Seven More Historical Myths That Simply Refuse to Die

It’s past time to get these right

Queen Elizabeth I circa 1588 (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

One of my favorite things to do on this site is debunking historical myths, and although I’ve written multiple in-depth stories, the most popular continue to be part of an ongoing series about myths that simply will not die. Previous installments can be found here, here, here, and here, and today, I’m adding seven more to the growing list of myths that really need to be put to rest.

1. Queen Elizabeth I died as a child and was replaced with a young boy by her nurse. We might as well start with the craziest myth about Elizabeth I this side of the one claiming she wrote Shakespeare’s plays (the Bard gets no respect). Outlandish as it is, it is sometimes used by conspiracy theorists as the reason she never married: since she was a man, they claim, she obviously couldn’t take a husband. The likely genesis of this fantasy is simply a case of chauvinism; the idea that a woman could rule an empire for four decades was simply too much for some to wrap their heads around. Interestingly, one person who believed this lie was Bram Stoker, author of the novel Dracula. Clearly, vampires weren’t the only fictitious things Stoker bought into.

2. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican Party nominee to run for president. This is one of the most common myths about…