In history, the myths can teach you as much as the facts do

Once upon a time, when historians told stories about distant days their tales were semi-sacred capsules of cultural identity. But that has changed. Now science has made discovery the ultimate achievement, so history has increasingly turned to refreshing, reimagining, and reinventing the past. The future is clear, the saying goes; it is only the past that is uncertain.

The canvas is vast; a great deal of history is opinion, and therefore ripe for revisiting. More often than not, it is also partisan. From the chiselled pictograms in the Valley of the Kings to Donald Trump’s Twitter feed, the desire to shape events has gone hand in hand with a desire to determine how they are perceived. Churchill was being candid when he promised that history would be kind to him because he would write it himself.

Perhaps because history is personal – because we feel out our identity by learning about the past – historical myth-busting often has an intense shock value. As individuals we have carried around many of the stories since childhood, and when they are junked we sense their loss keenly.

Take King Richard the Lionheart. He sits outside Parliament, mailed, crowned, and mounted on a restless horse. He jabs the heavens with his sword, and no observer could doubt that England treasures him as one of its greatest kings. Most schoolchildren would agree. But ask a medieval historian, and they’ll tell you that Richard only came here briefly twice. He tried to sell everything not nailed down. He admitted to wanting to sell London if he could find a buyer. On both occasions he left as fast as possible. England was, he said, a dreary, rainy place. “A bad son, a bad husband, a selfish ruler, and a vicious man” in the words of a leading historian. Yet we rather like our mental image of Richard the fearless English warrior king, so the myth persists.

Britain is not alone in preserving fictions despite the glaring facts. Although he did sail the ocean blue in 1492, Christopher Columbus did not set foot on the land mass that was to become the US. In fact, he died without even knowing it was there.

Sometimes it is not so much that we ignore the facts; we also wilfully distort them. Catherine the Great of Russia, people whispered in an 18th-century flurry of fake news, had a recherché yearning for horses which eventually killed her. Yet the fact the story has been endlessly disproved has not stopped the continuing whispers.

This week, we’ve learnt that Edward the Black Prince was perhaps not the butcher of Limoges after all, and thus was undeserving of his epithet. If true, it would be a dramatic rehabilitation. This time, a good one – at least for him.

As historians unpick the accepted wisdom, it is invigorating to see unknown worlds come into focus. For example, the last three decades of work on the Reformation have yielded a surprising picture of a vibrant and outwardlooking England on its eve.

Deep down, we know that history is an experience we feel emotionally, hence the shock, joy, or perhaps even dismay at another myth exposed. Yet if it all gets too much, there is no more cathartic tonic than reaching for the only real historical authority on the history of these islands, 1066 And All That, which, at the very least, is memorable.

Dominic Selwood is the author of ‘Spies, Sadists and Sorcerers: The History You Weren’t Taught at School’ FOLLOW Dominic Selwood on Twitter @Dominicselwood; READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion