Leaving busy and thriving Stroud, one climbs the long hill past Lipiat and emerges in the village, where time has suddenly ceased, and we find ourselves in the age and the surroundings which saw the House of York fade into the Tudor dynasty. Such a journey is almost a necessity for a proper understanding of the story of the Bisley Boy, which has by the effluxion of time attained to almost the grace and strength of a legend. It is quite possible that though the place has stood still, the tradition has not, for it is in the nature of intellectual growth to advance. One must not look on the Gloucestershire people as sleepy—sleepiness is no characteristic of that breezy upland; but dreaming, whether its results be true or false, does not depend on sleep. In cases like the present, sleep is not to be looked on as a blood relation of death but rather as a preservative against the ravages of time—like the mysterious slumber of King Arthur and others who are destined for renewal.
It may be taken for granted that in course of time and under the process of purely oral communication, the story told in whispers lost nothing in the way of romance or credibility; that flaws or lacunæ were made good by inquiry; and that recollections of overlooked or forgotten facts were recalled or even supplemented by facile invention. But it may also be taken for granted that no statement devoid of a solid foundation could become permanently accepted. There were too many critics around, with memories unimpaired by overwork, to allow incorrect statements to pass unchallenged. There is always this in tradition, that the collective mind which rules in small communities is a child’s mind, which must ever hold grimly on to fact. And that behind the child’s mind is the child’s nature which most delights in the recountal of what it knows, and is jealous of any addition to the story which is a part of its being.
Major Martin Hume writes in his Courtships of Queen Elizabeth:
“Elizabeth was only three when her mother’s fall removed her from the line of the succession.... In 1542, however, the death of James V of Scotland and the simultaneous birth of his daughter Mary seemed to bring nearer Henry’s idea of a union between the two crowns. He proposed to marry the baby Queen of Scots to his infant son and at the same time he offered the hand of Elizabeth (then nine) to a son of Arran—head of House of Hamilton, next heir to the Scottish crown.... Mary and Elizabeth were restored to their places in the line of succession.... In January 1547 Henry VIII died, leaving the succession to his two daughters in tail after Edward VI and his heirs. Queen Catherine (Parr) immediately married Sir Thomas Seymour, brother of Protector Somerset and uncle of the little king (Edward VI). To them was confided Princess Elizabeth then a girl of 14.”
Elizabeth was three in 1536. The story of the Bisley Boy dates probably to 1543–4. So that if the story have any foundation at all in fact, signs of a complete change of identity in the person of Princess Elizabeth must be looked for in the period of some seven or eight years which intervened.
E. THE DIFFICULTY OF PROOF
In such a case as that before us the difficulty of proof is almost insuperable. But fortunately we are dealing with a point not of law but of history. Proof is not in the first instance required, but only surmise, to be followed by an argument of probability. Such records as still exist are all the proofs that can be adduced; and all we can do is to search for such records as still exist, without which we lack the enlightenment that waits on discovery. In the meanwhile we can deduce a just conclusion from such materials as we do possess. Failing certitude, which is under the circumstances almost impossible, we only arrive at probability; and with that until discovery of more reliable material we must be content.
Let us therefore sum up: first the difficulties of the task before us; then the enlightenments. “Facts,” says one of the characters of Charles Dickens, “bein’ stubborn and not easy drove,” are at least, so far as they go, available. We are free to come to conclusions and to make critical comments. Our risk is that if we err—on whichever side does not matter—we reverse our position and become ourselves the objects of attack.
Our main difficulties are two. First, that all from whom knowledge might have been obtained are dead and their lips are closed; second, that records are incomplete. This latter is the result of one of two causes—natural decay or purposed obliteration. The tradition of the Bisley Boy has several addenda due to time and thought. One of these is that some of those concerned in the story disappeared from the scene.
The story runs that on Elizabeth’s accession or under circumstances antecedent to it all who were in the secret and still remained were “got rid of.” The phrase is a convenient one and not unknown in history. Fortunately those who must have been in such a secret—if there was one—were but few. If such a thing occurred in reality, four persons were necessarily involved in addition to Elizabeth herself: (1) Mrs. Ashley, (2) Thomas Parry, (3) the parent of the living child who replaced the dead one; the fourth, being an unknown quantity, represents an idea rather than a person—a nucleated identity typical of family life with attendant difficulties of concealment. Of these four—three real persons and an idea—three are accounted for, so far as the “got rid of” theory is concerned. Elizabeth never told; Thomas Parry and Mrs. Ashley remained silent, in the full confidence of the (supposed) Princess who later was Queen. With regard to the last, the nucleated personality which includes the unknown parent possibly but not of certainty, contemporary record is silent; and we can only regard him or her as a mysterious entity available for conjecture in such cases of difficulty as may present themselves.