The Afterlife of King James IV - More Reviews

More reviews for The Afterlife of King James IV published by Chronos Books, April 2019. Mar 15, 2019: Rebecca Hill | NetGalley  The Afterlife of King James IV is one of the best books this spring! Chock-full of information, and amazing detail. I initially thought I was going to be reading more of a ghost story, but the history in this book had me captured by page two. From Flodden Field to England, France and beyond - the legacy of King James was a hard one to live down. The idea that he lived beyond Flodden was something that was passed around and whispered. If this was true, then why would he have not returned home? There were so many questions surrounding this, but the author delved into each one with confidence and was able to satisfactorily lay the "ghost" of James IV to rest.
Mar 25, 2019: Jennifer Young | NetGalley  I have to say at the outset that this was a fascinating book. You don’t have to know a lot about Scottish history to know that the handsome, accomplished and heroic King James IV was killed at the battle of Flodden Field. The absence of a clearly-identifiable body led to the growth of a plethora of stories about what had become of the king…and this book looks in detail at some of them. James was much-loved and so his subjects were perhaps reluctant to see him go which, along with the widespread beliefs of the time in the supernatural, goes some way to explaining the growth of these tales. I enjoyed it, although I found that it lost a little focus towards the end, wandering off into the highways and byways of Scottish (and other) folklore in its attempt to explain exactly how and why the stories took root when, it appears, there’s a perfectly reasonable case for the body having been taken to London. Nevertheless this is an engaging and impressively-researched book, as the vast quantities of reference indicate.
Mar 26, 2019: Jennifer Young | NetGalley  I have to say at the outset that this was a fascinating book. You don’t have to know a lot about Scottish history to know that the handsome, accomplished and heroic King James IV was killed at the battle of Flodden Field. The absence of a clearly-identifiable body led to the growth of a plethora of stories about what had become of the king…and this book looks in detail at some of them. James was much-loved and so his subjects were perhaps reluctant to see him go which, along with the widespread beliefs of the time in the supernatural, goes some way to explaining the growth of these tales. I enjoyed it, although I found that it lost a little focus towards the end, wandering off into the highways and byways of Scottish (and other) folklore in its attempt to explain exactly how and why the stories took root when, it appears, there’s a perfectly reasonable case for the body having been taken to London. Nevertheless this is an engaging and impressively-researched book, as the vast quantities of reference indicate.
Mar 26, 2019: Amy Campbell | NetGalley edit | delete The Afterlife of King James IV: Otherworld Legends of the Scottish King was a fascinating read for me. I give it five stars. Loved it!

[ - ] CATEGORIES

The Afterlife of King James IV - Reviews from Goodreads

The Afterlife of Kings James IV is being published by Chronos Books in April 2019...

Janet rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019ng, book-club-picks, kindle

I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

From the publisher, as I do not regurgitate the contents or story of books in reviews, I let them do it.


The Afterlife of King James IV explores the survival stories following the Scottish king's defeat at the battle of Flodden in 1513, and how his image and legacy were used in the years that followed when he remained a shadow player in the politics of a shattered kingdom. Keith John Coleman ha ...more

flag3 likes · Like  · see review

Feb 17, 2019Alyson Stone rated it really liked it

Shelves: arc, nonfiction, history, renaissance

Book: The Afterlife of King James IV: Otherworld Legends of the Scottish King
Author: Keith John Coleman
Rating: 4 Out of 5 Stars

I would like to thank the publisher, Chronos Books, for sending me this ARC.

I will admit that at first, I wasn’t sure that I was going to like this one. Keith’s writing starting out was a bit slow. It read more like a scholarly piece than the easy writing that I have come to expect from Chronos Books. I kept on going and it did get better. I really do think that this is one of those books that you are gong to have to give time to. It is a very well written and researched book, but this may not be the one to start on if you are looking into Stuart Scotland.

This book kind of straddles between history and folklore. We do actually get the best of both worlds in this one. On the one hand, Keith is looking at the historical background and figure of King James IV, then he turns around and adds in some folklore about the king’s death. Again, this is why I don’t recommend you start out reading this book if you are new to Stuart Scotland. What Keith does he cleverly weavers in both of these elements with support to make us get the whole picture of what could have happened to James IV after his death. We also get some of the lead up to his death; again, this is why I don’t recommend this to newbies because if you don’t have an understanding of what was going on in this time period, then you are going to be lost.

What I really liked was the different layers of the story. It’s kind of a ghost story, but it’s not. I mean, this is nonfiction with just a little bit of a twist. I like how complex the book was, even though it’s really not that long. I really have never read a nonfiction book like this; I’ve read nonfiction books with layers before, but this one is different. I don’t know, but I just really like mixing the known with the unknown and having the information to support his theories.

