To wonder which ‘history facts’ aren’t true.

[LeslieKnopefan]

I understand that history isn’t always true and the further we go back in time the harder it is know what the truth is and what is simply made up.

However I recently posted that I thought it was true that Marie Antoinette hair turned white overnight after her best friends head was paraded in front of her and that I only realised it wasn’t when I told a mate who pointed out it couldn’t be true.

So which history facts that people think are true are known to be lies?

Mary Stuart was also said to be a beauty, which Elizabeth was not. They never met either despite the Glenda Jackson version of Elizabeth showing a tense stand off on horseback.

I've not read Gregory, but I do like her as a historian. She has milked the genre somewhat, but then who hasn't!

Did. You. Just. Describe. Philippa. Gregory. As.A.Historian?

Headbutts wall

You are making some class of a tit out of yourself elendon

When did Philippa Gregory become a historian?

I reckon people were just "nose blind" to normal human odours. If everyone around you has a similar level of personal hygiene then you don't notice so much if they are a bit whiffy (to our modern, Western noses). I've noticed this when I've been away camping for a few days with limited washing facilities: nothing is noticeable until we get back to civilisation, and then you start to smell the rest of the group (and assume you smell the same!)

I've read a few times that it wasn't until we started consuming sugar in relatively large quantities that teeth decay was an issue, which makes sense to me. The average diet of occasional meat, veg and carbs isn't that bad for tooth enamel

Isn't it quite telling that instead of putting his 14 year old nephew and rightful heir on the throne and reigning as regent, Richard III put himself on the throne and insisted on having his dead brother's heir and spare sent to him for their 'protection'. And that gradually they were seen less and less and held in a more private part of the Tower. Doesn't sound like the best-intentioned uncle.
And then when his body is found it turns out he does have a curvature of the spine, so all that 'the Tudors deliberately gave him a bad press' may be true, but some of the bad press might have been true too.

What a load of bullshit has been spouted on this thread! It's quite embarrassing.

Also some interesting discussions.

I do think Philippa Gregory has a lot to answer for...

The Vikings were travellers, they went everywhere, their DNA will be included in the DNA of every continent.

Ahhhh OK got you - it’s the Charlemagne thing :)

Bit wrong though - it’s not true that ALL populations have a Viking in the mix. I very much doubt andaman islanders or such isolated populations would have had any such influence.
Also one admixture into a population is not the same thing as that population having ancestry - say Sven Svensson marries and has a child with a woman from An isolated amazonian tribe in 2010 - that child would have both Viking and whichever tribal background but it’s NOT true to say the tribe as a population has Viking ancestry or is in any way descended from vikings.

That Brexit is a good idea.

The version of the Norman Conquest taught at school varies greatly from the Bayeux Tapestry, so one version is incorrect, or maybe both.

I reckon people were just "nose blind" to normal human odours.

I agree. I heard it said that to Japanese people westerners smell of gone off milk as there is so much dairy in our diet.
Returning after only two weeks in Japan I found this to be true.

I've had one of those Ancestry dna tests. I don't know how accurate they are but it shows no Scandinavian heritage at all.

80% English, 18% French/Belgian, 1% Scots/Welsh/Irish and 1% Iberian peninsula. It surprised me because I did expect quite a proportion of Viking just based on family colouring, but there was none.

Popping back on to return fistbumps to the other medievalists.

With the Henry VIII thing, is it perhaps the case that people get the impression he was short because the fashion was for such heavily-padded shoulders? To a modern eye he looks a bit dumpy, but it's because he's wearing stuff to make him look about four feet wide at the torso.

I don't see why he wouldn't have been 6 foot or so. I also don't think being 6 foot was terribly rare, especially down the Plantagenet line. Broadly, if you look at skeletons and nutrition, medieval and Tudor rich people do reasonably well. Sugar wasn't a big thing, and they got plenty of fish, meat and greens. Not a terrible diet.

So I guess we can add in the 'people were all stunted in the past' to the myths. A bit shorter, maybe. All hovering around the 5'4 mark, no.

I always thought he was tall ... wasn’t he six foot two? He’s always described as being a very tall man (and then a very big man.)

I’ve never heard anyone say he was short....

Well not until this thread @Hypermice

I think it's been mentioned upthread, but Eleanor of Aquitaine's reputation as a powerful kick-ass queen who lead an amazing life is largely legend.

Yes, Philippa Langley was right, but the woman is seriously deluded. I read her book about finding Richard and it was downright creepy! She is ion love with Richard III, despite him being dead for centuries. She is not just eccentric - she is a sandwich short of a picnic somewhere along the line.

Nevertheless.......she was RIGHT!

Having a bit of s fascination for this I've been reading about the discovery of the coffin of Charles I in St George’s Chapel - it's interred in a vault with Henry VIII and Jane Seymour plus one of Queen Anne's stillborn babies.

The coffin belonging to Henry was measured at 6ft 10. Obviously this will have been the outer coffin so there would have been at least one other coffin inside that, but it lends pretty good credence to the notion that it contains the body of a man of around 6ft.

I’m sure I’ve seen a suit of armour he wore at some point and that was definitely massive!

Yes, that's been said upthread too - I was reopening a discussion, which perhaps I shouldn't have.

I thought (cannot remember where I read it...will have to Google...) that Henry VIII was over 6 foot tall, and was quite slim and athletic in his younger years but put on so much weight as he aged, particularly after his jousting accident, that he was over 25 stone when he died.

Presumably he was mostly seen sitting down in his latter years, whilst a growing waistline would make him seem shorter too

According to this interesting article on the Tudors, the average height of the skeletons found on the Mary Rose (which were presumably representative of the general male population at that time) was 5'8", so over 6' could fairly be described as tall I reckon

Over 6' is still tall, wouldn't you say?

I think average height for men today is about 5'10, though I could be wrong.

Oh I do have one - people think that Napoleon shot off the sphinx’s nose but in fact it was gone before he was even born

Richard the Lionheart was a pretty shit king for England.

Oh, and Henry VIII almost certainly didn't write "Greensleeves"

So who wrote Greensleeves then?

No-one knows for certain, Cigars, but there's no contemporary evidence to support the claim that it was Henry VIII