The bones of Elizabeth I lie together with her sister, Bloody Mary, in a single tomb at Westminster Abbey.
A new book has reinflated an old suspicion, one even written about by Bram Stoker of Dracula fame - that Elizabeth I died as a kid from the plague and her body substituted with a village boy in order to fool Henry who was coming to visit his sick daughter just before dying himself.
It's a tawdry and tangled tale worthy of Shakespeare himself. The book contends the court staff caring for young Elizabeth feared they would all get the axe if Henry found his daughter dead, so they brought in a stand-in who eventually became the drag-queen Britons still believe was the virgin monarch responsible for the 'Elizabethan Era.'.
But is it true? Only a DNA sample from both Henry and the two daughters alleged to share the same tomb can settle it. Will the Brits do the test? Doubt it. One thing is safe, if Elizabeth was an imposter guy it had no effect on the Tudor line of succession since James I, second cousin to the real Elizabeth followed him/her.
So there's that too.
