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The Gentleman's Magazine Volume 179 Pages 595-600 is in The Gentleman's Magazine Volume 179.
No. V. Lady Amye Dudley.
Lady Amye Dudley (sometimes, but improperly, styled Countess of Leicester,1 for her tragical death occurred before the elevation of her husband to the dignity of an Earl) was the daughter and heiress of Sir John Robsart the representative of an ancient family in Norfolk2, by Elizabeth daughter of John Scott esquire, of Camberwell, Surrey.
Note 1. By Sir Walter Scott in his romance of Kenilworth, by the poet Mickle in his ballad of Cumnor Hall, by Lysons, &c.
Note 2. Sir John Robsart was one of the four Commissioners of Lieutenancy of Norfolk appointed in 1551. (Privy Council Book, MS. Harl. 352, f. 150.)
[4th June 1550]. Lord Robert Dudley (age 17), at the period of his marriage, was eighteen years of age, and it is probable that the lady [Amy Robsart (age 17)] was not older. The wedding took place on the 4th of June, 1550, the day after the memorable alliance had been accomplished between the Lord Lisle (age 23), Lord Robert's elder brother, and the Lady Anne Seymour (age 12), which it was vainly hoped would have cemented the reconciliation of the rival statesmen their fathers,—Edward Seymour (age 50) Duke of Somerset, and John Dudley (age 46) Earl of Warwick, afterwards Duke of Northumberland. The second marriage, which was celebrated, like the former, at the royal palace of Sheen [Map], is thus noticed by King Edward VI. in his diary:
"June 4. Sir Robert Dudely, third sonne to th'erle of Warwic, maried sir John Robsartes daughter; after wich mariage ther were certain gentlemen that did strive who shuld first take away a gose's heade wich was hanged alive on tow crose postes."
Lady Amye survived her marriage for ten years, but is not recorded to have had any children. When her husband was imprisoned (with the other members of his family) in the Tower, in Sept. 1553, she was permitted to have access to him1; but the only other memorial of her, until the memorable event of her history—her mysterious death,—is the following letter, of which the original is preserved in the British Museum. The date of the year is mot mentioned, nor are its contents remarkable, excepting that they describe the fair writer to be in sorrow for the departure of her lord, and exhibit both of them in an amiable light; he, as being extremely solicitous that some poor men should be paid money that was due to them, and she, as willing to make a pecuniary sacrifice in order that his ‘wishes might be immediately fulfilled2.
"Mr. Flowardwe3,— "I understand by Gryse that you put hym in remembreance of that you spake to me of consarnyng the goyng of sertayne shepe at Systorne, and althowe I forgot to mowe my lorde thereof before his departyng, he beyng sore trubled with wayty affares, and I not beyng all together in quyet for his soden departyng; yet, notwithstandyng, knowing your acostomed fryndshype towardes my lorde and me, I nether may nor can deney you that requeste in my lordes absence of myne owne autoryte, ye and yt war a gretar matter, as, if any good occasyon may serve you, so trye me; deseryng you fardar-that you wyll mak sale of the wolle so sone as ys possyble, althowe you sell yt for vj the stone4, or as you wold sell for your sealf, for my lorde so ernystly requered me at his departyng to se those pore men satysfyed, as thowe yt had bene a matter dependyng uppon lyff; wherfore I force not to sustayne a lyttell losse, therby to satysfy my lordes desyer; and so to send that money to Grysses house to London, by Brydwell, to whom my lorde hathe gewen order for the pamente therof. And thus I ende allewayes trobelyng you, wyssyng that occasyon maye serve me to requyte you; untyll that tyme, I must pay you with thankes, and so to God I leve you. From mr Heydes this vij of Auguste.
"Your assured duryng lyff,
"Amy Duddley,
"To my veary frynd mr Flowerdwe the elder geve this, Norff."
