marriage, one a grant of the Manor of Hemsby, Norfolk, by John, then
Duke of Northumberland, to his son Lord Robert Dudley, and the lady
Amye his wife, 7th Edward VI., 1553; another 30th Jan., 3 & 4 Philip
and Mary, 1557, dated Sydisterne, after Sir John Robsart's death; there
is also a license of alienation to Sir Robert Dudley and Amye his wife,
24th March, 4 & 5 Philip and Mary, 1558. The marriage therefore was
very generally known, and there was neither abduction nor secrecy. I
will now show that Amye was never Countess of Leicester, nor was she
ever at Kenilworth, and for this reason. Kenilworth was not granted
to Sir Robert, otherwise called Lord Robert Dudley, until June 20th,
1563, and he was not created Earl of Leicester until the 29th September
following, three years after Amy Dudley's death. Queen Elizabeth did
not pay her celebrated visit to Kenilworth until 1575, or fifteen years
after Amy's death. It is therefore an absolute impossibility for the
latter to have ever known the title of Countess of Leicester, to have
been present at Kenilworth during the Queen's visit, or to have had
the interview with her described with so much pathos. Endeavours to
correct these and similar historical errors have been frequently made,
but the attempt appears hopeless. Not long ago, the most influential
of our London newspapers reiterated the statement that Amy Dudley was
"the wife of Lord Leicester;" but not content with this, the writer
further blundered by describing Lucy Robsart, wife of Mr. Edward
Walpole, of Houghton Hall, as her elder sister. It is almost needless
to say Amy Robsart had no sister, and but one brother, Arthur, who was
illegitimate. Lucy Robsart was her aunt, daughter of Sir Terry, or
Theodoric Robsart.
Canon Jackson appears to have satisfactorily identified the villain
Varney, and rescued him from the unmerited opprobrium cast upon
him. Longleat documents point him out as Richard Verney, of Compton
Verney, Warwickshire, ancestor of the Lords Willoughby de Broke. This
Varney was a knight anterior to 1559, and then apparently a stranger
to Lord Dudley; for in that year, Sir Ambrose Cave writes to Dudley,
recommending Sir Richard Verney as a fitting person to hold certain
office in Warwickshire. In 1561, a year after Amy Dudley's death, he
was High-Sheriff of his county, and he did not die until seven years
_after_, viz., 1567, and eight years _before_ Elizabeth's visit to
Kenilworth. An anonymous writer in Macmillan, some two years ago,
brought forward another Verney. He said, the Willoughbys and Verneys
of Compton Merdac, not Compton Verney, did not intermarry till the
next century; and co-temporary with the Richard Verney above mentioned
was another Richard, belonging to a Buckinghamshire family, connected
with the Dudleys both by marriage and misfortunes. Sir Ralph Verney
had three sons, Edmund, Francis, and Richard. Edmund and Richard were
implicated in the Conspiracy of Lady Jane Grey. Francis had been
Elizabeth's servant when in confinement at Woodstock, and had been
charged with tampering with a letter, and, we are told, had about as
bad a name as any young gentleman of his day. Of Richard nothing is
known with certainty, but in 1572, that is five years after the death
of Canon Jackson's Knight, a Richard Varney was appointed to the
Marshalship of the Bench for life, dying three years after, and on Nov.
15th, the same year, Leicester wrote begging Lord Shrewsbury not to
fill up the place vacant by the death of Mr. Varney.
We have remarked that Anthony Forster's epitaph was most eulogistic.
This may perhaps be exaggerated, as is undoubtedly Scott's description
of him. He makes him out to be the son of the Abbot of Abingdon's
Reeve, a widower with one child, Janet; a miserly curmudgeon, bordering
on deformity, with no redeeming point save affection for this child.
Michael Lamborne speaks to him thus familiarly:--
"Here, you Tony Fire-the-Fagot, papist, puritan, hypocrite, miser,
profligate, devil, compounded of all men's sins, bow down and
reverence him who has brought into thy house the very mammon thou
worshippest."
The Forster of fact, was a totally different person. He was of an
ancient Shropshire family, and had married Ann, niece of Lord Williams
of Thame, Lord Chamberlain under Philip and Mary. His three children,
represented on his memorial brass, predeceased him. He was, towards the
close of his life, Member of Parliament for the borough of Abingdon,
and chosen, upon at least one occasion, by the University of Oxford to
settle a noisy controversy. He was a personal friend of Lord Dudley,
and controller of his enormous expenditure. All Dudley's accounts
passed through Forster's hands. All payments had to be sanctioned by
him. Bundles of such accounts showing careful examination are now at
Longleat, filed, says Canon Jackson, as left by Anthony Forster. They
all bear his signature or initials, and the date 1566, six years after
Tony Foster had been starved to death in his secret chamber.
