Fleance
character in Macbeth
Fleance ( FLAY-onss; also spelled Fléance or Fleans; Latin: Fleanchus) is a figure in legendary Scottish history. He 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. Some screen adaptations of the story expand on Fleance's role by showing his return to the kingdom after Macbeth's death.
Shakespeare's play is adapted from Holinshed's Chronicles, a history of the British Isles written during the late 16th century. In Holinshed, Fleance escapes Macbeth and flees to England, where he fathers a son who later becomes the first hereditary steward to the King of Scotland.
In real life, 'Steward' eventually became the name 'Stewart' (later changed to a pseudo Frenchification 'Stuart'), and Walter Stewart married Princess Marjorie, daughter of Robert the Bruce. Their son, Robert II, began the Stewart/Stuart line of kings in Scotland. James VI and I, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, was the ninth Stewart/Stuart monarch (eighth king) of Scotland and the first of the Stuart monarchs of England and Ireland.
James VI & I was the reigning monarch when William Shakespeare wrote and produced Macbeth, which may have been in the new king's honour.
The public source identifies “Fleance” as character in Macbeth. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Fleance, character and Macbeth.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3429667. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fleance” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.