Don’t you just love conspiracy theories?! 911, Roswell, the moon landing, JFK, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson…the list goes on, but did you know that there is a conspiracy theory relating to Elizabeth I which, if true, would make our present day Queen actually Queen Elizabeth I rather than Elizabeth II?
Before I go into the story, I must say a big thank you to Elizabeth Files visitor Jenny for mentioning this long forgotten legend or conspiracy and making me research it some more. I had heard that there were those who believed that Elizabeth I was actually a man but I had never really looked into it before and now I’m glad I did, it’s a fascinating story.
Bram Stoker and Bisley
This conspiracy theory has its roots in the writings of Bram Stoker, the famous writer of the Gothic novel Dracula (one of my favourite books!).
Stoker wasn’t just an author, he was also the personal assistant of the actor Henry Irving who had been looking for a house in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. It was in the village of Bisley that Irving came across the legend of “The Bisley Boy” and he passed the story on to Stoker who was keen to investigate. Both Stoker and Irving were intrigued by the fact that the village’s May Day celebrations involved a boy May Queen dressed in Elizabethan costume. Such traditions are generally based on an historical event or legend and Stoker wanted to find out more about this one – why a male Queen? His digging resulted in a chapter of his book “Famous Imposters” being devoted to “The Bisley Boy”.
You can read the whole story of The Bisley Boy legend in Bram Stoker’s “Famous Imposters”, which can be read online at Internet Archive or downloaded at EbooksRead.com, but I will give a synopsis of the story here and why some people have given credence to this conspiracy theory – Stoker seemed to be convinced of it!
The Bisley Boy Legend
The Story
According to legend, Princess Elizabeth (or rather the Lady Elizabeth) was sent to Overcourt House in Bisley sometime around 1543/1544 to get away from London, where the plague was rife, and enjoy the Cotswold country air. Unfortunately disaster struck and the ten year old princess was taken ill. As the princess lay gravely ill, her governess received word that the King was on his way to visit his daughter and while the house was preparing for the royal visit the princess died from acute fever. What on earth could the governess do? The King was famous for his awful temper and rages and the child’s governess was in a state of despair and complete panic – how could she tell the King of the death of his daughter?
Fearing for her life, the governess searched the local village for a suitable girl to replace Elizabeth so that they could delay this bad news, hide Elizabeth’s body and tell the King at a later date. Her search was utterly futile, no girl of the right age and colouring could be found but suddenly a thought struck her, there was a fair, red headed boy that had actually been a playmate to the little princess. He was a pretty boy, had the right colouring and was close at hand. In desperation, the governess dressed him in the princess’s dress and the deception began.
According to legend, the King, who did not frequently visit his daughter, did not notice the substitution, after all, Elizabeth had always been wary of him and he was in rather a hurry any way. The plan worked and worked so well that the King was never told the truth and Elizabeth’s body was never moved from the stone coffin in the garden at Overcourt where it had initially been hidden. Over three hundred years later, the Reverend Thomas Keble told his family of the discovery of the remains of a girl’s body in a stone coffin at Overcourt while building work was being carried out at the manor house. The remains included rags of fine, Tudor style clothing – cue “Twilight Zone” music!!
The Reasons Stoker Gave it Credence
Well, you can be forgiven for calling this story”tommyrot”, which is what The New York Times said of it in in its 1911 review of Stoker’s book, but here are some of the reasons why Stoker gave it so much credence:-
- Elizabeth’s secretive nature – Her actions during her lifetime seemed to suggest, according to Stoker, that she had a closely guarded secret. Sir Robert Tyrwhitt wrote to Protector Somerset in 1549: “I do verily believe that there hath been some secret promise between my Lady, Mistress Ashley [Elizabeth’s governess] and the Cofferer [Sir Thomas Parry] never to confess to death. “
- Elizabeth’s close relationship with Kat Ashley, Thomas Parry and Blanche Parry – She treated them all with favour and kept them close to her.