Okay, that is the main thing here. I have read a number of articles and books that are supposed to be arguing something, but end up losing that point throughout the book. This one doesn’t. Keith uses information to form his point and explores all angles. Keith’s voice is there, but it’s not too much-like some other books that I have read. It’s just enough to see what Keith is trying to prove, but, yet, sticking to the story.

Overall, not a bad read. It did take me a little bit to get into it, but it was worth it. This book comes out on April 26, 2019. If you want to check it out for yourself, then hop onto Netgalley and make a request…At least, I think it’s on Netgalley…Don’t hold me to that…. (less)

flag1 like · Like  · see review

Feb 08, 2019Ionia rated it really liked it

What impressed me about this book, was that it didn't start out with simple ghost stories of how the Scottish King, James IV, was seen after his death. Instead, it delved into history head first and gave the reader a good look at Scotland at the time and a feel for who the king and his predecessors were. Once the author introduced the important players in the life and death of the king, only then did he embark on the supernatural aspects of the book. 

Descent from Kings: the Royal Clans

It is perhaps human nature to claim descent from important or significant people. The heritage of clan and kindred names in Scotland is notoriously deceptive as genealogists, from relatively early times as well as later writers, have manufactured, distorted and deceived in order to suit the political and egotistical aims of the person employing them.  Trends in ancestry have also of course played a part, with a one time widespread snobbery making clans in many cases falsely claim ancestry from Norman progenitors even when this appears to be highly suspect. A few clan families claim descent from royals outside what is now Scotland.  The Forbes family sometimes boasted that they were descendants of a daughter of an unnamed king of Ireland.  The Campbells linked their origins with the kindred of King Arthur, which is likely a slightly distorted memory of connections with the elite of the Brittonic kingdom of Strathclyde. The earliest Campbells may have had their roots in the firmly region of the Lennox, around Loch Lomond, which was in the hinterland of the fortress of Dumbarton Rock, the 'Fort of the Britons'.

   It has been conjectured that the prominent family the Brodies may be named after the series of Pictish king named Brude or Bridei, though this conjecture (like many of the actively promoted legends of royal descent) is now impossible to prove. One Brude (son of Maelchon) notably encountered St Columba at his fortress somewhere near Inverness.  Brodie Castle, home of the family of that name, is (co-incidentally or not) in the same region.  Another theory states that the MacNaughton kindred took their name from Nechtan (Naiton), another Pictish royal name which was borne by several rulers.

    The Lamont family in Cowal may be thought to enshrine a Norman origin in their name, but an alternative theory states that they owe their title to the 13th century chieftain named Ladman.  The family themselves claimed descent from the kindred of King Comgall, who, fittingly, have his name to the district of Cowall.

The Macgregors

   The so-called 'Children of the Mist' had the distinction of being unable to use their surname for some time because of rampant criminality among their ranks.  But persecution perhaps led them to adopt the myth of royal lineage. 'Royal is my race,' is the motto of the Macgregors.  One tradition says that the founder of the clan was the brother of the 9th century king Kenneth mac Alpin, who supposedly conquered the Picts, though there is an alternative supposition that the eponym of the clan was a song of King Dungal, a supposed joint ruler of the kingdom of Alba.

   Another factor in the singular history of this clan is their central role in the conglomoration of septs who all claimed descent from a single king, known as Sìol Ailpein (Seed of Alpin).  The seven families grouped together under this heading were:  Clan Grant, Clan MacAulay, Clan Gregor, Clan Macfie, Clann Mackinnon, Clan MacQuarrie, Clan Macnab.  at the least, the joint efforts of several kindreds to project back their pasts into branches of various royal lines demonstrates dynamic myth making and the importance of pedigrees to the status and identity of later clans well into the early modern period.  The clans Gregor and Grant held discussions in the 18th century about combining their kindreds, partly on the basis of supposed descent from 6th century ruler Alpin of Dal Riada.  The MacGregors acknowledged shared heritage in documents with other clans throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.

The MacNabs

The Macnabs associated with Glendochart and Strathfillan,allegedly since the 7th century.  Some of their historians traced the line back to Ferchar mac Feradach, supposedly a brother of St Fillan (who died in 703).  A branch of the MacNabs were dewars, hereditary keepers of the relics of Fillan in this area.

