Was Queen Elizabeth I a Man?

Elizabeth as a girl

If you ever wondered why Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) never married, a thriller by an American writer might contain the answer: "Good Queen Bess" was a man in drag.

As the last of the Tudor line, her most urgent duty was to provide an heir. Instead she declared herself the Virgin Queen, vowed never to take a husband, and stuck to her oath, even though it provoked a war with Spain. She defiantly proclaimed: "I have the heart of a man, not a woman, and I am not afraid of anything."¹

Because she died "without issue", the House of Stuart came to power and the English throne was handed over to a Scottish king.

Steve Berry apparently thinks Elizabeth was telling the actual truth: she had the heart of a man because she was one. He spent a year and a half researching this possibility for his novel The King’s Deception in 21st-century London.

somebody else in drag?

As a girl, Elizabeth may have had a nice feminine figure, but a portrait made shortly after she became queen disguises her broad shoulders and neck with heavy furs. She wears a wig, which she would from then on, and her eyebrows are plucked. Her jaw is heavy and square, her chest flat. The neck ruff might cover an Adam's apple. She always used thick drag queen-like makeup. (Another portrait seems to suggest she needed a shave.)

Bram Stoker and "The Bisley Boy"

Bram Stoker, famous author of Dracula, stumbled on an interesting legend regarding Queen Elizabeth and his digging resulted in a chapter of his book “Famous Imposters” (1910) being devoted to “The Bisley Boy”.

(needing a shave)

Stoker wasn’t just an author, he was also the personal assistant of the actor Henry Irving who had been looking for a house in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England.

It was in the village of Bisley that Irving came across the legend of “The Bisley Boy” and he passed the story on to Stoker who was keen to investigate. Both Stoker and Irving were intrigued by the fact that the village’s May Day celebrations involved a boy May Queen dressed in Elizabethan costume. Such traditions are generally based on an historical event or legend and Stoker wanted to find out more about this one.²

Stoker, hearing stories that a coffin had been discovered by a clergyman at Bisley during the early 1800s with the skeleton of a girl dressed in Tudor finery, first captured the legend in book form.³ For the man who popularized the legend of Dracula, it was the most plausible explanation for why Elizabeth never married.¹

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1. "Is this proof the Virgin Queen was an imposter in drag? Shocking new theory about Elizabeth I unearthed in historic manuscripts" by Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail; June 7, 2013.
2. "The Bisley Boy" by Claire, The Elizabeth Files: The REAL TRUTH about Queen Elizabeth I; November 4, 2009.
3. In 2013 Sarah Skye updated and published a Kindle version entitled Was Queen Elizabeth a Man? - The Bisley Boy Story.