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. We must perforce, therefore, fall back on pure unadulterated probability, based on such rags of fact as can be produced at our inquest. Our comfort--content being an impossibility--must lie in the generally-accepted aphorism; “Truth will prevail.” In real life it is not always so; but it is a comforting belief and may remain _faut de mieux_.