I always feel compelled to do this each time someone portrays Shakespeare's play as "history". "Macbeth" the villain of Shakespeare's play was one of the best Kings Scotland ever had, creating alliances and trading agreements all over Europe. A head and stirrups above any English King.
Of course, when he was around there was no England or Scotland. King of Alba. When everything south of the Forth and Clyde rivers was Lothian or in the west Strathclyde (Rheged). England (all of it, bowed to Knut Svenson on his holy crusade to bring Catholicism to Europe) Macbeth and his half-brother Thorfinn Ravens feeder turned back the holy host.
In addition, when it came to war with his nephew, Malcolm Canmore, Macbeth, an older man with a limp decided to face a much younger and bigger man in single combat rather than have people die for his cause. He would rather Scotland was protected than thousands died for him. He had twenty-four thousand men when Malcom had only eight thousand. Rather than win he looked after his country. He died.
Shakespeare was out to make money and so vilified one of the greatest kings in history. The Scots were a rebellious lot, and the rumors of Jacobite uprisings were already beginning. English audiences made Macbeth a fool, loser, and murderer.
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