So far the case against Dudley, or servants of Dudley, has looked very
black. There are the scandals, too dark for ambassadors to write, but
mouthed aloud among the common people, about Dudley and the Queen. There
is de Quadra’s talk of a purpose to poison Amy, in November-January,
1559-1560. There is the explicit statement of Cecil, as to the intended
poisoning (probably derived from Dr. Bayly), and as to Dudley’s
‘possession of the Queen’s person,’ the result of his own observation.
There is the coincidence of Amy’s violent death with Cecil’s words to de
Quadra (September 8 or 9, 1560).
But here the case takes a new turn. Documents appear, letters from and
to Dudley at the time of the event, which are totally inconsistent with
guilt on his part. These documents (in the Pepys MSS. at Cambridge) are
COPIES of letters between Dudley and Thomas Blount, a gentleman of good
family, whom he addresses as ‘Cousin.’ Blount, long after, in May 1567,
was examined on the affair before the Privy Council, and Mr. Froude very
plausibly suggests that Blount produced the copies in the course of the
inquiry. But why COPIES? We can only say that the originals may also
have been shown, and the copies made for the convenience of the members
of the Council. It is really incredible that the letters were forged,
after date, to prove Dudley’s innocence.
In the usual blundering way, Mr. Pettigrew dates one letter of Dudley’s
‘September 27.’ If that date were right, it would suggest that TWO
coroner’s inquests were held, one after Amy’s burial (on September 22),
but Mr. Gairdner says that the real date of the letter is September 12.*
So the date is given by Bartlett, in his ‘History of Cumnor Place,’ and
by Adlard (1870), following Bartlett, and Craik (1848).
*English Historical Review, No. 2, p. 243, note.
The first letter, from Dudley, at Windsor ‘this 9th day of September in
the evening,’ proves that Blount, early on September 9, the day after
Amy’s death, went from Leicester, at Windsor, towards Berkshire. He had
not long gone when Bowes (a retainer of Leicester, of Forster, or of
Amy) brought to Dudley the fatal news. ‘By him I do understand that my
wife is dead and, as he saith, by a fall from a pair of stairs. Little
other understanding can I have from him.’ Throughout the correspondence
Leicester does not utter one word of sorrow for Amy, as, had the letters
been written for exhibition, he would almost certainly have done. The
fear of his own danger and disgrace alone inspires him, and he takes
every measure to secure a full, free, and minute examination. ‘Have no
respect to any living person.’ A coroner’s jury is to be called, the
body is to be examined; Appleyard and others of Amy’s kin have already
been sent for to go to Cumnor.
From Cumnor, Blount replied on September 11. He only knew that ‘my lady
is dead, and, as it seemeth, with a fall, but yet how, or which way, I
cannot learn.’ Not even at Cumnor could Blount discover the manner of
the accident. On the night of the ninth he had lain at Abingdon, the
landlord of the inn could tell him no more than Dudley already knew.
Amy’s servants had been at ‘the fair’ at Abingdon: she herself was said
to have insisted on their going thither very early in the day; among
them Bowes went, as he told Blount, who met him on the road, as he rode
to see Dudley. He said that Amy ‘was very angry’ with any who stayed,
and with Mrs. Oddingsell, who refused to go. Pinto (probably Amy’s
maid), ‘who doth love her dearly,’ confirmed Bowes. She believed the
death to be ‘a very accident.’ She had heard Amy ‘divers times pray
to God to deliver her from desperation,’ but entirely disbelieved
in suicide, which no one would attempt, perhaps, by falling down two
flights of stairs.
Before Blount arrived at Cumnor on September 10, the coroner’s jury
had been chosen, sensible men, but some of them hostile to Forster. By
September 12 (NOT 27) Dudley had retired from Court and was at Kew, but
had received Blount’s letter. He bade Blount tell the jury to inquire
faithfully and find an honest verdict. On the thirteenth Blount again
wrote from Cumnor, meaning to join Dudley next day: ‘I I have ALMOST
NOTHING that can make me so much [as?] to think that any man can be the
doer of it... the circumstances and the many things which I can learn
doth persuade me that only misfortune hath done it and nothing else.’
There is another letter by Dudley from Windsor, without date. He has had
a reassuring letter from Smythe, foreman of the jury. He wishes them to
examine ‘as long as they lawfully may,’ and that a fresh jury should
try the case again. He wishes Sir Richard Blount to help. Appleyard and
Arthur Robsart have been present. He means to have no more dealings with
the jury; his only ‘dealings’ seem to have been his repeated requests
that they would be diligent and honest. ‘I am right glad they be all
strangers to me.’*
*Pettigrew, pp. 28-32.
