Editing Banquo (section)

==Sources==
[[File:Macbeth and Banquo encountering the witches - Holinshed Chronicles.gif|alt=Two men on horseback meet three women. All are in Elizabethan dress.|right|thumb|Macbeth and Banquo meeting the witches in a woodcut from ''Holinshed's Chronicles'']] 
Shakespeare often used [[Raphael Holinshed]]'s ''Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland'', commonly known as ''[[Holinshed's Chronicles]]'', as a source for his plays, and in ''[[Macbeth]]'', he borrows from several of the tales in that work.<ref>{{cite book |last=Coursen |first=Herbert |title=Macbeth |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Connecticut |date=1997 |isbn=0-313-30047-X |pages=[https://archive.org/details/macbethguidetopl0000cour/page/15 15–21] |url=https://archive.org/details/macbethguidetopl0000cour/page/15}}</ref> Holinshed portrays Banquo as a historical figure, who is an accomplice in the murder by [[Macbeth of Scotland|Mac Bethad mac Findlaích]] (Macbeth) of [[Duncan I of Scotland|Donnchad mac Crínáin]] (King Duncan) and plays an important part in ensuring that Macbeth, not [[Malcolm III of Scotland|Máel Coluim mac Donnchada]] (Malcolm), takes the throne in the coup that follows.<ref name="note">{{cite journal |last=Nagarajan |first=S. |title=A Note on Banquo |journal=[[Shakespeare Quarterly]] |date=October 1956 |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=371–376 |publisher=[[Folger Shakespeare Library]] |location=Washington DC|doi=10.2307/2866356|jstor=2866356 }}</ref> Holinshed in turn used an earlier work, the ''Scotorum Historiae'' (1526–7) by [[Hector Boece]], as his source. Boece's work is the first known record of Banquo and his son [[Fleance]] (spelled ''Banquho'' and ''Fleancho'' in the Latin), and scholars such as [[David Bevington]] generally consider them fictional characters invented by Boece. In Shakespeare's day, however, they were considered historical figures of great repute, and the king, [[James I of England|James I]], based his claim to the throne in part on a descent from Banquo.<ref>{{cite book |first=David|last=Bevington|title=Four Tragedies |url=https://archive.org/details/fourtragedies00shak|url-access=limited|publisher=[[Bantam Books]]|location=New York City|date=1988 |isbn=0-553-21283-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/fourtragedies00shak/page/714 714]}}</ref>

Within the literature there exists various claims surrounding Thane Banquo's ancestry. According to the 17th century historian Frederic van Bossen, Thane Banquo (which he wrote as Banqwho and sometimes as Banchou) was the son of Dunclina, the daughter of Albanach ap Crinan, the thane of the Isles, and her husband Kenneth. Kenneth was the son of Fferqwhart, who was the son of son of Murdoch the Thane of "Lochabar", the son of Prince Dorus, who was the son of a King named Erlus, whose kingdom was not identified.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cunningham |first1=Derek |title=Scotland & Shakespeare's Third Prophecy: King Edition |isbn=979-8784164827 |page=23}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=van Bossen |first1=Frederic |title=The Royall Cedar |date=1688 |pages=96–99}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Cunningham |first1=Derek |title=The Lost Queens of Scotland: Extracts from Frederic van Bossen's The Royal Cedar |date=2022 |pages=119–121}}</ref> According to Frederic van Bossen, Banquo married his 4th cousin Mauldvina the daughter of Thalus the Thane of Atholl, and together they were the parents of Fleance, a daughter called Castisa who married Frederic the Lord of Cromartie, and a number of other sons who were murdered by King Macbeth.

It is known that the [[House of Stuart]] descends from [[Walter fitz Alan, Steward of Scotland]], and in some studies he is believed to have been the grandson of Fleance and [[Gruffydd ap Llywelyn]]'s daughter, [[Nesta ferch Gruffydd]]. However, in Frederic van Bossen's handwritten notes, which were created from numerous resources he collected in his travels through Europe, Fleance's wife is identified as Nesta's sister, Marjoretta the daughter of "griffin ap Livlein". In reality, Walter fitz Alan was the son of [[Alan fitz Flaad]], a Breton knight.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Palmer |first=J. Foster |title=The Celt in Power: Tudor and Cromwell |journal=Transactions of the Royal Historical Society |publisher=[[Royal Historical Society]]|location=London, England|date=1886 |volume=3 |issue=3 |doi=10.2307/3677851|pages=343–370|jstor=3677851 |s2cid=162969426 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1449749 }}</ref>

Unlike his sources, Shakespeare gives Banquo no role in the King's murder, making it a deed committed solely by Macbeth and his wife, [[Lady Macbeth]]. Why Shakespeare's Banquo is so different from the character described by Holinshed and Boece is not known, though critics have proposed several possible explanations. First among them is the risk associated with portraying the king's ancestor as a murderer and conspirator in the plot to overthrow a rightful king, as well as the author's desire to flatter a powerful patron. But Shakespeare may also simply have altered Banquo's character because there was no dramatic need for another accomplice to the murder. There was, however, a need to provide a dramatic contrast to Macbeth; a role that many scholars argue is filled by Banquo.<ref name="note"/> Similarly, when [[Jean de Schelandre]] wrote about Banquo in his ''[[Stuartide]]'' in 1611, he also changed the character by portraying him as a noble and honourable man—the critic D.W. Maskell describes him as "...Schelandre's paragon of valour and virtue"—probably for reasons similar to Shakespeare's.<ref>{{cite journal |first=D.W.|last=Maskell |title=The Transformation of History into Epic: The "Stuartide" (1611) of Jean de Schelandre |journal=[[The Modern Language Review]] |publisher=[[Modern Humanities Research Association]]|location=Cambridge, England|date=January 1971 |volume=66 |issue=1 |pages=53–65 |doi=10.2307/3722467|jstor=3722467 }}</ref>

Banquo's role in the coup that follows the murder is harder to explain. Banquo's loyalty to Macbeth, rather than [[Malcolm (Macbeth)|Malcolm]], after Duncan's death makes him a passive accomplice in the coup: Malcolm, as Prince of Cumberland, is the rightful heir to the throne and Macbeth a usurper. Daniel Amneus argued that ''Macbeth'' as it survives is a revision of an earlier play, in which Duncan granted Macbeth not only the title of Thane of Cawdor, but the "greater honor"<ref>{{cite web|first=William|last=Shakespeare|author-link=William Shakespeare|url=http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/macbeth/T13.html#104|title=Macbeth Act 1, Scene 3, line 104|website=Shakespeare Navigators|access-date=January 15, 2019}}</ref> of Prince of Cumberland (i.e. heir to the throne of Scotland). Banquo's silence may be a survival from the posited earlier play, in which Macbeth was the legitimate successor to Duncan.<ref>{{cite book  |first=Daniel |last=Amneus|author-link=Daniel Amneus|chapter=Macbeth's "Greater Honor" |editor1-last=Barroll |editor1-first=J. Leeds |title=Shakespeare Studies |location=New York City|publisher=Burt Franklin |date=1978 |isbn=0-89102-084-5 |pages=223–230}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Nicolas|last=Tredell|title=Macbeth|publisher=Macmillan Education UK|location=London, England|date=2006|isbn=978-1403999245}}</ref>