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- [00:01]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis.
- [00:03]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaenega and we're.
- [00:05]
Matt Lewis
Just popping up here to tell you some insider info.
- [00:08]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
If you would like to listen to Gone Medieval ad free and get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit.
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Matt Lewis
With the History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original.
- [00:20]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Documentaries such as my new series on everyone's favorite conquerors, the Normans, or my.
- [00:25]
Matt Lewis
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- [00:29]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
There's a new release to enjoy every week.
- [00:32]
Matt Lewis
Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe or find the link in the show Notes for this episode.
- [00:49]
Val McDermid
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Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
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Val McDermid
Have your brand heard everywhere with acast.
- [01:12]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Our podcasts are available on all apps.
- [01:15]
Val McDermid
And the only way to reach their listeners is through Acast.
- [01:19]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Visit go acast.com ads to get started today. Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaenega and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes to the Crusades, we delve into the rebellions, plots and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here. A thousand years ago, in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three companions. The men hunting her are determined to kill her because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no ordinary lady. She's the first Queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth. Hang on a moment. I hear you say, is that the same Lady Macbeth who dies after sleepwalking? Well, yes and no. Nor are the three companions with her witches. They are a healer, a weaver and a seer. As with most of his so called history plays, Shakespeare conjured up a myth about the midgaths as murderous conspirators. To be fair to the Bard, he was using some pretty dodgy sources and he also had audiences to entertain and a king obsessed with witches to keep on the right side of. But now the brilliant best selling crime writer Val McDermott has dragged the truth about Lady Macbeth out out of the shadows. In her new novella, Queen Macbeth, Val McDermott has set out to overturn Shakespeare's propaganda and present us with a woman caught up in the patriarchal prejudices and vicious political intrigues of her time. And I am delighted that Val McDermott is joining me on Gone Medieval today to tell us about the real Queen Macbeth. So, first of all, Val, welcome to Gone Medieval.
- [03:45]
Val McDermid
It's a delight to be here. I feel we need to fangirl a bit, you know.
- [03:48]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Okay. So that makes two of us. We're doing well, so if we could just, you know, be calm enough to actually talk today. I'm really excited because, you know, this is a household name Lady Macbeth, but for fictive reasons, and you've actually gone and done some actual historical work, which is amazing. And I'm going to start you off with kind of a more personal question, which is how did you make the decision to start writing about Lady Macbeth?
- [04:13]
Val McDermid
Well, the decision was kind of made for me. Berlin. My publishers have a series of novellas which look at aspects of Scottish history or Scottish mythology that's informed who we are today. And they've asked writers of fiction to go back and look at the stories to see how much is actually rooted in fact and how we would approach it. And I was given a completely blank slate. They said, you can set it in the present day. Given the state of Scottish politics, I thought writing about a strong woman leader was maybe not the way to go. And they said, you can set it in the historic period or you can set it against the Shakespeare. And I thought it was a no brainer, really, because I knew enough to know that Shakespeare was not, shall we say, historically accurate.
- [04:52]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, just slightly. Slightly, yeah. Okay, so what is your perception of Lady Macbeth in the Shakespearean version? You know, when you meet her, what do you think of her?
- [05:03]
Val McDermid
You think of her as overreaching, ambitious, pushy, domineering, running the show, basically, and running it in not a very good way, seeking power, seeking privilege, and not a very nice person at all. And then of course, she has the breakdown and becomes a complete nutter.
- [05:22]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
But, you know, one of the great nutters of history, which we very much like. But I think you're right, she's a really difficult woman. And I kind of always enjoy it when there are difficult women in history or fiction because it sort of goes against the grain slightly in that often one expects women to be behaving well. But, you know, it's Shakespearean, it's so over the top. Here's a woman that we have made up to reflect all of our concerns about what femininity could be, that it can Stick in the craw a bit.
- [05:51]
Val McDermid
She is basically the villain of the piece. She pushes her husband into doing something he doesn't really want to do, and she's responsible for the death of a king and the ruination of a kingdom, and it's just not true.
- [06:04]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Okay, so were you surprised when you started digging into the real Queen Macbeth? This is your starting point, right?
