 |
Reply
| | | From: ForeverAmber (Original Message) | Sent: 7/11/2002 5:47 AM |
On September 8, 1560, a tragic event occurred at Cumnor Place. Amy Robsart, wife of Robert Dudley, had insisted that her servants attend Abingdon Fair, leaving her alone in the house. Later that day she was found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Her neck was broken. It is said that she had been suffering from "a malady of the breast", probably what we would call breast cancer. She & Robert, Elizabeth I's favorite, had been married 10 years with no children, & he was often at court dancing attendance on the queen, leaving Amy to live a virtually separate life. The inquest into her unattended demise brought back a ruling of accidental death. It was wildly speculated at the time that Robert, eager to wed the queen, had had a hand in hastening his unwanted wife's demise. What do we think of this mystery?
|
|
Reply
| | | From: judymar | Sent: 1/15/2005 1:11 PM |
 I have often thought that underlings close to Dudley did the deed, with hopes of "favors" going to them once he was Consort. That sort of goes in my line of thinking about the death of Diana as well, underlings thinking they were doing what was best for the "family", but it back fired and would not be into their best interests to let it be known now or ever of their involvement in the "accident"........Judy | | | |
|
Reply
| |
Just an observation....Whether Cecil had it done to save the Queen from herself or Elizabeth had it done or Amy comitted suicide, etc...seems like all the scenerios we have put forth all have one common thing...Dudley didn't do it! |
|
Reply
| |
<with a nod to Painter....I just couldn't help myself ROFL> "I didn't do it!" Dudley cried It's not my fault the dumb broad died! She tripped & fell & broke her neck And now my life has gone to heck! Being king woulda been so sweet If Amy hadn't had two left feet! |
|
Reply
| |
| I have always wondered about this myself but never done much resarch into the subject. I'd be interested in hearing others oppinions on the matter. Personally I always found the timing of her death to be very convient for any ideas Dudley may have had about marrying Elizabeth, if he did seek the crown to bad for him his plans never took shape. |
|
Reply
| |
Derek Wilson's take on Amy's demise in the Dudleys book...he rules out suicide as it supposedly wasn't such a big flight of stairs. The cancer theory, he says, may well have been valid as it could have made her bones brittle had it metastized. Then proposes one I've never heard before, that Amy suffered a sudden aortic anyeurism (which may also have caused chest pain, ie. the famous "malady of the breast" Amy is purported to have suffered) & pitched headfirst down the steps as it burst & she died. Interesting theory, that one. Then of course, there's always murder LOL....& Wilson thinks of it as who stood to gain from Amy's death? Certainly not Robert Dudley, who was immediately rendered ineligible as a possible prince consort for Elizabeth as soon as suspiscion fell on him. Wilson likes Cecil for it, removing Amy for that very reason, to stop Elizabeth from the folly of marrying Robert. |
|
Reply
| |
As much as I admire Cecil's single minded devotion to Elizabeth & the monarchy, I also suspect him in the death of Amy Dudley. It had the desired effect of removing Robert Dudley from court, under suspicion of murder, for who knows how long? Also permanently removing him from the potential consort list!  Was Cecil canny enough to suspect that for Elizabeth, marriage=death, as some have posed? If you look at her history, it's easy to believe that that idea was in her subconcious. Let's list the candidates for this: her mother & father, her stepmother Katherine Howard(and relative of her mother) & father, Katherine Parr (some say her intellectual mother) & Thomas Seymour, her cousin Jane Gray & Guilford Dudley (well, that's a stretch, but Jane's marriage to Northumberland's son did lead directly to Jane's death), her sister Mary & Philip (at least it wasn't an attractive example of marriage), any others??? Just thinkin' |
|
Reply
| |
I've always thought that Cecil William had a hand in her death. To protect Elizabeth from the clutches of Rober Dudley. I've always thought he was out to use her. By Cecil killing off Amy, it could look like Dudley did it to be able to be with the Queen without actually coming out and saying so. Tongues would wag over that thought I'm sure, Dudley possibly killing his wife, so impuning his reputation. I never liked Dudley anyway.... |
|
Reply
| |
I'm amazed Mary didn't have his head for breakfast along with his father's....he's lucky he lived as long as he did, seeing as the Dudley escutcheon was so lousy with treason LOL Why do you think he managed to escape when everyone else connected with Northumberland's coup got the axe? |
