10 Things You Need To Know About Michael Fassbender's Macbeth

7. The Real Macbeth Was Actually A Pretty Decent Guy

Shakespeare was notorious for lifting his plots from the literature he read at the time. Hamlet is thought to have been adapted from an unsuccessful play by another writer, while tales such as Romeo And Juliet have their roots in folk tales of courtly love. His history plays and some of his tragedies were taken from historical accounts of real life figures such as Julius Caesar, Henry V and Antony And Cleopatra, each with a little artistic license thrown in for good measure. Macbeth is no different. The tale is lifted, at times word for word, from Holinshed's Chronicles - a history of the British Isles popular at the time the play was composed. However, Holinshed's stories are famously inaccurate, so while there was a Macbeth, he wasn't quite the blood-lusting, pact-making tyrant he appears as in the play. In reality he was a mild and generous King who ruled a relatively peaceful kingdom for 17 years. He even had time to pop over to Rome on a pilgrimage for a bit, so successful was his reign.