I would now mention some of the minor circumstances and persons
mentioned in the novel, respecting whom chronological errors are
noticeable.
We have seen that Varney, to whatever family he belonged, died before
the great Kenilworth festivities in honour of the Royal Visit, and
that Amy had died fifteen years before that event. Sir W. Raleigh,
who in the novel is introduced strewing his cloak before the Queen
and subsequently knighted by her with Varney at Kenilworth, was not
knighted until 1584, nine years after her visit, twenty-four years
after Amy's death; and as he was born in 1552, was actually eight years
old when that occurred.
On her journey from Cumnor Place to Kenilworth, accompanied by
Wayland Smith, Amy passes through Donnington. They overtake the Hock
Tide revellers from this village, also upon the road to Kenilworth.
Donnington Castle is also mentioned earlier in the story. To pass
through this hamlet, _en route_ for Kenilworth, would be equivalent to
travelling from say Reading to Birmingham in order to reach London.
It is probable Sir Walter intended to write Deddington, which is in
Oxfordshire, and on the direct road Amy would have had to travel, but
it is strange the error has never been corrected. The revellers really
came from Coventry, an entirely opposite route to that Lady Dudley
would have had to pursue.
I have only given a few of the most evident anachronisms which permeate
the novel, and many others might be mentioned. Many extracts from
the story might be quoted, which show the carelessness of the great
novelist as regards chronology; yet dates ought to have met with every
consideration from him: he was professedly, at any rate, an antiquary,
professionally a writer to the Signet or lawyer, where accuracy is all
in all.
I have little reason to believe that an inn existed at Cumnor, in
Elizabeth's time, and although it is curious Scott should have selected
as the name of its landlord, Giles Gosling, it should be remembered
he had access assuredly to Ashmole, wherein are many Berkshire names,
both of persons and places, and Gosling is certainly a Berkshire name.
We have also in Berkshire places named Lamborne and Thatcham, both
characters in the novel; the former, indeed, was represented at Cumnor
a few years ago, and may be now, and there is in the parish register
in 1562, record of the burial of one Gosling. But I am of opinion
the selection of these names is purely accidental. As regards the
alehouse, Inns as a rule increase in number, and but rarely, if ever,
disappear, and the sole inn at Cumnor would be likely to thrive. It so
happened that in 1636, John Taylor, the water poet, travelled through
England, and made a list of inns for the use of his customers, for he
was a tavern keeper also, and he gave the names of all the inns in
Berkshire to the number of forty. At Abingdon, he says, was one kept
by John Prince, who at his pleasure might keep three, but there is
no mention whatever of the Jolly Black Bear or other inns at Cumnor.
Bearing this in mind, and taking into consideration the total ignorance
of Scott as to the site of Cumnor, its situation in the county, and
even of the plan of the Hall itself, I think it most improbable that
the Wizard of the North ever visited the village he has made for ever
famous, despite his many anachronisms.
It is not for me to defend Dudley against the suggestions of being
privy to the assassination of his wife, any more than to defend him
from the accusation of having been the cause of the deaths of many
others as charged against him in "Leicester's Commonwealth." Here,
among others, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, Lord Sheffield, and Walter
Devereux, Earl of Essex, are said to have been poisoned by him; but
rumours of poisoning were at that time prevalent, and it was suggested
he had endeavoured to make away by poison with his wife Amy, in
order to be free to marry Queen Elizabeth; one writer has within the
last few years gone so far as to charge Elizabeth with complicity.
She was certainly of a jealous disposition, for when Leicester
eventually married the widow of the Earl of Essex, he narrowly escaped
imprisonment in the tower, and was actually banished from the court;
similarly when Raleigh dared to marry, he being forty and Elizabeth
fifty-nine, he was sent to the tower to cool his ardour. Mr. Rye, who
is confident Amy Robsart was murdered, and Elizabeth privy to the
fact, says, "By some, Anne Boleyn is made out to be an innocent woman,
who, with her brother, was judicially murdered by her husband, to make
room for Jane Seymour, whom he married the day after her execution. If
this view is right, Elizabeth was daughter of an atrocious murderer.