- [06:12]
Val McDermid
Yeah, I was surprised. I was surprised because the Macbeths were not a hated tyranny for a start. The Macbeths were loved and respected by their people. They ruled for 17 years. Now, in the Middle Ages, you didn't get to rule for 17 years if your people didn't like you, because the next kingdom over would come in and take you over. There would be people being killed and murdered and slain on the battlefield. You just didn't get 17 year run at it. They were so secure in their kingdom that at one point they went off to Rome on a pilgrimage and left a regent in charge and came back and the kingdom was, oh, still there. They weren't overthrown by their people. They weren't the victims of an uprising against their tyrannical ways. You know, it was somebody who came in from the outside and said, I'm having your throne. As it so often was in the Middle Ages. That's how it happened.
- [06:59]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Okay. In the person of Lady Macbeth. What do we know about her? Do we have, you know, an idea of her early life at all?
- [07:07]
Val McDermid
She was brought up in a household that was descended from the great king of Scotland, Kenneth Cowpen, from whom all the sort of rulers of Scotland were essentially descended one way or another. So her father was in the direct line. And so she would have been brought up in a relatively comfortable existence, insofar as anybody could be comfortable in those days. It wasn't the time of great luxury and delight.
- [07:30]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
No.
- [07:30]
Val McDermid
And then she married Gillycommigan, who was the Mormy of Murray, which is basically the Earl of Moray. And so she went from being the sort of lassie of the household to being the mistress of the household. And he was by all accounts, a sort of pretty coarse man. Not a nice guy, by and large, but it was a dynastic marriage. It was a marriage to cement everybody's place in the hierarchy. So because she was on the royal line, she was the right kind of person for him to marry. So she went from being the beloved daughter of the house to being the useful wife. What happened to Gilly Cunigan is an interesting story as well. He got his mormership by supposedly conspiring with Malcolm to kill Macbeth's father and the Mormership, which theoretically should have gone to Macbeth. But things didn't go in the direct line of descent. Things went in the line of conquest. That became Gillycomigan's place in society. He became the mourn mayor of Murray, and Macbeth was sent off to the sidelines, effectively to live in his banqueting hall in Mull. And then Macbeth came to the court to pay his obeisance to Gillycommagan, you know, because he was a kinsman, and therefore to say, my men are at your disposal should you need them. And in my book, that's the point where he encounters Gruach, which is her real name. And I chose to make this a love at first sight moment. She'd never have seen anybody like him. He was by all accounts quite flamboyant. He was handsome, he was redheaded. A man of spirit, I think it's fair to say. It seemed to me that it was entirely possible that faced with a dynastic marriage that she wasn't very keen on, and this handsome, vibrant man comes to the court to pay his respects. It's not surprising if there was a sudden moment of, oh my God, he's much nicer.
- [09:08]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, I mean, this is kind of the classic medieval way of looking at romance, isn't it? You know, this is what we get in courtly love. Liter her up and down the block because you have women who are in weird marriages as a result of having to be, because it's the right thing for your family. And then some handsome young thing comes along and it destabilizes everything, doesn't it? So really that's the traditional way to look at things.
- [09:31]
Val McDermid
And a handsome young man who in a sense has a right to the position that your husband occupies. And then there's a very strange occurrence that Gillicammagan is celebrating a banquet in his banqueting hall with his 50 closest guard, and the place burns down and they all die, which is an absolute tragedy. Except that that then means that Macbeth can move in on the widow.
- [09:51]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Tragedy for whom, I suppose, is the.
- [09:54]
Val McDermid
Question here, losing a tragedy. It sounds absolutely appalling to us in the modern way. We're horrified when we read about it happening in kosovo in the 90s, and quite rightly so. And part of me is horrified that this is how Macbeth came to the throne. But on the other hand, if it hadn't been them, it would have been somebody else. People didn't sit around the table and negotiate and say, like, you know, I really fancy your wife. You're gonna get a divorce.
- [10:16]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, that. It happens not so often, you know. And also, it is one of these things, too, where a fire, you know, that is real good plausible deniability. Because it's really difficult for us now to understand and get our heads around just how often things burnt down.
- [10:31]
Val McDermid
Yes. It would have been a wooden building, and late at night they'd all have been pissed. Nobody would have probably noticed the fire till they were, oh, my tunic's on fire.
- [10:39]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah. Is it very convenient?
- [10:41]
Val McDermid
Very convenient for Gruach and Macbeth?
- [10:43]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I would argue that that is quite convenient.
- [10:45]
Val McDermid
Well, yes. And there's also the question of Gruach's son, Lulach, who it is assumed at the time was the son of Gillicomagan, but I suspect may well have been the son of Macbeth. Macbeth adopted him as his son and made him his heir.
