Queen Elizabeth I was known to be an all-powerful monarch, a warrior who defeated the Spanish Armada, a leader loved by her subjects and a muse for Shakespeare.
The late Queen of England and Ireland – who ruled from 1558 until her death in 1603 – was so legendary that her reign was officially crowned the Elizabethan era, its very own epoch of the famed Tudor period.
But one rumour has threatened to crack her tenable legacy, leading doubters to ask whether the Virgin Queen was the fiercely independent leader that history claims her to be.
Four centuries after the monarch’s death, talks of bones found in a mysterious grave in the 1900s continue to spark the theory that Elizabeth I could in fact have been a man, according to History Extra.
She herself, after learning that the Spanish Armada had been defeated, famously said: ‘I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King.’
The eerie oration has played its part in a fiery blaze of alleged deception and juxtaposes evidence of perhaps the greatest conspiracy in English history.
But how could one of Britain’s most treasured monarchs apparently have been entangled in such a rumoured scandal and how on earth did it all start?
The last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudor, Elizabeth I had an eventful reign.
Queen Elizabeth I (pictured in a portrait) was known to be an all-powerful monarch, a warrior who defeated the Spanish Armada, a leader loved by her subjects and a muse for Shakespeare
She was born on September 7, 1533 at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, England to King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn.
Elizabeth’s mother was beheaded with a single stroke following accusations of treason, adultery, and incest when the future queen was barely three years old.
But before the tragedy, Elizabeth’s life was beset by disappointment, as expressed by her parents who prepared to welcome a baby boy to the prestigious royal clan.
Henry had been so sure that his wife Anne Boleyn, for whom he’d risked his throne, would have the son he had always wanted that he’d instructed his secretaries to prepare the announcements of the boy’s birth long before Anne went into labour.
When Elizabeth was ten, she suffered from a sickness so deadly that it threatened to kill her.
The conspiracy theory states that panic was in the air because her father, the King, was travelling from London to visit his daughter, as she had been sent away to avoid being stung by the plague.
At the time, the 52-year-old monarch was said to be grossly overweight and riddled with festering sores.
The princess had fallen sick with a fever and, after weeks of bleeding, leeches and vomiting, her body was too weak to keep fighting.
Queen Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII (painted in 1540) and Anne Boleyn
The late Queen of England and Ireland – who ruled from 1558 until her death in 1603 – was so legendary that her reign was officially crowned the Elizabethan era, its very own epoch of the famed Tudor period
The night before the King’s arrival, his favourite daughter, the only child of his marriage to Anne Boleyn, was dangerously ill.
In the morning, Elizabeth lay dead – according to American author and historian Steve Berry, who chronicled his findings in 2013’s The King’s Deception.
The New York Times best seller claimed to have discovered a wild treacherous plot by Elizabeth’s handlers to fool her parents, the royal household and ultimately the world.
Though Elizabeth was not the prince her father had hoped for – even after repeated attempts with Anne – by now the ten-year-old was Tudor England’s most valuable child.
She could surely be married to a French or Spanish prince to seal an international alliance – and her own children would secure the Tudor dynasty Henry so desperately craved.
In a twist of fate, the King’s greatest hopes and legacy rested on Elizabeth and anything that thwarted the plan would not be taken lightly.
Elizabeth’s governess, Lady Kat Ashley, and her guardian, Thomas Parry, had good reason to fear telling the King the alleged awful news. It would cost them their lives. Their sole duty had been to keep the princess safe and failure was seen as treason.
Their only chance of concealing the news, and perhaps buying themselves a few days to flee the country, was to trick the King, according to the author.
Elizabeth was born on September 7, 1533 at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, England to King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn (both pictured)
Kat Ashley’s first thought was apparently to find a village girl and dress her up in the princess’s robe, with a mantle, to fool the monarch.
But there was a boy, from a local family called Neville. He was awkward and a year or so younger than Elizabeth. He had been the princess’s companion and fellow pupil for the past few weeks.
And with no time to look further afield for a stand-in, Parry and Lady Ashley allegedly took the desperate measure of forcing the boy to don his dead friend’s clothes.
Remarkably, the deception worked, according to the theory. Henry saw his daughter rarely, and was used to hearing her say nothing. The last time she had been presented in court, meeting the new Queen Catherine Parr, she had been trembling with terror.
Parry and Lady Ashley realised that if they ever admitted what they had done, the King’s fury would be boundless. They might get out of the country to safety, but their families would surely be killed.
On the other hand, few people had known the princess well enough to be certain of recognising her, especially after an interval of many months. This boy had apparently already fooled the King, the most important deception.
According to the theory, as the courtiers buried the real Elizabeth Tudor in a stone coffin in the manor grounds, they decided their best hope of protecting themselves and their families was to teach this Bisley boy how to be a princess.
Dr Tracy Borman – who penned the book titled Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History – told History Extra: ‘It has to be one of the most outlandish conspiracy theories in history.’
Queen Elizabeth I never married and lived and died a virgin, which has fed the conspiracy theory further
‘It explains why Elizabeth never married or had children because if she’d really been this imposter, this man all along, then that would explain the ‘Virgin Queen’ thing pretty well.’
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The picture that shows Queen Elizabeth I as a plain Jane
According to the outlet, Bram Stoker, a famous author known to dabble in fiction, most famously Dracula, supported this theory.
