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<\/p>\nAuthor Val McDermid said she had to rewrite part of her novel about Lady Macbeth \u2013 after discovering there was no paper in Scotland 1,000 years ago.<\/p>\n
McDermid, 70, has been widely acclaimed for Queen Macbeth, in which she reimagines one of Shakespeare\u2019s best known characters.<\/p>\n
She said she submitted her first draft to her publisher Birlinn, in which the title character and her female companions exchange paper notes, only to be informed of her historical inaccuracy.<\/p>\n
The former Celebrity Mastermind champion told the latest A Kick Up the Arts podcast how she had to come up with an alternative means of communication for her plot.<\/p>\n
Macbeth reigned from 1040 until his death in 1057 \u2014 five centuries before Scotland\u2019s first paper mill was established in Edinburgh in 1590.<\/p>\n
McDermid said: \u201cI\u2019d done a fair bit of research and I\u2019d talked to lots of people. My general view when I\u2019m writing about anything set in the past, whether it\u2019s 1979 or the 10th century, is focus on what you know, and then string the rest of the story around the facts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so I thought I\u2019d done this really well with Queen Macbeth, handed in my first draft and Hugh Andrew, the publisher at Birlinn, said \u2018there\u2019s a slight problem here, you\u2019ve got these two characters communicating by sending notes to each other\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018There was no paper in Scotland\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cAhh. So I had to find another way for these characters to communicate with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDermid, who has now sold more than 19 million books across the world, is renowned for her intellect as well as her bestselling novels.<\/p>\n
Just turned 17 when she went to Oxford University in 1972, she was one of the youngest ever accepted to read English at St Hilda\u2019s College and the first from a Scottish state education.<\/p>\n
A Celebrity Mastermind champion, she also captained the winning alumnae team for Oxford on the 2016 University Challenge Christmas special and is the recipient of eight honorary degrees.<\/p>\n
The \u201cQueen of Crime\u201d told podcast host Nicola Meighan how Shakespeare wrote his \u201cScottish Play\u201d to ingratiate himself with James VI & I who was king of Scotland and England when the play was written around 1606.<\/p>\n
But she insisted the English playwright had got Macbeth all wrong and the maligned 11th century monarch should actually be celebrated for his remarkable achievements.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cShakespeare was just doing what you had to do to make a living. I don\u2019t blame him for it, but he was wrong in almost every respect.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, the Macbeths ran their country for 17 years. In the medieval period, you didn\u2019t keep your kingdom for very long before the next person came along and fought you for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cMacbeth did kill Duncan, but he didn\u2019t kill him up the back stairs, he killed him on the field of battle. It was quite legitimate.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo secure was the Macbeth kingdom that they went off to Rome on a pilgrimage, left it in the hands of a regent, came back
months later and it was still there. And the alliances they formed within Scotland, the joining together of kingdoms, formed the basis of what\u2019s now modern Scotland.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we should be celebrating the Macbeths, not writing them off as a guy who is manipulated by a psychopathic woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDermid agreed her novel was \u201cpretty sexy\u201d, adding: \u201cWell, there\u2019s not nothing else to do on those long dark nights. There\u2019s no box sets (in the 11th century).\u201d<\/p>\n
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