But if as Mr. Froude believes, Anne Boleyn was guilty of the crimes
attributed to her, then Elizabeth was the daughter of the vilest and
most abandoned woman of her age. There is no third course. Elizabeth
must have been, on one side or the other, the daughter of an abominable
parent, male or female as you please, and the inheritor of as bad blood
as might be. But I contend it is impossible to avoid the conclusion
that Elizabeth knew that her rival's murder was being contemplated, and
did not desire to prevent it, in which case she was an accessary before
the fact, or that she must after the event have guessed, for she was
no fool, that murder had been done to facilitate Leicester's plans, in
which case she was in effect, an accessary after the fact."
One reason assigned for Dudley's desire to be free, is said to have
been ambition, and again that his married life was by no means a happy
one, and that he was practically divorced, living apart from Amy; she
in the country, he at Court. Where they lived when first married is not
known, but in 1553, Dudley was imprisoned in the tower for six months
on suspicion of complicity in the attempt of his father to place Lady
Jane Grey on the throne. The name of Amye, Lady Dudley, is mentioned
as visiting him there, so in the fourth year of their marriage she was
in London, and there was no estrangement. Being released, his wife's
and his own estates were restored him, and out of gratitude to Queen
Mary's Consort, Philip, he offered his services to the King, who sent
him to fight the French. Here the separation was compulsory, for Amy
could scarcely follow her husband serving in a foreign army upon the
continent. We hear nothing of either for the space of three years, and
an extant letter proves that Amye and Sir Robert were still upon a
familiar and friendly, if not affectionate footing. She is found to be
entrusted with full power and authority to sell and dispose of profits
of the lands so that creditors need no longer wait for their money. The
terms of the letter evidently prove she had sanction for her actions,
and that there was no estrangement, and this letter, referring as it
does to Sydistene, must have been written in 1557 at the earliest, as
the property did not come to their hands before that year. It is dated
from Mr. Hydes, a connection of Dudleys, who lived at Denchworth, a few
miles from Cumnor; and while Amy was visiting here she was at perfect
freedom to go where she would, and had full control of money which she
seemingly availed herself of, as the Longleat papers fully prove. She
was certainly under no restraint, having no less than twelve horses at
her service. She amused herself journeying in Suffolk, Hampshire, and
Lincolnshire; she also went to London and Dudley being at Windsor, she
also visited Camberwell, and her charges for Mr. Hydes to that place is
entered at £10.
Many of her accounts are at Longleat, and inside one bill was found a
letter written at Cumnor, but undated; it is probably one of the last
she ever wrote, being written 24th August. This bill was not paid for
some years after her death, for which reason "nothing was abated."
Among the items charged were:--
"For making a Spanish gowne of Russet Damask, 16s. For 6 ounces of
Lace at 4s 8d. an ounce, 28s. 8s. for making a loose gown of Rosse
Taffata (alluded to in the letter),"
and many other items which show that this freedom of expenditure must
have existed to the very last. There is charged in the same bill an
article supplied after her death, viz., a mantle of cloth for the chief
mourner.
In such manner then was Amy occupied at Cumnor, where not improbably
the gossip about Dudley's intimacy with the queen was repeated to her.
Whether she believed it or not it is impossible to say, but we may be
sure that if all the rumours then floating about did reach her, the
effect must have been terrible, especially if the suggestion that she
was suffering from cancer, and that Dudley anxiously awaited her death
to marry the queen became known to her. But these rumours would have
been far more likely to act as a preventative to actual crime than as
an incentive. A sudden, and in especial a violent death, would have
been the last thing that Dudley would have wished to happen to her, and
when it did happen, as most inopportunely it did for him, he appears
to have used every endeavour to ascertain the actual truth, and if a
crime had been committed to bring the guilty to justice. Documents in
the Pepsyan Library at Cambridge tell us that on Monday, 9th September,
Lord Robert Dudley was at Windsor, and hearing that something was amiss
at Cumnor, sent thither on horseback Sir Thomas Blount, a confidential
friend and retainer. On his road Blount meets a messenger named Bowes,
riding post haste to Windsor with the intelligence that the previous
evening Lady Dudley had been found lying in the hall at Cumnor Place at
the foot of the stairs, dead, but without outward marks of violence.
He further relates that the Sunday being Abingdon fair, Lady Dudley,
contrary to the remembrance of Mrs. Hyde and Mrs. Odingsell, Mr. Hyde's
sister, had insisted upon all her servants going to the fair. They went
accordingly, leaving apparently no one excepting the three females
in the house, for no account makes mention of any man in or about
the home. Each rider now pursues his journey, and Blount arrives at
Abingdon and proceeds to question the landlord as to local events, and
hears the death of Lady Dudley confirmed. After a little pressure the
landlord expresses his opinion, that it must be a "misfortune" _i.e._
accident, because it happened in that honest gentleman's home, Master
Forster. "His honesty doth much curb the evil thoughts of the people."