- [11:00]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
There is always this sort of slippage that's going on behind the scenes. You know, there are various heirs moving in and out. There are various intrigues. And especially around the time that we're talking, because this is, what, early 11th century, things are a bit looser. I mean, all you've got to do is look down to England and see what's going on with this succession on the throne there. To see that things get shook up really quickly sometimes.
- [11:22]
Val McDermid
Yeah. There was no newspapers. There was no communication other than word of mouth, really, particularly in Scotland at that time. So you just needed one person to go about saying, this is the case. I know this to be the case. And suddenly it became the case. So it was an interesting time. Macbeth and his wife assumed the throne of the kingdom. In the course of time, they expanded the kingdom to take over Alaba. And it was actually the first step on the way to what's modern Scotland. They were not, by any accounts, tyrannical. They seems to have been loved by the people, which would suggest that they behaved with a degree of fairness towards them, which is not a given in the Middle Ages at all. And this is an interesting notion to pursue and a direct opposition to Shakespeare's view of them. I mean, he just made it up, I guess.
- [12:10]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
This is my question, right? Is this a case of Shakespeare just not getting hold of the correct sources, or is this just Shakespeare having a nice time and writing some fiction, do you think? I mean, is he using unreliable sources, or is he himself just dabbling?
- [12:26]
Val McDermid
I think he came across at least one unreliable source and thought, oh, that'll make a good drama. In fairness, speaking as a writer, of fiction myself. If I was researching a particular historical period, and there were three accounts that said nothing happened and one account that said this happened, I'd go for the one that said this happened.
- [12:45]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
It's a lot sexier, isn't it? But then you have this really interesting story of the warriors dying of this fire, of something that can be interpreted, if one wishes to, as foul play. And did you kind of think that you were gonna find anything like that when you started scratching around yourself?
- [13:05]
Val McDermid
I didn't really, because I didn't know enough about it. There's not a lot to know about the historical period. It should be said Scotland in the 10th century is in many respects a blank canvas, for reasons that I will explain, because I actually have a bearing on what I wrote. I had written this plot, this story, and at one point it's quite crucial that messages are exchanged between two people in different places. So not unreasonably, I had notes being written and sent off by a trusted messenger and I submitted my first draft. And Hugh Andrew, who's the publisher at Berlin, said, there's a slight problem with this. So what's the problem, Hugh? He said, well, there wasn't paper in 10th century Scotland. We don't have anything like the Anglo Saxon chronicle in Scotland because there was no paper. All we do have is sort of monkish chronicles, which don't really have a great deal of connection to the daily lives of the kingdom. So that's one of the reasons why there's a big blanks in the day to day history of Scotland. We kind of know the big events because the monks will have written about the big event, but not the nuts and bolts of how things happened within that big picture. So I had to go away and find another means of communication. So I thought, what did people know about at the time? How could they communicate? And I was discussing this. It so happened. I was having dinner that evening with my partner, with Nicola Sturgeon, who, you know, you might say is another strong Scottish woman. And in the course of that conversation, we're all disagreed about who actually suggested it first. We did come up with the solution, which was to use the language of plants.
- [14:32]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I love this.
- [14:33]
Val McDermid
People did know and understood. They didn't just randomly send you a bunch of flowers. They said you a bunch of flowers that had a meaning. So I thought this was a good way of having a communication between Ruach and Macbeth when they were separated by a big distance. I got my lesson in history there. I did have another situation where Hugh disagreed with me, but I was able to make a valid argument at some point. I have them cooking with ginger. Ginger is in one of the things they're eating or drinking. And Hugh goes, I don't think they would have had ginger in 10th century Scotland. And I said, well, I think they might have had, because the Romans got a long way up Scotland. I mean, people think that Hadrian's Wall was as far as they got, but they didn't. They got much further north than that. And the Romans brought herbs and spices that we hadn't had before and the climate and SC Scotland would allow you to grow ginger. So I made this argument, and to absolutely nail this argument, I got in touch with Mary Beard and said, Mary. And she said, that's entirely plausible.
- [15:28]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes, thank you, Mary.
- [15:29]
Val McDermid
I want to say, from my previous historical research is entirely plausible is enough for me.
- [15:34]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Listen, all we need is plausible when we are having a nice time. This is what I would say. And also, I think you're spot on, because ginger was such a big deal for the aristocracy. You know, it was a way of showing that one had refined taste and so you would have got hold of it one way or another, even if the Romans hadn't brought it up. If you heard that people had it further south or somewhere else, you would go get it.
- [15:56]
Val McDermid
Yeah.
