King Duncan is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Macbeth. He is the father of two youthful sons, and the victim of a well-plotted regicide in a power grab by his trusted captain Macbeth. The origin of the character lies in a narrative of the historical Donnchad mac Crinain, King of Scots, in Raphael Holinshed's 1587 The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, a history of Britain familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Unlike Holinshed's incompetent King Duncan, Shakespeare's King Duncan is crafted as a sensitive, insightful, and generous father-figure whose murder grieves Scotland and is accounted the cause of turmoil in the natural world.
Lady Macbeth at the bedside of King Duncan (Lady Macbeth by George Cattermole, 1850)
Malcolm is a character in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. The character is based on the historical king Malcolm III of Scotland, and is derived largely from the account in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of Britain. He is the elder son of King Duncan, the heir to the throne, and brother to Donalbain. In the end, he regains the throne after mustering support to overthrow Macbeth.
Wardell Saunders as Malcolm in a Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth, 1936
Malcolm leads his army on Dunsinane Castle, from a 1912 illustration