The following day he interviews the lady's maid, who admits she had
heard Lady Dudley frequently pray for delivery from desparation, but
when Blount seems willing to take this as indicating suicide, she says,
"No good, Mr. Blount, do not so judge of my words. If you should so
gather I should be sorry I said so much."
Blount writes all these particulars to Dudley, and suggests that from
what he has heard Lady Dudley's mind might have been disordered, and
that a Coroner's inquest was sitting. Dudley sent for Appleyard and
Arthur Robsart to this inquest, and eventually the jury say, "After the
most searching enquiry they could make, they could find no presumption
of evil dealing." Lord Robsart then devises a second jury, to whom he
sends a message "to deal earnestly, carefully, and truly, and to find
as they see it fall out," and to finish the question to the fullest.
Unfortunately the records of the Coroner's enquiry have not survived.
The late A.D. Bartlett, Coroner for Abingdon, endeavoured to find them,
but abandoned his search in despair.
In 1566, seven years after Amy's death, Dudley's marriage with the
queen was debated by the Privy Council, when it was reported to them
that Appleyard, had in a moment of irritation against Leicester, said
he had not been satisfied with the verdict, but for the sake of Dudley
had covered the murder of his sister. Appleyard was cited to appear and
explain his words to the Privy Council, which he did by saying that
he did not hold Dudley guilty, but thought it would not be difficult
to find out the guilty parties. Here says Mr. Froude, if Appleyard
spoke the truth, there is no more to be said: the conclusion seems
inevitable, that though Dudley was innocent of direct influence, the
unhappy lady was sacrificed to his ambition and made away with by
persons who hoped to profit by Dudley's elevation to the throne. "If
Appleyard spoke the truth," says Mr. Froude--I will however quote from
a letter found by Canon Jackson at Longleat. It is from a Berkshire
gentleman to Mr. John Thynne of Longleat, dated June 9th, 1567. After
mentioning other matters, he continues, "On Friday in the Star-Chamber,
was Appleyard brought forth, who shewed himself a malytyous beast, for
he dyd confesse the accused my Lord of Leicester only of malyes, and he
hath byn about it these three years, and now, because he could not go
through with his business to promote, he fell into this rage against
my lord and would have accused him of three things. 1st, of kyllyng
his wyf. 2nd, of sending the Lord Derby to Scotland. 3rd, for letting
the queen of marriage. He craved pardon for all these things. My Lord
Keeper answered in King Henry VII. days there was one lost his ears
for slandering the Chief Justice; so as I think his ende will be the
pillory."
Mr. Froude therefore is answered by this letter. Appleyard did not
speak truth, but as early as 1567, and even three years earlier, the
libel is traced to have originated with him from personal motives
of disappointment and revenge. He acknowledged himself a liar, but
whether this retraction was from fear of the Star Chamber cannot be
ascertained; at any rate the private opinion of Sir Henry Neville was
that he merited the pillory. He must have been a contemptible rascal
in any case, for even if the libel was true and fear caused him to
retract, this was no excuse for his conduct on the occasion of his
sister's funeral. This he attended, and in the procession bore a banner
of arms. Sir Henry Neville must have judged and described him correctly.
Taking the evidence into consideration, I must certainly express my
own impression is that whatever may have been Leicester's faults, and
they were many, or whatever crimes may be charged against him, he was
at any rate guiltless of any intent to make away with his wife Amy.
Even if Dudley were shielded in his evil doings by his court influence,
would this have also affected public opinion in the country? I am of
opinion that at that time his court popularity would have militated
rather unfavourably than otherwise for him. Yet what do we find is the
case? Within four years of his wife's death, he is elected Chancellor
of the University of Oxford, and Steward of the Boroughs of Abingdon,
Wallingford, and Reading, all within easy distance of Cumnor Place,
where his wife Amye was found dead at the foot of the stair, as some
said foully murdered. Had he a hand, direct or indirect, in such a
crime, or had suspicion then attached to him, I venture to affirm
neither Oxford University nor the electors of these Boroughs would
have so honoured him. The nominations must have been practically a
declaration of confidence in his innocence. Poor Amy Robsart's death
was indeed a sad one, but at least we may conclude that it was not
hastened by neglect nor accomplished by violence on the part of her
husband. In spite of all attempts to assert this truth, the story of
her romance will live, and continue to add a pathetic interest to the
quiet Berkshire village which preserves her memory.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: Harl. 6395, Plut. xlix, g.]