These letters are wholly inconsistent with guilt, in the faintest
degree, on the side of Dudley. But people were not satisfied. There is
a letter to Cecil, of September 17, from Lever, a minister at Coventry,
saying that the country was full of mutterings and dangerous suspicions,
and that there must be earnest searching and trying of the truth.*
*Burghley Papers, Haynes, 362.
Suspicion was inevitable, but what could a jury do, more than, according
to Blount, the jury had done? Yet there is dense obscurity as to the
finding of the jury. We have seen that Appleyard, Amy’s half-brother,
was at Cumnor during the inquest. Yet, in 1567, he did not know,
or pretended not to know, what the verdict had been. ‘Leicester’s
Commonwealth’ says ‘she was found murdered (as all men said) by the
crowner’s inquest,’ as if the verdict was not published, but was a mere
matter of rumour--‘as all men said.’ Appleyard’s behaviour need not
detain us long, as he was such a shuffling knave that his statements, on
either side, were just what he found expedient in varying circumstances.
Dudley, after Amy’s death, obtained for him various profitable billets;
in 1564 he was made keeper of the Marshalsea, had a commission under the
Great Seal to seize concealed prizes at sea without legal proceedings,
had the Portership of Berwick, and the Sheriffship of Norfolk and
Suffolk, while Leicester stood guarantor of a debt of his for 400
pounds. These facts he admitted before the Privy Council in 1567.* But
Leicester might naturally do what he could for his dead wife’s brother:
we cannot argue that the jobs done for Appleyard were hush-money,
enormous as these jobs were. Yet in this light Appleyard chose to
consider them. He seems to have thought that Leicester did not treat him
well enough, and wanted to get rid of him in Ireland or France, and he
began, about 1566-67, to blab of what he could say an’ he would. He ‘let
fall words of anger, and said that for Dudley’s sake he had covered the
murder of his sister.’
*Rye, pp. 60-62. Hatfield MSS., Calendar, i. 345-352, May 1567.
Mr. Froude has here misconceived the situation, as Mr. Gairdner shows.
Mr. Froude’s words are ‘being examined by Cecil, he admitted the
investigation at Cumnor had after all been inadequately conducted.’*
In fact, Appleyard admitted that he had SAID this, and much more, in
private talk among his associates. Before the Council he subsequently
withdrew what he admitted having said in private talk. It does not
signify what he said, or what he withdrew, but Mr. Froude unluckily
did not observe a document which proved that Appleyard finally ate his
words, and he concludes that ‘although Dudley was innocent of a direct
association with the crime, the unhappy lady was sacrificed to his
ambition. Dudley himself... used private means, notwithstanding his
affectation of sincerity, to prevent the search from being pressed
inconveniently far’--that is, ‘if Appleyard spoke the truth.’ But
Appleyard denied that he had spoken the truth, a fact overlooked by Mr.
Froude.**
*Froude, vi. p. 430.
**Ibid. vi. pp 430, 431.
The truth stood thus: in 1566-67 there was, or had been, some idea
that Leicester might, after all, marry the Queen. Appleyard told Thomas
Blount that he was being offered large sums by great persons to reopen
the Cumnor affair. Blount was examined by the Council, and gave
to Leicester a written account of what he told them. One Huggon,
Appleyard’s ‘brother,’ had informed Leicester that courtiers were
practising on Appleyard, ‘to search the manner of his sister’s death.’
Leicester sent Blount to examine Appleyard as to who the courtiers were.
Appleyard was evasive, but at last told Blount a long tale of mysterious
attempts to seduce him into stirring up the old story. He promised to
meet Leicester, but did not: his brother, Huggon, named Norfolk, Sussex,
and others as the ‘practisers.’ Later, by Leicester’s command, Blount
brought Appleyard to him at Greenwich. What speeches passed Blount did
not know, but Leicester was very angry, and bade Appleyard begone, ‘with
great words of defiance.’ It is clear that, with or without grounds,
Appleyard was trying to blackmail Leicester.
