Hello, and welcome to Western Sieve episode two hundred and ninety seven. King
Robert Dudley. My first evidence that Queen Elizabeth was becoming emotionally involved with Robert
Dudley appears in a dispatch from the Imperial Ambassador to King Philip, dated the
eighteenth of April fifteen fifty nine. He writes as follows quote. During the
last few days, Lord Robert has come so much into favor that he does
whatever he likes with affairs. It has even said that Her Majesty visits him
in his chamber day and night. People talk of this so freely that they
go so far as to say that his wife as a malady in one of
her breasts, and that the Queen is only waiting for her to die to
marry Lord Robert. I can assure your Majesty that matters have reached such a
pass that I have been brought to consider whether it would be well to approach
Lord Robert on your Majesty's behalf, promising your help and favor, and come
to terms with him end quote. It is essential that Dudley be made to
see the advantages of a continuing friendship to England and Spain. The ambassador goes
on to sort of summarize his letter. Others too, saw what was going
on between the Queen and the Master of Horse, and gossip was soon spreading
throughout the courts of Europe. The Venetian ambassador to the Court of Philip the
Second reported to the doge there and the Senate quote, Dudley is a very
handsome young man, towards whom, in various ways the Queen evinces such affection
and inclination that many Pearsons believe that if his wife, who has been ailing
for some time, were perchance to die, the Queen might easily take him
for a husband. End quote. Another observed quote, my Lord Dudley is
in great favor and very intimate with Her Majesty on this subject. I ought
to report the opinion of many, but I doubt whether my letters may not
miscarry or be read. Wherefore it is better to keep silence than to speak
ill end quote. Already Elizabeth, we know was consulting Dudley on state affairs,
and there are indications that he had influenced her to stand her ground against
the bishops during the discussions that had preceded recent religious legislation. Certainly, he
was instrumental in the advancement of no less than twenty seven of the higher clergy
during the early years of her reign, and of course the Spanish ambassador still
held out hope for a Habsburg match, but he was becoming more and more
pessimistic. In some ways, it was only natural that Elizabeth and Dudley would
grow closer together. They were together most days and spent significant time together at
courtly entertainments. Other than William Cecil, no other male spent more time with
the Queen. She openly danced spirited ballads with him when it came to Dudley.
For someone who normally set such a high value on the opinion of her
people, Elizabeth did not seem to care what her people thought of her relationship
with her favorite. On April twenty third, the first Saint George's Day she
celebrated as Queen, Elizabeth bestowed the Order of the Garter upon Dudley and upon
three senior peers of the realm, the Duke of Norfolk, who was actually
Dudley's great rival, the Marquess of Northampton, and the Earl of Rutland.
This caused bad feelings the three other noblemen had for years served their country in
various capacities, while Ley, on the other hand, was the son and
grandson of traitors. His only qualification for the honor were good looks and superb
horsemanship. Before long, Dudley was doling out his own favor is obtained from
the Queen and building his own powerbase within court. But don't get me wrong,
however, this wasn't all machiavellian behavior on the part of Robert Dudley.
He clearly had strong feelings for Elizabeth. Dudley's letters to the Queen are all
warm and deeply sincere. One of Elizabeth's nickname for Dudley, for of course
she had multiple, was that he was her eyes. But truly, for
Elizabeth, Dudley offered her one supreme advantage compared to all her other suitors.
He could not marry her. Dudley, as I mentioned, was already married.
