12 Facts About Fleance

Fleance is a figure in legendary Scottish history.

Fleance was depicted by 16th-century historians as the son of Lord Banquo, Thane of Lochaber, and the ancestor of the kings of the House of Stuart.

Fleance is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, in which the Three Witches prophesy that Banquo's descendants shall be kings.

Fleance and his father Banquo are both fictional characters presented as historical fact by the Scottish historian Hector Boece, whose Scotorum Historiae was a source for Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, a history of the British Isles popular in Shakespeare's time.

Two scenes in which murderers attack Banquo and Fleance, Lady Macduff and Macduff's son, have been compared to Herod's attempt to murder Christ and save the throne for himself by killing all new-born children in Bethlehem.

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The stage direction "Enter BANQUO, and FLEANCE, with a torch", seems to foreshadow the fact that Fleance is a light for Scotland in the midst of the play's black deeds.

Fleance argues that the tension that exists between Fleance and Macbeth is made stronger if Macbeth has a child: his motive is not just selfish striving, but fatherly ambition for his own son.

In Orson Welles's film version of Macbeth, Fleance is briefly seen again at the very end of the movie.

One of the characters he elbows is Fleance, who makes a mock gun out of his fingers and "shoots" at the back of the darker-skinned Malcolm's skull.

In Throne of Blood, a Japanese adaptation of the play, Fleance is replaced by Yoshiteru, a character played by Akira Kubo.

Fleance appears a bit more often, mainly in the scenes of Act V, where he sneaks on board a truck full of timber and witnesses the death of Macbeth before killing the maid and being directed home by Macduff.

In Joel Coen's 2021 film, Fleance is retrieved from the Old Man by character of Ross, who has played an ambiguous role throughout the film.