King Duncan

“ Duncan I. (d. 1040) was a son of Crinan or Cronan, lay abbot of Dunkeld, and became king of the Scots in succession to his maternal grandfather, Malcolm II., in 1034, having previously as rex Cumbrorum ruled in Strathclyde. His accession was “the first example of inheritance of the Scottish throne in the direct line.” Duncan is chiefly known through his connexion with Macbeth, which has been immortalized by Shakespeare. ”

“ For five years after the fall of Duncan his successful rival reigned in peace, when an attempt was made by the adherents of the late king to regain their lost ascendancy. A. D. 1045. The children of Duncan were still in their infancy, and their cause was sustained by their grandfather, Crinan, the aged abbot of Dunkeld; but his defeat and death, “with nine times twenty warriors,” extinguished for a time the hopes of the House of Atholl, and only served to secure the throne more firmly in the power of Macbeth. ”

“ She returned to confer with her husband. His resolution had begun to stagger. He considered that there were strong reasons against the deed. In the first place, he was not only a subject, but a near kinsman to the king; and he had been his host and entertainer that day, whose duty, by the laws of hospitality, it was to shut the door against his murderers, not bear the knife himself. Then he considered how just and merciful a king this Duncan had been, how clear of offense to his subjects, how loving to his nobility, and in particular to him ”

“ She had won him to consent to the murder, but she doubted his resolution; and she feared that the natural tenderness of his disposition (more humane than her own) would come between, and defeat the purpose. So with her own hands armed with a dagger, she approached the king's bed; having taken care to ply the grooms of his chamber so with wine, that they slept intoxicated, and careless of their charge. There lay Duncan in a sound sleep after the fatigues of his journey, and as she viewed him earnestly, there was something in his face, as he slept, which resembled her own father ”

“ The king himself marched along with his warriors, mounted on a huge elephant, while behind him, on another, rode his two favourite wives. The Umbaloomi potentate had promised them a great treat, and many heads with which to decorate their huts.
Now Duncan had determined that Goo-goo, as the fat king had come to be called, should attack the invaders first. If he failed to conquer, then Duncan, with Frank, Conal, and Carrambo, meant to give them a startler, and something like a surprise. ”

“ What appals him is always the image of his own guilty heart or bloody deed, or some image which derives from them its terror or gloom. These, when they arise, hold him spell-bound and possess him wholly, like a hypnotic trance which is at the same time the ecstasy of a poet. As the first 'horrid image' of Duncan's murder—of himself murdering Duncan—rises from unconsciousness and confronts him, his hair stands on end and the outward scene vanishes from his eyes. ”

“ Abraham Duncan, as he walked the streets, beheld men with haggard faces and women wringing their hands and giving way to lamentations. In their loyalty to the king, they never had dreamed that the provincials could compel a disciplined army to quit the town. They had been informed that with the opening of spring the rebels would be scattered to the winds. ”

“ Well, Sir, for one thing, they do tell that the proper owner of the property is Sir Duncan, now away in India. A man hath come home who knows him well, and sayeth that he is like a prince out there, with command of a country twice as big as Great Britain, and they up and made 'Sir Duncan' of him, by his duty to the king. ”

“ He wins it by the help of Norman and English volunteers. 1094. But Duncan was allowed to get together a body of volunteers, English and French—​doubtless of any nation that he could find—​at whose head he marched into Scotland. He overthrew his uncle Donald, and took possession of 35 the throne by the help of his new allies. [72] Details are lacking; the Scots must have been overthrown for a moment by some sudden attack. Second revolution; the foreigners driven out. What follows is instructive. The reign of Duncan, as a king surrounded by a Norman and English following, was but for a moment. ”

“ There was once a king of Scotland, named Duncan, who was a good man, and much beloved by his subjects. This king had a cousin named Macbeth, who being the bravest general in Scotland, was employed by Duncan to fight all his battles for him, when he was too old to fight them himself; but Macbeth, although a brave man, was not a good man, and besides that, he had a very wicked wife, who wanted to be a queen, and therefore she tried to persuade her husband to kill Duncan, that he might be made king in his stead. ”

