Amy ROBSART
Born: ABT 1540
Died: 8 Sep 1560, Cumnor Place, Berkshire, England
Father: John ROBSART of Syderstone (Sir)
Mother: Elizabeth SCOTT
Married: Robert
DUDLEY (1° E. Leicester) 5 Jun 1550, Sheen, Richmond
Amy Robsart was the only legitimate child of Sir John Robsart,
Lord of the Manor of Syderstone
in Norfolk, by Elizabeth the daughter of John Scott of Camberwell,
Surrey - and widow of Roger Appleyard (d. 1530),
Lord of the Manor of Stanfield, also in Norfolk. By her first husband, Lady
Robsart had four children: John, Phillip, Anne and
Frances; and, to her, the manor of Stanfield was bequeathed, with remainder
to her son, John. She died in 1549.
On 5 Jun 1550, Amy Robsart married Robert Dudley
at the royal palace of Sheen at Richmond, near London, at a ceremony attended by
both Elizabeth Tudor and King
Edward VI. Amy was about 18. It was
a grand occasion, attended by the young Edward
VI. Lady Amy's father settled some property on her just
before (May 1650) and, at the same time, a second deed of settlement was signed
by both Sir John Robsart and
John Dudley making provision for
Dudley. On 4 Feb 1553,
John Dudley granted Hemsby Manor, near
Yarmouth (Norfolk), to "Robert Dudley, Lord Dudley, my son, and the Ladie
Amie, his wife". The early days of their married life were apparently spent
in Norfolk, where Dudley
was prominent in local affairs. He became Joint-Steward of the Manor of Rising
and constable of the castle there (7 Dec 1551); Joint-Commissioner of the
Lieutenancy for Norfolk (16 May 1552) and Member of Parliament for the county in 1553. However,
John Dudley increasingly took Robert
to court, while Lady Amy stayed at
home. Here, he began currying favour and acquiring lucrative appointments, as
well as property.
Little is known of Amy's character but it is
said she was a quiet and charming young lady. No portrait of Amy has
survived.
The marriage began happily. However,
Robert was ambitious and had little interest in running country estates. He was
attracted by the opportunities and glamour offered by the Royal Court. He became
involved in political intrigues and in 1557 took part in a foreign military
expedition.
Upon the death of the young Edward VI,
Dudley aided
his father and brothers in their, temporarily successful, attempt to place his
sister-in-law, Lady Jane Grey,
on the throne. By 26 Jul, however, the plot had collapsed and
Robert was committed to the Tower. He was arraigned, attainted and
sentenced to death on 22 Jan 1554. During his confinement in the Tower, the now
impoverished Lady Amy was allowed to visit him. Her husband was
eventually released and pardoned on 18 Oct at the end of the same year. In 1557,
Amy was alone once more, when
Robert accompanied his brothers,
Ambrose and Henry,
to Picardy. He acted as Master of Ordnance to the English army engaged in the
Battle of St. Quentin, where his brother, Henry, was killed, and, for his
military services, he and his surviving siblings were restored in blood by Act
of Parliament (7 Mar 1558).
Robert was granted his goods and the manor of Hemsby, and allowed to
inherit the Robsart estate. Unfortunately, Syderstone Manor was uninhabitable. Thus Lady Amy's prospects were at least
partially restored. King
Felipe is said to have subsequently shown her husband some
favour and was employed to carry messages between the Spanish monarch and
Queen Mary.
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When Queen Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, she gave
Robert a position at Court as Master of the Queen's Horse. She conferred land
and other honours upon him. Courtiers noted that the
Queen was attracted to Robert.
Robert and Amy had no children.
Robert
was now absent at Court for long periods. Amy lived for two years in
Essex. They did not meet frequently. Meanwhile, Lady Amy lived, for the
most part, in the country. We shall never know how much of the Court scandal
reached her ears or what she thought of her husband's affair. Extant accounts,
kept by her husband's stewards, show that, at the beginning of
Elizabeth's reign, she was travelling about in Suffolk and
Lincolnshire and paid occasional visits to Christchurch, Camberwell, and London.
Her most permanent home seems to have been the house of William Hyde at
Denchworth Manor, near Abingdon. Hyde was the Member of Parliament for Abingdon, had bought
land from
John Dudley, and was friendly with
Dudley himself.
Dudley's account-books show that he frequently visited Lady Amy
at Denchworth in 1558 and 1559.
He did visit her for a few days at Throcking in the spring of 1559, followed
by her visit to him in London for about a month. She spent large sums on dress, for which her
husband's steward paid. A letter addressed, by her, to a tailor named William
Edney of Tower Royal, respecting an elaborate costume is still preserved at
Longleat House (Wiltshire). Another of her letters, dated 7 Aug 1559, and
addressed to John Flowerdew, Steward of Syderstone,
gives, in her husband's name, several detailed directions about the sale of some
wool on the Siderstern estate, which had become the joint property of the couple
on the death of Amy's father in 1557. The language suggests a perfect
understanding between husband and wife. By Sep 1559, Amy had
moved to Sir Richard Verney's house, Compton Verney, in Warwickshire, and in Dec
she arrived to stay at Cumnor Place, Berkshire, which was to be her last
home.