- [15:56]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And make an attempt. So I'm with you on this one.
- [15:58]
Val McDermid
And it's also clear that we did have trading contacts with Europe, particularly the Scots. We had good relationships with mainland Europe. From Fife, we had connections to the Low Countries and to Russia. Further south, we had connections down into the Continent. And of course, Macbeth and Gruach actually went to Rome on their pilgrimage, which must have been absolutely astonishing. Imagine, to go from Scotland, where everything was built of wood except great big stone castles, to go to Rome and see what you could do with stone. The cultural life, the warmth, the sunshine, the food. It must have been just astonishing.
- [16:32]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I always love this because whenever you get travel accounts, for example, as a result of the old alliance, you often have French knights that are going up to Scotland and to a man, they are all kind of like, ugh, ooh, it's quite cold. Entire time, which always makes me laugh. You know, they're used to, you know, pausing about in southern France and then they have a bit of an awakening when they get to the highlights.
- [16:55]
Val McDermid
God, yeah. So these were all things that I was. Was able to sort of argue for and to absorb. And I really enjoyed writing it. I really enjoyed digging into what I could find out. And that's where gone Medieval came in, and I found myself checking through your back podcasts to find out what people were eating, what people were wearing, what their attitudes to sex were, what their attitudes were to relationships. And that was immensely helpful because you'd done all the work for me.
- [17:20]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, we're here to be of service. Let's just say that.
- [17:23]
Val McDermid
Absolutely. And you were of service. It was great. So I was able to, you know, concoct menus and particularly to do with the plants and the medications, because instead of Shakespeare's three witches, I gave Gruach three serving women. Three women that have been with her since childhood. And as would have been the case at the time when she moved from her father's court to gillicomigan's court, she took her woman with her. That was her power base. That was her source of information. That was her way into the new court that she was going to. And so I gave her these three women. One who's very practical and one who's good with plants and medicines and is viewed as a sort of witch because she can cure you when you're sick, and one who's just in touch with things. And so these three women are at her side throughout, and they stay with her almost to the bitter end. And that is her source of support. And they have their serving man, Angus, who is there to do the things that the women are not able to do because of societal or physical capabilities. And that's her wee miniature court. They were there. That was her team. And I think it's something that, as a writer of crime fiction, I have always been conscious of from my earliest days. The thing that I found really difficult about the new wave of feminist crime fiction in the 1980s was you had all these women who were private eyes or whatever, and they were loners. They were just like the men. They were mavericks. They had no friends. And I thought, that is not how my life as a woman works. You know, I don't have this situation where I don't have people around me that I can turn to. And so, right from the very start, I always created female protagonists who had a group of people around them, a group of women mostly around them, who they could turn to when they needed help. You know, if they needed to know something about the law, they had a friend who was a lawyer. If they needed something to do with police, they had a friend who was a police officer. Whatever they needed to investigate, they had a way in through their circle of friends. And I think this is how women operate. This is how women have always operated. Regardless of whether it's the Middle ages or the 21st century, we know who we trust.
- [19:27]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I think that this is such an important point because one of the things that, you know, forgive me if I launch into a rant that I've made on this podcast many times, but one of the things that often frustrates me when we look at historical figures who are women is we celebrate and uphold women that we perceive to be doing things in a masculine way. So the minute a woman grabs a sword, we're like, oh, this is amazing. What an incredible woman. She's so strong. But, you know, if a woman quietly wields power in a way that traditionally one would expect her to, that's not interesting. We don't find it interesting when queens are having massive diplomatic power and sending their ladies out to broker deals behind the scenes. And I think that's interesting. You know, I think it's cool. You know, I think it's more interesting.
- [20:14]
Val McDermid
Because it's the way that men don't wield power so often. It's about let's get the swords out and let's kill each other on the battlefield. Whereas the women, like Gruach and her women, weave their way in and out of the scenes, often completely unnoticed because they're just women. And that gives them a power that the guy swaggering with his sword never has because he's obvious. And I like the sort of idea of the subtle power and the subtle stuff that they can do behind the scenes and exercising what they generally see as the good for not just for themselves, but for the tribe, if you like, for the clan. And that the Macbeths treated their people, I think well, is evidenced by the fact that they didn't have interior rebellions. There's no evidence of any uprising against them from their own people in the historical record. And I think there probably would be if there had been because there's lots of stuff in the record about other people being overthrown, kingdoms falling and rising. So I took that as license to have them do what they do.
