When he discovers the corpse of King Duncan (murdered by Macbeth, but it appears that nearby guards are guilty since Lady Macbeth put his knife by them and smeared them with Duncan's blood), he raises an alarm, informing the castle that the king has been murdered. Macduff first speaks in the play in act 2, scene 3 to the drunken porter to report to his duty of awaking King Duncan when he is sleeping for the night at Macbeth's castle. Shakespeare follows Holinshed's account of Macduff closely, with his only deviations being Macduff's discovery of Duncan's body in act 2 sc. 3, and Macduff's brief conference with Ross in act 2 sc. 4. Malcolm, Macduff, and the English forces march on Macbeth, and Macduff kills him. Meanwhile, Macbeth murders Macduff's family. Macduff leaves Scotland for England to prod Duncan's son, Malcolm III of Scotland, into taking the Scottish throne by force. When Macbeth calls upon his nobles to contribute to the construction of Dunsinane castle, Macduff avoids the summons, arousing Macbeth's suspicions. Macduff first appears in Holinshed's narrative of King Duncan after Macbeth has killed the latter and reigned as King of Scotland for 10 years. In Holinshed's narrative, attributes of King Duff are transposed onto the MacDuff mormaer from Macbeth's era. This association not only secured the Duff family influence in the peerage, but also helped ensure their position as one of the largest landowners in Scotland, heading countless feudal baronies including the barony of MacDuff, named for James Duff, 2nd Earl Fife.
Various Fife titles were held by the Duffs until as recently as 1929 when the dignity passed to the Carnegie descendants, where it remains in use today. In 1759, his descendent William Duff was granted the historic Celtic Title of “Fife”, resurrecting the title and tying the Duffs of Northeast Scotland, both to the their 11th century Lowland ancestors, and to Shakespeare’s MacDuff. In 1404 David Duff received a charter in Aberdeenshire from Robert III of Scotland. Few could determine where Duff Family history began and historical fiction ended, working to the benefit of the Duffs as their reach expanded into Northeast Scotland. Not only did history influence Shakespeare’s work, but the work itself influenced the role of future Duffs. The ruins of Macduff's Castle lie in the village of East Wemyss next to the cemetery. Their clan – the Clan MacDuff – remained the most powerful family in Fife in the Middle Ages. Due to the Irish use of tanistry, Duff's immediate descendants did not become rulers of Alba, and instead became mormaers of Fife. The Orygynale Cronykil suggests that Duff was murdered. In John of Fordun's work, the reign of Duff is portrayed as having suffered from pervasive witchcraft. Historically, Duff was a 10th century King of Alba. These served as the basis for the account given in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), on whose narratives of King Duff and King Duncan Shakespeare in part based Macbeth. The overall plot that would serve as the basis for Macbeth is first seen in the writings of two chroniclers of Scottish history, John of Fordun, whose prose Chronica Gentis Scotorum was begun about 1363, and Andrew of Wyntoun's Scots verse Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, written no earlier than 1420.
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