Donnchad mac Crínáin (Modern Gaelic: Donnchadh mac Crìonain) anglicised as Duncan I, and nicknamed An t-Ilgarach, "the Diseased" or "the Sick" (died 14 August 1040) was king of Scotland (Alba). He was son of Crínán, hereditary lay abbot of Dunkeld, and Bethóc, daughter of king Malcolm II of Scotland (Máel Coluim mac Cináeda).
Unlike the "King Duncan" of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the historical Duncan appears to have been a young man. He followed his...
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Donnchad mac Crínáin (Modern Gaelic: Donnchadh mac Crìonain) anglicised as Duncan I, and nicknamed An t-Ilgarach, "the Diseased" or "the Sick" (died 14 August 1040) was king of Scotland (Alba). He was son of Crínán, hereditary lay abbot of Dunkeld, and Bethóc, daughter of king Malcolm II of Scotland (Máel Coluim mac Cináeda).
Unlike the "King Duncan" of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the historical Duncan appears to have been a young man. He followed his grandfather Malcolm as king after the latter's death on 25 November 1034, without apparent opposition. He may have been Malcolm's acknowledged successor or tánaise as the succession appears to have been uneventful. Earlier histories, following John of Fordun, supposed that Duncan had been king of Strathclyde in his grandfather's lifetime, ruling the former Kingdom of Strathclyde as an appanage. Modern historians discount this idea.
An earlier source, a variant of the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba (CK-I), gives Duncan's wife the Gaelic name...
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