   Another family with possibly royal associations here is the Grant family.  It is supposed that an Anglo-Norman William le Grant obtained land in Stratherrich, Inverness-shire,  in 1246 through marriage to a local heiress.  By the 15th century the clan had spread widely and Sir Iain Grant is thought to have married the Celtic heiress of the ancient royal house of Strathearn and descendants of this union later moved into the area of Strathspey.  

Who was King Karl Hundasson?

In the medieval Orkneyinga Saga, one of the primary sources for the history of Scandinavian Scotland we are presented with a character who opens the door to further mysteries and intrigue. A character named Karl Hundasson appears in the text as an enemy of the Norse rulers of the far north, yet we do not know with absolute certainty who he is, or supposed to be.  In the text he is called a King of Scots, but which one - if any - can he be identified with?  Looking at the actual references to him in the work hardly clear the matter up.

  In the saga we are told that King Malcom of Scotland died and was succeeded by Karl Hundasson, which - if we were delaing with a straight and factual account - should make it clear that it is Duncan, King of Scots, we are dealing with.  When Karl - whoever he was - claimed the throne of the Scots (probably in 1029), he immediately made claim on Caithness and therefore went to war with Earl Thorfinn of Orkney.  The Scottish campaign was led by Karl's nephew, a man named Muddan.  The latter raised a force in Sutherland and invaded Caithness.  But Earl Thorfinn raised a larger army and pursued them and subdued Sutherland and Ross and 'harried far and wide over Scotland'.  A second Scottish attack saw Muddan again leading land forces while Karl himself took a fleet round the north of the mainland.  This naval force met Thorfinn's fleet at Deerness and the Vikings again defeated the Scots.  A third, land encounter saw Karl and his force of Scots and Irish roundly defeated, which led to Thorfinn ravaging mainland Scotland as far south as Fife.  No further word is heard of Karl.

 

Son of A Dog.  The Macbeth Connection

   Whoever Karl was, he was an enemy to the Norse who was probably contemptuous to them.  The name, or nickname, evidently means 'peasant, son of a dog'.  While both names, Karl and Hundi, could be argued to be innocusous on their own, the combination of both leads us to this the intended man was being disparaged.  It also makes easy identification of the character very difficult indeed.  While I have given some possible suspects below, it might easily be none of them. It is also quite possible, as some historians have pointed out, that the character of Karl Hundasson may be an invention or a confused memory of several enemies of the Vikings combined into one character by the later compilers of the Orkeyinga Saga.  It has to be borne in mind that there was aggression between the Scots and Norse in the north  and west of the British Isles for over two centuries and there would have been plenty of warlords on the native side who m ay have been misremembered by later Viking poets. 

   In Njal's Saga there is a mormaer of Moray named  Hundi, and this has been equated by some as Findlech, the father of Macbeth.  It is certain that Macbeth was an aggressive war leader on various fronts, against the Scottish rulers to the south and certainly also against the Norse based in Orkney.  His status and success make him a prime suspect for being the despised Karl of Norse legend. 

   Macbeth's latter day literary association with the three Weird Sisters, in Shakespeare and his immediate sources, was shrewdly linked to the three Norns of Norse mythology by Nora Chadwick over fifty years ago, and this integral link with Scandinavian culture bolsters the supposition that he may be the man behind the shadowy moniker of Karl Hundasson.

 

Other Contenders

•  Malcolm MacKenneth,  son of Kenneth III of Scotland presented as the successor of Malcolm II (Máel Coluim mac Cináeda) in the northern parts of the kingdom while Duncan I (Donnchad mac Crínáin) ruled in the south. Authors, including P. A. Munch, declared Malcolm was Karl.  Taylor points out there are five separate Malcolms in the Norse annals relating to Scotland, three of whom were powerful leaders who may be regarded as candidates.

• Gillacomgain, Mormaer of Moray, who succeeded his brother Malcolm in 1032. This is William Thomson's favoured identification in his New History of Orkney (first edition, 1987).  He suggests the author of the saga assumed that the figure known as Karl was a King of Scots, when in fact he was more likely a Scottish regional ruler whose territory bordered on the Norse lands, and therefore the province of Moray. Thomson (2008) notes that the war with Hundasson seem to have taken place between 1029 and 1035 and that the Annals of Ulster record the violent death of Gillacomgain, son of Mael Brigte and Mormaer of Moray in 1032. He too is thus a candidate for Thorfinn's Scots foe—and the manner of his death by fire bears comparison with Arnór's poetic description of the aftermath of the battle at Torfness.

• Hlodver Hundi, brother of Earl Thorfinn.  This is the suggestion of Alex Woolf.  In the sagas there is mention of a 'Hvelp or Hundi' who was removed to Norway by King Olaf Trygvasson and died there. However this man seems to have died realtively yopung and may not have been amture enough at death to have fathered the mysterious Karl.