- Elizabeth’s refusal to marry
- Rumours that Elizabeth could not bear children – In April 1559, when Elizabeth was only 25, the Count de Feria wrote: “If my spies do not lie, which I believe they do not, for a certain reason which they have recently given me, I understand that she [Elizabeth] will not bear children.”
- A significant change in literary style between the letters Elizabeth wrote Catherine Parr in 1543 and 1544.
- Roger Ascham’s warning in one letter to Kat Ashley not to be too zealous in her teaching of Elizabeth and to go slowly and then a later letter written by Roger Ascham to John Sturmius, Rector of the Protestant University of Strasbourg in 1550 where he writes: The constitution of her mind is exempt from female weakness, and she is endued with a masculine power of application. No apprehension can be quicker than hers, no memory
more retentive. French and Italian she speaks like English; Latin with fluency, propriety and judgment; she also spoke Greek with me, frequently, willingly, and understanding well. Nothing can be more elegant than her handwriting, whether in the Greek or Roman character. In music she is very skillful but does not greatly delight. With respect to personal decoration, she greatly prefers a simple elegance to show and splendour, so despising the outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold, that in the whole manner of her life she rather resembles Hippolyta than Phaedra.” - Catherine Parr’s encouragement of the “horseplay” between her husband, Thomas Seymour, and Elizabeth – Did she know that Elizabeth was a boy and this was her idea of revenge on her husband?
- Elizabeth’s huge stock of wigs – Were they to cover male baldness?
- Elizabeth’s refusal to see other doctors – Stoker cites the occasion when Elizabeth was ill during her house arrest at Woodstock. Apparently, Elizabeth’s usual physicians were not available and Elizabeth refused to see anyone else.
Others who believe this conspiracy theory have also pointed out that Elizabeth left instructions for no post mortem to be carried out on her body and that she liked to wear big dresses and high necklines, which would have hid her male body and use thick drag queen-like makeup.
Who was the Boy?
You must read Stoker’s chapter on “The Bisley Boy” to fully understand this, it’s rather long-winded and complicated, but Stoker believed the boy to be the Duke of Richmond’s son by Mary Howard. As the Duke of Richmond was Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, this would explain the boy’s colouring being similar to Elizabeth’s, the resemblance and the intelligence.
Reasons to Discredit this Theory
As much as I love Bram Stoker, I have to say “Poppycock!” very loudly.
I just cannot believe this story has any truth in it whatsoever and I think it’s just people’s attempts to try and understand how a woman can live life without sex and marriage – she must have been a man!
Here are some of my reasons for not believing:-
- Henry VIII was not thick – Surely he would have noticed a change in his daughter even if he hadn’t seen her for a while!
- Elizabeth was not bald – She chose to wear wigs for her image and then to hide her greying hair. When the Earl of Essex famously burst into her bedchamber, he saw a grey haired Elizabeth and according to courtier Rowland Whyte the Queen was “newly up, her hair about her face”.
- Elizabeth had periods – When Philip II’s emissary bribed the Queen’s laundress for details on Elizabeth’s health, the woman reported that the Queen was functioning normally, i.e. menstruating regularly.
- According to Tracy Borman, Elizabeth delighted in wearing low necklines, even into old age. If she was trying to hide a lack of breasts then this was not the way to do it!
- Puberty – Could a teenage boy really have hidden all of the changes involved in puberty?
- Robert Dudley – Whether or not you believe that Elizabeth and Dudley had an intimate relationship, surely Dudley would have noticed that she was a man. I guess you could argue that this was why they never married or why Elizabeth never got pregnant – they could have been gay lovers! – but I’m sorry, I just don’t believe that.
- The secret would have got out – As much as Stoker argues that Bisley was very cut off and that Kat Ashley and the Parrys kept this secret to their graves, I cannot believe that they could have got away with it.
- Doctors – I know Elizabeth was very fussy about her doctors but a whole panel of doctors once examined her during marriage negotiations to see if she could still bear children and they decided that she could. Wouldn’t they have noticed that she was actually a he!
What do you think?