Alfred the Great.
BY W.H. THOMPSON.
"You are a writer and I am a fighter, but here is a fellow
Who could both write and fight, and in both was equally skilful!"
--_Longfellow._
This terse, but sincere and enthusiastic eulogium, on the memory of
Julius Cæsar by that stout Puritan, Captain Miles Standish, comes
instinctively to the mind, as one contemplates the life of good King
Alfred. It is not given to many to be alike famous as sovereign,
warrior, lawgiver, and author; but such was Alfred, the first of
England's great monarchs. If it is the "cunning," the knowing, or able
man, as Carlyle tells us, who is the "king" by Divine right; here was
the Saxon king _par excellence_. His lineage was of the most ancient
and illustrious; his father Ethelwulf traced his descent from the most
renowned of the Saxon heroes, and his mother Osburga was descended
from famous Gothic progenitors. Born at the royal manor of Vanathing
(Wantage) in the year 849, the youngest of Ethelwulf's four legitimate
sons, he was his father's darling, the fairest and most promising of
all his boys. This is doubtless the explanation of the fact that,
whilst yet a mere child, he accompanied his sire on a pilgrim journey
to Rome. How far this pilgrimage and the impressions which he received
from his sojourn in what was still the greatest and most civilized
city in Europe, may have influenced his after-life and character it is
impossible to say; but the earliest story related of Alfred treats of
his aptitude for learning and his love for poetry and books. He learned
to read before his elder brothers, and even before he could read he had
learned by heart many Anglo-Saxon poems, by hearing the minstrels and
gleemen recite them in his father's hall. And his passionate love for
letters never forsook him.
[Illustration: KING ALFRED THE GREAT.]
Much, however, as he might have preferred it, there was another life
than that of the mere student and scholar laid up in store for this
noble Saxon. One after another his three elder brothers, Ethelbald,
Ethelbert, and Ethelred, occupied the throne, and it was on the death
of the last named, in 871, in the twenty-second year of his age, that
reluctantly Alfred had to shut up his books, and take up the sceptre
and the sword. He now comes before us as
(1). The warrior king.
Never did English monarch ascend the throne in darker days. Recently,
it is true, the Saxons had come off victors against the Norsemen in one
bloody field--the battle of Ashdune, near Reading,--but this dearly
bought victory had in turn been succeeded by a series of discomfitures
and defeats, the pagan armies having received fresh and continued
re-inforcements. It was in one of these sanguinary conflicts that
Ethelred received the wound which, though not immediately fatal, was
yet the cause of his death. It was a period of prolonged devastation,
misery, and rapine. Nine pitched battles were fought in the course
of one short year, and the minor skirmishes were innumerable; the
internecine conflict being conducted with the most savage ferocity.
Prisoners were never spared, unless it was to extort a heavy ransom;
and the countryside was everywhere given up to fire and sword. It is
not surprising that Alfred, although already distinguished for his
military valour, had not sought the crown. Kingship in those times was
no sinecure.
Dark, however, as were the clouds when Alfred came to the throne,
still gloomier days were in store. The Norsemen, already masters of
all Northumbria, had also practically reduced the kingdom of Mercia;
and they were now especially directing their attention to Wessex, the
country of the West Saxons. With varying success Alfred confronted the
enemy during the opening years of his reign; but he soon discovered
that, though he might make treaties with his perfidious foes, they
never dreamed of permanently abiding by them; and if he succeeded
in withstanding them one year, like fresh clouds of locusts, new
re-inforcements appeared on the scene, every spring and summer, from
Scandinavia. In the depth of winter (A.D. 878), when it was not
anticipated that they would pursue their military operations, the
Danes made a sudden irruption into Wiltshire and the adjoining shires,
and so utterly discomforted the Saxons, that Alfred, almost wholly
deprived of his authority, was driven with a small but trusty band of
followers, and his old mother Osburga, into Athelney, a secluded spot
at the confluence of the Thone and the Parrett, surrounded by moors
and marshes, which served at once for his concealment and his defence.
Great were the hardships which Alfred here endured; his life was that
of an outlaw. For daily sustenance he largely depended upon chance
and accident, hunting the wild-deer, and even seizing by force the
stores of the enemy. It is of this period of terrible privation that
the oft-told tale of the good-wife's cakes is related. Yet all his
misfortunes neither damped his courage, nor subdued his energy.
[Illustration: ALFRED'S JEWEL.]