• Cuilean.  A. McBain argued that the appellation Hundasson directly equates with the Gaelic Cuilean. the name of several mormaers in the north of Scotland in the 10th and 11th centuries. 

• King Duncan I. This king of Scotland, who ruled from 1034 to 1040, was slain  by Macbeth in the north of the kingdom, but his other military campaigns were in the south and there is no substantial record of him in war against the Norse.  

The Dark King and The Strangest Death

Three Dark Secrets

   This is one of the strangest, most convoluted tales ever associated with a king in Scotland, so bear with me while I pick out some of the strands - without a promise that I will come to the bottom of the mystery in any way.  The king named Dubh, 'the black', ruled for only a few years in the late 10th century.  No surprise in this, given the turbulence of the era and the competitive, rival kindreds which supplied the leaders of the fledgeling Scottish nation. There are few facts known about the reign of Dub, but a body of legend around him which probably arouse later.  We know that he likely rules in conjunction with another king and that his death was associated with an eclipse of the sun.

   The few recorded facts of the reign can be summarised quickly.  The son of King Malcolm I, Dubh came to power in 962 when the previous ruler Indulf (or Indulb) died. Early annals state there was continued emnity between rival kingship factions which resulted in Dubh defeating Indulf's son Cuilén in battle.  The place of this encounter - 'upon the ridge of Crup' - can't be identified, but it was possibly somewhere in Atholl as the mormaer of that provice, Dubdon, died there, as did the abbot of Dunkeld, named Duchad. Further internal aggression apparently led to Dubh's death in the year 967, but the earliest sources are silent about the circumstances, unlike others. One source says that he was driven out of the kingdom, possibly by a resurgent Cuilén , but it seems more likely that he was killed and in the north of the kingdom.  Several historical sources state that he invaded the northern province of Fortriu and that he died in Forres.  And that's where the stories take a strange twist.

   It is thought possible that Dubh and Cuilén ruled jointly for a period, an arrangement known as comrighe, with each being lethrí 'co-king' who shared the kingship rather than either ruling as Iánri 'full king.' After Cuilén's defeat Dubh rode north to quell factional enemies. The 12th century Prophecy of Berchan contains much traditional material couched in enigmatic terms, and it says the following about Dubh's raid:

One of the kings goes on an useless expedition across the upper regions in the Plain of Fortriu; though he may have gone, he does not return, the black of the three dark secrets will fall.

   What the three darks secrets exactly were, we shall unfortunately never discover. (They find a curious echo in the work of historian Andrew of Wyntoun, when a descendant of the Mac Duff kindred makes three requests of Malcolm III.)


  The various accounts differ on what happened afterwards. The 14th century historian John of Fordun (Chronica, IV. 26, partly relying on earlier sources) says that that Dubh led his army to Forres, where he was slain, after which his body was hidden under a bridge at Kinloss and the sun refused to shine until it had been removed. Was the eclipse one of the three dark secrets?

Death by the Moon:  The Eclipse of Kings

   The first thing to say is that there was an actual eclipse in northern Europe around this time. A. O. Anderson advised that L’art de Verifier les Dates stated the event occurred at 4pm on 20th July 966. However, the 19th century historian W. F. Skene gave the date as 10th July 967. It has been suggested that this eclipse could not actually be seen in Scotland, but this is not certain.  The Annals of Ulster state that the king died in 967, but the discrepancy is a minor point.

   If the actual event was real and the death of the king also, the association between the two events would have been recognised as portenteous. The theme of a solar eclipse accompanying treachery is common in European literature.  Plus the other motif of the 'sun refusing to shine when a murder is done' is another widespread motif in folklore (motif F.961.1.1 in Thomson's Motif-Index, iii, 247).  As far as may be judged, Dubh was regarded (albeit in somewhat later writing) as a good and just ruler.  However, it should be noted that royal death being associated with heavenly events did not necessarily signify the worth of the ruler involved.  William of Malmesbury relates a tale of King William Rufus (in his De Gestis Regum) on the night before he died, when he 'dreamt that he was being bled, and a spurt of blood [shot] up to the sky overcast the sun and brought darkness upon the day'.  

   In Scotland the significance of strange celestial occurrences was also marked and from a very early date.  The Annals of Ulster note that the moon was like blood around the time of the death of the Argyll king Domangart, son of Domnall Brecc, in 673.  The Pictish king Angus son of Fergus also had his passing marked by a 'dark moon'.

