Spe Certa Resurgendi In Christo Hic Situs Est Illustrissimus
Robertus Dudleyus, Johannis Ducis Northumbriæ, Comitis Warwicki,
Vice-Comitis Insulæ, &c., Filius Quintus, Comes Leicestriæ, Baro
Denbighæ, Ordinis Tum S. Georgii Cum S. Michaelis Eques Auratus,
Reginæ Elizabethæ (Apud Quam Singulari Gratia Florebat) Hippocomus
Regiæ Aulæ, Subinde Seneschallus, Ab Intimis Conciliis; Forestarum,
Parcorum, Chacearum, &c. Citra Trentam Summus Justificarius;
Exercitus Anglici A Dicta Regina Elizabetha Missi In Belgio, Ab
Anno MDLXXXV. Ad Annum MDLXXXVII. Locum Tenens Et Capitaneus
Generalis; Provinciarum Confederatarum Ibidem Gubernator Generalis
Et Præfectus, Regnique Angliæ Locum Tenens Contra Philippum II.
Hispanum, Numerosa Classe Et Exercitu Angliam Anno MDLXXXVIII.
Invadentem. Animam Deo Servatori Reddidit, Anno Salutis
MDLXXXVIII., Die Quarto Septembris. Optimo Et Charissimo Marito,
Mœstissima Uxor Leticia, Francisci Knolles Ordinis S. Georgii
Equitis Aurati, Et Regiæ Thesaurarii, Filia, Amoris Et Conjugalis
Fidei Ergo Posuit.
It is said that the Earl died much in the Queen’s debt, and that her
Majesty caused his goods to be sold at a public sale, that payment might
be made; for “however favourable,” says her biographer, “she might have
been in all other respects, the Queen is observed never to have remitted
the debts that were owing to her treasury.”
[Illustration]
The generally received account is, that his death was occasioned by his
having swallowed a draught of poison, which had been designed by him for
another person: a just stroke of retribution for the lives which--as
there were strong grounds to suspect--had been cut short by his
employment of the like means. In a curious manuscript copy of the
information given by Ben Jonson to Drummond of Hawthornden, as abridged
by Sir Robert Sibbald, Leicester’s death is ascribed to poison
administered as a cordial by his Countess, to whom he had given it,
representing it to be a restorative in any faintness, in the hope that
she herself might be cut off by using it. It may be here added, that the
following satirical epitaph on Leicester occurs in Drummond’s
Collections, but is “evidently,” says Scott, “not of his
composition:”--
<g>Epitaph on the Erle of Leister.</g>
Here lies a valiant warrior,
Who never drew a sword;
Here lies a noble courtier,
Who never kept his word;
Here lies the Erle of Leister,
Who govern’d the estates,
Whom the earth could never living love,
And the just heaven now hates.
“KENILWORTH,” Vol. ii. 397.
The character of Leicester is thus summed up by Camden in his Annals of
Elizabeth:--“He was esteemed a most accomplished courtier, free and
bountiful to soldiers and scholars; a cunning time-server and respecter
of his own advantages; of a disposition ready and apt to please; crafty
and subtle towards his adversaries; much given formerly to women, and in
his latter days doating extremely upon marriage. But, whilst he
preferred power and greatness, which are subject to be envied before
solid virtue, his detracting emulators found large matter to speak
reproachfully of him, and, even when he was in his most flourishing
condition, spared not disgracefully to defame him by libels, not without
a mixture of some untruths.” But, “to take him in the observation of his
letters,” says Sir Robert Naunton, “I never saw a style or phrase more
seeming religious and fuller of the strains of devotion, had they been
sincere!”--Dugd. Bar.; Camden’s Annals; Secret Mem. of Robert Dudley.
The following particulars of Sir Robert Dudley, who was so unjustly
deprived of his rightful inheritance, may be new to some of our readers.
His life is a striking instance of the vicissitudes to which every
condition of society, and more particularly that of the patrician order,
was exposed, during the period in question. He was educated at Christ
Church, Oxford, and is said to have been a profound mathematician, and
master of other acquirements, which he had afterwards an opportunity of
turning to good purpose abroad. His earliest service was in 1595, when
he had the command of three small ships, with which he took and
destroyed nine Spanish traders freighted with wine. The following year
he served under the Earl of Essex in the expedition to Cadiz, where he
displayed so much characteristic gallantry and prudence, that he
received from her Majesty the honour of knighthood; and was justly
esteemed among his companions in arms, as a soldier who possessed in no
ordinary degree the virtues of wisdom and prowess.