- [21:29]
Matt Lewis
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- [22:08]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Okay, this is something I wanted to ask you about because one of the things I love about the book is that you've really challenged Shakespeare's version of events in very many ways. We've already gone on to some of that, just handmaidens as opposed to, you know, witches. But you in very many ways, rewrite this very convenient narrative of Shakespeare's. You know, one of the ways that he presents Lady Macbeth, for example, is that, you know, she's this bitter, barren shrew, right? Just a horrible woman that everyone hates. And you, on the other hand, have grok here, and she's politically astute. Is this something that you assessed as a result of the fact that we have these, you know, fairly happy subjects that we have, not a lot of evidence to the contrary? I mean, how are we getting here?
- [22:53]
Val McDermid
Well, I got the important. Because it's usually uprisings led by somebody coming in from the outside to say, I'm going to have your throne and your people will have a much better time with me. There was none of that going on, as far as we can tell, in. In the Macbeth's history. And there were plenty of people who wanted to go, wanted to take a pop at the throne that he had. And in the end, that's what overthrew him. Was Malcolm coming after them? But I think it's reasonable to make these assumptions that this was a stable kingdom, because there's no evidence to the contrary. And there probably would be evidence to the contrary. I mean, what we know about that period of history is usually things like Malcolm slew Kenneth, and Kenneth slew Malcolm, which is actually one of the weird lines I found in the historical record. And you think, twitch, Malcolm, who killed you? Who's still alive at the end of this? You know, there weren't many names to go around. But I think in many respects, the assumptions I made are not without substance. You know, I think it was quite clear that this was, of the kingdoms at the time, relatively stable. I mean, there are things that Shakespeare wrote that we do know to be the case. You know, we know that Macbeth slew Duncan. He did not kill him up the back stairs in the middle of the night in his castle. He slew him on the battlefield. That's what happened. And that's what always happened in the Middle Ages, by and large, as people got into a fight in the battlefield, killed each other, whatever. Malcolm slew Kenneth, Kenneth slew Malcolm. But this is what happened. It wasn't a conspiracy up the back stairs. We know that to be the case for the start. And we also know that she wasn't a barren shrew. She had A son, Lulach, who succeeded to the throne. I mean, I think this one off the case, you know, we all know, we've all seen it in our lives, you know, powerful couple who have a child who's a complete waste of space.
- [24:23]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that about. In the Middle Ages.
- [24:26]
Val McDermid
Yeah, Lilac really was a bit of a waste of space, you know. I mean, you can see his parents going, like, when is he ever going to grow up? When's he going to go out and kill something on the battlefield? Come on, now, you've been brought up properly. So, yeah, I think Lulach was a disappointment. You know, you might not have been going about saying to everyone, here's my son, Lula. Isn't he amazing?
- [24:44]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
You know, because to a certain extent, you'd say, I don't understand what the problem is, by having, like, a big fight scene on a battlefield with Macbeth going after Duncan and killing him. But then it's a bit of a fizzle, isn't it? It's like, ah. And then the son was kind of a nobody and never mind.
- [25:00]
Val McDermid
You have to work within the parameters of the period as well. You can't just rip up the history book insofar as there is a history book. I got a bit form. I did a book some years ago called the Grave Tattoo, which is a contemporary thriller, but it's set against the Mutiny on the Bounty and its aftermath. Because what I didn't know, and I discovered serendipitously, that William Wordsworth and Fletcher Christian were at school together.
- [25:20]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
What? Yes.
- [25:21]
Val McDermid
William Wordsworth and Fletcher Christian were at the same small primary school in the Lake District together. And there was a strong rumor, and persistent rumor, that Fletcher Christian did not die on Pitcairn, but that he came back and was appalled and astonished to find that he was a wanted man with price on his head. Because as far as he knew, the last he'd done was set Bligh adrift in a boat with land in sight. He wasn't doing that. Bligh was going to make this mad voyage across the Pacific. And so I thought, this is really interesting because there's no grave for Fletcher Christian on Pitcairn. There's graves for most of the mutineers, but not Fletcher Christian. So I started with this as my starting point and read everything I could get my hands on about the Mutiny on the Bounty and its aftermath. And it seemed to me that it was entirely plausible that he got back, because in Dorothy Wadsworth's diary, she Talks about William used to work in the garden when the weather was clement. He'd sit and he had a bower in the garden and he'd sit and write. And Dorothy mentions a sailor coming to see William in the garden and spending the afternoon talking with him. And I'm thinking, if I was Fletcher Christian and I came back after doing the Mutiny on the Bounty and settling Pitcairn and all that nonsense, and found that all they wanted to do was hang me, I'd be fairly brassed off. I'd want to tell my story. And you've got your old school pal who's now, you know, the poet laureate, a famous man. And I had this mad notion that Wadsworth would have written this epic poem about the Mutiny and the Bounty, Fletcher Christian's version. But he couldn't publish it, of course, because it would be tantamount to saying, I harboured a fugitive.