   Most significantly, in this northern context, is the tradition which surrounds the king named Giric, who died a century before Dubh. In a parallel with Dubh, Giric - co-incidentally or not - also jointly ruled with another king, named Eochaid.  Giric was linked to the middle-eastern saint variously named St Cyricus or Cyrus (or Giric) and early records (the source once called the Pictish Chronicle) states that an eclipse of the sun took place in the ninth year of this king's rule, on the saint's day, 16th June 885. On this very day (according to the Chronicle of the Kings of Scotland), 'Eochard with his foster-father was now expelled from the kingdom.'  The ancient church of St Cyrus (anciently Ecclesgreig) was in the Mearns and the king, under alliases Greg and Gregory seems very much associated with this region, with memories in place-names in neighbouring Angus.  (Both Angus and Mearns seem to have formed the Pictish province of Circinn.)  It is also noteworthy that Dubh himself had a son named Giric.

Sueno's Stone

   There is a possibility that the death and aftermath of Dubh is recorded in stone, on the massive monument known as Sueno's Stone, erected near Forres. This stone takes its name erroneously from a Viking king (Swein) who is supposed to have battled the Scots here, a story inspired in part by the scenes of armed violence carved on the stone.  Spurious Viking tradition aside, it has also been conjectured that the stone is showing a message relating to a great battle here, possibly between the kingdom of Scots and the semi-autonomous rulers who sometimes displayed too much independence in  this area, which in Pictish times had been named Fortriu and was later named Moray.  

   But surely the site is significant.  Just outside Moray, on the road to Kinloss.  A.A.M. Duncan proposed that the battle refers directly to that in which Dubh was slain.  There is what appears to be a body stricken prone and laid beneath an arch or bridge (along with other corpses), and a head within a box - the head of the slain monarch?  It may be the stone was set up by Dubh's brother, Kenneth II (Cináed mac Maíl Coluim), who reigned from 971-995.  Kenneth was a ferociously active ruler who campaigned in many regions and he notable continued the feud in the far north, contending with Cuilén's brother Amlaíb.

Sueno's Stone

The Compensation of Clan MacDuff

   While Dubh's brother Kenneth ruled in the late 10th century, the later descendants of Dubh did not. True, the Annals of Ulster record the death in 1005 of Cinaed mac Duib,  Kenneth III, king of Scots, but here the line - as rulers of the kingdom - falters.  The reasons and details are not clear.  This Kenneth III had a son named Giric, who may have ruled jointly with him (echoing past and future arrangements). Eligibility to rule was never straight forward in Gaelic society under the convoluted laws of tanistry, and sometimes changes were made to regulate succession among competing kindreds.  For whatever reason, the children of Dubh were set aside. Whether or not they had a prior territorial claim on the region, Dubh's descendants may have  become Mormaers and then Earls of Fife.  The ancestry is not certain.  But it is thought that Macbeth's queen Gruoch was a member of this kindred. Her grand-daughter married a son of Malcolm III named Aedh and the MacDuff rulers of Fife descend from this line.

  They held this office until the latter 14th century.  This kindred maintained a powerful, symbolic connection with the ritual enthronement of Scottish kings during this period, which was undoubtedly part of the compensation of the clan for being excluded from eligibility for the kingship.  While this may appear odd, there are parallels from Ireland to show it was a feature in the upper echelons of Gaelic society. F. J. O'Byrne points out that ousted sub-kings still sometimes actually owned the inauguration sites of kings and therefore claimed and practised the rite to inaugurate new rulers.As late as the 16th century, he points out:

both Ó Catháin (O’Kane) and Ó hÁgáin (O’Hagan) of Tulach Óg were essential partners in the legal installation of O’Neill. A tract on the Uí Fiachrach says that at the inauguration of Ó Dubhda (O’Dowd of Tireragh), his arms, apparel and horse were given to Ó Caomháin, representative of an ousted dynasty... [Irish Kings and High Kings, p. 21]

   According to Duncan (writing in Scotland, The Making of the Kingdom), the clan MacDuff were 'clearly close to the royal line in a special sense' and Bannerman writes:

Such inaugural nobles were often heads of dynastic segments rewarded in this way for
demitting their own legitimate claims to kingship within the kin-based system of
succession. That the ruling family of the province of Fife was closely related to the
reigning royal house is indicated by their shared forenames Donnchadh (Duncan), Mael-
Coluim (Malcolm) and perhaps particularly the otherwise rare Causantín (Constantine).
Dub king of Scots (d. 966) belonged to this royal dynasty and is the only one of that name on record, which makes it all the more certain that he was the eponymous ancestor of the Clann Duib of Fife.

