The "Bisley Boy"
(an old conspiracy theory)
Elizabeth I never married, went bald early and forbade a post-mortem on her body, so conspiracy theories about her life abound. One of the best is the “Bisley Boy”.
The young Princess Elizabeth was staying at the royal hunting lodge of Over Court in Bisley, Gloucestershire, with her father, Henry VIII. While he was out one day, she got a sudden fever and died. No one wanted to upset her father (he had just had Catherine Howard beheaded for adultery) so Elizabeth was buried in Over Court and a hunt began in Bisley for a replacement. The best they could manage was a boy of the same age who had red hair.
In 1870, the vicar of Bisley, Thomas Keble, claimed he had found a coffin containing a girl in Tudor dress while renovating Over Court. He then secretly reburied the coffin in an unmarked location so the house didn’t become a shrine.
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