THE MYSTERY OF AMY ROBSART’S DEATH
The mystery attending the death of Amy Robsart, the wife of Robert
Dudley, who eventually became Earl of Leicester, is one which, owing to
the lack of detailed documentary evidence, is never likely to be
entirely solved. So much has been written concerning the troubled life
of this unfortunate lady and its sad ending, that a brief outline of her
story, which has been gathered from the most reliable sources, is all
that is necessary here.
She was born about the year 1532 and was the daughter of Sir John
Robsart of Sidestern in Norfolk, whose wife was the widow of one Roger
Appleyard.
Where she first met Robert Dudley is not known, but they were married at
Sheen (Richmond) on June 4, 1550. The wedding is recorded by Edward VI
(who was present at the ceremony) in his journal. Dudley was master of
the King’s buckhounds and was knighted by him. At the time of her
marriage Amy Robsart was probably eighteen, while Dudley is said to have
been about the same age.
Of the first ten years of their married life little is known, but on
Elizabeth’s accession Sir Robert Dudley, who was on terms of close
friendship with the young queen, suddenly became a personage of
importance and received his title from her. As the special favourite of
his sovereign his position at Court speedily became one of envy, to
which was added the jealousy of his rivals. It was freely rumoured that
but for the fact that he was already married, he stood a good chance of
becoming the royal consort.
The close intimacy of Queen Elizabeth and Dudley soon became a public
scandal, and during this time nothing is heard of his wife, until the
spring of 1560, when it was announced that she had gone to reside at
Cumnor Place, a house situated a few miles from Abingdon. Neglected and
slighted by her husband, whom she saw had been weaned from her, the
unhappy woman no doubt fell in readily with Dudley’s suggestion that she
should take up her residence in this lonely country house.
Cumnor Place was a stone-built residence of fair size, and had formerly
belonged to Doctor George Owen, who was physician to Henry VIII. On his
death he bequeathed the estate to his son William, who had let it to one
Anthony Foster, a country squire who appears to have been well known to
Dudley.
At the time when Lady Amy Dudley took up her residence at Cumnor, there
were living in the house besides Foster and his wife, a Mrs. Odingselle,
his sister-in-law, and Mrs. Owen, who, according to Adlard, was the
widow of Dr. George Owen, the physician, and original owner of the
property.
It is a noteworthy fact that very shortly after Lady Amy’s arrival
rumours became current that her life was in danger. It was also reported
that she was ill, a story which was probably spread abroad with an
object.
De Quadra, the Spanish Ambassador to the Court at the time, in an
extraordinary letter written from Windsor to King Philip on September
11, 1560, bears evidence to these rumours in the following words: “He
[Cecil] ended by saying that Robert [Dudley] was thinking of killing his
wife, who was publicly announced to be ill, although she was quite well,
and would take every care they did not poison her. The next day the
Queen told me as she returned from hunting that Lord Robert’s wife was
dead, or nearly so, and begged me to say nothing about it.”
“Since writing the above,” he continues, “I hear the Queen has published
the death of Robert’s wife and said in Italian, ‘She broke her neck.’”
One must assume from this letter, which was written only three days
after Lady Amy’s death, that she had been aware that an attempt had been
made to poison her.
To return to the story. On Sunday, September 8, a fair was being held at
Abingdon, and according to the statement of Dudley’s own kinsman Thomas
Blount, Lady Amy insisted on her servants, who were much attached to
her, going to the fair. Of the tragic events that followed, very little
is known. Amy dined alone that day with Mrs. Owen; Foster, his wife and
sister-in-law being, it is presumed, in the house. When the servants
returned to Cumnor late that night, they found their mistress lying dead
at the foot of a short staircase that led from her bedchamber to the
ground floor. It was announced the next day that the unfortunate lady
had fallen down the stairs and broken her neck.
The news was at once sent to Dudley at Windsor, who made no attempt to
go to Cumnor himself, but wrote to his relative Thomas Blount,
requesting him to go and investigate the matter and instructing him to
see that the coroner made a searching inquiry as to the cause of his
wife’s death.