- [26:43]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah.
- [26:44]
Val McDermid
So I put this together and I had this missing manuscript. I mean, that was the MacGuffin, really. And I went and spoke to Robert Woof, who was at that time, who ran the Wordsworth center in the Lake District, and I laid the story out to him and I said, what do you think, Robert? He said, it's charmingly plausible. And that has become really my watchword, as I was saying earlier, my touchstone. Is it plausible? Is it charming?
- [27:05]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I absolutely love that. Here's one thing that I also love. I just want to drag us back to Rome. This was something that really surprised me when I was having a look at it, which it shouldn't have, because pilgrimage to Rome is one of those things that is very important to medieval people. A lot of people do it, especially if they are quite high up, if they're well to do, which we certainly know that my paths are. And I think that this is such an important point that you managed to make. But how did you find out about it to begin with?
- [27:37]
Val McDermid
It's there in the record that they went to Rome on a pilgrimage. And of course, they'd have gone by sea, which meant it didn't take the months and months it would take to go across it by land and get into various rocks along the way. They'd just go off on their galley, the boats at the time, which lovingly, are called Berlins. Oh, down the west coast and across the Channel and down the coast of Spain and across. Oh, there we are. That's Rome. I did not want to make this about some profoundly religious experience for them, because I didn't have the sense that that was what was underlying it? It was just the thing that they probably should do. And Macbeth had this relationship with the monks on the island in Loch Leven, where she ended up. I see Macbeth as being quite pragmatic, a pragmatic man, and I see him as playing with the monks was not a bad thing. Christianity was gaining traction at that time in Scotland, and that this was not going to cause him any hurt or any grief to go and see the Pope and see how that transpired. You know, being in with the Pope was near a bad thing. So I see that as more of a pragmatic, transactional event in their lives. But I think it must have been absolutely astonishing to go there and go like, wow, we not got these things.
- [28:49]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I mean, absolutely. You're gonna see a completely different way of living, which is one of the things that's so interesting at the time. I mean, I suppose it's still true now, but, you know, in the medieval period, places are really different. But I think that there's also a really important point here, which is that if you're able to go to Rome for several months on pilgrimage, that also means that your kingdom is super stable. Because otherwise, you know, if they were really hated, if these were a couple of people who nobody liked, the minute you were out the door, everyone would be like, haha, yeah, absolutely.
- [29:19]
Val McDermid
The kingdom would have fallen, there's no question about it. But, you know, they left a region and off they went and it was fine. They came back and everybody's like, oh, it's nice to see you back again. Did you have a good time? What have you brought us?
- [29:30]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, exactly like, oh, have you got any good friends?
- [29:32]
Val McDermid
And Ethny, who is the herbalist, will have been absolutely over the moon with what was available to her. You know, I can just picture her potting up all these plants, having her own bit in the building, going, don't you touch my plants.
- [29:45]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I love that.
- [29:46]
Val McDermid
So, yeah, I think that didn't have ginger before then. They certainly had ginger after that.
- [29:50]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, there you go, right? You're not going down to the continent without coming back with the good stuff, frankly.
- [29:54]
Val McDermid
Exactly, exactly. What's the point in going otherwise? And I think that's probably no small part of it. You know, they'll have come back with stuff that have made people go like, wow, how can we have that?
- [30:04]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, you know, that's what it means to be royal, right? Is to have these connections and make these moves and. And this is this consummately royal couple, well liked, well connected, moving about and you've managed to present that really, really well here in opposition to what we usually see from Shakespeare. Right, Because Shakespeare, you know. Yeah, he shows them take over the kingdom via treachery, etc. And then, you know, the minute they do, they die. And obviously that's not what happens here. You have this fairly long reign, but also you manage to talk about what happens to Grah after Macbeth dies, because he does die. So what do you kind of describe as her journey after the death of her husband?
