The National:

“For over 1000 years Britain has had a royal family,” Sky News presenter Rhiannon Mills confidently told viewers as she prepared to explain the lineage of the current monarchy.

But as anyone with a mild interest in Scottish history will know – heck, even anyone who’s just seen Braveheart – this is not the case.

Britain has had royal families (plural important here) for 1000 years. That’s a fair statement. But it is not the one Sky News went with. Instead, Scottish history was erased and replaced with a far simpler story line.

Of course, Scotland was an independent country before joining the Union in 1707. And for many centuries the country also had its own royal family.

That was until 1603, when Queen Elizabeth of England died leaving no partner or child to take over from her. The throne was then passed to the next heir, her cousin James VI, King of Scotland – and so the two countries were finally joined under one monarch, though maintained separate Crowns.

What’s more, suggesting Britain had a single royal family for more than 1000 years erases Wales too. It wasn’t until the 1280s that Wales came under the rule of England’s king after being conquered.

With these key historical milestones in mind, it’s difficult to make sense of the “1000 years” claim.

READ MORE: Tom Devine: The history of the Union of the Crowns that made Queen's jubilee possible

And if you go back even further to 1022 as Mills cites, it gets even more complicated.

“This is absolute guff and indicative of the nonsense being punted by media outlets during the Jubilee,” commented historian Dr Graeme Millen.

Playwright Peter Arnott added: “Thing is, they can't even hear themselves when they gather so many historically untrue things in so few words ... and echo the lies and fantasies of some very nasty people while they're at it.”

“This is surreally obvious fake history,” wrote anti-Conservative campaigners Tory Sleaze UK.

READ MORE: Scots pick their first president of an independent nation

What’s more, if we go back even further in history – right back to 1022 as journalist Mills suggests – things are even more complicated.

Author Jon Courtenay Grimwood pointed out: “If you mean current boundaries, a thousand years ago ‘Britain’ had at least ten differing royal families, mostly at war with each other.”

Is it really surprising that one of the UK’s biggest broadcasters was able to put out this inaccurate information over the Jubilee weekend?

For the past week all we’ve heard from the big media organisations is how much the UK is loving the Queen’s 70th anniversary on the throne. You can’t escape it. But in reality, celebrations in Scotland have been significantly more muted than south of the Border.

If nobody is willing to get the facts about the present right, it would be unrealistic to expect accuracy about our country’s history too.