There are as many opinions as there are historians, and then a few depending on who you are and what they think they can get from you. You have to out them into broad camps, and recognise that in doing so you tend to polarise the middle ground. Therefore, when you take your position, whilst you can count a number of them as references for your own position, you must respect the likelihood other viewpoints may exist. It is in the nature of history that the available factual documentation is often very weak.
This is partly the reason why most history drawn from primary sources is often disparaged, prefering to refer the neophyte to secondary compilations. However, these are also often suspect as much history has been written for partisan purposes, and when looked at writ large with the benefit of hindsight does not necessarily hang together well. So, to claim that "the historians have debunked" something is certainly excessive: some may think they have disbunked the opposition, but then again, the opposition often feel the same way about them. The proof of the pudding is in the hard facts recorded, and we've only really got a hard record of the sociological aspects of that for about the last 150 years.
The latest Oh Shit is the dismantling of the claims of the Establishment, as it is now probable that a cuckoo slipped its way into the Royal nest at some point. Given the quantity of the members of the House of Lords whose claim to patrician status is based on this...
At the same time, the hard reality is that these people really did wield power, justified or not, and history must recognise that fact. It's the future history which is entitled to ask the question whether they should still have the whip hand now.