Note 1. Haynes's Burghley Papers, p. 182,
Note 2. These remarks are from the Retrospective Review, 1828, New Series, vol. ii. p. 134, where this letter was first published. The autograph signature (which is the only part written by the lady) is there engraved, and again in Facsimiles of Autographs, 1829. The original isin MS. Harl. 4712.
Note 3. John Flowerdew esquire was of Hethersett, in Norfolk, and his fourth son Edward was made a Baron of the Exchequer in 1584. The preceding letter in the same volume is one from Lord Robert Dudley to "his vearrie frinde John Flowerdew esquier," thanking him for the trouble he had taken in the writer's affairs at Sidisterne. The Earl of Leicester had a grant of this manor with that of Hemesby, and advowson of the vicarage lately belonging to the cathedral church of Norwich, the manor of Newton by Bircham, and the advowson, late John Robsart's; also the manor of Great Bircham to hold Hemesby with Anne his wife, and the heirs of their body, in capite, and to hold Sidestern, Newton, and Great Bircham; to Anne and Robert, during the life of the said Robert; by a grant dated Jan. 30, in the 3d of Philip and Mary, The Earl held the manor of Sidestern during his life, dying lord of it in 1588, whenit came to John Walpole, esq. son and heir of Edward Walpole, esq. of Houghton, and Lucy his wife, daughter of Sir Terry Robsart, and in this family it remains, Blomefield's Norfolk.
Note 4. First written vs. and then altered to vjs
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The current story of this lady's murder is derived from one of the most virulent libels ever published, "A Dialogue between a Scholar, a Gentleman, and a Lawyer," which, though it has also passed under other titles, is best known by that of "Leicester's Commonwealth." In an impartial in of the matter, it is necessary that this should first be distinctly stated; for it is to the very same narrative that Kippis, in his Biographia Britannica, has assigned the authority of Aubrey, and Sir Walter Scott, in the historical introduction to his romance of "Kenilworth," the name of Ashmole. Ashmole, in fact, transcribed from Aubrey, and Aubrey from the contemporary libel, without introducing any additional particulars. After this explanation, the following extraordinary passages of a very extraordinary book1 may be cited:
(P.22.) "For first his lordship hath "a speciall fortune that, when he desireth any woman's favour, then what person soever standeth in his way hath the luck to dye quickly, for the finishing of his desire. As, for example, when his lordship was "in full hope to marry her Majesty, and his owne wife stood in his light, as he supposed, he did but send her aside to the house of his servant Forster, of Cumnor, by Oxford, where shortly after she had the chance to fall from a paire of staires, and so to breake her neck, but yet without hurting of her hood that stood upon her head. But Sir Richard Varney, who, by commandement remained with her that day alone, with one man onely, and had sent away perforce all her servants from her to a market two miles off, he (I say) with his man can tell how she died, which man being taken afterwards for a felony in the Marches of Wales, and offering to publish the manner of the said murder, was made away prively in the prison; and Sir Richard himself dying about the same time in London, cried piteously, and blasphemed God, and said to a gentleman of worship of mine acquaintance, not long before his death, that all the devils in hell did tear him in pieces. The wife also of Bald Butler, kinsman to my Lord, gave out the whole fact a little before her death. But to return unto my purpose, this was my lord's good fortune, to have his wife dye at that time when it was like to turne most to his profite."
(P. 34.) "Lawyer. Trueit is (said the Lawyer,) for he doth not poison his wives, whereof I somewhat mervaile, especially his first wife; I muse why he chose rather to make her away by open violence, then by some Italian confortive.
"Hereof (said the Gentleman) may be divers reasons alleaged. First, that he was not at that time so skilful in those Italian wares, nor had about him for physicians and chyrurgions for the purpose: nor yet, in truth, doe I thinke that his minde was so settled then in mischiefe, as it hath been sithence. For you know that men are not desperate the first day, but'doe enter into wickednesse by degrees, and with some doubt or staggering of conscience at the beginning. And so he at that time might be desirous to have his wife made away, for that she letted him in his designements, but yet not so stony bard as to appoint out the particular manner of her death, but rather to leave that to the discretion of the murderer.