Is this just a story to satisfy those who can’t believe that a woman could rule England so successfully or live without marriage and children or do you think there’s some truth in it?
I do love conspiracy theories!
Utter BS.
1) Henry Fitzroy was MARRIED to Mary Howard. According to everything I’ve read, Henry insisted that the marriage not be consummated due to Fitzroy’s uncertain health, but if it had been, even against his wishes, why on EARTH would any child have been kept a secret, especially a male child? One would think Henry would have been delighted to have a grandchild, especially after Fitzroy’s death.
2) As many people have pointed out, Thomas Seymour was crawling into bed with her and groping her – an experienced womanizer like him would not have noticed, seriously?
3) For much of her first twenty-five years she was powerless (yet a threat, too, at least during her siblings’ reigns) and the people who were in power would have dearly loved to discredit her and would have paid very well to anyone who could assist them. After the Thomas Seymour affair, Kat Ashley was put in the Tower (where she only had to be SHOWN The instruments of torture to spill the beans about Seymour) and Elizabeth’s household was put into the charge of people appointed by her enemies. Yet nobody noticed and nobody talked?
4) Even at ten years of age, Elizabeth would have been incredibly well educated – people tend to forget that the children of her family were studying Latin and Greek before that age – yet her tutors never noticed that all of a sudden she had lost a great deal of her knowledge?
5) As far as I’ve always heard, she wore heavy makeup after her bout with smallpox, probably to hide pockmarks.
6) As for her not marrying, one only needs to look at her mother’s fate (as well as that of her stepmothers, including Jane Seymour, who died in childbirth), the way Katherine Parr was treated by Thomas Seymour and HER death in childbirth, the way her sister was treated by Philip II, and there were probably numerous other object lessons in her life that we know nothing about.
My opinion is that she was not going to let a man rule her and tell her what to do as Queen
and she was not going to just marry anyone.
I feel she felt the burden of being responsible for her people and country that was in
turmoil was enough for her to handle. She had a lot of stuff left from her sister Mary
to clean up and improve her country.
since Mary did not do a very good job and was not for people of another belief
or faith.
Just like someone said Lincoln was really a woman.
We will all know the truth when our time comes to leave this earth
I feel she felt the burden of being responsible for her people and country that was in
turmoil was enough for her to handle. She had a lot of stuff left from her sister Mary
to clean up and improve her country.
since Mary did not do a very good job and was not for people of another belief
or faith.
Just like someone said Lincoln was really a woman.
I don’t buy that story.I just don’t belive that a man could pretend to be a woman,and queen which had a loads of people on her court.And what about taking a bath?I don’t know how it really worked in 16th century England but in all the films Elizabeth is not taking a bath by herself.I think that.she had sex with Robin cause his chambers were next to hers and they had a door so she could come in his bed and had intercouse.And why wouldn’t she?I belive that her calling herself a virgin queen.
Doesn’t even mean that she was.In her.age a woman called virgin means that she is not married.And she didn’t want marry because she.was.in love with Robert.She locked herself in her chambers when he died and when she died his last letter was found in her desk.And another reason is that her mother was executed by her father!I also belive that she didn’t want to lose her power.
First of all:
If it was true, it happened several hundred years ago. Second, to those of you asking if it wouldn’t be easier to open her tomb and check, bear in mind that if it were ever done and proved to be true, then everyrhing that happened during her reign would be put to the question of legitimacy. Is that something Great Britain needs right now? Would you be willing to sacrifice the progress of a great and beautiful and rich in history country for something that happened hundreds of years ago? And last but not least, if it was true, don’t you think that whoever was in charge of interring her or him would have noticed and taken precautions to make sure that if anyone ever tried to check couldn’t?
To those of you who are skeptics for whatever reason think of this: every legend has a grain of truth to make it plausible. So somewhere along history there must be something to prove at least some part of the story. Second, for those of you who got the idea AFTER reading Steve Berry’s new book, please try to remember that it is a work of FICTION and if you do not believe me, refer to the author’s note at the end. Third, to those of you who think it cannot possibly be true because Stoker said it, beware. Not only are you messing with a great author, but you are letting your personal opinions about his works influence your judgement and in doing that you are kidding yourselves that although a wee bit far stretched, the man IS OR WAS a brilliant storyteller.
