This is the third of a series of ten 'cameo' articles that appeared in The Scottish Field magazine beginning in December 1990 issue. These articles were intended to be provocative. Tranter has dealt with this subject in much greater depth in novel, MacBeth the King. In his article that follows he tells us that the name Canmore means 'Big Head' in the Gaelic. However, that is a very literal translation of the Gaelic Ceann MŪr. A better interpretation would be 'Great Leader' where 'head' connotes a leader of a country. I find it interesting that the Mongol word 'Khan' (of Ghengis fame) stems from the same Indo-European root word. Rory Mor.

     FORGET about Shakespeare, but consider MacBeth. Shakespeare was a wonderful dramatist, but no historian; or at least, he twisted his characters to suit his plays. MacBeth -- the name means Son of Life -- was no usurping tyrant and murderer, but a good king, one of the best we ever had. The fact that he reigned for seventeen years, while most failed to last five, speaks for itself. As the first to compose a set of laws for the better government of his realm, he was well-loved by his people. And his Queen Gruoch was a fine woman, and no fiend in human shape like the so-called Lady MacBeth.

     If Malcolm Canmore had not had MacBeth assassinated at Lumphanan, Aberdeenshire, in 1057, the whole story of Scotland would almost certainly have been very different; for it was through Canmore that the ancient Celtic royal line began to change. MacBeth would have maintained it in its early patriarchal tradition.

     Malcolm Canmore, meaning Big Head, was the illegitimate son of King Duncan the First by the miller of Forteviot's daughter. As such, he had no real claim to the throne. But he was an aggressive and ambitious type, and clever, good at getting others to do his dirty work for him -- for instance, the Earl of Fife. MacBeth was a cousin of Duncan; they were the sons of sisters. Shakespeare makes MacBeth murder the 'venerable Duncan'. Actually he was just thirty years old, and haemophiliac, a bleeder, and a bad king.

     At the Battle of Bothkennar, with MacBeth seeking to curtail Duncan's depredations in the North (MacBeth's own mormaordom of Moray), the two fought hand-to-hand, a matter of honour for them, and Duncan was wounded. He was then taken to the local smithy, and being a bleeder, died there. So MacBeth, his cousin, mounted the throne.

     Passing over those years of successful rule, we come to Malcolm Canmore's uprising of ambitions, actually with English help. Celebrated was, and is, his use of camouflage, when Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane. This last was a seat of MacBeth in upper Strathmore; and Malcolm cleverly disguised his host's advance upon it by having his men carry green branches of trees above them all the way from Birnam near Dunkeld. Unwarned, taken by surprise, MacBeth had to flee.

     He fled northwards, for Moray, his own homeland, but at Lumphanan, between the Dee and the Don, his enemies caught up with him; and with his back to a standing-stone still pointed out there, he was slain, on the orders of Malcolm Canmore, by MacDuff, Earl of Fife, Crowner or Coroner of Scotland, Canmore watching.

     It was the end of an era, and more than that. What would have happened if MacBeth had remained King of Scots? The ancient line of Celtic kings would have survived, and in a country more settled than it had ever been; and it was a patriarchal rather than a hierarchical or feudal monarchy, suited to the people, more like that of a clan-chief.

     Margaret Atheling, otherwise St. Margaret, Canmore's second wife, would never have been queen, to make Scotland into a Roman Catholic nation. There would probably have been no Norman influx -- the Stewarts, the Frasers, the Lindsays and so on, brought in by Margaret's and Malcolm's son, David. So -- the miller of Forteviot's daughter had much to answer for when she gave herself to Duncan.

     If only . . . .