Soon after this, in a voyage to the West Indies, he called an island in
the mouth of the river Orinoco, after his own name, Dudleyana. In the
will of his father, the “favourite Dudley,” he is pronounced
illegitimate--“my base son;” but notwithstanding this paternal stigma,
there is every ground to believe that he was born in wedlock: for it
appeared by depositions afterwards taken on oath in the Star Chamber,
that the Earl of Leicester had been lawfully married to his mother, the
Lady Douglas Sheffield, by a clergyman, according to the form prescribed
by the Church of England. But by the interest of the Lady Letitia, widow
to the Earl of Essex, whom Leicester had married some time before his
death, these depositions were ordered to be sealed up by the Clerk of
the Court, and never more to be seen or published; whilst at the same
time a censure was passed upon the deponents as having entered into a
conspiracy to defame the Dowager Lady Leicester, and unjustly to entitle
Sir Robert Dudley to the honours which had been enjoyed by his
ancestors. The unfairness, the palpable injustice of such proceedings,
filled his mind with such disgust, that he determined, as already
mentioned, to abandon the country of his birth; and having obtained the
King’s permission to travel for three years, proceeded to Italy, where
he took up his residence in the Tuscan capital with “the style of Earl
of Warwick.” But having left several enemies at home, who watched every
opportunity to wrest from him his princely inheritance of <g>Kenilworth</g>,
his absence was construed into disaffection;
[Illustration]
and a special Privy Seal being obtained for that purpose, he was
commanded to return home forthwith. But fully aware of the motive which
actuated the King’s advisers, and of the annoyance and mortification
which awaited him, he evaded the summons, and resolved to continue in
exile beyond the Alps. Advantage was immediately taken of his contumacy,
and by the “statute of fugitives,” his lands were seized in the manner
already described in the survey, and the mesne profits of them applied
to the King’s use.
There is a romantic story told of this Sir Robert--the last of the
Dudleys of Kenilworth--which mentions, that on quitting England he
carried off with him the beautiful daughter of Sir Robert Southwell, in
the habit of a <g>Page</g>.[205] The lady had long been the object of his
admiration; but as the legal proceedings instituted against him were
calculated, however unjustly, to strip him of his inheritance and
degrade him in his station, the family of the lady were naturally averse
to the alliance, and took all necessary precautions to break off the
intimacy which had hitherto existed between the parties. Driven to the
necessity of expedients, where the open and honourable profession of his
attachment had been rejected with coldness or even disdain, the knight
employed stratagem; and having arranged a stolen interview with the
lady, had no great difficulty in persuading her to quit an ungrateful
country, and with him to seek refuge in that southern land where he was
sure of a welcome, and where, at least, they would be far beyond the
reach of both kingly and paternal despotism. How these arguments were
received by the lady may be readily understood by the fact, that, within
a few days after this interview, Sir Robert Dudley, accompanied by a
beautiful page, had embarked for Italy.
It is not our province to detail the adventures which befell this “Lara”
of his time, and his gentle page by the way; but on their reaching the
Tuscan Athens, the page had suddenly disappeared, no person of his small
retinue knew how. In the venerable church of the Santa Croce, however,
preparations were observed as if for some religious solemnity; and in
the evening of the feast of St. George, Dudley communicated to his
immediate friends and attendants, that he should that evening lead a
bride to the altar, and invited them to partake of the supper which had
been prepared at his quarters in the Piazza della Trinità. The mere
announcement of his marriage excited no particular surprise; for
inheriting the manly figure, the courtly manners, and elegant
accomplishments of his father, whom the maiden Queen of England had so
“delighted to honour,” it was readily surmised that some signora, with
the old Etruscan blood in her veins, had made a conquest of the English
knight: and yet the name of the lady was a profound secret, which
puzzled as much the learned cognoscenti as it did the simple contadini,
whom the rumour of “English espousals” had drawn to the square in front
of the church. But the mystery was speedily solved; for the procession
was already under the porch of the sacred temple, and on kneeling at the
altar it was no difficult matter to recognize in the lovely bride, the
peerless features of Blanche Southwell--the faithful page of the exiled
Robert Dudley.
Having now fixed his residence on the banks of the Arno, and become
master of that rank and consideration which had been denied him at home,
Dudley’s active mind, forgetting the splendour of Kenilworth Castle,
soon began to exert its energies in an enterprise of great public
utility. This was in concerting plans for the drainage of the fens and
marshes in the neighbourhood of Leghorn, adjoining the Maremma; and with
so much success did he prosecute his undertaking, that he raised that
town from an inconsiderable fishing village, to the rank and importance
of one of the most frequented seaports in Italy. Thus, out of seeming
evil, disgrace, destitution, expatriation, much ultimate good was
educed, not only to the country which had extended to him the rights of
hospitality, but to himself and his successors. The Duke settled a
handsome pension upon him. The reputation of his accomplishments,
coupled with the history of his misfortunes, secured for him the highest
consideration in Italy; while the Emperor of Germany, Ferdinand the
Second, conferred upon him, by letters-patent, dated Vienna, March,
1620, the title of Duke; in consequence of which he resumed that of his
grandfather, the attainted Duke of Northumberland, whose tragical end we
have already mentioned in the earlier portion of this work. Thus
elevated to the highest rank in the state, Dudley erected a magnificent
[Illustration]
palace in the city of Florence, and there spent his days in works of
public utility and private beneficence. His daughters by the lady, whose
romantic story we have just recorded, were all married to princes of the
Empire; and at his own demise--when he was succeeded in the same title
by his eldest son Charles--a grant was obtained from King Charles the
First, under the great seal of England, that his widow, the Lady Alice,
should enjoy the title of Duchess for her natural life, and that her
daughters should take rank and precedence accordingly.