His wife, however, lived in the countryside, and he saw her
only infrequently. Thus, Dudley could spend all his time with Elizabeth and she
never had to worry about a marriage proposal. We cannot be sure whether Dudley
ever truly entertained the idea of marrying Elizabeth. Personally, I think he'd have
to have been insane not to have at least thought about it. His wife,
as the different ambassadors alluded to before, was often ill, but again
we can't say for certain. On the second of July, Elizabeth retired to
her residency at Greenwich for some leisure time and entertainment. That's where she was
when word reached England from France that King Henry the Second had suffered a serious
wound in a jousting match. Word arrived the next day that the French monarch
had died. This event had potentially major repercussions for Elizabeth. While Henry had
touted Mary, Queen of Scots, as the rightful Queen of England, he
had always been too much of a realist to jeopardize the fragile peace between the
two kingdoms on the chance that he might prevail in an attempted coup. His
son, Francis the Second was a child, The regency would be run by
Catherine de Medici and the ultra Catholic Geese family, who knew what they would
do. The English government feared that a two pronged attack on England might be
attempted by the French and the Scots, who were supposed allies, although their
friendship had become a little strained of recent times. That might not necessarily be
to England's advantage. There were French troops in Scotland, and if they gained
the upper hand there, they might decide to invade England from the north.
What Elizabeth's advisers could not foresee, however, was that France would soon be
so torn apart by religious wars between Catholics and the Huguenots. They're the French
Protestants, and that's a story we're going to be getting into very soon here,
that she would have little time to make war on England, nor would
the Scots be likely to support it, because many were in sympathy with the
Huguenots and distrusted the Catholics who were in power in France. For the moment,
though, the Queen was sufficiently worried about her vulnerable situation to reconsider her
position on marriage. If she could make mischief for the French and keep them
occupied, as she would, and when she heard of France as the Second
had boasted that he would have himself proclaimed the King of England, she loudly
declared, quote, I will take a husband who will give the King of
France some trouble and do him more harm than he expects end quote. The
man that she had in mind was a thorn in the side of the French.
His name was James Hamilton, Earl of Aaron, and had been thought
of as a husband for Elizabeth as far back as fifteen forty three by none
other than Henry the Eighth. Until Mary Stuart bore a child. Aaron was
the heir to the Scottish throne, and the Protestant lords in Scotland were in
favor of a match between him and Elizabeth, since both were chief upholders of
God's religion in the Scots word, and their marriage would unite England and Scotland.
Aaron was more than willing to follow the plan. Until recently he had
been a refugee in Switzerland, having fled there from the French, who feared
the threat that he posed to Mary Stuart's throne. At the beginning of July,
Elizabeth had organized his escape, sending a regent, Thomas Randolph, an
expert on Scottish affairs, actually with instructions to smuggle him secretly to England.
Disguised as a merchant. Soon people were beginning to openly wonder whether Erin might
be in England, and the Imperial ambassador was in the daily expectation of an
announcement of the Queen's betrothal to the Earl, whom he believed was a little
more than just a guest. Now, in fact, what we know and
what they didn't know, is that Elizabeth was using her rumored interest in Aaron
as merely a weapon against the French, and he actually didn't arrive in London
until the end of August. What Elizabeth was really after here was support.
She wanted the support of either the Emperor or King Philip in the event of
a French invasion, so to that end she revived the marriage negotiations and sought
to draw them out as long as possible. Elizabeth spent that summer on progress,
a tour of the realm. English monarchs did these every summer unless the
plague intervened. It gave them a chance to see their kingdom in crucially for
their subjects to see them. But it was during this particular summer progress that
Elizabeth and Dudley grew even closer, a fact which only intensified the feelings of
envy already simmering within the Privy Council wanted to see Dudley, the son of
a traitor, become the next King of England, least of all Cecil who
resented Dudley with the passion of a thousand sons. To Dudley's credit, his
loyalty to Elizabeth was without question. That being said, he certainly realized that
should she marry, his influence would plummet. Hence, whenever possible, he
slandered his various rivals for the Queen's time and affection. In her letters,
Elizabeth also referred to Dudley as her Bonnie sweet Robin. Throughout that summer,
the rumors that the two were engaged in a more physical affair reached a crescendo.