“ The French general smiled, as Duncan gave him the purport of this reply, and observed,—
"What is now so freely accorded to approved courage, may be refused to useless obstinacy. Monsieur would wish to see my camp, and witness, for himself, our numbers, and the impossibility of his resisting them, with success?"
"I know that the king of France is well served," returned the unmoved Scotsman, as soon as Duncan ended his translation; "but my own royal master has as many and as faithful troops." ”

“ Duncan, however, was not equally successful in an invasion of the territories of Eadulf, for Simeon of Durham, in his history of that church, tells us that Duncan, king of the Scots, advanced with a countless multitude of troops and laid siege to Durham, and made strenuous but ineffective efforts to carry it, for a large proportion of his cavalry was slain by the besieged, and he was put to a disorderly flight, in which he lost all his foot-soldiers, whose heads were collected in the market-place, and hung up upon posts. ”

“ More than eight hundred years ago, when the Roman wall divided England from Scotland, when the Scots and Picts had become one people, and when the countries of Northern Europe were disquieted by the ships of the Danes, there was a king of the Scots, named Duncan. He was a very old man, and long, long after he was dead, certain writers discovered that he was a very good man. He had two sons, named Malcolm and Donaldbain.
Now, when Duncan was enfeebled by years, a great fleet of Danes, under the command of Suene, King of Denmark and Norway, landed an army on the Scottish coast. ”

“ It will make me stronger; but I am not afraid if your people begin the war at any time.”
“And to-morrow morning?”
“Then, at daybreak, you must come to me, and we will go away and leave your people.”
“That is good,” she said, joyfully. “I will try to make my father wait, and to-morrow I will give up my power to go with my white chief.”
178 “What is your power, Ilalah?” asked Duncan, puzzled by the expression.
“After my father, I am the ruler of the Techlas, which you call the San Blas. When the king dies, I am queen, with power of life and death over my people. ”

“ He informed me that Coomassie was four moons’ journey from Dahomey; and also in order to make his country look great, told me and the King that there were no less than one hundred English merchants in Coomassie buying gold when he came away. Upon which I flatly contradicted him, and told him that only one white man resided in Ashantee, Mr. Chapman, a missionary, who had lately been ill-treated by a set of ruffians. ”

“ Rubies, pale as dew-ponds stained with slaughter,
Where the fairies fought for a king's daughter
In the elfin upland.
Here they sell you jade and calcedony,
And the matrix of the turquoise,
Spheres of onyx held in eagles' claws,
But they keep the gems as far asunder
From the dull stones as the lightning from the thunder;
They can never come together
On the mats of Turkish leather
In the booths of Samarcand. ”

“ Duncan being a good, honest, domestic man, and the world around him being in peace and quietness, thought fit to amuse himself with husbandry, which accorded not with the warlike spirit of Donald. He thought it much beneath the dignity of a gentleman, and frequently expressed his disgust. One day as he was walking upon the green of Invernahyle, he looked across the river, and saw a number of his followers with spades preparing a piece of ground for sowing seed. He thought to himself that he was wont to give a different sort of employment to his adherents, and that Duncan had no spirit. ”

“ The white men are to be captured and shot with arrows. The magic machine that is a bird and a fish will be destroyed, and the two black kings may then go free because they speak in our tongue, and are therefore brothers.”
“That is pleasant news,” said Duncan. “When will they do this?”
“To-day, if they can. I was with them at the council. I told them that I loved you, and would make you the mate of the Princess Ilalah. But to that my father would not agree. He says you must die.” ”

