She doesn't look a day over 400.
She's one of my favorite historical characters! Thanks for the post.
for your amusement and edification...
http://www.bisley-glos.net/history.htm#The%20Bisley%20Boy
Bisley’s most famous legend is that of The Bisley Boy which, if it is to be believed, means that Queen Elizabeth I was not as she - or he - seemed.
The story goes that in 1542, Henry VIII was on his way to a hunt at Berkeley, and left his 9 year-old daughter, Elizabeth, at Overcourt in Bisley (now a home, but once a royal hunting lodge), where she would be safe from the plague which was prevalent in those days.
Unfortunately for Elizabeth and her temporary guardians, the princess - according to the legend - died, but the courtiers, ever fearful of their royal master, devised a cunning plan.
A substitute for the princess had to be found before the king returned, but alas, no girl could be found who closely enough resembled the recently deceased Elizabeth. So they opted for Plan B - and found a red-headed boy in the village instead.
If the legend is to be believed, Master/Mistress Elizabeth must have been very convincing, as history tells us that Elizabeth went on to be a great queen, reigning for 45 years.
So what evidence is there to support the legend?
The starting place is with the Rev. Thomas Keble, the then vicar of Bisley, a man not known for his humour, who told his family that during renovations at Overcourt, he had found an old stone coffin containing the skeleton of a girl of about nine, dressed in Tudor clothing.
History also tells us that:
* Queen Elizabeth never married which, in an age when royal marriages were created for alliances, was very unusual
* She was completely bald, covering her shiny pate with wigs
*She had left explicit instructions that no post-mortem should be carried out on her body after her death
The Rev. Keble apparently had the remains reburied nearby, but no-one knows where, and no grave has ever been found.
So Princess Elizabeth's body may be lying at rest in Bisley, and Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, may indeed have had 'the heart of a man'.
Anyone wishing for a far more in-depth background to the legend should read 'Famous Imposters' by Bram Stoker, published by Sidgwick & Jackson (available at Stroud Library).
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"Elizabeth never married (she was known as "the Virgin Queen") and her cousin, James I, ascended the English throne after her death."
James was the son of Mary Queen of Scots. He was also a homosexual who hated tobacco and sponsored the King James Bible and the first of the Stuarts in England. The Stuarts were the last functional Monarchical line in England.
One of the nicest things about Elizabeth is she didn't reproduce, which brought an end to the Tudors - one of the most tyrannical and obnoxious of royal lines - from its founder Henry VII - a liar and coward, to his son Henry VIII an egomaniacal polygamist and medieval Bluebeard, to Bloody Mary - a brutal religious fanatic to Elizabeth, probably the best of the bunch.