Cumnor Place had been built in the
early 14h century by the monks of Abingdon Abbey. In 1546, following the Dissolution, Cumnor Place and the Lordship of Cumnor Manor had been granted by
Henry VIII to George Owen (b. 1499 - d. 18 Oct 1558), his physician. Owen's son and heir
William later leased it to
Anthony Forster (b. 1510 - d. 1572), a friend and servant of Robert
Dudley. It appears to have been a
large establishment with room for separate quarters for three ladies in
addition to Forster and his wife and children. One "apartment" was
occupied by Mrs. Owen, identified in some accounts as William Owen's mother,
the widow of George Owen,
Mary Long
(b. 1518 - d. 30 Oct 1578).
Mary Long was the daughter of Simon Long of the Isle of
Wight and Alice Huglett. She married Thomas Locke or Lok (b. 8 Feb 1514 - d.
9 Nov 1556) and by him had six children: William, Rowland, Matthew
(b. 1553 - d. 1599), John, Mary, and Anne. Her sister-in-law,
Rose Locke,
wife of Anthony
Hickman, chided
Mary for keeping her husband in England after he was arrested for heresy and
thus contributing to his death. Later, Rose Locke married Simon
Throckmorton. Sometime between 1556 and 1558, Mary Long wed
Dr.
George Owen. At some point after 1558, Mary
took a third husband, Sir William Allen (b. ABT 1515) who was Lord Mayor
of London in 1572/3. Her son Matthew Locke married his daughter Margaret
Allen (b. 1560 - d. 25 Aug 1624) on 15 Jul 1577.
The DNB entry for "Owen,
George," however, identifies the occupant of Cumnor Place in 1560 as
William Owen's wife. This was Anne Rawley, daughter of John Rawley of
Billesby, Northamptonshire; or possibly Ursula Fettiplace, said by other
sources to have married William Owen in 1558. The other gentlewoman resident,
besides Lady Dudley, was a widow, Mrs. Odingsells. Some sources say she was
Edith Williams, niece of John, 1st baron
Williams, and wife of
Edmund Odingsells. Edith was the sister of Anne, wife of Anthony
Forster. Other sources identify Mrs. Odingsells as Elizabeth Hyde,
widow of John Odingsells of Long Itchington and sister of William Hyde of
nearby Denchworth. John Odingsells reportedly died in
poverty, and his property ended up in the
possession of Amy's husband. Elizabeth Hyde may also have been
Edith Williams's mother-in-law, although that is conjecture.
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Cumnor Place
by
H.J.Ford from 'Haunted Homes and
Family Legends' by J.Ingram, published in 1897.
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Amy was unhappy. There was constant
gossip that her husband wished to marry Queen
Elizabeth. She might have
been ill. She is said to have discovered a lump in her breast at about
that time. In 1559, her husband was made Lieutenant of Windsor Castle, which is
about thirty miles from Cumnor Place, but there does not seem to be any
documentation of visits to Amy while she lived there. The following letter suggests that Amy
found some pleasure in buying new clothes:
"edney wt
my
harty comendations these shall be to desier you to take ye paynes for me As to
make this gowne of vellet whiche I sende you wt suche A collare as you made my
rosset taffyta gown you sente me last & I will se you dyscharged
for all I pray you let it be done wt as muche speade as you can & sente
by this bearar frewen the carryar of oxforde & thus
I bed you most hartely fare well from comnare this xxiiij of avguste
Your assured frind
AMYE DUDDLEY
To my very frinde will yam edney the tayler at ye tower riall geve this in
London "
On 8 Sep 1560, a tragic event
occurred at Cumnor Place. Amy had insisted that her servants attend
Abingdon Fair, leaving her alone in the house. Mrs. Odingsells refused to go,
apparently because it was a Sunday, and Mrs. Owen also remained behind.
But only Mrs. Owen dined with Lady Amy. Later that day she was
found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Her neck was broken.
Robert Dudley
heard the news of his wife's death while staying with the
Queen at Windsor Castle, and immediately asked a distant relative,
Sir Thomas Blount, to visit Cumnor. The slightest suspicion that he’d
murdered her meant he would never become the royal consort. Blount was instructed to
encourage the most stringent public inquiry and to communicate with John
Appleyard, Lady Amy's half-brother. All manner of rumours were soon
abroad. Mrs. Pinto, Lady Amy's maid, said that she had heard her
mistress "pray to God to deliver her from desperation", and, although she
tried to remove the impression of suicide which her words excited,
Dudley's reported relations with
Elizabeth go far to account for Lady Amy's alleged
depression. Thomas Lever, a clergyman of Sherburn, wrote to the Privy
Council (17 Sep) of "the grievous and dangerous suspicion and muttering"
about Lady Amy's death and it was plainly hinted that
Dudley had ordered Anthony Forster to throw Lady Amy
down the stairs. On 13 Sep,
Dudley repeated to Blount his anxious need for a thorough and
impartial investigation and - according to his own account - began corresponding
with one Smith, foreman of the investigating jury. He added that all the
jurymen were strangers to him. A verdict of mischance or accidental death was
returned. Dudley
seems to have suggested that a second jury should continue the inquiry, but
nothing followed. On a Friday, probably 20 Sep Lady Amy's body was
removed secretly to Gloucester Hall (now Worcester College), Oxford and, on
Sunday, 22 Sep, was buried, with the most elaborate heraldic ceremony, in St.
