What we know about King Fortinbras we learn from Horatio in the first scene of the play. Horatio says that Fortinbras, King of Norway, had previously made war against Denmark and that King Hamlet (the title character's deceased father) killed him in hand-to-hand combat:
[King Hamlet was] Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet— For so this side of our known world esteem'd him— Did slay this Fortinbras.
For this reason, the lands belonging to Fortinbras passed to King Hamlet. Now that he is dead and replaced by Claudius, Young Fortinbras, the son of the man in question, is seeking to regain these lands. The brother of Old Fortinbras sits on the throne of Norway in an interesting mirror image of the situation in Denmark. This subplot reaches its conclusion when the dying Hamlet names Young Fortinbras as his successor to the Danish throne. So though we do not know much about the old Norwegian monarch, his death is an important event in the backstory of Hamlet.
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