Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jimmy and this is Episode 360, The Long Game.

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In 1040, while England was dealing with a chaos of Arthur Knut's reign and the threat of yet

another succession crisis, Scotland was dealing with its own set of problems.

The Northern Kingdom had just lost its king, and that wasn't anything new for Scotland.

Their kings rarely lasted long.

But it got trickier because the king's killer, Macbeth, had basically finished off King

Duncan, turned around, and said, I'm the new king.

And that was a bold move, especially considering that move, the murder your way up to the throne

move, was typically reserved for the heir to the throne.

And we have every reason to believe that Macbeth wasn't the heir to the throne.

I mean, sure, he claimed to be the grandson of King Malcolm II, but when you got down

to it, his standing for the Scottish throne was dodgy, and it was plain to everyone that

he hadn't gone through the normal channels.

And actually, there were a number of nobles who had just as good of a claim as he did,

and in some cases, better claims.

So probably as King Duncan was bleeding out on the ground, Macbeth was in a race against

...