“ Duncan thrust forth a foot, and the shock precipitated the eager savage headlong, many feet in advance of his intended victim. Thought itself is not quicker than was the motion with which the latter profited by the advantage; he turned, gleamed like a meteor again before the eyes of Duncan, and at the next moment, when the latter recovered his recollection, and gazed around in quest of the captive, he saw him quietly leaning against a small painted post, which stood before the door of the principal lodge. ”

“ Duncan really had no more idea of inheriting a title and estate at that time than I, a farm-bred girl, had myself. He was a thorough American, who loved his country, and because his parents had died and left him alone in the world, he was all the more helpful and self-reliant. How his eyes used to twinkle when we sat on our little porch, at evening, as he would say with a flourish, 'Yes, this is all well enough, Anna, but wait till you see our ancestral halls across the sea!' and then his laugh would ring out like the boy he was. But it is the unexpected that always happens. ”

“ Some people would call it thought transference. Yes, the idea of making him chairman of the Luna board must have been already in Duncan's mind, though not in his, Bethson's. But then, in whose mind was it that he should be the inheritor of the castle? Not in his; he had known at the time that Duncan had destroyed his will. If the old man should die to-night—this one night out of all eternity——
His imagination saw it all as if it were already true, he saw himself standing in his uncle's place, rich and powerful; he saw Lila triumphant, beautiful, satisfied at last. ”

“ He had turned white. She took him in her arms, to comfort and hearten him—an unfailing device: her kisses, her warm, ample bosom, her close embrace; he was by these always consoled....
Next day, then, in accordance with the woman's device, the boy and his mother set out with the veiled man for the Church of the Lifted Cross, where the obsequies of Senator Boligand were to take place. It was sad weather—a cold rain falling, the city gray, all the world black-clad and dripping and sour of countenance. The veiled man said never a word ”

“ The awful effect was heightened by the piercing [182] shrieks of the women and the fierce yells of the warriors. Now and then Duncan caught a glimpse of a light form cleaving the air in some desperate bound, and he rather hoped than believed that the captive yet retained the command of his astonishing powers of activity. Suddenly the multitude rolled backward, and approached the spot where he himself stood. The heavy body in the rear prest upon the women and children in front, and bore them to the earth. ”

“ Duncan was advised to fly from the impending storm. The incensed hero looked for his degenerate son. Where is he? He is gone towards the house. Towards the house marched Donald, inquired and searched, but could not find the object of his wrath. At length he thought he found him under the bedclothes, in his own bed. He could contain himself no longer. He drew his hanger, and made a deadly stroke at the supposed Duncan. Though the arm was old, it had not wholly lost its strength. ”

“ He taught himself drawing during his service, and in 1839 left the army with a high character. He next obtained an appointment as master-at-arms in the Albert, which with the Wilberforce and the Soudan sailed on the Niger expedition in 1842. On the voyage out he was wounded by a poisoned arrow in a conflict with the natives at the Cape de Verde Isles. Duncan held a conspicuous position in all the treaties made with the native chiefs. He was selected to march at the head of his party, in the cumbrous uniform of a lifeguardsman, when the heat was fearful even to the natives themselves. ”

“ But Duncan, who, in deference to the other's skill and services, had hitherto submitted somewhat implicitly to his dictation, now assumed the superior, with a manner that was not easily resisted. He waved his hand, in sign of his dislike to all remonstrance, and then, in more tempered language, he continued:
"You have the means of disguise; change me; paint me, too, if you will; in short, alter me to anything—a fool."
"It is not for one like me to say that he who is already formed by so powerful a hand as Providence, stands in need of a change," muttered the discontented scout. ”

“ His mother was a German and his grandmother Irish and his greatgrandmother a Spanish gipsy."
"How did you learn all that, Josie?"
"By making inquiries. Duncan was born in Dorfield and his father was born in the county. He's a typical American—a product of the great national melting-pot—but no patriot because he has no sympathy for any of the European nations at war, or even with the war aims of his native land. He's a selfish, scheming, unprincipled politician; an office-holder ever since he could vote; a man who would sacrifice all America to further his own personal ends." ”