He also notified Amy’s half-brother, John Appleyard, and asked him to
proceed to Cumnor to assist Blount.
All that is known of the inquiry that followed is told in two letters
written by Blount to Dudley.
In one of these he suggests that Lady Amy had become insane, “for,” he
says, “the tales I do heare of her make me to think she had a strange
minde.” He further informs Dudley that he had met several of the jury
who had been chosen for the inquest, and that “they be verie secrete and
yet do I heare a whysperinge that they can find no presumpcions of
evill.”
In a letter written by Dudley to Blount, he mentions having
“received a letter from one Smythe, one that seamethe to be foreman of
the jurye. I perseve by his letter that he and the rest hath and do
travill verie diligentlie and circumspectlie for the tryall of that
matter whiche they have charge of; and for anything I hear, that by any
serche or examinacione they can make in the world hitherto, it doth
plainlie appeare he saith, a verie mysfortune, which for my own parte,
cousin Blount, dothe much satisfie and quiet me.”
From this it would appear that the foreman of the jury was in
communication with Dudley and even foreshadowed their verdict, which
appears to have been that Lady Amy Dudley had met her death by accident.
She was buried with considerable ceremony at the University Church of
St. Mary at Oxford on September 22, 1560.
The inquest probably lasted several days, but no report of the
proceedings or of the actual verdict of the jury is to be found. There
must have been such a report, as it is recorded that a copy was made for
and received by John Appleyard, Amy Dudley’s half-brother, who on June
4, 1567, wrote to the Council that he had read, and on June 3 had
returned the document. In which verdict he not only finds such proofs
testified under the oath of fifteen persons how his late sister “_by
misfortune_ happened of death.”
Reports that Dudley was responsible for his wife’s death were soon
spread abroad and discussed throughout the country, and even in France
public feeling was strong against him.
At a meeting of the Privy Council in April, 1566, called to consider the
propriety of giving sanction to the marriage between the Queen and
Dudley (then Earl of Leicester) it was urged against the proposal that
Leicester was “infamed by the deth of his wife.”
Anthony Wood, who visited Cumnor a century after the tragedy, records
the local tradition that, “those who plotted against Amy Dudley’s life
took advantage to convey her to another chamber where her bed’s head
should stand against a door which she did not know of. In the middle of
the night came a man with a spitt in his hand, open the privy door and
run ye spitt into her head and tumbled her downstairs.”
This story is most unlikely, as evidence of foul play would have been at
once noticed, and the coroner at the inquest apparently failed to
discover any trace of a blow or external injury.
John Aubrey, who next described the event after Wood, states, “she was
either stiffled or strangled before being thrown downstairs,” which is a
more probable theory.
Camden’s story of the event is as follows:—
“She was prevailed upon to visit Cumnor-house, the seat of Antony
Foster, one of Leicester’s creatures. There the unfortunate lady became
ill,—the consequence of the infernal practices upon her,—which however
produced their effect too slowly to answer the desired end. She was
importuned by Foster and his tool Varney, to take medicine for her
disorder. They, seeing her sad and heavy, as one that well knew by her
other handling, that her death was not far off, began to persuade her,
that her present disease was melancholy, and other humours, and would
needs counsel her to take some potion. This she absolutely refusing to
do (as suspecting the worst), they sent a messenger for Dr. Bayly,
professor of Physic, in Oxford University, and entreated him to persuade
her to take some little potion, by his direction. They would fetch the
same at Oxford, _meaning to have added something of their own for her
comfort_, as the doctor, upon just cause and consideration did suspect,
seeing their great importunity, and the small need the lady had of
physic, and therefore he peremptorily denied their request.”
Before considering the probable cause of Lady Amy Dudley’s tragic death
according to the present available evidence, several curious and
significant events that followed must be mentioned. Antony Foster, who
held Cumnor Place on lease at the time, about twelve months after the
tragedy, became the proprietor of the estate, and on his death
bequeathed it to Dudley, then Earl of Leicester. In 1567 Appleyard, Amy
Dudley’s half-brother, who was sent by Dudley with Blount to be present
at the inquest, confessed that certain of the jury had been bribed. He
bore a very indifferent character.