This Sir Robert Dudley, according to Dugdale, was a man of heroic
stature, “comely in feature, strong, valiant, famous at the exercise of
tilting; singularly skilled in all mathematick learning, but chiefly in
navigation and architecture; a rare chymist, and of great knowledge in
physick, as his learned works do sufficiently manifest--especially that
‘De Arcanis Maris,’ printed at Florence in 1646, and afterwards at
Venice in folio, adorned with sculpture: also that of physic called
‘Catholicon,’ of no small esteem with the most skilful in that
profession. Nor is his memory a little famous as the inventor of that
powder called Cornachine-powder; touching the virtue whereof, the
learned Marcus Cornachinus, of Pisa, hath written, and endeavoured to
show that all corporeal diseases may be safely and suddenly cured
thereby.
“Nor is it less remarkable that his merits were so highly esteemed by
the grand Duke of Tuscany (Cosmo the Second), as that he allowed him an
yearly stipend of little less than a thousand pounds sterling....
Moreover, he died at a palace of the Dukes of Florence, two or three
Italian miles distant from that city, in or about the year 1650. And his
bodye resteth in the monastery of the nuns at Boldrone, except it be
removed to the church of St. Pancras in Florence, where he raised a
noble monument for his wife, with purpose to be there interred himself.
Likewise he left to his sons divers curious mathematical instruments,
chiefly of his own invention, of which they, making little use, have
disposed of to the great Duke of Tuscany.”--Dugd. Baron, Art. Leicest.
vol. ii. p. 225.
<g>Classical Associations.</g>--The narrative of the popular romance of
Kenilworth hinges upon the sad fortunes of Amy Robsart, which form “a
painful tissue of unvaried disappointments, distresses, and privations,
closed by an unmerited and horrible death.”
We have already observed that the first wife of Leicester was Amy, the
daughter of Sir John Robsart, of Sheen, in Surrey; a match effected,
like most of the marriages between the offspring of the great in that
age, “when the parties,” says Warner, “were very young, and resulting
from plans and adjustments of their parents, rather than from their own
predilection for each other.” The connexion was sanctioned by the young
king, Edward the Sixth, who honoured the ceremony with his presence, and
speedily advanced the bridegroom to considerable offices at court. For a
few years Leicester and his wife appear to have lived together on what
are called decent, if not on affectionate, terms; and though the rays of
royal favour, which daily shone upon him with increasing warmth,
gradually produced and embittered his regret at having matched himself
with so humble a partner for life as <g>Amy Robsart</g>, yet he does not seem
to have conceived any notion of ridding himself of this domestic burthen
by violent means, till the prospect of sharing either the Scotch or the
English throne dazzled his imagination. To both of these speculations,
Amy was an insurmountable obstacle; and he resolved to remove it by her
immediate destruction. How this was effected is a matter of some doubt.
All that we know of it is contained in the following narrations: “Robert
Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a very goodly personage, being a great
favourite to Queen Elizabeth, it was thought, and commonly reported,
that had he been a bachelor or widower, the Queen would have made him
her husband. To this end, to free himself from all obstacles, he, with
flattering entreaties, desires his wife to repose herself at Cumnor, in
Berkshire, at his servant Anthony Foster’s house, who then lived in the
manor-house of this place; and also prescribed to Sir Varney, a promoter
of this design, at his coming hither, that he should first attempt to
poison her, and if that did not take effect, then by any way whatsoever
to despatch her.” The poisoning scheme, Aubrey says, not succeeding, the
foul instruments of Leicester’s villany effected their purpose in the
following manner: “Sir Richard Varney, who, by the Earl’s order,
remained with her alone on the day of her death, and Foster, who had
that day forcibly sent away all her servants from her to Abingdon fair,
about three miles’ distance from this place; these two persons first
stifling her, or
[Illustration]
else strangling her, afterwards flung her down a pair of stairs, and
broke her neck, using much violence upon her; yet caused it to be
reported that she fell down of herself, believing the world would have
thought it a mischance, and not have suspected the villany. As soon as
she was murdered, they made haste to bury her, before the coroner had
given in his inquest, which the Earl himself condemned, as not done
advisedly; and her father, Sir John Robsart, hearing, came with all
speed hither, caused her corpse to be taken up, the coroner to sit upon
her, and further enquiry to be made concerning this business to the
full. But it was generally thought that the earl stopped his mouth; who,
to show the great love he bore to her while alive, and what a grief the
loss of so virtuous a lady was to his tender heart, caused her body to
be buried in St. Mary’s Church, Oxford, with great pomp and solemnity.
It is also remarkable that Dr. Babington, the earl’s chaplain, preaching
the funeral sermon, tripped once or twice in his speech, recommending to
their memories that virtuous lady so pitifully _murdered_, instead of
saying so pitifully slain.”