Life of Elizabeth I

by Alison Weir

  We can deduce little of the relationship that existed between the couple from the records that remain. They had no children, nor is there any evidence that Amy was ever pregnant. Like most wives of her class, she diligently looked after matters of business concerning his lands and farms whilst her husband was away. She must have heard the gossip about his relationship with the Queen, but we do not know for certain how much it affected her.

  Before midsummer 1560, Amy had moved again, for reasons that are obscure, this time to Cumnor Place, a house leased by Dudley's former steward, Anthony Forster, now the treasurer of his household and MP for Abingdon, from William Owen, the son of the late royal physician, Dr George Owen, who had served Henry VIII, Edward VI and Queen Mary. Mr Owen still lived in the house in his own apartments.

  Situated near the road connecting Oxford with Abingdon, near a large village, Cumnor Place, which has long since disappeared, was a relatively small medieval house. Built of grey stone in the fourteenth century, it had once been part of a religious foundation, the summer retreat of the Abbots of Abingdon and an occasional sanatorium for its monks, and was a rambling, quadrangular building surrounding a central courtyard. Some accounts describe Cumnor Place as being a singlestoreyed house, but at least three of its residents had rooms above the hall, so there must have been an upper floor. Set in pretty formal gardens, the building was in a good state of repair, thanks to the renovations made by Mr Forster - who later purchased it and is buried in the nearby church - and offered comfortable accommodation.

  Amy brought with her some servants, as well as her personal maid, Mrs Pirgo (or Pirto, or Pinto), and her companion, a Mrs Odingsells, the widowed sister of William Hyde, Amy's former host at Denchworth. Once they were all installed the house was rather crowded, for it also sheltered not only Mr and Mrs Forster (who was the niece of Lord Williams of Thame, who had been a friend to the Queen during Mary's reign) but also William Owen's elderly mother, Mrs Owen. Amy and Mrs Odingsells were assigned rooms in the west wing above the great hall, next to the apartment of Mrs Owen, whilst the Forsters had their own separate suite of rooms, as did Mr Owen. The Forsters, Hydes and Owens had long been acquainted with the Dudleys, were all related by marriage and were prominent in local society, into which they introduced Lady Dudley. Anthony Forster was a congenial host, being a cultivated and much-travelled man who loved music and could sing and play on the virginals with skill.

  De Feria and de Quadra had both referred at different times to rumours that Amy Dudley was suffering from a 'malady in her breast' that was believed to be terminal. This may have been true, but all that we know for certain about her health is that, early in September 1560, she was very depressed. This depression could have been the result of hearing that her husband was only waiting for her to die so that he could marry the Queen, or it could have been caused by the knowledge that she herself was mortally sick.

  The evidence for Amy's depression comes from two sources, the first being a statement by her maid, of which more later, and the second being the infamous tract Leyccster's Commonwealth. This was a virulent attack on Dudley made by an anonymous Catholic writer in 1584, and was the chief source for most of the damaging - and often erroneous - stories that became attached to his name over the centuries, which are only now being refuted by modern scholars. Leycester's Commonwealth gives a highly embroidered account of the events of September 1560 that must be followed with caution. However, parts of what it recounts may be true, such as its claim that the Forsters and other members of the household at Cumnor Place were so concerned when they saw that Lady Dudley was 'sad and heavy' that they wrote to a Dr Bayly, the Queen's Professor of Physic at Oxford University, asking him to prescribe some medicine for her. Bayly refused absolutely to do so: he had heard the rumours, and, 'seeing the small need which the good lady had of physic, misdoubted (as he after reported) lest, if they poisoned her under the name of his potion, he might have been hanged for a cover of their sin'. In 1584, when Leycester's Commonwealth was published and quickly became notorious, Dr Bayly was still alive and renowned for his work, but he took no steps to deny that he had acted as the tract daimed. This indicates that the episode may indeed have happened, and, if so, it confirms just how widespread - and widely believed - was the gossip about the Queen and Dudley.