Before the Council (May 1567) Appleyard confessed that he had said to
people that he had often moved the Earl to let him pursue the murderers
of Amy, ‘showing certain circumstances which led him to think surely
that she was murdered.’ He had said that Leicester, on the other hand,
cited the verdict of the jury, but he himself declared that the jury, in
fact, ‘had not as yet given up their verdict.’ After these confessions
Appleyard lay in the Fleet prison, destitute, and scarce able to buy a
meal. On May 30, 1567, he wrote an abject letter to the Council. He had
been offered every opportunity of accusing those whom he suspected, and
he asked for ‘a copy of the verdict presented by the jury, whereby I
may see what the jury have found,’ after which he would take counsel’s
advice. He got a copy of the verdict (?) (would that we had the copy!)
and, naturally, as he was starving, professed himself amply satisfied by
‘proofs testified under the oaths of fifteen persons,’ that Amy’s death
was accidental. ‘I have not money left to find me two meals.’ In such a
posture, Appleyard would, of course, say anything to get himself out of
prison. Two days later he confessed that for three years he had been, in
fact, trying to blackmail Leicester on several counts, Amy’s murder and
two political charges.*
*See the full reports, Gairdner, English Historical Review, April
1886, 249-259, and Hatfield Calendar for the date May 1567.
The man was a rogue, however we take him, and the sole tangible fact is
that a report of the evidence given at the inquest did exist, and that
the verdict may have been ‘Accidental Death.’ We do not know but that
an open verdict was given. Appleyard professes to have been convinced by
the evidence, not by the verdict.
When ‘Leicester’s Apology’ appeared (1584-85) Sir Philip Sidney,
Leicester’s nephew, wrote a reply. It was easy for him to answer the
libeller’s ‘she was found murdered (as all men suppose) by the crowner’s
inquest’--by producing the actual verdict of the jury. He did not; he
merely vapoured, and challenged the libeller to the duel.* Appleyard’s
statement among his intimates, that no verdict had yet been given, seems
to point to an open verdict.
*Sidney’s reply is given in Adlard’s Amye Robsart and the Earl of
Leicester. London, 1870.
The subject is alluded to by Elizabeth herself, who puts the final touch
of darkness on the mystery. Just as Archbishop Beaton, Mary’s ambassador
in Paris, vainly adjured her to pursue the inquiry into Darnley’s
murder, being urged by the talk in France, so Throgmorton, Elizabeth’s
ambassador to the French Court, was heartbroken by what he heard.
Clearly no satisfactory verdict ever reached him. He finally sent Jones,
his secretary, with a verbal message to Elizabeth. Jones boldly put the
question of the Cumnor affair. She said that ‘the matter had been tried
in the country, AND FOUND TO THE CONTRARY OF THAT WAS REPORTED.’
What ‘was reported’? Clearly that Leicester and retainers of his had
been the murderers of Amy. For the Queen went on, ‘Lord Robert was
in the Court, AND NONE OF HIS AT THE ATTEMPT AT HIS WIFE’S HOUSE.’ So
Verney was not there. So Jones wrote to Throgmorton on November 30,
1560.* We shall return to Throgmorton.
*Hardwicke Papers, i. 165.
If Jones correctly reported Elizabeth’s words, there had been an
‘attempt at’ Cumnor Place, of which we hear nothing from any other
source. How black is the obscurity through which Blount, at Cumnor, two
days after Amy’s death, could discern--nothing! ‘A fall, yet how, or
which way, I cannot learn.’ By September 17, nine days after the death,
Lever, at Coventry, an easy day’s ride from Cumnor, knew nothing (as we
saw) of a verdict, or, at least, of a satisfactory verdict. It is true
that the Earl of Huntingdon, at Leicester, only heard of Amy’s death
on September 17, nine days after date.* Given ‘an attempt,’ Amy might
perhaps break her neck down a spiral staircase, when running away in
terror. A cord stretched across the top step would have done all that
was needed.
*Nineteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 431. Huntingdon to Leicester,
Longleat MSS. I repose on Canon Jackson’s date of the manuscript letter.
We next find confusion worse confounded, by our previous deliverer from
error, Baron Kervyn Lettenhove! What happened at Court immediately after
Amy’s death? The Baron says: ‘A fragment of a despatch of de la Quadra,
of the same period, reports Dudley to have said that his marriage had
been celebrated in presence of his brother, and of two of the Queen’s
ladies.’ For this, according to the Baron, Mr. Froude cites a letter
of the Bishop of Aquila (de Quadra) of September 11.* Mr. Froude does
nothing of the sort! He does cite ‘an abstract of de Quadra’s letters,
MS. Simancas,’ without any date at all. ‘The design of Cecil and of
those heretics to convey the kingdom to the Earl of Huntingdon is most
certain, for at last Cecil has yielded to Lord Robert, who, he says,
has married the Queen in presence of his brother and two ladies of her
bedchamber.’ So Mr. Gairdner translates from Mr. Froude’s transcript,
and he gives the date (November 20) which Mr. Froude does not give.
