General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> King Of Scotland
Duncan I (1034 - 1040)
Duncan was the grandson of King Malcolm II , who irregularly made him ruler of Strathclyde when that region was absorbed into the Scottish kingdom (probably shortly before 1034). Malcolm violated the established system of succession whereby the kingship alternated between two branches of the royal family. Upon Malcolm's death, Duncan succeeded peacefully, but he soon faced the rivalry of Macbeth, Mormaor (subking) of Moray, who probably had a better claim to the throne. Duncan besieged Durham unsuccessfully in 1039 and in the following year was murdered by Macbeth near Elgin, Moray. Duncan's elder son later killed Macbeth and ruled as King Malcolm III Canmore.
General History of the Highlands
Macbeth through to Malcolm III 1093
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/genhist/hist23.html
Duncan, son of Bethoc or Beatrice, daughter of Malcolm II, succeeded his grandfather in the year 1033. "In the extreme north, dominions more extensive than any Jarl of the Orkneys had hitherto acquired, were united under the rule of Thorfinn, Sigurd's son, whose character and appearance have been thus described: - 'He was stout and strong, but very ugly, severe and cruel, but a very clever man'. The extensive districts then dependant upon the Moray Maormors were in possession of the celebrated Macbeth". Duncan, in 1033, desiring to extend his dominions southwards, attacked Durham, but was forced to retire with considerable loss. His principal struggles, however, were with his powerful kinsman, Thorfinn, whose success was so great that he extended his conquests as far as the Tay. "His men spread over the whole conquered country", says the Orkneyinga Saga, "and burnt every hamlet and farm, so that not a cot remained. Every man that they found they slew; but the old men and women fled to the deserts and woods, and filled the country with lamentation. Some were driven before the Norwegians and made slaves. After the Earl Thorfinn returned to his ships, subjugating the country everywhere in his progress". Duncan's last battle, in which he was defeated, was in the neighbourhood of Burghead, near the Moray Firth; and shortly after this, on the 14th August, 1040, he was assassinated n Bothgowanan, - which in Gaelic, is said to mean "the smith's hut", - by his kinsman the Maormor Macbeda or Macbeth. Duncan had reigned only five years when he was assassinated by Macbeth, leaving two infant sons, Malcolm and Donal, by a sister of Siward, the Earl of Northumberland. The former fled to Cumberland, and the latter took refuge in the Hebrides, on the death of their father.
Macbeth, "snorting with the indigested fumes of the blood of his sovereign", immendiately siezed the gory sceptre. As several fictions have been propagated concerning the history and genealogy of Macbeth, we may mention that, according to the most authentic authorities, he was by birth Thane of Ross, and by his marriage with the Lady Gruoch, who had claim to the throne, as granddaughter of Kenneth, became also Thane of Moray, during the the minority of Lulach, the infant son of that lady, by her former marriage with Gilcomgain, the Maormor or Thane of Moray. Lady Gruocj was the daughter of Boedhe, son of Kenneth IV; and thus Macbeth united in his own person many powerful interests which enabled him to take quiet possession of the throne of the murdered sovereign. He, of course, found no difficulty in getting himself inaugurated at Scone, under the protection of the clans of Moray and Ross, and the aid of those who favoured the pretensions of the descendants of Kenneth IV.
Various attempts were makde on the part of the partisans of Malcolm, son of Duncan, to dispossess Macbeth of the throne. The most formidable was that of Siward, the powerful Earl of Northumberland, and the relation of Malcolm, who, at the instigation or command of Edward the Confessor, led a numerous army into Scotland in the year 1054. They marched as far