Not sure if this is true Steve. William Wallace sure got bad press when he was alive but then along came Mel Gibson with Braveheart to make a very heroic figure who was treated as a criminal by some historians.

The Native Americans got very bad press for a long time especially when they were still an active threat to frontiersmen and women. Then along came Hollywood and authors like Dee Brown.

Jesse James is another very interesting figure as far as how writers and historians have treated him.