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?

The "three lions" of English heraldry (and the Skinner and Badiel song) are not lions, they are leopards

"It was said" yet no mention of who said it...

..ahh the joy of the passive voice...

Well the middling stature quote is from the Venetian ambassador who definitely saw her.

How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman is interesting on the ‘everyone / everything stunk’ idea. Basically, she thinks, it’s bollocks.

Tudor people had noses! Poor people don’t have a choice but to smell, and still in modern times in the West there are people who can’t afford to wash regularly for whatever reason. However the rich regularly changed their clothes which were frequently washed. Henry VIII for example did a lot of sport and would have changed his undershirt after every outing. The shirt soaks up the sweat.

She talks of an experiment conducted with a colleague - she didn’t wash for a fortnight, but put on a clean linen undershirt every day. Asking her office colleagues for an honest appraisal (afterwards, revealing the experiment) they all said they hadn’t noticed any body odour. Her colleague washed his body with a shower every day but put on the same clothes. After a few days his office colleagues commented of their own volition (not yet aware of the experiment) that he was a little... aromatic.

Also she describes a practical experiment she undertook regarding rushes on a dirt floor as your ‘carpet’. She claims the houses would have been at least as clean if not cleaner than modern carpeted floors.

Good book, worth a read.

I don't get the hate for Philippa Langley. She didn't just make stuff up like 'historic fiction' authors - ack!

Yes she is a bit of an oddball and a bit obsessed, won't have a word said against him etc. But do you know what else she was after years of research into the burial?

RIGHT!

The documentary thought the whole thing so silly (before the discovery) they had 'stupid death' bloke present it rather than someone more credible.

I can't help but think we don't like women eccentrics. Would anyone be so bitter about Mick Aston?

There's also a conspiracy theory that the Titanic was really the Olympic, but I doubt that's true.

Well snopes had a look at the Channel 4 documentary titled “Titanic: The New Evidence”.www.snopes.com/news/2017/01/06/coal-fire-sink-the-titanic/ and seems to conclude, what most other reports I can find do, there was a fire plenty of evidence for that but it's impact is still up for debate.

Ruth didn't have a shower for a fortnight, and did indeed change her underclothes, but she did not neglect the cleaning of her nethers or her extremities (hands, feet and face).

Also Ruth did moan about her hair a lot! during this experiment.

I suspect Elendon has read a lot of Philippa Gregory and is presenting it as fact!

BigKite, that article isn't about the Olympic conspiracy.

I’ll probably (definitely) misrepresent it if I talk about it too much but the book was very convincing in contradicting the whole ‘everyone smelt and was terribly earthy’ idea.

BigKite, that article isn't about the Olympic conspiracy.

Eh never said it was.

It's clearly an article about the documentary I was talking and source of my information about the fire and why I though the historical fact that the Titanic was going very fast into an area they were warned may have icebergs in to beat a transatlantic record was in fact a myth.

I don't think the Olympic exchange theory had much more than coincidence behind it - and is just a conspiracy theory created to sell a book.

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.

And not all historical fiction writers make stuff up. Philippa Gregory does, but she has gone all Danielle Steele on her books and just has to have stuff being published all the time. She cannot possibly do any research and what she did do was poor. There are many historical fiction writers who are lauded for the research that they do.

And as for David Starkey - he isn't interested in you unless you are a Tudor and he is well known as a hater of the whole Plantagenet dynasty plus he's an odious little man.

If you look back at your post, that's what you appeared to be saying.

not all historical fiction writers make stuff up

Of course they do - that's the very definition of historical fiction!

Agree with your character assessment of Starkey, but does know his stuff re the Tudors. I'd trust what he says on Henry VIII as he's been researching the man for decades.

Batteries I echo your recommendation on the Ruth Goodman book. Fascinating and a really accessible read.

I'm laughing so hard at the Henry VIII short arse 'facts'. I'm imagining an unseen tiny little man sitting on a massive horse his voice echoing out from the bottom of the depths of a huge suit of armour. Anyone heard Rob Bryden's 'man in a box' impression?

But Starkey's views are entrenched in his background. He simply cannot get past it and that's to his detriment as a historian, I think. I no longer listen to him.

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

If you've not read Gregory then how do you know what she's like as a historian? (Clue: she's not.)

Starkey's Six Wives is, for me, still the definitive book on them as he cuts through myths such as Catherine Parr acting as Henry's nurse, most of which stem from Agnes Strickland in the 19th century.

Elizabeth was said not to like Mary because Mary was taller than her.

All the English monarchs stood on podiums to give them extra height and of course to look down on those in attendance. Six footers were a rare thing in Tudor times - usually from other countries. Henry wasn't one of them.

That was Mary Queen of Scots, not her sister Mary.