I do not believe it to be fact! I believe that Elizabeth was afraid of having a child ~ that she would die. She had seen Jane Seymour die as a result of giving birth to her half brother, Edward VI, and such were the times! I believe that she desparately wanted to marry, especially the love of her life, Sir Thomas Seymour, but he was not royalty, and she had stated that she had to marry royalty or not marry, so she didn’t marry! I believe that she didn’t marry royalty because she gave her heart and perhaps more importantly to her, her trust, to Seymour, and she didn’t trust lightly. There was no way, after seeing what her father had done to his former wives and what intrigues they may have been party to, that she felt she could really trust herself to anyone, other than Seymour. She was “married” to England and to her people! She gave up a life of physical love and intimacy and marriage in order to serve England and fulfill her destiny. She was a woman of duty, faith and courage!
Hello Caroline Fowler
I agree with most of what you say but im not sure about Thomas Seymour. Thomas onnly featured in her life for around a year or two and she was only 13, not exactly an age for true love is it? I’m not sure where you are going with the marrying thing because Thomas was execueted during Edward’s reign for treason and he plotted to marry Elizabeth. This woke Elizabeth up to the danger she was in and while the teenage Elizabeth probably enjoyed Thomas company i dont think Thomas was her true love. I think Robert Dudley was, he was her childhood companion then when she got older it grew into love. She didn’t marry him because England was against the marriage, and England always came first in Elizabeth’s priority list. Yes Elizabeth was married to England and England was married to her. I think the whle ‘ i shan’t marrry anyone but him’ was about Alecon (??) not Thomas.
BTW i have a question, the boy was supposedly replaced Elizabeth is suppose to be the son of Henry Fitzroy and Mary Howard right? But Henry VIII had specifically ordered the couple to not cosummate their marriage because they were only 14/15 then. As far as i know the marriage didnt result in any children because Henry Fitzroy aged only 17. Where did this mystery child come from? Was he suppose ot be the illigitimate child of an illigitimate son of Henry VIII?
I think the Bisley Boy theory is really quite ridiculous. Elizabeth was frequently seen by many people in various states of undress- how could she not be with the very public life that she led? She was constantly surrounded by Catholic spies who were looking for any reason to discredit or even dethrone her. That would have been too big of a secret for three people to keep considering the amount of people who lived in close proximity at court and the rituals involved just with the queen’s day to day activities.
Never mind the fact that she basically exposed her breasts in old age to the French ambassador. There were no breast implants available then: all of her low necklines would have surely revealed that she had a man’s body.
Although it is hard to verify the authenticity of many portraits, it is easy to see in all of the verified paintings of Elizabeth the resemblance to her father and her mother. She also had many of her mother’s personality traits but her father’s temper. She was a very balanced mix of both of her parents in appearance and personality.
I think it is reasonable to speculate that the reason she never married or had children had something to do with her father beheading her mother when she was two years and eight months old. I can only imagine the psychological impact was profound.
I know people love a good conspiracy theory and I found it interesting when I came to read these comments that in some places, the “fact” that Elizabeth was a man is widely accepted. I know there has been talk of running DNA tests on her body. In a way, I think that DNA tests could confirm her paternity (which her sister doubted) and also her gender. However, it is disrespectful and will probably never happen.
I love your websites by the way 🙂
Elizabeth ruled for decades which meant that her court and waiting ladies changed frequently. I think that at that time, there were ladies in waiting who for what ever reason may have had a big mouth! I’m sure with a secret so delicious as her being a boy, someone would have spilled the beans .
Elizabeth was a strong woman who grew up in a man’s world. Having finally attained the power of a Queen, why should she give it up to the rule of some man, especially if she married outside her kingdom. By staying unmarried, she ruled supremely being under no man’s thumb!