   The chief of the kindred was allowed the hereditary right to crown the new king of Scotland at Scone. The 15th century historian Andrew of Wyntoun claimed that MacDuff thane of Fife requested of Malcolm III the privilege for himself and his successors of enthroning the king of Scots at his inauguration, but the link is older than that.  There was also a 'Law of Clan MacDuff', whereby anyone claiming kinship with the head of the clan within the ninth degree could claim santuary following a crime at Mac Duff's Cross (a monument later destroyed, though its base remains) which was situated on the border of Fife and Perthshire.  Here there are traces of a uniquely powerful kindred with deep roots, special affiliations, and a family system that retained strong echoes of early medieval Gaelic structures.

Site of MacDuff's Cross in Fife.

Enter the Witches - A Later Fiction?

   

   Mention witches and Scottish kings and one would inevitably think of Macbeth and the Weird Sisters. But 16th century, and later historians, first associated the obscure ruler Dubh with witches, albeit the tales was not as richly worked as in the literary Macbeth version. It seems highly coincidental that the area of Forres, associated as it is with Dubh's death and the Sueno Stone, should be the place where Macbeth encountered the three hags. Of interest also is the possibility that Gruoch, Macbeth's wife, was an ancestress of the MacDuff rulers of Fife. (The victorian historian W. F. Skene surmised that the descendants of Dubh arrived in Fife as followers of Macbeth in the 11th century.) Whatever the connections, the story of witches associated with Dubh was embelished out of all historical recognition. From the original scant few lines recorded about the king initially, he was later the centre of a melodramatic supernatural drama, culminating in the lurid tale inncluded by George Sinclair (Satan's Invisible World, included at the bottom of this piece). At the instigation of his dynastic rivals, several witches tormented the king and caused him to wither away for six months before he actually died by mistreating a wax image of him. Other versions, including that of John Leslie, state the ruler was given noxious medicine which hastened his demise.




Shakespeare not only used those traditions and pseudo-histories of Macbeth found in recent historians, but also utilised traditions associated with Dub, as filtered through the dubious inventions of Hector Boece's Scotorum Historiae, and its translation by John Bellenden. According to the latter, Dubh or Duff had hanged several relatives of the captain of Forres castle, for conspiring with witches against him. Donwald's wife took umbrage and tasked her husband with killing the king the next time he stayed at the castle. This was done during the night when he was alseep. Dubh's throat was cut and the corpse removed from the fortress. The next morning, when the alarm was raised, Donwald angrily accused the king's two chamberlains. The body was concealed beneath a stream: 'and buryit it in the middis thairof, quhair the streme usit to pas; syne put ane gret stane abone his body, that na thing suld appeir hid in the said place.'



Shakespeare also utilised Ralph Holished's re-imagining of the eclipse tale, which Holinshed expanded to ratchet up the sense of eerie occurrence:

For the space of six moneths togither, after this heinous murther thus committed, there apeered no sunn by day, nor moone by night in anie part of the realme, but still was the skie covered with continuall clouds, and sometimes such outragious windes arose, with lightenings and tempests, that the people were in great feare of present destruction... Monstrous sights also that were seen within the Scottish kingdome that yeere were these: horses in Louthian, being of singular beautie and swiftnesse, did eate their owne flesh, and would in no wise taste anie other meate. In Angus there was a gentlewoman brought foorth a child without eires, nose, hand, or foot. There was a sparhawke also strangled by an owle... But all men understood that the abhominable murther of king Duffe was the cause heereof.

 

Selected Sources

Neil Aitchison. Macbeth, Man and Myth (Stroud, 1999).
A. O. Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History (1922, rep. Stamford, 1990).
John Bannerman, 'MacDuff of Fife,' in Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community, ed. Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer, pp. 20-38 (Edinburgh, 1993).
A. A. M. Duncan, Scotland, The Making of the Kingdom (Edinburgh, 1975).
A. A. M. Duncan, The Kingship of the Scots 842-1292, Succession and Independence (Edinburgh  2002).
Michael Evans, The Deaths of Kings, Royal Deaths in Medieval England (London, 2003).
Sally M. Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots (London, 1996).
B. T. Hudson, Kings of Celtic Scotland (Westport, 1994).

B. T. Hudson, The Prophecy of Berchan, Irish and Scottish High Kings in the Middle Ages (Westport, 1996).
F. J. O' Byrne, Irish Kings and High Kings (London, 1973).
George Sinclair, Satan's Invisible World Discovered (Edinburgh, 1685).