  On Friday, 6 September, Bishop de Quadra arrived at Windsor Castle. On the 7th he wrote for the Duchess of Parma, King Philip's sister, a report of what had taken place that weekend, but nowhere in it did he state the actual days on which the events he related occurred; however, it is possible to work out their chronology from the evidence in his report.

  Saturday the 7th was Elizabeth's twenty-seventh birthday, and the ambassador hoped to be able to convey his master's congratulations, but she had something less felicitous to discuss. 'The Queen told me, on her return from hunting, that Lord Robert's wife was dead, or nearly so, and begged me to say nothing about it.' Her Majesty gave no details, and de Quadra seems to have assumed that Amy was dying of the breast cancer she had long been rumoured to have contracted. Because of the speculation that would naturally arise out of such a circumstance, it was natural for Elizabeth to enjoin de Quadra to silence.

  On Sunday, the day after this interview, William Cecil dispensed with his usual caution and unburdened himself to de Quadra. That he should confide in the Catholic ambassador of Spain was unusual, and possibly significant, as will become clear shortly.

  'After my conversation with the Queen', wrote the Bishop,

  'I met the Secretary Cecil, whom I knew to be in disgrace. Lord Robert, I was aware, was endeavouring to deprive him of his place. With little difficulty I led him to the subject, and after my many protestations that I would keep secret what he was about to tell me, he said that the Queen was conducting herself in such a way that he was about to withdraw from her service. It was a bad sailor, he said, who did not make for port when he saw a storm coming, and for himself he perceived the manifest ruin impending over the Queen through her intimacy with Lord Robert. The Lord Robert had made himself master of the business of the state, and of the person of the Queen, to the extreme injury of the realm, with the intention of marrying her, and she herself was shutting herself up in the palace to the peril of her health and life.

  What Cecil meant by this is not clear, since Elizabeth was out riding daily at this time - on her birthday, Dudley had reported that she was hunting with him every day from morning until night - but the Secretary may have been referring to the danger she was placing herself in by spending so many hours closeted alone with Dudley.

  That the realm would tolerate the marriage, he said, he did not believe. He was therefore determined to retire into the country, although he supposed they would send him to the Tower before they would let him go. He implored me, for the love of God, to remonstrate with the Queen, to persuade her not utterly to throw herself away as she was doing, and to remember what she owed to herself and to her subjects.

  Of Lord Robert, he said twice that he would be better in Paradise than here. He told me the Queen cared nothing for foreign princes. She did not believe she stood in any need of their support. She was deeply in debt, taking no thought how to clear herself, and she had ruined her credit in the City.

  This was an exaggeration, but Cecil wanted to impress on de Quadra how Elizabeth was ruining herself and her realm for the love of her favourite.

  Last of all, he said that they were thinking of destroying Lord Robert's wife. 'They had given out that she was ill' - did de Quadra at this point recall the Queen's conversation of the previous day? - 'but she was not ill at all, she was very well, and taking care not to be poisoned. God, he trusted, would never permit such a crime to be accomplished, or so wretched a conspiracy to prosper.'

  At the very least, Cecil was stirring things up; at the worst, he was deliberately planting in the ambassador's fertile mind the notion that the Queen - whom he had served, and was to continue to serve, with loyalty and devotion - and her lover were pl
otting murder. The Secretary knew full well that his words would be reported and then repeated throughout the courts of Europe; the Queen and Dudley themselves would soon hear of them. If Cecil was so concerned about Elizabeth risking her reputation, he could not have done more to ruin it completely. But to de Quadra he appeared distraught, aware of his peril, and apparently bereft of his usual caution. In fact, what he was trying to do was bring the Queen to her senses, by fair means or foul. Not only his career, but the future of England and the Protestant settlement were at stake.

