IN DAYS OF OLD

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 127, 25 November 1929, Page 13

IN DAYS OF OLD

LEGEND OF QUEEIf.ELIZABETH

Villagers at Bisley, Lypiatt (England), are reviving the story that Queen Klizabeth was a man, says a London paper. They say that-the young Princess Elizabeth died from pneumonia as a child at Overeourt Manor, an historic old house which still stands next tv the village church. The story goes that a boy, Edward Neville,: was persuaded to masquerade as the princess and eventually became the "Queen." There are four main characters in this remarkable tale which the villagers tell. Whenthe young princess was -between ten and cloven years of ago, it is said, her father sent a messenger from Oxford to say that he proposed to visit Overcourt as soon as the business which detained him at Oxford had been completed. During the preparations for the Royal visit the young princess is supposed to have caught a chill, and-died from pneumonia on the afternoon of th- day preceding tho visit of Henry VIII. Long consultations between Mistresses Ashley and Thomas Parry, in whoso charge the princess had been placed at the manor, Edward Neville, to masquerade "for a nest" as the princess. They told him that his little playmate was ill.' The fact that the girl was dead-had been concealed from all the household, and she was buried secretly at midnight by Mistresses Ashley and Parry in the grounds of Overcourt Manor. The boy welcomed the opportunity to play what he regarded as a prank on'the Royal visitor. The next day Edward played his part admirably, quite uiiper^ turbed by the transformation from boy -■to--girl. Henry.ate and drank his fill and with a few kindly casual remarks to the "princess" took his departure for London. But so great a deception could not end as suddenly as it had been begun. The dead princess could not be resurrected, and so Edward Neville was persuaded to continue the masqueraue —which he did, if the legend is to be believed, until the end of the life of "Good Queen Bess."

To those who are- inclined to doubt the tale, it is pointed out that if Queen Elizabeth was a man it provides a perfect answer to the question as.to why she" never married. The advances of tho Duke of AleVicon and other suitors wore tinned down for a very good reason. Leicester and all the other debonair aspirants to '"her" hand went away discouraged, and is not the stone coffin still there in the grounds of Overcourt Manor?