- [30:48]
Val McDermid
She has to make herself secure because she is potentially the rallying figure for their people. If there's going to be an uprising against Malcolm and his people, she's going to be at the forefront of it. So she has to make sure that she and her women are safe. And so they turn to the monks in the monastery and they secure her. Because Macbeth's been good to them, he's given them the land, he's been tenacious to the monastery. So, you know, in a sense, they've kind of already planned an escape route and she's waiting to see what happens. How's Balcombe going to take over the kingdom? How's it going to be? How pissed off are the people going to be? Is there a chance of rising up against it? So all of this is in her mind, and also because Lulaq's around at this point still, and she's got to kind of COVID his back as well. So it's important to her that she stays alive. So she's grieving the loss of the man that she loved, but she's also conscious that she has a duty to the kingdom. And so when they come after her, she has to try and secure herself. And I think there's a lot of bravery in that. The fleeing from sanctuary, they know that Malcolm sent men out to kill her. He sent men out across the kingdom to find where she is and to kill her. It's quite clear that that was the intention. Of course, the good reasons why Shakespeare wrote it, the way that he wrote it.
- [32:05]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, I was going to say, like, what do you think? When you've got a situation like that, it's pretty easy for us in the modern period to say, oh, well, this kind of looks like a question of succession and a question of simply wishing to secure things. But Shakespeare comes about it in a really different way, I guess. What do you think was motivating him to depict the Macbeths in this very particularized way?
- [32:24]
Val McDermid
Politics, plain and simple. There's a new king on the throne in London who is a Scottish king, James vi, and first, who was notorious for his hatred of witches. He wrote a book about the awfulness of witches. So that explains why it was important to have a bunch of horrible witches at the heart of this. Behind the motive engine for the whole thing is these three eldritch witches on the moor telling Macbeth he's going to be king hereafter, so you better do something about it, son. And at the time, also, James was descended from Banquo's side of the equation, not from Macbeth's side of the equation. And a less, in some ways, less justifiable claim on the throne of Scotland through ancestry. But it was a way of suking up to the king. It was important to suk up to the king because at that time, there were no actual theaters as such. Really, you succeeded because you had royal patronage. Getting to put your plays on at court was a key element to your success as a theatre company. And if you were putting on plays that the King didn't like, you were only going to do very well. So for all sorts of reasons, Shakespeare was a shareholder in his theatre company. He wasn't just the jobbing playwright or a jobbing actor. He was part of the, if you like, the management. So it was part of his job to make sure that the theatre company persisted. And so let's put on a really good play that warned the cockles of the King's heart, I'll go away and look in the history books to see what I could come up with. And I think that's probably, I mean, plain and simple. And then he thought, oh, this is a great story. I could do something with this. And off he went. I can't feel angry with him about it. I can't blame him for it. You know, the guy had a living to make. He had a wife and family back in Stratford that were like, you know, needed his income and his own life in London that needed his income. So I think that's the story behind it. No more, no less.
- [34:11]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah. I think that all artists, to a certain extent, are safe. Fair enough. When you hear about things like this, you know, it's not his fault if everyone took a play seriously as a piece of history, you know, because it's.
- [34:21]
Val McDermid
Such a good play, because it's such a powerful piece of dramaturgy, it has become the historical record. People think it's what happened. People think that Lady Macbeth is this absolute avatar for being a bad wife. It's a hard image to break down. I just not saw that.
- [34:37]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I'm not having it EDN quite right too.
- [34:54]
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- [35:25]
Val McDermid
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- [36:38]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Do you have any hopes for what the novel is going to achieve in the face of this really solidified idea of Lady Macbeth as a character?
- [36:48]
Val McDermid
Well, I mean, there's always hope that someone might make a movie out of it, you know, or a television adaptation that would shift the dial rather more than a small novella being published by an indie publishing house in Scotland. You know, we've sold a lot of books and we've reached a lot of people, but nothing like the kind of outreach that Shakespeare has, you know. So if there's anybody out there who would like to make a movie of, you know, feel free to get in touch. Contact Val I'll contact my agent first.
- [37:15]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Look, this is a movie that I want, you know, and I think this is interesting though, because to a certain extent I do think the public imagination, or at least, I mean, perhaps I'm here preaching to the choir. You know, listeners to this show in particular have an interest in myth busting, these essentialist ideas. I mean, certainly, let's just look at what the discovery of Richard III's body did for the reevaluation of Richard III, which was again, largely colored by what Shakespeare had to say for quite some time.
