With fears of an imminent land invasion of England by the Spanish Armada<\/a> high, the Tudor monarch is purported to have delivered a rousing speech that has gone down in history.<\/p>\n \u201cI know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman,\u201d she professed to them, \u201cbut I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too.\u201d<\/p>\n But were there more to those words than met the eye?<\/p>\n According to the theory, Elizabeth died of a fever in 1542, while approaching her ninth birthday.<\/p>\n Supposedly, the young princess was staying at Overcourt House near the village of Bisley in the Cotswolds. An outbreak of plague in London had forced Elizabeth and her entourage to seek refuge there until it was safe to return.<\/p>\n With her infamously irascible father, King Henry VIII<\/a>, due to pay the princess a visit at Overcourt, Elizabeth\u2019s governess, Lady Katherine Ashley, panicked. And so, a red-headed boy that resembled Elizabeth in face and stature was found in nearby Bisley and swapped for her after no local girls were deemed passable.<\/p>\n Elizabeth was anonymously buried in the grounds of Overcourt while the imposter was prepped for the king\u2019s visit. The so-called \u2018Bisley Boy\u2019 would go on to become one of England\u2019s most celebrated monarchs, Queen Elizabeth I \u2013 or so the story goes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has to be one of the most outlandish conspiracy theories in history,\u201d says historian Tracy Borman, who emphasises that its rationale hinges on some of Elizabeth\u2019s most famous characteristics.<\/p>\n \u201cNumber one, it explains why Elizabeth never married or had children because if she\u2019d really been this imposter, this man all along, then that would explain the \u2018Virgin Queen<\/a>\u2019 thing pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n Member exclusive<\/strong> | Was the moon landing faked? Did Shakespeare actually write his plays? Were the pyramids built by aliens? Expert historians offer their perspectives on history\u2019s biggest conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n Listen to all episodes now<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> The notion first came to light in the mid-19th century when the Reverend Thomas Keble, Bisley\u2019s vicar, discovered a stone coffin while Overcourt House was undergoing renovation. Inside were the remains of a girl dressed in Tudor garments.<\/p>\n What seeded the idea that this was the child Elizabeth\u2019s skeleton is unknown. Moreover, Borman has not been able to find any contemporary evidence that Elizabeth was even staying there at the time.<\/p>\n In any case, the local story caught the attention of Dracula<\/em>\u00a0author, Bram Stoker, who came across it while house hunting in the Cotswolds for his friend, the actor Henry Irving.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 1910, Stoker published his book, Famous Imposters<\/em>, and the \u2018Bisley Boy Legend\u2019 was a big part of it,\u201d explains Borman. \u201cHe puts all sorts of arguments into it. He\u2019s really given it some thought. And so it\u2019s Stoker\u2019s account that really brought this conspiracy theory to prominence\u201d.<\/p>\n When Elizabeth I sat on the English throne, the concept of a female monarch was still highly unusual. Monarchy, and statecraft in general, were a male domain in the minds of most of her subjects.<\/p>\n This, coupled with the fact she never married or had children, seemed to transgress all that was expected of women by her contemporaries.<\/p>\n Her childhood tutors took note of her precocious ability. The scholar Roger Ascham even wrote that \u201cher mind has no womanly weakness [and] her perseverance is equal to that of a man\u201d. In his book, Stoker drew heavily on such sources that cited Elizabeth\u2019s \u2018masculine\u2019 tendencies.<\/p>\n \u201cEven in Elizabeth\u2019s lifetime \u2026 there were these rumours about her sexuality, her gender \u2013 she was seen somehow as an oddity,\u201d says Borman. \u201cThat you simply couldn\u2019t have a woman this brilliant, this gifted. That she had to have something physically that made her like this.\u201d<\/p>\n When the Bisley Boy theory began to gain traction 300 years later, another queen regnant sat on the throne: Queen Victoria<\/a>.<\/p>\n Borman believes that the Victorians, like their Tudor forebears, regarded Elizabeth as peculiar, especially when contrasted with their era\u2019s queen. After all, Victoria, although sovereign, \u201cwas conventional\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019d married early in her reign; she had nine children. She, herself, said that she was a wife first and a queen second,\u201d explains Borman.<\/p>\n Stoker also claimed that Elizabeth\u2019s handwriting changed between 1542 \u2013 when he said she had allegedly died \u2013 and 1543.<\/p>\n \u201cHe claims there\u2019s a real difference in the style, and in her comprehension,\u201d says Borman. \u201cHe points to a letter apparently from one of Elizabeth\u2019s attendants to one of her tutors, saying: \u2018You\u2019re going to have to go a bit more slowly in your lessons\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n But who exactly was the boy that supposedly masqueraded as Elizabeth until 1603 when the queen died? Stoker \u201cclaims it was an unknown son of Mary Howard and Henry Fitzroy<\/a>,\u201d says Borman.<\/p>\n Fitzroy was Henry VIII\u2019s illegitimate son, and it appears that the suggestion of his mysterious progeny later becoming the<\/em> Elizabeth known to history rests on a supposed family resemblance.<\/p>\n Member exclusive |<\/strong> In this five-part series, historian Tracy Borman charts the changing fortunes of the monarchy, from the bloody Norman conquest of 1066 through the upheaval of civil war in the 17th century to the reign of Elizabeth II.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> Despite Stoker\u2019s insistence that such a child existed, Borman points out that Fitzroy died before he and Mary Howard had any children.<\/p>\n She believes that Stoker conjured up such a boy to account for the royal family\u2019s seeming obliviousness to a decoy within their midst.