Major Hume translates, ‘who, THEY say, was married.’** O History!
According to Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, DUDLEY says he has married
the Queen; according to Mr. Gairdner, CECIL says so; according to Major
Hume, ‘they’ say so!***
*Relations Politiques des Pays-Bas, etc., xlii., note 4.
**Span. Cal. i. p. 178.
***The Spanish of this perplexing sentence is given by Froude, vi. p.
433, note 1. ‘Cecil se ha rendido a Milord Roberto el qual dice que se
hay casado con la Reyna....’
The point is of crucial importance to Mrs. Gallup and the believers in
the cipher wherein Bacon maintains that he is the legal son of a
wedding between Dudley and the Queen. Was there such a marriage or even
betrothal? Froude cautiously says that this was averted ‘SEEMINGLY on
Lord Robert’s authority;’ the Baron says that Lord Robert makes the
assertion; Mr. Gairdner says that Cecil is the authority, and Major
Hume declares that it is a mere on-dit--‘who, they say.’ It is
heart-breaking.*
*For Mr. Gairdner, English Historical Review, No. 2, p. 246.
To deepen the darkness and distress, the official, printed, Spanish
Documentos Ineditos do not give this abstract of November 20 at all.
Major Hume translates it in full, from Mr. Froude’s transcript.
Again, Mr. Froude inserts his undated quotation, really of November 20,
before he comes to tell of Amy Robsart’s funeral (September 22, 1560),
and the Baron, as we saw, implies that Mr. Froude dates it September 11,
the day on which the Queen publicly announced Amy’s death.
We now have an undated letter, endorsed by Cecil ‘Sept. 1560,’ wherein
Dudley, not at Court, and in tribulation, implores Cecil’s advice and
aid. ‘I am sorry so sudden a chance should breed me so great a change.’
He may have written from Kew, where Elizabeth had given him a house,
and where he was on September 12 (not 27). On October 13 (Froude), or
14 [‘Documentos Ineditos,’ 88, p. 310), or 15 (Spanish Calendar, i. p.
176)--for dates are strange things--de Quadra wrote a letter of which
there is only an abstract at Simancas. This abstract we quote: ‘The
contents of the letter of Bishop Quadra to his Majesty written on the
15th’ (though headed the 14th) ‘of October, and received on the 16th of
November, 1560. It relates the way in which the wife of Lord Robert
came to her death, the respect (reverencia) paid him immediately by the
members of the Council and others, and the dissimulation of the
Queen. That he had heard that they were engaged in an affair of great
importance for the confirmation of their heresies, and wished to make
the Earl of Huntingdon king, should the Queen die without children, and
that Cecil had told him that the heritage was his as a descendant of the
House of York.... That Cecil had told him that the Queen was resolved
not to marry Lord Robert, as he had learned from herself; it seemed that
the Arch Duke might be proposed.’ In mid-October, then, Elizabeth was
apparently disinclined to wed the so recently widowed Lord Robert,
though, shortly after Amy’s death, the Privy Council began to court
Dudley as future king.
Mr. Froude writes--still before he comes to September 22--‘the Bishop
of Aquila reported that there were anxious meetings of the Council,
the courtiers paid a partial homage to Dudley.’* This appears to be
a refraction from the abstract of the letter of October 13 or 14: ‘he
relates the manner in which the wife of Lord Robert came to her death,
the respect (reverencia) paid to him immediately by members of the
Council and others.’
*Froude, vi. p. 432.
Next we come, in Mr. Froude, to Amy’s funeral (September 22), and to
Elizabeth’s resolve not to marry Leicester (October 13, 14, 15?), and to
Throgmorton’s interference in October-November. Throgmorton’s wails over
the Queen’s danger and dishonour were addressed to Cecil and the Marquis
of Northampton, from Poissy, on October 10, when he also condoled with
Dudley on the death of his wife! ‘Thanks him for his present of a nag!’ *
On the same date, October 10, Harry Killigrew, from London, wrote to
answer Throgmorton’s inquiries about Amy’s death. Certainly Throgmorton
had heard of Amy’s death before October 10: he might have heard by
September 16. What he heard comforted him not. By October 10 he should
have had news of a satisfactory verdict. But Killigrew merely said
‘she brake her neck... only by the hand of God, to my knowledge.’** On
October 17, Killigrew writes to Throgmorton ‘rumours... have been very
rife, BUT THE QUEEN SAYS SHE WILL MAKE THEM FALSE.... Leaves to his
judgment what he will not write. Has therefore sent by Jones and
Summers’ (verbally) ‘what account he wished him to make of my Lord R.’