Note 1. The Dialogue is supposed to have been first printed on the Continent in 1584. Its assertions were repudiated by the Queen in Council on the 20th June, 1585, in a letter directed to the magistrates of Cheshire, in which it was asserted that "her Highness not only knoweth to assured certainty the books and libels against the said Earl to be most malicious, false, and scandalous, and such as none but an incarnate devil himself could dream to be true," &c. The authorship was attributed to Parsons the Jesuit.
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"Secondly, it is not also unlike that he prescribed unto Sir Richard Varney, at his going thither, that he should first attempt to kill her by poyson, and if that tooke not place, then by any other way to despatch her howsoever. This I prove by the report of one Dr. Bayly1, who then lived at Oxford, (another manner of man then he who now liveth about my lord of the same name,) and was Professor of the Physicke Lecture in the same University. This learned grave man reported for most certaine, that there was a practice in Cumnor among the conspiratours to have poysoned the poore lady a little before she was killed, which was attempted in this order.
Note 1. Walter Bayly, M.D. Fellow of New College, was appointed the Queen's Professor of Physic in the University 1561, and afterwards physician in ordinary to her Majesty. He was esteemed very skilful in theory and successful in practice. He died March 3, 1592, aged 63, and was therefore alive at the time of the first publication of this story.
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"They seeing the good lady sad and heavy (as one that wel knew by her other handling that her death was not far off), began to perswade her that the disease was abundance of melancholly and other humours, and therefore would needs counsaile her to take some potion, which she absolutely refusing to do, as suspecting still the worst, they sent one day (unwares to her) for Doctor Bayly, and desired him to perswade her to take some little potion at his hands, and they would send to fetch the same at Oxford upon his prescription, meaning to have added also somewhat of their own for her comfort, as the doctor upon just causes suspected, seeing their great importunity and the small need which the good lady had of physick; and therefore he flatly denied their request, misdoubting (as he after reported) lest if they had poisoned her under the name of his potion he might after have been hanged for a colour of their sinne. Marry, the said doctor remained well assured that, this way taking no place, she should not long escape violence, as after ensued. And the thing was so beaten into the heads of the principall men of the University of Oxford by these and other means, as for that she was found murdered (as all men said) by the crowner's inquest, and for that she being hastely buried at Cumner (which was condemned above, as not advisedly done,) my good lord, to make plain to the world the great love he bare to her in her life, and what a griefe the losse of so vertuous a lady was to his tender heart, would needs have her taken up againe and reburied in the University Church at Oxford with great pomp and solemnity; that Doctor Rabiagioli1 wy lord's chaplain, making the publick funerall sermon at her second buriall, tript once or twice in his speech, by recommending to their memories, ‘that vertuous lady so pitifully murdered,' instead of so pitifully slaine."
Note 1. Qu. who? Not Gervase Babington, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, for he took his B.A. degree in 1571.
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"A third cause of this manner of the ladies death may be the disposition of my lord's nature, which is bold and violent where it feareth no resistance, (as all cowardly natures are byminde,) and, where any difficulty or danger appeareth, there more ready to attempt all by art, subtilty, treason, and treachery. And so, for that he doubted no great resistance in the poore lady to withstand the hands of them, which should offer to break her neck, he durst the bolder attempt the same openly."