|
Reply
| |
I think Mary Tudor tried very hard to be fair, at least in the beginning of her reign. She only had Northumberland executed at first. The Dudley boys were kept in the Tower, but were not executed, except for Guilford, (the boy who would be king??) who was beheaded along with Jane after Wyatt's rebellion. In fact, Ambrose, Henry and Robert were released after 9 months in the tower and pardoned 3 months later. A few years after that, Ambrose raised an army for Philip of Spain and fought for Spain against France. Robert & Henry fought also, but Henry was killed at the Battle of St. Quentin. For this, the family estates were returned, and in March of 1558, the family was restored in blood by an Act of Parliament. |
|
Reply
| |
Didn't John Jr die in the Tower? |
|
Reply
| |
| John DUDLEY (2° E. Warwick) Born: BEF 1528 Acceded: Jan 1553 Died: 18/21 Oct 1554, Penhurst, Kent, England Notes: Viscount Lisle. The Complete Peerage v.XIIpII,pp.398-400. Married to Anne Seymour, daughter of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, in a great ceremony attended by Edward VI, and on the following day Robert, his brother, who was about 17 on the occasion of his wedding to Amy Robsart in 1550, was contracted, an event which was also attended by the Prince Edward, by whose invitation the ceremony was performed at his Palace at Sheen. He was shut up in the Tower of London with his mother, following Northumberland's fall from power. Condemned to death for having signed the letters patent making his sister-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, heir apparent. His release along with his surviving brothers was chiefly secured upon the tireless pleadings of their mother. She rode into Essex as soon as she was released to meet Queen Mary and plead for the lives of her imprisoned family, but was turned away on Mary's orders. Wyatt's rebellion sealed the fate of Guilford Dudley, but three of his brothers, Ambrose, Robert and Henry, were released in Oct 1554 and John himself soon afterwards. John, the eldest, having been much reduced in health, died only three days later at his brother in law, Henry Sidney’s castle of Penshurst in Kent. ***************************************************************************************************************************** How sad - to survive his father's treason & the Tower, to die of ill-health only after being released. I had not realized that poor Guilford was the youngest son! Henry, John, Ambrose & Robert were already married by 1553, when Northumberland meddled in the succession and married Guilford to Lady Jane Grey. We always focus on Jane's youth, but Guilford was only 19, and the youngest boy of several, and Northumberland had to have a powerful personality. I'm sure young Guilford had no real choice in his marriage & was bullied on all sides, as was Jane. |
|
Reply
| |
Yup, I knew he didn't live to enjoy himself. Penshurst used to be Buckingham's digs before he made the acquaintance of Henry's axeman, & Lord Lisle was the title of Henry's bastard uncle Arthur Plantagenet, who also met the axe in the Catherine Howard debacle aftermath. Well, at least he got outta the Tower before perishing! Somerset's daughter being his wife was a mark of how buddy buddy Somerset & Northumberland used to be, I bet. There's a tale that Robert & Amy's marriage was initially a love match (certainly the Robsarts, unlike the Seymours, were of no great shakes at Court) which was looked upon indulgently by their families. Betcha Dudley was sighing in relief when Northumberland's eye could only fall on Guildford LOL even if his relationship with Amy had gone sour by then. Exactly who was Northumberland's wife, btw? Anyone important? Wondering if she could have been a Tudor cousin for Mary to look so kindly upon her sons. |
|
Reply
| | From:  MarkGB5 | Sent: 11/30/2007 8:50 PM |
The Duke of Northumberland's wife was Jane daughter of Sir Edward Guilford, Marshal of Calais who was John Dudley's guardian after his father had been executed in 1510. So it looks like she was a childhood sweetheart and a match had probably been arranged in their childhood. She survived him by less than 18 months dying early in 1555. She had a horror of surgeons having been advised to have a leg amputated in 1548, advise she defied and survived. In her will she stated "not in any wise to let me be opened after I am dead; I have not loved to be very bold afore women, much more I would be loath to come into the hands of any living man, be he physician or surgeon". |
|
|
Free Forum Hosting
Important Announcement
First
Return to Mysteries