Macbeth

It stretched almost completely across Scotland north of the Forth-Clyde isthmus, except for some of the northern islands, which were occupied by the Vikings. These Scandinavians were tenacious in their attacks upon Scotland. As Shakespeare’s play opens, a Danish army under “Sveno” is attacking the Scots. In fact, the Scandinavian threat is often cited by historians as one of the reasons why the Scots felt such a need to consolidate their power by assimilating the Picts. From the mid-ninth century onward, the Scandinavians did not merely come as raiders, they came to stay, and settled in the northern islands and in Caithness, at the northernmost point of Scotland. The Scottish kings often forged alliances with them, and the players in Macbeth all had strong Scandinavian connections. Macbeth himself had Scandinavian cousins. His cousin Malcolm mac Malbrigte had given his daughter to Sigurd, the lord of Orkney, and she produced a son, Thorfinn, who would plague Macbeth’s kingship—the two seem to have fought at least one major battle, which Macbeth lost. Because of his complicated lineage, Thorfinn was actually one of the most powerful men in Scotland. He ruled the Orkneys, Shetlands, and possibly part of the Hebrides; also he claimed Caithness and Sutherland by hereditary right from his maternal grandfather.