followers and taken across Scotland to be buried in iron the shrine of Salah Colombo was one of the most holy places of Celtic Christianity tradition says that there are sixteen early Scottish Kings buried here their graves now unmarked it would be fitting if one of them is members because he was a true champion of traditional Celtic culture it's a sight of his character which doesn't come out at all in Shakespeare and may help account for the blackening of his name by later historians from a new and anglicized Scotland everything Beth had lived have been a different Scotland because Macbeth came from the highlands he was the last king to govern Scotland from the highlands and then when Malcolm Canmore moved his courts south married an English princess in the whole orientation of later medieval Scotland took place Macbeth was our King in the old Scottish Rite tradition the man assured his greatness by feasting by a great generosity to others and he was succeeded by a man who married an English wife Hotel Scotland round into an Anglo Northern Kingdom which is very much part of Europe with the same architecture the same type of coinage the same material culture I think Beth had survived he might have been able to keep Scotland as a Celtic Kingdom you don't embark on a TV program like this without knowing roughly where it's going to take you but as we've been tracking the historical Macbeth around Scotland trying to find out what it was like from the few fragments and clues the history's left us something else has emerged this taken be completely by surprise Shakespeare's play may be a wonderful bloodthirsty story but at the end of the day it's just a piece of entertainment he now seems to me though that when the real one Beth died something else died with him a whole possible future that the Scottish nation out out brief candle life's but a walking shadow a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Rating: 4.7678933 out of 5

Keywords: documentary history, Full length Documentaries, Full Documentary, macbeth documentary, Documentary Movies - Topic, History, Documentary, shakespeare documentary, Channel 4 documentary, TV Shows - Topic, tony robinson, Documentaries, Macbeth, literature documentary, macbeth real story, history documentary, real, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, stories, shakespeare

Id: xq75Cl_osxk

Length: 48min 40sec (2920 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2018