The bizarre story emerged in the mid-19th century when Reverend Thomas Keble, a Bisley vicar, discovered a stone coffin during a renovation. It was the fearsome remains of a girl dressed in a Tudor garment.
Bram Stoker heard the story while house hunting in the Cotswolds for actor and friend Henry Irving and was instantly enthralled by it.
He published a book in 1910 called ‘Famous Imposters,’ which contained the ‘Bisley Boy Legend’.
Borman added: ‘He puts all sorts of arguments into it. He’s really given it some thought. And so it’s Stoker’s account that really brought this conspiracy theory to prominence’.
The Irish novelist greatly believed someone else was masquerading as the nation’s princess and claimed the boy was an unknown son of Mary Howard and Henry Fitzroy, Henry’s illegitimate son, hence the resemblance.
To back up his theory, he pointed to Elizabeth’s handwriting seen in a letter to one of her tutors, which he claimed changed between 1542 and 1543, the timeframe in which she allegedly died.
American author Steve Berry believes Elizabeth could have been telling the literal truth — that she had the heart of a man, because her body was male.
Henry had been so sure that his wife Anne Boleyn, for whom he’d risked his throne, would have the son he had always wanted that he’d instructed his secretaries to prepare the announcements of the boy’s birth long before Anne went into labour
He spent 18 months researching the conspiracy for his novel The King’s Deception, a Dan Brown-style thriller set in 21st-century London.
Berry toured Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire three years ago and told the Daily Mail in 2013: ‘I always ask if there are any secrets or mysteries, and the guide told me: ‘There’s nothing at Ely but I’ve heard an incredible rumour in the Cotswolds’.’
Sceptical at first, Berry uncovered tantalising hints and references in books and ancient manuscripts.
When the ‘princess’ reached her teens, for instance, she was assigned a tutor named Roger Ascham, who was puzzled by her behaviour.
‘The constitution of her mind,’ he wrote, ‘is exempt from female weakness, and she is embued with a masculine power of application … In the whole manner of her life she rather resembles Hippolyte than Phaedra.’
Bram Stoker believed it was the sheer scale of the deception that made it possible. When Elizabeth returned to London from Bisley, more than a year after she first left the court, it would have been treason for any sceptics to suggest ‘she’ was not the King’s daughter.
‘It is conceivable,’ Stoker remarked drily, ‘that in the case of a few individuals, there might have been stray fragmentary clouds of suspicion.
‘After a time, even suspicion became an impossibility. Here was a young woman growing into womanhood whom all around her had known all her life — or, what was equivalent, believed they had.’
American author Steve Berry believes Elizabeth could have been telling the literal truth — that she had the heart of a man, because her body was male
Elizabeth I – who lived and died a virgin – was the first queen of England to order a pair of high-heeled shoes and even inspired Shakespeare.
And she publicly sometimes claimed that people needed to feel their monarch was wedded to the whole country, rather than one man.
On other occasions, she hinted that the debacle of her father’s six wives, and her mother’s death at the block, had put her off marriage for life.
Elizabeth wore thick make-up and heavy wigs at all times: no one was permitted to see her without them.
On her deathbed, she commanded that the crown must go to her cousin’s son, James VI of Scotland, whose mother was Mary Queen of Scots. But the command itself was cryptically worded: ‘I will have no rascal to succeed me, and who should succeed me but a King?’
This begs the question of whether the person on the throne had indeed been a ‘rascal’ playing the part of queen?
Berry added that after Elizabeth died in 1603, there was no autopsy, adding to the list of suspicions from historians over the years.
Instead of a magnificent state funeral for the monarch, the queen’s bones were interred with those of her sister in Westminster Abbey.
Queen Elizabeth I knights explorer Sir Francis Drake on board his ship, the Golden Hind in 1580
Such high-tech methods would not even be necessary to establish whether the bones in the Abbey tomb were all female, or whether a male skeleton was buried there.
‘Elizabeth’s grave has never been breached,’ Berry told the newspaper at the time. ‘Now it’s time to open it up and see what’s in there.’
Borman added that there were rumours in Elizabeth’s lifetime about her sexuality and gender because she was seen as an anomaly. The public struggled to understand how a woman could be ‘this brilliant, this gifted’.
But by the time the Bisley Boy theory began to gain traction 300 years after Elizabeth I’s death, Queen Victoria sat on the throne, which further highlighted the differences between the two.
Victoria had married early into her reign and had nine children, contrasted with unmarried Elizabeth who lived and died a virgin.
However, some have criticised the conspiracy theory that Elizabeth I had died and was replaced by a man.
Despite Stoker insisting that the child existed, Borman said that Fitzroy died before he and Mary Howard had any children.
She also believes that although Henry did not see Elizabeth often, the King would’ve been able to tell that she had been swapped for an imposter.
Borman added that because of the duties that came with being queen, Elizabeth was rarely alone and many ladies would have helped her dress in her large frocks, therefore the secret would’ve been uncovered quickly.
The historian added: ‘We have quite detailed records, for example, of Elizabeth’s menstrual cycle because ambassadors were enquiring into this… they had to know that she was fertile and she was examined by doctors.’
There have also been multiple tales that Elizabeth engaged in passionate sexual relationships with men and had a number of love children, which would disprove the theory.