Back in Augsburg, the Emperor frantically wrote to his ambassador in England to
determine if there was any truth to the rumors. The ambassador reported back,
quote, I have employed as my agent a certain Francis Bora, who is
on very friendly terms with the ladies of the Bedchamber and all other persons who
have been about the Queen and have brought her up since childhood. They all
swear by all that is Her holy majesty has most certainly never been forgetful of
her honor. Yet it is not without significance that her majesty shows her liking
for Lord Robert more markedly than is consistent with her reputation, than dignity,
than quote. No matter how much she protested that she had no time for
love, the fact remained that the Queen looked, at least outwardly so to
be falling in love with her master of Horse. On the twenty eighth of
April, the Earl of Aaron secretly arrived in London and was smuggled into Cecil's
house at Westminster, where he was to stay. On the following day,
he was granted a private audience with the Queen at Hampton Court, and two
days later left for Scotland, escorted by Thomas Randolph. The plan was that
he should lead the rebel Protestant lords against the Queen's regent government, and thus
divert the Scots and French from turning their ambitious eyes toward England. All talk
of a marriage alliance with Elizabeth had been abandoned, as she was evidently not
impressed by the Earl. Personally, Aaron's story sadly was to end in tragedy.
He became insane and never got to enjoy the power and prestige that might
have been his birthright. But none of that mattered. It now appeared that
the only foreign contender for the Queen's hand with any chance of success was the
Archduke Charles. Now much of this I will not go into because it's just
way too detailed for this show, but suffice it to say that by early
October, the Imperial Ambassador had become absolutely convinced that Elizabeth would marry the arch
Duke Charles, despite Elizabeth herself committing to no such thing. Hence, by
the autumn of fifteen fifty nine, he was writing back to the Emperor telling
him to send his son to England without delay. Things then became problematic for
Dudley because he was seen as the reason a match with a powerful ally had
not already been concluded. Elizabeth recognized this reality as well, and so did
her best to encourage her various suitors by making it clear she would marry no
one Dudley included the Queen, and the Imperial Ambassador continued, they're heated and
often confused, and I do mean super confusing marital negotiations. The Imperial Ambassador
at one point told Elizabeth that Charles was on a ship already on his way
to marry her. Elizabeth took offense at this, angrily telling him that she
had never agreed to marry Charles, that she had only agreed for him to
come to England so that they could get to know each other. Exasperated,
the ambassador then declared that if such were the case, it might be better
for him not to come at all. Spoiler alert, he wasn't coming and
had never left Austria, and frankly, this whole episode would be comical if
it weren't for the fact that thousands of people could potentially lose their lives in
a war fermented by all this idiotic confusion. Now, while all this was
going on, Dudley continued to build his own power base. In November,
he was appointed as the Lord Constable of Windsor Castle and dold out many of
the lesser roles there to his supporters. But Dudley was actively doing something else
all the while. He had now begun to style himself as the champion of
Protestant England. He promoted Protestant interest within the Privy Council. He even did
his best to set England on a course of conflict with the Catholic Habsburgs.
It was on his advice that Elizabeth sent a square quadron of ships to support
the Protestant Scottish lords in their civil war against Scotland's Catholic regent, the mother
of Mary, Queen of Scott's. Dudley seems to have recognized that he was
becoming the envy of all and as a result unpopular. He needed a source
of legitimacy. He found one in the Protestant cause. In December of fifteen
fifty nine, the Imperial ambassador finally gave up and left England, realizing he
had failed in his efforts to court Elizabeth. But that did not mean that
the door was opened for Dudley. The same ambassador reported back to the Emperor
in January fifteen sixty that the English court was gearing up for a fight anti
Dudley. Feeling was at an all time high, according to some. By
March, he was already boasting that quote, if he lives another year,
he will be in a very different position from now and quote, Yet all
the accusations seems to have been baseless. Dudley never took any actions to have
his present marriage dissolved. Early in the new year, the Imperial Master returned
once more to England in an attempt to revive the Habsburg marriage negotiations. The
King of Bohemia and the Duke of Bavaria, both vassals of the Emperor,
sent envoys urging the Queen to reconsider, and suggested to Charles that it might
be better if he went and did his courting in person. But the Emperor,
deeply offended by Elizabeth's apparent indifference to this match, was now refusing to
let his son go to England unless she made some commitment beforehand. Thus,
the two sides had reached a stalemate, and by February was obvious that the
marriage negotiations had once again collapsed. On the nineteenth, the ambassador gave his
opinion that the queen's strategies would lead to her ruin, because without the support
and friendship of the Habsburg monarchies, quote, not only will the French despise
her, but her own people as well, and she will be left helpless
and quote. Of course, the question on everybody's minds was did Elizabeth care
or did she only want the way cleared to marry Robert Dudley. In February
fifteen sixty, affairs in Scotland grew more serious. The English reached an agreement
with the rebellious Protestant Scottish lords that Elizabeth would take Scotland under her protection so
long as the rightful Queen then Mary, Queen of Scots, remained in France.