The Resonance at Scone

Scone remains renowned as the crowning place of the the Scottish kings, and probable some Pictish kings before them, but there is scant evidence that there was even a unified Pictish seat of power at Scone before the union with the Scots, and Forteviot in Strathearn seems to have been the primary seat of power in the region associated with royalty.

   Nevertheless Scone was an important central site in southern Pictland with ritual associations which likely went back beyond history. As A. A. Duncan memorably described it (in Scotland, The Making of the Kingdom, p. 115), Scone was

where the salt water of the sea (and the powers of death who dwell in it) are finally turned back by the living waters of the river...

   This was a very likely ritual site, build on a barrow or ancient tomb, later called the Moot Hill (or, more ludicrously, Boot Hill), the scene of an inter-Pictish battle in 728.  The latter encounter was spoecificallt located at Caislen Credi, which possibly means Hill of Belief.  But there is a possible refernce to the Irish goddess Créde, as discussed below.  Nothing is clear about any of these references or hints, and even the brief desciption of the battle is tantalising rather than illuminating:

A pitiful battle between Picts at Caislen Credi; and the rout was upon the same Alpin, and his territories and his men were all taken from him. And Nechtan, Derile’s son, took the kingship of the Picts.

   Duncan notes reference to the description of Scone in the Prophecy of Berchan as 'of the high shields' and 'of melodious shields', which he conjectures is a reference to the beating of shields in acclamation at the enthronement of a new ruler.  The putative burial chamber, on top of which rightful rulers were ritually elevated to kingship, he stated was likely an ancestral goddess.  The true king marries the goddess of the land, and there is a trace of this pagan resonance when the 12th century king David I (noted for his rigid Christian piety as a 'sair saint') 'abhorred the obsequia', some kind of ritaual offering, at his inauguration on this spot.

The seal of King David I

   There may have been an earlier event on this hjoly spot which, in part, aimed at Christianising the place, while retaining its sanctity.  The annals record this event, probably in the year 906:

And in his sixth year king Constantine and bishop Cellach upon the Hill of Credulity near the royal city of Scone, pledged themselves that the laws and disciplines of the faith, and the rights in churches and gospels, should be kept in conformity with [the customs of] the Scots. From that day the hill has deserved this name - that is, the Hill of Credulity...

Cuckoo in flight:  bird of the Scone goddess?

   It is possible that the goddess Créde is a superimposition of a character, imposed by Scottish kings upon an equivalent or similar Pictish deity they found resident in this holy place.  The Irish goddess was possibly a personification of the regenerative powers of spring, and one source mentions here as one 'for whom the cuckooo calls'.  A figure very much like her is features in a poem named The Song of Créde, where she is portrayed as daughter of King Guaire of Aidne.  She falls in love with the tragic hero Dinertach.  She also seems to appear in the tale of Cano mac Gartnainn, which certainly contains echoes of cultural contact between the Picts of northern Britain and the Gaels of Britain and Ireland.  Her role as an ancestral figure is testified by the recording of Clann Créidhe and Síol Creidhe, Men of Connacht,  where she was regarded as ancestors of the O’Connors.  But the exact connection with Scone is as allusive as the appearance of the cuckoo itself.

The Cradle and the Crown - Birth Legends of Royals

   The mystery over the actual births of kings and queens is intimately associated with the mystery and legends of their ancestry, which in many cases had deep roops in paganism.  Even in Christian times recourse to outlandish claims of ancestry were not entirely extinguished.  Hence, the family of King Edward I in the 13th century proudly boasted that their frequent violent rages existed because they were descendants of a daughter of Satan.

   One especially prevalent legend Europe-wide is the story that the coming of a powerful ruler is marked by some significant celestial event.  This occurrence lingered into modern times, as Catherine Crowe in her supernatural compendium The Night Side of Nature (1848) reports:

On the 16 August 1769, Frederick II of Prussia is said to have dreamed that a star fell from heaven and occasioned such an extraordinary glare that he could with great difficulty find his way through it. He mentioned the dream to his attendants, and it was afterwards observed that it was on that day that Napoleon was born.

  Portents surrounding the arrival of a powerful prince were also evident in Britain. Shakespeare even commented on the legends which marked the birth of the powerful Welsh ruler Owen Glendwr, who was born in 1359. Stories circulated that on the eveing he was born the horses of Griffith Vychan, his father, were found standing in their stables up to their fetlocks in blood.  In a Scottish context, the coming of the child who who grown up to be James IV was also marked by supernatural signs.  Born in March 1472, there was an ausicious and prominent comet seen over Scotland in the previous months, foretelling his glory.  The 16th century historian John Lesley wrote:

James, eldeft fone to King James the third, wes borne the day of March 1472, quha eftiruart wes callit James the fourt, and wes ane jufte and guide prince. And comette mervellus appeirit in the fouthe, the xvij day of Januer till the xviij day of Februar, caftand gret beames of licht touart the fouth, and wes placet betuix the pole and the pleyaidis callit the fevin ftarnis, quhilk the aftrologis did afferme to be ane figne of mony mervellus changes in the warld.