Mary's Church there. The Corporation and University attended officially.
Dudley was absent, as was the custom, and Margery Williams the wife of the future
Lord Norreys of Rycote
acted as chief mourner. John Appleyard was also present. Dr. Francis
Babington, one of Dudley's chaplains, preached the sermon and is said to
have tripped once and described the lady as "pitifully slain".
If the court gossip, reported by the Spanish Ambassador, is to be
credited, Dudley,
in his desire to marry the
Queen, had talked of divorcing or of poisoning his wife many months
before she died. De Quadra, indeed, wrote home, at the time that the news
of her death reached London (11 Sep), that "They [ie. the Queen and
Dudley] were thinking of destroying Lord Robert's wife... They had given out
that she was ill, but she was not ill at all; she was very well and taking care
not to be poisoned... The Queen, on her return from hunting [on 4 Sep],
told me that Lord Robert's wife was dead or nearly so, and begged me to say
nothing about it".
According to this statement
Dudley and the
Queen conspired to murder Lady Amy, but this terrible charge
is wholly uncorroborated. Lady Amy's death undoubtedly removed the chief
obstacle to the marriage of the
Queen with
Dudley, and the influential persons at court, who were determined
that
Elizabeth should not take this disastrous step, naturally
exaggerated the rumours of
Dudley's guilt in order to disqualify him from becoming the Royal
consort. Nicholas
Throckmorton, the English Ambassador in Paris, frequently
reported, to Cecil,
that Dudley
was universally credited on the Continent with the murder of his wife, but this
was Throckmorton's
invariable preface to an impassioned protest against the proposed marriage of
the
Queen with her favourite. On 30 Nov, the
Queen told one of her secretaries that the verdict of the jury left
no doubt that Amy had died accidentally and
Sir Henry Sidney,
Dudley's brother-in-law, in the following Jan, assured the Spanish
Ambassador that the malicious rumours were totally unfounded.
Cecil, although no friend to
Dudley, came to the conclusion that they could not be supported. In
1567, the charge of murder was revived by John Appleyard, who declared
that the jury was bribed but, on being examined by the Privy Council, he made an
abject apology and confessed that he had wilfully slandered
Dudley because he had been disappointed in not receiving greater
gifts from his brother-in-law.
In 1584, the story adopted by Sir Walter Scott
in 'Kenilworth' was first published in a libel on
Dudley usually known as 'Leicester's Commonwealth'. There,
Anthony Forster and Sir Richard Verney of Compton Verney in
Warwickshire, one of
Dudley's private friends, were said to have flung Lady Amy
downstairs. But none of the statements in this libel deserve credit. There is no
ground for connecting Verney in any way with the tragedy.
Many of Robert's enemies at Court and
abroad claimed that he had had Amy murdered. He was known to be a very ruthless
man. These claims were never proved but Robert's reputation was stained by the
scandal. When in 1566 Lord Cecil gave reasons to the Privy Council for the
Queen
not marrying Robert, he gave as one reason
'He is infamed by delh ofhis wiff'.
In 1572 however Elizabeth created him
Earl of Leicester and gave him positions
of considerable power.
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Anthony
Forster |
The year after the tragedy, Anthony
Forster bought the Lordship of Cumnor and Cumnor Place. Under the patronage of
Robert he became M.P. for Abingdon. When he died in 1572 he left Cumnor Place to
Robert, who soon sold it to
Lord Norreys. Anthony
Forster's tomb is in the chancel.
A superstition concerning Amy's ghost
persisted for many years. It is said that nine parsons came from Oxford to lay
her restless ghost in a nearby pond, which never froze thereafter. Cumnor Place
was said to be haunted. It is certainly true that the owners chose not to live
there, letting it to tenants so that it gradually became a ruin.
In 1770 Julius Mickle, printer at the
University Press, wrote a poem entitled 'The Ballad of Cumnor Hall', telling
the sad tale of Amy. This was later read by Sir Walter Scott and it
inspired him in 1820 to write a novel called 'Kenilworth'. His account of Amy's death in Cumnor was fiction and inaccurate; nevertheless the book was a
best-seller and led many people to visit Cumnor. Alas, the remains of Cumnor
Place had been pulled down in 1810.
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The cause of Amy's death remains a
subject of historical speculation and research.
Further Reading :
D.Wilson 'Sweet Robin' 1981.
Peggy Inman 'Amy Robsart and Cumnor Place' Cumnor Hist.Soc. 1998
AD.Bartlett 'Cumnor Place', Berks , Parker
1850