This would allow said lords to use English military firepower to ideally drive out
the present regent, Mary Geese. Remember, of course, the Geese family
were ultra Catholic. The English attempted to blockade Scotland to prevent French military aid
from arriving. Mary Geese responded by launching an attack at Leith, in which
the English were soundly beaten. As a result, Elizabeth became persona non grata
in Paris. There were even rumors that the French wanted to have her poisoned,
rumors by William Cecil believed. At the same time, Pope Pious Fourth
sent a letter to Elizabeth and treating her to return to the Catholic fold.
It never reached her. Elizabeth would not let the messenger bearing it cross the
English Channel for the rest of her life. In fact, she would turn
a deaf ear to please from Rome. Then, on June eleventh, Mary
Geese died of a protracted illness. The French signified to England that they were
tired of all the conflict and ready for peace. Elizabeth dispatched Cecil to Scotland
to negotiate a treaty. Now, to be fair, Cecil didn't want to
leave. He feared Elizabeth was deliberately sending him to Edinburgh to get him out
of the way so that Dudley could replace all his ministers with his own men.
But in the end, with little recourse, Cecil left for Scotland.
On July second, fifteen sixty the war with Scotland was brought to an end
by the signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh. For Cecil, this was a
diplomatic triumph achieved after weeks of bargaining. Under the terms of the treaty,
the French agreed to withdraw from Scotland, leaving the government of that kingdom in
the hands of the Scottish Council, with the English and French undertaking not to
interfere in the name of Queen Mary. The French commissioners promised that she would
renounce all claims to Elizabeth's throne and would cease to quarter the Royal arms of
England with her own. At last, the French had agreed to recognize Elizabeth
as Queen of England. It did seem that a true foundation for priests had
finally arrived, the threat of war removed. More importantly, Elizabeth's prestige had
been much enhanced in the eyes of Europe. Cecil was satisfied with what he
had achieved, yet Elizabeth was not. In a series of letters to Edinburgh,
she castigated her minister for not having secured the return of Calais, or
for not forcing the French to reimburse the money she had spent fighting them in
Scotland. Cecil's happiness soon faded. He believed that Robert Dudley was behind her
complaints and that he was out to discredit him. This might have been the
case, but equally well, Elizabeth had been pessimistic about the outcome of Cecil's
Michigan and may have been put out at being proved wrong. At the end
of July, Elizabeth left London for her summer progress once more. At the
end of nearly every day, Elizabeth and Dudley rode together or hunted. Elizabeth
no longer flirted with other men. All her attention was directed toward Dudley,
much to the ire of everyone else at court. When Cecil returned to court
later that July, he found the Queen distant and cool. Whatever his concerns
had been before leaving, the situation upon his return was far worse than even
his most pessimistic expectations. The Queen was practically treating Dudley as her husband and
now had no time for her once most trusted adviser. The world had turned
upside down. The Council was despondent. Everyone expected that the Queen would now
marry Dudley, ending any hope of an alliance with a European power. In
August, the Scottish Parliament abolished the Authority of Rome and adopted Calvinism as its
official religion. The goal was now to broke her a marriage deal between Elizabeth
and the Earl of Erin, no matter how unlikely that exigency now seemed.
Scotland wanted to unite with England, forming the most powerful Protestant kingdom in Europe.
