Was Elizabeth Tudor, Queen Elizabeth 1st, a man ?

Anne Boleyn was Henry 8th's second wife. He divorced his first wife, Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon, a Catholic, because she had only given him a daughter. He wanted a son. Anne was pregnant at the time of their marriage. She had several miscarriages and still births before giving birth to another daughter. Henry wasn't going to divorce another wife so Anne was falsely charged with adultery. This was paramount to treason and Anne was executed by beheading. Henry married his third wife, Jane Seymour, shortly after the execution. 

Until the birth of Jane's son, Edward, Elizabeth was Henry 8th's heir as he had had his marriage to Catherine annulled thereby disbarring their daughter Mary from the line of succession. Once a son was born, Henry lost interest in Elizabeth and declared her to be illegitimate too. 

Elizabeth spent much time with her aunt, Henry's former mistress Mary Boleyn and her family and also with Kat Ashley who remained her close companion to her death. 

Imagine the scene, Lady Elizabeth had been sent away from London to avoid the plague. But she caught plague anyway and was very ill. Unexpectedly, King Henry VIII, sent news of an unannounced visit to a daughter he had not seen for some time...

The legend goes that the night before the king came, Elizabeth died and in frantic panic Lady Kat Ashley and Elizabeth's guardian Thomas Parry tried to find another girl to substitute as Elizabeth. Unfortunately, no girls of Elizabeth's height and red haired colouring lived in the village, only a boy. So, the boy was substituted and Henry who was not close to his daughter and had not seen her for some time, didn't notice the difference. He stayed a short while and left. 

The ploy and deceit had to be maintained though. Who would have thought that Elizabeth would become queen ? 

Elizabeth had many suitors but was believed to have fallen in love with her childhood friend Robert Dudley. He was married but when his wife died, it was suspected that they would marry but the marriage would have been unpopular in England. 

Also Elizabeth had many European kings and prices anxious to marry her and become King of England. These included, Philip, King of Spain, King Eric of Sweden, An Austrian archduke and two French princes. Throughout it all, Elizabeth remained unmarried even though she was the last Tudor monarch and had no heir. 

Rev Thomas Keble, a Victorian vicar of Bisley, some three hundred years later stated that he was having some work done in his vicarage garden and found a stone coffin with the skeleton of a young girl dressed in lavish, jewel encrusted clothes. This he believed was Lady Elizabeth's skeleton. He buried the body in a secret location. 

What arguments are there for Elizabeth being a man ?

• ·         Elizabeth went bald quite early in life and wore wigs. 

  ·         She always wore large ruffs around her neck. Was this to hide her Adam's apple? 

  ·         She stubbornly refused to get married even to secure the succession. 

  ·         Elizabeth would not allow any doctors to see her naked. 

  ·         She left instructions that must be no autopsy after her death.

  ·         She asked for her body to be put with that of her sister Mary in her tomb so their bones would be mingled. Why was this? The sisters disliked each other- for obvious reasons.

•            Rev Keble's discovery.  

•            Elizabeth wore heavy make up to hide pock marks and also facial hair.

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• Elizabeth was reputed to have had lovers. 
• She is reputed to have an illegitimate child.
• She staunchly maintained that she was " married to England " and did not want a man to take away her monarchy. Her choice of a foreign husband might provoke unrest. 
• Her laundry maids maintained that she did menstruate. 

There can be no conclusion. Other than opening the coffin of Mary and Elizabeth and checking the bones, we will never know. Is this an elaborate story to explain why she never married? Is it a tale to promote tourism to the village?  Or is it a cleverly concealed cover up for hundreds of years?