(Dudley).
*For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, pp. 347-349.
**Ibid., 1560, p. 350.
Then (October 28) Throgmorton tells Cecil plainly that, till he knows
what Cecil thinks, he sees no reason to advise the Queen in the matter
‘of marrying Dudley.’ Begs him ‘TO SIGNIFY PLAINLY WHAT HAS BEEN
DONE,’ and implores him, ‘in the bowels of Christ ‘... ‘to hinder that
matter.’* He writes ‘with tears and sighs,’ and--he declines to return
Cecil’s letters on the subject. ‘They be as safe in my hands as in your
own, and more safe in mine than in any messenger’s.’
*For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, p. 376.
On October 29, Throgmorton sets forth his troubles to Chamberlain.
‘Chamberlain as a wise man can conceive how much it imports the Queen’s
honour and her realm to have the same’ (reports as to Amy’s death)
‘ceased.’ ‘He is withal brought to be weary of his life.’*
*For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, p. 376.
On November 7, Throgmorton writes to the Marquis of Northampton and to
Lord Pembroke about ‘the bruits lately risen from England... set so full
with great horror,’ and never disproved, despite Throgmorton’s prayers
for satisfaction.
Finally Throgmorton, as we saw, had the boldness to send his secretary,
Jones, direct to Elizabeth. All the comfort he got from her was her
statement that neither Dudley nor his retainers were at the attempt at
Cumnor Place. Francis I. died in France, people had something fresh to
talk about, and the Cumnor scandal dropped out of notice. Throgmorton,
however, persevered till, in January 1561, Cecil plainly told him to
cease to meddle. Throgmorton endorsed the letter ‘A warning not to be
too busy about the matters between the Queen and Lord Robert.’*
*For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, p. 498.
It is not necessary, perhaps, to pursue further the attempts of
Dudley to marry the Queen. On January 22 he sent to de Quadra his
brother-in-law, Sir Henry, father of Sir Philip Sidney, offering to
help to restore the Church if Philip II. would back the marriage. Sidney
professed to believe, after full inquiry, that Amy died by accident. But
he admitted ‘that no one believed it;’ that ‘the preachers harped on it
in a manner prejudicial to the honour and service of the Queen, which
had caused her to move for the remedy of the disorders of this kingdom
in religion,’ and so on.* De Quadra and the preachers had no belief in
Amy’s death by accident. Nobody had, except Dudley’s relations. A year
after Amy’s death, on September 13, 1561, de Quadra wrote: ‘The Earl of
Arundel and others are drawing up copies of the testimony given in the
inquiry respecting the death of Lord Robert’s wife. Robert is now doing
his best to repair matters’ (as to a quarrel with Arundel, it seems),
‘as it appears that more is being discovered in that matter than he
wished.’** People were not so easily satisfied with the evidence as was
the imprisoned and starving Appleyard.
*Documentos Ineditos, 88, p. 314; Span. Cal., i. p. 179; Froude, vi.
p. 453. The translations vary: I give my own. The Spanish has misprints.
**Span. Cal., i. p. 213; Documentos Ineditos, 88, p. 367.
So the mystery stands. The letters of Blount and Dudley (September 9-12,
1560) entirely clear Dudley’s character, and can only be got rid of on
the wild theory that they were composed, later, to that very end.
But the precise nature of the Cumnor jury’s verdict is unknown, and
Elizabeth’s words about ‘the attempt at her house’ prove that something
concealed from us did occur. It might be a mere half-sportive attempt by
rustics to enter a house known to be, at the moment, untenanted by
the servants, and may have caused to Amy an alarm, so that, rushing
downstairs in terror, she fell and broke her neck. The coincidence of
her death with the words of Cecil would thus be purely fortuitous, and
coincidences as extraordinary have occurred. Or a partisan of Dudley’s,
finding poison difficult or impossible, may have, in his zeal, murdered
Amy, under the disguise of an accident. The theory of suicide would be
plausible, if it were conceivable that a person would commit suicide by
throwing herself downstairs.
We can have no certainty, but, at least, we show how Elizabeth came to
be erroneously accused of reporting Amy’s death before it occurred.*
*For a wild Italian legend of Amy’s murder, written in 1577, see the
Hatfield Calendar, ii. 165-170.