<\/p>\n \u201cHe weaves in Henry Fitzroy because he said that this boy had a resemblance to Henry VIII and therefore to Elizabeth,\u201d says Borman, but notes that even though Henry VIII didn\u2019t see Elizabeth all that frequently, it was \u201ccertainly frequently enough to have realised that she\u2019d been swapped for an imposter\u201d.<\/p>\n There is, in Borman\u2019s mind, no contemporary evidence of Elizabeth having even been in Gloucestershire at the time, let alone of dying in childhood, or of having become the subject of rumours about being a man.<\/p>\n Elizabeth\u2019s status also meant that she was seldom alone. \u201cShe was always attended. She would have been dressed by a whole army of ladies \u2026 you couldn\u2019t keep a secret like this [and] even small secrets were found out in the Tudor court,\u201d says Borman.<\/p>\n Indeed, the historian points out that Elizabeth\u2019s role as a royal woman and the coterie of potential suitors and alliances with foreign states throughout her reign means that \u201cthere are plenty of testimonies that Elizabeth was functioning as a normal woman\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have quite detailed records, for example, of Elizabeth\u2019s menstrual cycle because ambassadors were enquiring into this \u2026 they had to know that she was fertile and she was examined by doctors,\u201d explains Borman. \u201cThis was too big a secret to get away with\u201d.<\/p>\n Elizabeth\u2019s private life remains a magnet for scurrilous gossip and outright misogyny, with tales often entailing passionate dalliances with multiple men and an array of love children. Borman contends that this leads to a reductive understanding of a highly intelligent and shrewd woman operating in a patriarchal society.<\/p>\n In other words, that \u201cshe had to have either a string of male lovers helping and guiding her, or she had to be a man\u201d.<\/p>\n Borman also sees a tragic parallel between Elizabeth and her mother, Anne Boleyn<\/a>. \u201cAnne was judged not by her mind or her achievements, or her abilities, but by her body. And I think that\u2019s what it boils down to with both queen consorts and queen regnants \u2013 if they don\u2019t fulfil the basic female functions, then people almost [can\u2019t] get past that\u201d.<\/p>\n Speculation about Elizabeth\u2019s private life \u201ctakes the spotlight away from what we should be looking at, which are Elizabeth\u2019s achievements [and] also her failures,\u201d says Borman.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a distraction from studying her foreign policy, her court life, her contribution to English culture. All these are the really important and fascinating subjects.\u201d<\/p>\n Explore more conspiracies from history<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Tracy Borman is a royal historian and author of numerous books, including Crown & Sceptre: A New History of the British Monarchy from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth<\/em> II (Hodder & Stoughton, 2021) and The Ring and the Crown: A History of Royal Weddings, 1066-2011<\/em> (Hutchinson, 2011). She was speaking to Rob Attar for this episode of the HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast<\/a>, part of our Conspiracy<\/em> podcast series<\/a><\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n The discovery in the mid-19th century of a mysterious grave sparked the theory that Queen Elizabeth I of England had in fact been a man. During her lifetime, Elizabeth\u2019s contemporaries often noted her so-called \u2018manly\u2019 qualities \u2013 but was this merely the product of a patriarchal society or was the Virgin Queen hiding a profound state secret? In the second season of our Conspiracy podcast series, Rob Attar speaks to Tracy Borman and asks if there\u2019s any basis to the Bisley Boy Legend <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":33588,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"8"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/the-bisley-boy-was-queen-elizabeth-i-replaced-by-a-man-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/the-bisley-boy-was-queen-elizabeth-i-replaced-by-a-man-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/the-bisley-boy-was-queen-elizabeth-i-replaced-by-a-man-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/the-bisley-boy-was-queen-elizabeth-i-replaced-by-a-man-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/the-bisley-boy-was-queen-elizabeth-i-replaced-by-a-man-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/the-bisley-boy-was-queen-elizabeth-i-replaced-by-a-man-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/02\/the-bisley-boy-was-queen-elizabeth-i-replaced-by-a-man-the-real-history-that-debunks-the-conspiracy.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The discovery in the mid-19th century of a mysterious grave sparked the theory that Queen Elizabeth I of England had in fact been a man. During her lifetime, Elizabeth\u2019s contemporaries often noted her so-called \u2018manly\u2019 qualities \u2013 but was this merely the product of a patriarchal society or was the Virgin Queen hiding a profound…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/33587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The conspiracy theory: Elizabeth not a virgin queen, but a man<\/h2>\n
\n
What is the source of the theory that Elizabeth I was a man?<\/h2>\n
Conspiracy: A HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast series<\/h4>\n
![\"Conspiracy](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/01\/Conspiracy-900x250-655d486.png?quality=45&resize=556,556\" "\\"Conspiracy")
<\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/section> The reasons why the theory took hold<\/h2>\n
\n
The monarchy with Tracy Borman<\/h4>\n
Watch all episodes now<\/a><\/h4>\n
![\"MC_TracyBorman](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/10\/MCTracyBorman-new-NL-sq-2169b9f.jpg?quality=45&resize=556,556\" "\\"MC_TracyBorman")
<\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/section> The evidence that debunks the theory<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
More from us
\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"