I think it does, because AFAIK, Historical Fiction isn't one of the genres that does well with self-pub. I mean, I could be wrong...
Here's what I think you should do:
1. Ask yourself what is your ultimate goal. To have your books out there, one way or another? To be trade-pubbed?
2. If you want your books out there and you don't much care how, then look into self-pubbing. But if your goal is to be trade-pubbed, then...
3. Shelve this book and focus on the next one.
What's your reason for not wanting to move on to the next project? I spent years working on my first MS. I poured everything into it. I was loathe to let it go, and in fact, even after it got agented and subbed to publishers and rejected, I didn't give up. I edited it. I queried again, got it agented again, got it subbed again, and...got it rejected again. And THEN! After getting another agent for a different MS, I revised my first MS again and meekly asked my agent to read it. He read it, loved it, and subbed it. Again, rejected by errrbody. This is it for now, but you bet your boots that if my other books get published, I'm going to pull out that first MS and be like, "Btw, I have this YA Fantasy...do you want to take a look at it...?" By now, I have written six completed MSs, and each one is stronger than the last. (This tells me how shitty my first MS was, heh.)
Write more books. Fall in love with other projects. You'll grow so much faster as a writer by writing different projects. It doesn't mean you give up entirely on the first MS, it just means that you're giving other projects a much-deserved chance. And when you go back to your first MS later, you'll probably see tons of things you can improve which you're unable to see right this very moment.