- [37:43]
Val McDermid
Yeah, I mean, Josephine Tey wrote the Daughter of Time way back in the 50s, which debunked the princess in the tower thing of Richard. But she was a writer, she was a novelist. That had a big impact on a lot of people, but it didn't reach the wider consciousness. So, yeah, it took the rediscovery of Richard's body to start things. The dial really moving. So you need to find a way of reaching the opinion form as the opinion makers. So like I said, I think the only thing that would really shift the dial for Macbeth is a film. And I don't see why nobody's shown an interest in making the film yet. Because we all loved Braveheart.
- [38:14]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes.
- [38:15]
Val McDermid
Didn't we? Scotland.
- [38:18]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah. Oh, you know, medieval historians don't hate that movie at all.
- [38:22]
Val McDermid
So that's. You need something that gets right into the heart of popular culture. You know, I'm a writer. I love books, I love reading, I love writing. But, you know, I do acknowledge that if you really want to change people's view on a wider scale, you need to get into a different kind of popular culture.
- [38:37]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, and I guess that's where Shakespeare's got a leg up on all of us, is that, you know, people like plays, people like movies, and I don't blame them, but. Well, I mean, speaking of plays, kind of a random question to ask you at the end. So we spent this entire time talking about a play and a couple of people whose name is associated with bad luck. So I'm sure you've been asked this a million times, but I'm going to do it anyway. So have you particularly experienced anything weird and unlucky while you were writing a book trying to save the good name of Lady Macbeth?
- [39:08]
Val McDermid
It's really weird that you should say that. I hadn't even thought about that. I hadn't even thought about that. But we have had the worst year. I mean, truly, we've had the worst year.
- [39:17]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah.
- [39:18]
Val McDermid
Beginning of the year, my partner nearly died. She Was really ill. Took her quite a while to recover. And then my back completely gave up on me very swiftly, very suddenly went really downhill. And I spent the summer having a major spinal surgery that I'm just recovering from. And I did not write a novel this year for the first time in 40 years. Oh, my God.
- [39:37]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Oh, it's the curse of Macbeth. It happened. Oh, my God.
- [39:41]
Val McDermid
You completely devastated me this morning.
- [39:44]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Oh, God.
- [39:46]
Val McDermid
We've just moved house as well. We love this house, this fabulous new house. Oh, God. This has been the year of living disastrously so.
- [39:54]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Oh, God.
- [39:55]
Val McDermid
You think it's my birth?
- [39:57]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Let's just say that it is. Because then that way you've kind of exercised it well.
- [40:02]
Val McDermid
We should have. Because if I go from the publication date, it's been more than a year since it was published, so maybe I've come out the other side of it in my back. Much better. I'm fine. I'm walking about. Everything's fine.
- [40:10]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
So this is what we're going with. I choose to believe. Hey, Val, come on the podcast so I can scare you.
- [40:16]
Val McDermid
I even thought, but we keep talking about the house. This has been the worst year.
- [40:19]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
There you go. I'm blaming Macbeth. That's it. That's it. But, you know, or maybe Shakespeare.
- [40:24]
Val McDermid
Let's just.
- [40:24]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Let's blame Shakespeare instead. Let's not make it about the Macbeth.
- [40:27]
Val McDermid
Okay, well.
- [40:29]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, yeah. Val, thanks. Coming by so I could freak you out, I guess.
- [40:33]
Val McDermid
Just lovely. It's been a real pleasure.
- [40:36]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Oh, God.
- [40:36]
Val McDermid
All this apart, I would have struggled to make the book as strong as it is without this podcast. I really leaned heavily into it. So thank you for that.
- [40:45]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Seriously, the pleasure has been all mine. And I'm. I'm sorry for scaring you very early.
- [40:48]
Val McDermid
In the morning, but I might have to go and have a stiff whiskey.
- [40:53]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Thanks so much to Val McDerin once again, and to you for. For listening to Gone Medieval from history hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award winning original TV documentaries, including my series Meet the Normans and ad free podcasts by signing up@historyhit.com subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify where you can leave us comments and suggestions or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. My co host, Matt Lewis will be back again on Friday and as always, I'll see you again next Tuesday. Until next time.
- [41:46]
Matt Lewis
More than 125,000 podcasts trust Acast to connect them with their audience. Your brand can speak to your perfect audience too, by advertising With Acast, we're home to the biggest names in podcasting, reaching millions of engaged listeners who can only be accessed through acast. From true crime to comedy finance to fitness, your next customer's favorite podcast is an Acast show. Your audience is already here. Speak to them with Acast. Visit go.acast.com ads to get started today.