Scotland wanted to unite with England, forming the most powerful Protestant kingdom in
Europe, but if the news from the English court was true, then there
was absolutely no chance of that happening. Now, Dudley and his wife,
remember he's married, had now been married for eight years, but they rarely
saw each other. We know very little about Amy Dudley or how the rumors
surrounding her and the queen impacted her. We know that the two had no
children, nor is there any evidence that Amy Dudley was ever pregnant. We
do have evidence from two sources that Amy was very depressed throughout September fifteen sixty.
We can only guess at the cause. There were persistent rumors that Amy
was in poor physical health as well. Some scholars have speculated that she had
breast cancer. Elizabeth herself reported to an ambassador on our twenty seventh birthday on
the sixth of September, that Amy Dudley was either dead or very near death.
All the while, William Cecil continued to contemplate his position, assuming that
he would need to resign very soon. However, he calmly noted at the
time that even should Amy Dudley die, her husband would never be able to
to marry the Queen. The answer was simple. The public outcry would simply
be too great. Everyone in England would assume that Dudley had murdered his wife,
even if he hadn't. And so it was that, ironically, the
one exigency that would make him able to marry Elizabeth and become king would simultaneously
preclude the same action. And then something truly shocking happened. What was traditionally
known as Our Lady's Fair opened at Abington in England on Sunday, the eighth
of September, and Amy Dudley, in her residency, gave all her servants
permission to go. Indeed, she seemed unduly anxious that they should go,
for when some protested that it wasn't fitting to attend a fair on a Sunday,
she insisted they obey her order. Nevertheless, there were a few that
were made stubborn, declaring it was unseemly for her to go to a place
where they might have to rub shoulders with servants of lesser bred persons. The
same servant reasoned with her that if she went to the fair, there would
be no one left at home at all with Amy to dine with her.
Amy responded angrily that she could do as she pleased. This particular servant retired,
and the rest went off to the fair. At around eleven am,
Amy Dudley took her dinner, but otherwise the entire household was quiet, the
most of the servants having gone, and everyone seems to have kept to their
rooms or quarters. But then when her servants returned from the fair 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.
Her neck had been broken. The author of a later report asserted much
later on that her head dress and her clothing were still in place and not
disarranged, but this information appears nowhere. In other contemporary records. The same
author refers to the body being discovered at the foot of a pair of stairs
i e. A staircase, likely with a landing in the middle, which
corroborates contemporary accounts. One day later, on September the ninth, a hurried
messenger reached court and informed Elizabeth Ann Dudley what had transpired. They were both
utterly shocked. That very evening, Dudley wrote the following letter home quote the
greatness and suddenness of the misfortune does so perplex me until I do hear from
you he's writing to one of his servants, how the matter standeth, or
how this evil should light upon me? Considering what the malicious world will brew
it, 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 my quietness, and
as now my special trust is in you, that you will use all the
devices and means you can possibly have for learning of the truth. Wherein have
no respect for any living person end quote. In other words, what Dudley
wanted was an inquest carried out as to the cause of his wife's death,
and he wanted it carried out in secret. Two days later, Elizabeth ordered
the news of Amy's death to be made public. She knew the reaction would
be swift and negative. She did her best to avoid the public In the
weeks after Amy Dudley's death. Meanwhile, the inquest went to head, but
simultaneously went nowhere. The servants could merely report what they had found. Some
made vague references to suicide, though the objective evidence certainly wouldn't have supported that
conclusion. Dudley, we know from his personal journals, was frankly shocked and
devastated at the death of his wife, and honestly not because he really cared
for Amy. Rather, he was concerned that Elizabeth would now refuse to see
him, given that the conclusion as to why Amy had died would be plain
for all to see. It was one thing for the queen to consort with
a married man. It was quite another to consort with a man suspected of
now killing his wife so he could marry her. William Cecil, out of
political intrigue or genuine concern, I'm not sure, wrote to Dudley to offer
his condolences, and we do know that Dudley was quite touched by his show
of solidarity. Finally, on September the thirteenth, the inquest drew to a
close. The coroner could find no quote unquote presumptions of evil. Ultimately,
the matter was ruled an accidental death. Dudley had hoped for more. He
had hoped for evidence of murder that would clear his name. In vain,
he pressed for another inquest. Truth be told, Many in the Kingdom were
far for certain as to Dudley's innocence. The feeling persisted even after Dudley arranged
a lavish funeral for his late wife. But how did Amy Dudley really meet
her death? There is no dispute that she died of a broken neck.
