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Originally Posted by Architype
^ Well, could someone else re-research the information that she had gathered? Are the same resources that she had used ultimately available to other people, or did she destroy actual artifacts of history?
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Absolutely, though the problem is that she was the first historian to come across the documents and recognize their importance in 500 years. What are the odds of stumbling across them again? And she came across them while searching for other documents that weren't specifically related to her find. She also didn't leave any clues as to where they were found, it could have been in any museum or backroom of an old merchant house anywhere in England. It's also possible she possessed the actual artifacts/documents and had them destroyed. That could have been some sort of intentional act to protect her findings from anyone else, or inadvertant, not realising that they were still in the boxes with her research.
As for who Cabot was, he could have been anyone really. Nothing is known about his life before the voyages really. All the evidence is circumstantial at best and has never been definitively linked, though it is accepted in the public eye. Everything we know about the voyages come from a few letters that have been preserved. No official records as such, or royal proclamations or decrees, etc... The things you would expect after "discovering" a new land are nearly totally absent, all odd to say the least.