The writer of the Earl of Leicester's life in the Biographica Britannica remarks, that "there are some things in this account not very consistent," but only points out one, namely the mention of the lady Amye's father, who he proceeds to state was already dead before his daughter. Now, I have not been able to ascertain the precise date of Sir John Robsart's death, but Blomefield, in his History of Norfolk, asserts it to have been soon after the 1st Philip and Mary; and, if so, it was in fact at a period not far distant from his daughter's marriage. In that case, the libeller is detected in one false statement; but it will have been observed that he states various other particulars with much precision, and they give to his narrative at least the appearance of truth. There can, in fact, be but little question that there was a coroner's inquest, for to that we have the attestation of the Queen1; nor that there was an ostentatious funeral at Oxford, for this is testified by the following passage of a contemporary letter, in which also the ambiguous epithet "mischancing" is applied to the lady's death:
"This sayd berer seeth the corte [then at Hampton Court] stuffed with morners (yea many of the better sorte in degree) for the L. Robertes wief, who was uppon the mischaunceng deathe buried in the hed churche of the university of Oxford, the cost of the funerelles estemed at better than ij m1. marks," (W. Honyng to the Earl of Sussex, then Lieutenant of Ireland, Oct. 6, 15602)..
Note 1. See the letter of Mr, Jones to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton's messenger, quoted hereafter,
Note 2. MS. Cotton. Vesp. F. xii. f. 151.
To this funeral also the following passsage of the Diary of Machin the Herald-painter, must also relate:
"The (blank) day of August was bered my lade Dudley, the wyff of my lord Robart Dudley, the master of the queen('s) horse, with a grett baner of armes and a vj baners-rolles of armes, and a viij dosen penselles and viij dosen skochyons, and iiij grett skochyons of armes, and iiij haroldes, master Garter, master Clarenshux, master Lanckostur, and (blank).
It is to be regretted that in this entry we have neither the name of a place nor a Precise date,—the latter more especially as the 8th September has been assigned as the day of the lady Amye's decease, and I have failed to find upon what authority. As the funeral at Oxford more probably was solemnised, a month after her death, than at any earlier period, the discrepancy of Machin naming the month of August is the more remarkable.
Indeed, another circumstance seems to show that the 8th of Sepenaber is an error: for the letter of Thomas Lever, which will be presently introduced, is dated on the 17th of that month, and that would allow almost too short an interval to correspond with the state of public feeling which he describes.
+ It cannot be denied, that, if the narrative of the accuser is not supported by such evidence as it would be vain to expect in such a case, we are overwhelmed with the reports of "many-tongued rumour" in every variety of shape, It is certain that the suspicion of foul play in the matter of the lady's death was current immediately after the event; and to this we have three testimonies, that of Mr. Lever, a mimister of religion, of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, an ambassador abroad, and that of Lord Burghley, the prime minister himself.
Mr. Lever's letter is dated the 17th of September, without a year, but no doubt in that of Lady Amye's death. He boldly prays for a public investigation of the matter, thus addressing Sir Francis Knollys and Sir William Cecill:
"The grace of God be unto your honors, with mi humble commendations, and trusté thanks in Christ, for that it hath pleased God to place you in authorité, with wisdome and willes to advance his gloré, the quenes majesties godli honor, and the peaceable welthe of this realme; and that also I am well assured of your faverable minds towardes me, to take in writing according to mi meaning faithfuli, reverentli, and lovingli. Therefore am I moved and boldned bi writing to signefie unto you, that here in these partes semeth unto me to be a grevous and dangerous suspicion and muttering of the death of her wich was the wife of my Lord Robert Dudlei. And now mi desire and trust is that the rather bi your godli discrete devise and diligence, through the quenes majesties autorité, ernest searching and triing out of the truethe, with due ponishment if enie be founde gilté in this mater, mai be openli known. For if no search nor inquiré be made and known, the displeasure of God, the dishonour of the quene, and the danger of the whole realme is to be feared; and bi due inquiré, and justice openlie known, sureli God shalbe wel pleasedand served, the quenes majestie worthilie commended, and her loving subjects comfortabli quieted. The Lord God guide you by his grace in this and all other your godli travels, as he knoweth to be most expedient in Christ. Scriblet at Coventre the 17 of September, bi youre faithfulle in Christ,
Thomas Lever1.
"Unto the right honorable Sir Francis Khnoils and Sir William Cecill, Knights, ‘and to either of them, be these dd.""
