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.
The remaining point to touch on is the unfulfilled marriage of the Duke of Richmond. This certainly needs some explanation, or else the mystery remains dark as ever.
Here we have two young persons of more than fair presence, and graced with all the endearing qualities that the mind as well as the eye can grasp. We have the assurance of Chronicles regarding Henry Fitzroy; and from Holbein’s picture we can judge for ourselves of the lady’s merits. They are both well-to-do. The lady, one of title, daughter of one of the most prominent Dukes in England, the man then holding many of the most important posts in the State, and with every expectation of wearing in due course the purple of royalty. They both come of families of which other members have been notorious for amatory episodes; voluptuousness is in their blood. They have been old friends--and yet when they marry they at once separate, she going to her own folk and he to Windsor. Seemingly they do not meet again in the two and a half years that elapse before his death. The story about his youth and health preventing cohabitation is all moonshine. The affair points to the likelihood of some ante-matrimonial liaison of which, as yet, we know nothing. Applying the experiences of ordinary life in such cases, we can easily believe that Mary Howard, egged on by her unscrupulous and ambitiously-intriguing brother, was for ulterior purposes either forced or helped into an intrigue with the young Duke. There is no doubt that Surrey was unscrupulous enough for it. A similar design on his part--only infinitely more base--cost him his head. He had tried to induce his sister, Duchess of Richmond, to become mistress of Henry VIII--her own father-in-law!--so that she might have power over him; and it does not seem that there was any wonderful indignation on the part of the lady at the shameful proposal.