Chapter XV: 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.