Note 1. Thomas Lever was a Prebendary of Durham, and Master of Sherborne Hospital. He was a Cambridge man, and a distinguished preacher. His sermons are largely noticed by Strype, and by the Rev. J. O. W. Haweis, in his recent "Sketches of the Reformation." I cannot abstain from remarking in this place how exceedingly Mr. Lodge (in his memoir of the Earl of Leicester,) has misrepresented matters as connected with Lever's letter. He says, "The disfigured corpse was hurried to the earth without a coroner's inquest, and to such a height did the pity and the resentment of the neighbouring families arise, that they employed the pen of Thomas Lever, a prebendary of Coventry, to write to the Secretaries of State, intreating that a strict inquiry should be made into the true cause of the lady's death, but the application had no effect." Here are at least three misapprehensions: that no coroner's inquest took place, that Lever was employed by the families in the neighbourhood of Cumnor, the neighbourhood he speaks of being that of Coventry and Kenilworth, and that he was a prebendary of Coventry. Lever was a very zealous man, who appears to have assumed to himself the office of a spiritual monitor to the ministers of state, and to have pursued his plan of writing to two of them at a time. In 1568 he thus addressed a remonstrance to the Earl of Leicester himself and Sir William Cecill, "and to either of them," on the neglect of religion. It is preserved among the Cecill Papers, MS. Lansdowne 11, art. 5.
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In Nov. 1560 Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Ambassador in France, sent over a special messenger, Mr. Jones, to the Queen, in order to detail privately to her Majesty the various rumours with regard to her sxpeciad marriage which were current abroad. In Mr. Jones's report of the interview1 he states that "When I came to the point that touched his case, which I set forth in as vehement terms as the case required, that the Duke of Northumberland's hatred was rather to her than to the Queen her sister, she laughed, and forthwith turned herself to the one side and to the other, and set her hand upon her face. She thereupon told me, that the matter [evidently the death of the Lady Amye,] had been tried in the country,2 and found to be contrary to that which was reported, saying that he was then in the Court, and none of his at the attempt at his wife's house; and that it fell out as should neither touch his honesty nor his honour. Quoth she, "My ambassador knoweth somewhat of my mind in these matters."
Note 1. Printed in Lord Hardwicke's State Papers, i. 165.
Note 2. This must allude to a coroner's inquest. It might be thought that, when Lever's letter was written, no inquest had been held; otherwise, its proceedings had been so hushed up as not to satisfy the public feeling.
This evidence, it must be admitted, does not improve the position of Leicester's character. It shows the strong hand of the Queen's authority stretched out to shield him from that investigation which could alone have cleared away every imputation. Nor is the impression weakened by the few words we have from thehand of Lord Burghley. Among a string of reasons noted down by Cecill himself, why the Queen should not make the Earl her husband, one is—that "he is infamed by deth of his wyff1."
Note 1. Haynes's Burghley Papers, p. 444.
After all these proofs of the prevalence of the contemporary reports, we can scarcely wonder that the stream of History has received the same colouring; though, if the earlier historical writers are examined, it will be found that the great charge of this complexion which they entertain against Leicester is, that he may have poisoned the Earl of Essex, in order to marry his Countess, whilst the Lady Amye is forgotten. To this latter charge Camden in his reign of Elizabeth alludes, and so does Grotius in his history of the Netherlands;1 and the Earl is said ‘not to have escaped the suspicions of Strada or Mezeray2.
Note 1. The man was by no means blamed for his conduct among his own people, for it was said that, with Essex having been removed, he had made room for himself at home through marriage.
—homini apud suos morum minime inculpato, nam sublato Essexio domum sibi vacuam nuptiis fecisse dicebatur.—H, Grotii Annales de Rebus Belgicis.
Note 2. I have looked at Strada, but without finding any such imputation.