  Cecil knew that, if Amy Dudley were to be murdered, her husband would be a free man; he also knew that the public outcry would be so great that Robert could never marry the Queen, since most people would believe he had killed his wife, even if he had not. And what Cecil wished to prevent was Dudley marrying the Queen. It was ironic that the one thing that could free the favourite for a royal marriage should be the same thing that would prevent him from achieving it.

  De Quadra, having listened in astonishment to what the Secretary had to say, decided that there was no reason to disbelieve him, and undertook to raise these issues with the Queen, even though she had never taken his advice in the past. But before he had a chance to request an audience, events overtook him.

  What was traditionally known as 'Our Lady's Fair' opened at Abingdon on Sunday, 8 September, and Amy Dudley gave all her servants permission to go. Indeed, she seemed unduly anxious that they should do so, for when some protested that it was not fitting to attend a fair on a Sunday, she sharply insisted that they obey her order. Nevertheless, Mrs Odingsells remained stubborn, declaring that it was unseemly for her to go to a place where she might have to rub shoulders with servants and ill-bred persons. Amy grew very angry at this, whereat Mrs Odingsells reasoned with her that, if she herself went to the fair, there would be no one at Cumnor Place with whom Amy could dine. Amy petulantly retorted that, as Mrs Odingsells was not a servant, she could do as she pleased; old Mrs Owen could bear her [Amy] company at dinner'. At this, Mrs Odingsells retired to her room and Amy's servants went off to Abingdon.

  Around eleven a.m., dinner was served to Amy and Mrs Owen. The house was not otherwise deserted because, apart from Mrs Odingsells, Mrs Forster was also there at the time, and both these ladies had servants on duty. But the place was quiet, and everyone seems to have kept to their rooms or quarters.

  When her servants returned to Cumnor Place late that afternoon, they were shocked and bewildered to find Amy Dudley's body at the foot of a shallow flight of stone steps that led from her rooms to the hall, with her neck broken. The author of Leycester's Commonwealth asserted much later that her head-dress and clothing were still in place and not disarranged, but this information appears nowhere in the contemporary records. The same author refers to the body being discovered at the foot of 'a pair of stairs', i.e. a staircase with a landing in the middle, which corroborates contemporary accounts.

  A manservant, one Bowes, was dispatched at once to Windsor to convey the news to Dudley. The following morning, by a coincidence, he met on the way an important officer of Dudley's household, Thomas Blount, travelling in the opposite direction. Blount, whose tomb may still be seen in Kidderminster Church, was a distant relation of the Dudleys and had sometimes carried messages from husband to wife; he had been sent from Windsor that morning by Dudley on an errand to Cumnor Place.

  When Bowes told him that their lady was dead 'by a fall from a pair of stairs', he did not turn back, but decided to continue his journey, proceeding at an unhurried pace and stopping for the night at an inn at Abingdon. He could have gone on to Cumnor but, as he later informed his master, he wished to discover 'what news went abroad in the country'.

  At supper, he fell into conversation with the landlord, pretending to be a stranger en route for Gloucester, and inquiring 'what news was thereabout'. His host could talk of nothing but 'the great misfortune' which had taken place on the previous day less than a mile away. However, it was obvious that the man knew few details. Blount said he supposed that some members of Amy's household might be able to say what had happened, but the landlord replied that they would not, since they had all been away at the fair at the time she died, 'and none left with her'. He had heard how Amy had commanded them to go 'and would suffer none to tarry at home'.

  Blount thought this sounded odd, but he kept his opinions to himself and asked the landlord for his views on what had happened, asking, 'What was the judgement of the people?'

  'Some are disposed to say well, and some evil,' was the guarded reply. 'For myself, I judge it a very misfortune [i.e. accident] because it chanced at that honest gentleman's house: his great honesty doth much curb the evil thoughts of the people.' Blount realised that others might not be so charitable.

  Meanwhile, Bowes had arrived at court on the morning of Monday 9 September, and, finding Dudley with the Queen, broke the news to them both. De Quadra recorded that Elizabeth was so shocked that she was almost speechless.

