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Here I must remind such readers as honour my work with their attention that I am venturing merely to tell a tradition sanctioned by long time, and that I only give as comments historical facts which may be tested by any student. I have invented and shall invent nothing; and only claim the same right which I have in common with every one else—that of forming my own opinion.
Here it is that we may consider certain additions to the original Bisley tradition. How these are connected with the main story is impossible to say after the lapse of centuries; but in all probability there is a basis of ancient belief in all that has been added. The following items cover the additional ground.
When the governess wished to hide the secret hurriedly, she hid the body, intending it to be only temporarily, in the stone coffin which lay in the garden at Overcourt outside the Princess’s window.
Some tens of years ago the bones of a young girl lying amidst rags of fine clothing were found in the stone coffin.
The finder was a churchman—a man of the highest character and a member of a celebrated ecclesiastical family.
The said finder firmly believed in the story of the Bisley Boy.
Before Elizabeth came to the throne all those who knew the secret of the substitution were in some way got rid of or their silence assured.
The name of the substituted youth was Neville; or such was the name of the family with whom he was living at the time.
There are several persons in the neighbourhood of Bisley who accept the general truth of the story even if some of the minor details appear at first glance to be inharmonious. These persons are not of the ordinary class of gossipers, but men and women of light and leading who have fixed places in the great world and in the social life of their own neighbourhood. With some of them the truth of the story is an old belief which makes a tie with any new investigator.