When the story of Lady Amye's murder was once current, it was sure not to be left alone by the Earl of Leicester's enemies. A libel upon him even more bitter, if possible, ro the Dialogue, is preserved in manuscript1 in the British Museum, under the title of a Journey to the World of Spirits. It was written soon after his death, and relates that his spirit, on leaving this ‘world, was met in the air by an evil spirit named Sarcotheos, who deceived him by inscribing on his forehead the words Lettice amys, as a passport to heaven; but, on arriving at its portal, he was told by St. Peter, "Sarcotheos hath wrighten upon your forehead the names of both your wiefs, namely, of the lady Amy your first wief, and of the lady Lettice your last wief, and he hath written them both in blude, to shew that you lefte the one and got the other with murder and blude."
Note 1. MS. Addit. 1926.
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In a poetical composition probably written about the same time, and entitled "Leicester's Ghost," the fate of the Lady Amye is thus alluded too:—
My first wife fell downe from a paire of staeres,
And brake her neck, and so at Comner dy'd:
Whilst her two servants, led with small affaires,
Unto a fair at Abingdon did ride,
This dismall hap did to my wife betide.
Whether you call it chance or destiny,
Too true it is she did untimely dye.
O had I now a showre of teares to shed,
Lockt in the empty circles of my eyes,
All could I shed in mourning for the dead,
That lost a spouse so young, so faire, so wise,
So faire a corps so foule a coarse now lies.
My hope t'have married with a famous Queene
Drave pitty back and kept my teares unseene.
What man so fond that would not lose a pearle
To find a diamond, leave brasse for gold?
Or who would not forsake a gallant girle
To win a Queene, great men in awe to hold,
To rule the state, and of none to be control'd?
O, but the steps that lead unto a throne
Are dangerous for men to tread upon!
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In the Yorkshire Tragedy, a popular drama of Shakspere's time, and which was once printed (1603) with Shakspere's name, a prodigal, having determined to destroy all his family, throws his wife down stairs, with this evident allusion to the supposed murder of Leicester's lady,—
The only way to chain a woman's tongue
Is, break her neck,—a politician did it.
The tradition (repeated and perpetuaeted, as before mentioned, by the local historians, Aubrey and Ashmole), lingered about the old hall of Cumnor, where, as is usual in like cases, the particuler localities of the story, "the Lady Dudley's chamber," &c. were (and are still) pointed out to the visitor.
The poet Mickle, inspired by this tragic theme, was tempted to make it the subject of a ballad, and from that ballad originated the plot of Sir Walter Scotts romance of Kenilworth. Scott read the ballad in Evans's Collection, and says he "was particularly pleased with it," and he has reprinted it in the historical introduction to the annotated edition of his romance. It was also inserted in Newbury's "Beauties of Antient (!) Poetry," and again in the Gentleman's Magazine for Nov. 1821, where some one attempted to disguise it in a fictitious garb of old orthography.
Yielding, as it were, to the oft-repeated echo of the Cumnor tragedy, some modern writers have deemed it impossible to deny the imputed guilt of the Earl of Leicester. Mr. Lodge, in his Illustrious Portraits, says,
"It is scarcely to be doubted that he caused this lady to be assassinated; and the circumstances of the time, as well as of the case itself, tend to press on his memory this dreadful charge, perhaps more heavily than any other of the same character. Her death occurred on the 8th of September, 1560, at the very period when the lofty hope of obtaining the hand of his Sovereign may be clearly presumed to have reigned with the strongest sway "in his overheated mind."
The reader has now seen placed before him all the evidence that is known to be in existence upon this subject. It has been shown that the worst rumours were current long before the publication of the book entitled "Leicester's Commonwealth." Still, it must be recollected how difficult, if not impossible, it is to suppress such rumours where malicious enemies are interested in their propagation; and the circumstance of the Lady Amye's death ‘being occasioned by a sudden "mischance," however accidental, would alone form a sufficient foundation from which they could raise the worst phantasmas of suspicion. It is scarcely probable that posterity will ever be able to pronounce a unanimous verdict on this question.
J.G.N.