   One can understand why, in retrospect, origin myths are attached to the stars among rulers.  Rather more intriguing, possibly, are those tales given to kings who disappointed in their promise or destinies.  Such a one was King James VI (afterwards I of England), who did not shine under either numeral. Young James's beginning was more inauspicious than his five royal namesakes before him.  There was doubt expressed about his paternity, and his mother pertinently commented to the suspicious Lord Darnley, soon after his son's birth in June 1566: 

My Lord, here I protest to God, and as I shall answer to Him at the great day of Judgement, this is your sone and no other man’s sone, and I am desirous that all here, both ladies and others, bear witness, for he is so much your sone that I fear it will be the worse for him.

   At the christening of the destined king, the reformer John Knox saw an idiot begging at the gates of Stirling Castle, which might have been taken as a bad omen.  The prince was born with caul over his face, contrarily said to be a mark of good luck and a guarantor that the person would never die by drowning.  There was even more mystery.  A long time later an infant was uncovered secreted within the walls of Edinburgh Castle, wrapped in a gold cloth.  Rumours states that this was possibly the true James VI and the boy who came to manhood and the throne was actually a child of Lady Reres or the Earl of Mar.
 

  Sometimes coincidence conspired to make the birth of an heir even more auspicious.  This was the case in the first born son of King Alexander III.  The Norse were still a major threat to the realm, especially in the Western Isles. However there was a double celebration celebrated in Scotland , as told by the chronicler John of Fordun:

Whence in all the bounds of Scotland redoubled praise resounded to God; because in the same day by one messenger came news of the death of the King of Norway who had plagued the king and kingdom, and by another the king was told of his son's birth.

      King Haakon IV was roundly defeated in the Battle of Large in October 1263, effectively ending four centuries plus of Scandinavian threat to the northern part of Britain.

   Other Scottish royal legends associated with birth are rather more insubstantial, but still intriguing.  King Robert II was born by caeserian in 1316 after his mother Princess Marjorie was thrown by a horse, the infant being cut from the dead body of his mother.  The trauma of the birth crippled him for life, and in earlier centuries such disfigurement would have ruled him out of his rightful leadership.  King James II (b. 1430) was renowned for his ferocious temper and evidence of his tempestuous nature was plain to see - a violent red birthmark covering his cheeck.  He was called 'James of the Fiery Face,' and was an accomplished ruler (and featured in Francois Villon's Ballade des Seigneurs de Tempis Jadis).

   King Robert III was born (around 1340) with the wrong name.  When it was clear he would inherit the kingdom he was obligied to change his given name, John, to Robert.  John was an unlucky name.  In Scotland it was borne by Robert Bruce's unfortunate predecessor, King John Balliol.  The historian John Lesley again comments:  'The nobilitie had an ill opinions of the name Jhone, because the kings of France and Jngland of that name war tane in the weiris, quhair for tha changet the name Jhon in Robert, eftir the name of his father. ' John of England had surrended his crown to the pope, while John of France captured by the English at Poitiers.

   There is a strange, unsubstantial tale concerning the birth of Malcom III (around 1031), which credits his existance to a dalliance between his father, King Duncan, and a miller's daughter near Forteviot in Perthshire.  This vestige of tradition either links back to customs of Celtic fosterage whereby high-born boys were placed in the care and raised by commoners, or otherwise it is a remnant tradition which gave supernatural parentage to some kings.  This latter theme is evident in both Celtic and Norse legends and features in stories about the origins of rulers such as King Harald the Fair and King Cormac mac Airt.

   Malcolm III's wife was the redoubtable Queen Margaret and her fame cascaded down her own lineage and throughout Scotland. An items of hers was peculiarly guarded by her descendants, though we don't know the full story behind it. The chemise sark of Margaret (who was regarded as a saint) was carefully cherished. There is notice in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland which details the expenses of bringing from Dunfermline to Stirling Castle via Inverkeithing this item, as a talisman to Mary of Gueldres, queen of James II, protecting her from any natal danger while she was giving birth to the future James III. The sark was again summoned for at the birth of James V in the early 16th century.  What became of it afterwards is not known.