  Dudley appeared genuinely bewildered at what had taken place. Learning from Bowes that Blount had gone on to Cumnor, he dispatched that evening a courier after the latter, with a letter for him and instructions to find out more details of his wife's death.

  'Cousin Blount,' he wrote, 'the greatness and suddenness of the misfortune doth so perplex me until I do hear from you how the matter standeth, or how this evil should light upon me, considering what the malicious world will bruit, as I can take no rest. And, because I have no way to purge myself of the malicious talk that I know the wicked world will use, but one which is the very plain truth to be known, I do pray you, as you have loved me, and do tender me and my quietness, and as now my special trust is in you, that you will use all the devices and means you can possibly for learning of the truth, wherein have no respect to any living person.' He wanted a full inquiry into Amy's death, and he wanted it carried out by 'the discreetest and most substantial men, such as for their knowledge may be able to search thoroughly the bottom of the matter, and for their uprightness will earnestly and sincerely deal therein. As I would be sorry in my heart any such evil should be committed, so should it well appear to the world my innocency by my dealing in the matter.'

  At the same time, Dudley sent another messenger to Norfolk, to inform his wife's relatives of her death. Amy's half-brother, John Appleyard, soon afterwards visited Cumnor Place to make his own enquiries.

  On Tuesday, 11 September, de Quadra reported, in a postscript to his letter to the Duchess of Parma, that Elizabeth had ordered the news of Lady Dudley's death to be made public, the tragedy officially being attributed to accidental causes. The Queen then confided to the ambassador, in Italian, that Amy had broken her neck, adding, 'She must have fallen down a staircase.'

  Anticipating what her subjects' reaction would be to the news, the Queen wasted no time in ordering an inquest to be held, and guessing that Dudley would be suspected of foul play, she immediately distanced herself from the tragedy and insisted that he leave court and go to his house at Kew, there to remain while he awaited the coroner's verdict.

  Robert Dudley was devastated at what had happened, and fearful for his future. Like most people, he believed that Amy had been murdered, and although he exhibited few signs of grief at the loss of his wife, he was zealous in his efforts to uncover the truth surrounding her death, not only because he wished to see justice done, but also because he wished to clear himself - the prime suspect - of any complicity in it. To this end, he continued to insist that the most rigorous enquiries be made, knowing that the only way to exonerate himself would be in finding the real culprit.

  But this was easier wished for than accomplished. On 10 September, Thomas Blount arrived at Cumnor Place to find not only his master's letter awaiting him, but also the coroner and his jury inspecting the scene of death. Blount told them of Dudley's earnest wish that they should carry out their investigation thoroughly and without respect of any person. He informed Lord Robert that the chosen jurymen seemed to be 'as wis
e and as able men, being but countrymen, as I ever saw. And for their true search I have good hope they will conceal no fault, if any be; for as they are wise, so are they, as I hear, part of them very enemies to Anthony Forster. God give them, with their wisdom, indifferency.' Already there were whispers that Forster had been Dudley's accomplice.

  Blount then discussed the tragedy with the people living in the house. All he could report to Dudley was that they told the same story as the landlord, averring that her ladyship 'was so earnest to have her servants gone to the fair, that with any that made reason for tarrying at home she was very angry'. The quarrel with Mrs Odingsells was recounted, and it was clear that the servants felt that Amy's behaviour had been out of character. Blount wrote: 'Certainly, my lord, as little while as I have been here, I have heard divers tales of her that maketh me to judge her to be a strange woman of mind.'

  Blount made a point of questioning Amy's maid, Mrs Pirgo, 'who doth dearly love her', and

  in asking Pirgo what she might think of this matter, either chance or villainy, she saith by her faith that she doth judge very chance, and neither done by man or by herself. Lady Dudley was a good, virtuous gentlewoman, and daily would pray upon her knees, and at divers times Pirgo hath heard her pray to God to deliver her from desperation. Then, said I, she might have an evil toy in her mind.