It is also another notable fact that the Privy Council books of this
period and the report of the Coroner’s inquest and verdict are missing,
and have never been discovered.
Dudley’s relations with the Queen formed a powerful motive for a man of
his unscrupulous character to compass his wife’s life. There were strong
suspicions against him of having been concerned in the poisoning of
several persons who he thought had stood in his path. He carefully
refrained from going to Cumnor in person and also from attending the
funeral of his wife.
In reviewing the fragmentary story of the events at Cumnor, the tragedy
must have occurred between dinner time and midnight, when the servants
probably returned from the fair and found the lifeless body of their
mistress with her neck broken lying at the foot of the staircase. This
staircase is said to have been a short winding stone flight connecting
the first floor with the hall. Although her neck was broken, it was
remarked, curiously enough, that a hood or cap she wore on her head was
not disarranged. This fact is mentioned in a letter printed in 1584, now
in the Bodleian library, entitled, “The Copie of a leter wryten by a
master of arte of Cambridge to his friende in London”; in it is stated,
“She had the chaunce to fal from a paire of stares and so to break her
neck, but yet without hurting of her hoode that stoode upon her heade.”
Presumably there were in the house on the fatal Sunday night, Foster and
his wife, Mrs. Odingselle, Mrs. Owen and Foster’s servants, yet we must
assume that if, as alleged, the unfortunate lady did accidentally fall
down the staircase, none of these people were aware of it. It was left
for her own servants to find her body on their return from Abingdon,
probably late at night. It is hardly conceivable that she could have
fallen without noise of any kind.
She was evidently aware that attempts had been made to poison her, but
we know not whom she specially suspected or how these attempts were
made.
Apparently she did not suspect Mrs. Owen, with whom she dined alone on
the fatal night, yet Mrs. Owen had been the wife of a physician and
doubtless had some knowledge of drugs, and like other ladies of the time
doubtless knew also how to prepare them.
Although the report of the inquest is missing and we are ignorant of the
proceedings and evidence given, even if this interesting document were
discovered it would not prove conclusively how Lady Amy Dudley came by
her death.
We do not know if any medical evidence was called at the inquest or if
an autopsy was made to discover the cause of death. There was probably
no post-mortem, as the broken neck would doubtless be considered
sufficient evidence as to the cause of death, and at that period only
cases of sudden death without external signs of disease or violence were
attributed to poison. There are records that post-mortem examinations
were sometimes made in the sixteenth century on the bodies of those who
were suspected of having been poisoned, and a description of two such
cases is given in a previous chapter.
But although rough clinical tests are said to have been attempted in
those cases, no chemical tests were known at that period capable of
proving the presence of many poisons. Supposing opium had been given to
Amy Dudley, an autopsy, therefore, would have been of no avail, and in
the absence of direct evidence the poisoner would go undetected.
Taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, in
conjunction with the meagre details of the tragedy that have come down
to us, it certainly does not appear probable that Lady Amy’s death was
purely accidental.
Her husband’s unscrupulous character was known. She alone stood in the
way of the realization of his great ambition to marry the Queen.
Elizabeth’s words, that “none of his were at the attempt at his wife’s
home,” also add to the strong suspicion that Dudley was the instigator
of a plot against his wife’s life.
Let us suppose that previous attempts to administer poison had been
frustrated by the unfortunate lady’s watchfulness, as she was apparently
aware of the designs against her life, the opportunity suddenly afforded
by the absence of all her personal attendants from the house might have
been seized upon to make another and a surer attempt. It would be easy
to have introduced some narcotic such as opium or belladonna into her
wine at dinner, and after the opiate had taken effect, it would be a
still easier matter to precipitate her body down the staircase, thereby
causing an injury sufficient to give colour to the statement that she
had met her death by accident.
After all, proof in this case is practically impossible, and whether
Lady Amy Dudley was murdered or not, is a question that will probably
never be conclusively answered.