She was found at the bottom of the staircase, and the obvious conclusion would
be that she had fallen down those stairs and that her death was due,
as Dudley's supporter has asserted, to an accident. Yet it was claimed at
the time that the steps were far too shallow to have caused a fatal injury,
and this led many people to deduce that someone broke her neck and then
placed her body at the foot of the stairs to make it look like it
has been an accident. Her husband, as we know, was the chief
suspect. Many openly accused Dudley of the murder, alleging that he had hired
an assassin to do the deeds, and the name of this man, according
to many was Richard Vernie. Vernie was a nephew of one of the servants,
and had once been Dudley's page, and was launchly loyal to him.
In fact, one asserted that Vernie was simply his to be commanded. He
remained with Amy that day, September eighth alone. Again, this is according
to the assertions of some, and we should point out Vernie rather conveniently died
himself shortly thereafter in London. It's almost like a sort of JFK scenario.
Of course, it's impossible to check many of the details in this account,
since many are just so incredibly vague. Vernie's movements and whereabouts on the eighth
of September cannot be traced with any degree of certainty at all. The only
contemporary mention of him in connection with Dudley dates from the previous April, when
the latter sent for Vernie and Vernie had to write to apologize for not being
able to come. Now, it is of course possible that Vernie's aunt,
also a servant, was in on the murder plot. It was she who
was the sole servant left with Amy on that day, and she was the
last recorded person to see Amy alive. Now, Amy was also, though
certainly anxious to get rid of her servants. Was this because she was expecting
a secret visitor? Could that visitor perhaps have been someone sent by her husband
to discuss an annulment of their marriage. Such a development had been rumored that
year, and in view of the damage such rumors could do, it would
have been natural for Robert to insist that Amy received her visitor in private,
perhaps with all her servants gone away. Or was it more sinister? Was
Amy led to believe that such a visitor was coming when something else was planned?
On the other hand, I suppose we could also speculate that she was
so depressed, and possibly so ill and desperate for some peace and quiet,
that she simply threw herselves down the stairs. Now, if Amy was murdered
before being laid at the foot of the stairs, though, how was it
done? There's an interesting tale. It's interesting to think about what this Dudley
residence was actually an old monastery, and according to some legends, there was
actually a secret door in Amy's bedchamber that had since been essentially walled up so
that we can no longer see it. But this secret door may have allowed
an assassin secret entrance into the room while Amy Dudley was asleep, who breaks
her neck, who then places her at the bottom of the stairs. Again,
this is unbelievable conjecture, but it is a story that is related,
and I kind of think the secret door in the monastery part is interesting.
So that's why I told you. Now, some of course continued to attribute
Amy's death to a suicide. I mean, we do know she had been
depressed, and that would explain why she was so anxious to get her servants
out of the house. No one at the time thought to attribute though Amy's
death to natural causes. But since then, since the year nineteen fifty six,
in fact, a new theory has been asserted by Professor Ian Hird,
one of the most modern historians to look at this case. Aired considered the
possibility that Amy was suffering from breast cancer. In fact, there was a
quote malady in one of her breasts, end quote that have been first referred
to by the Imperial Ambassador back in April of fifteen fifty nine. This disease,
as it progresses, causes in about fifty percent of sufferers a weakening of
the bones due to cancerous deposits that break away from the original tumor and are
carried through the bloodstream to settle on the bones, particularly the spine, which
then becomes unnaturally brittle the us It follows that, if Amy was in the
last stages of the disease, even the slightest exertion required to walk down a
flight of stairs could have caused a spontaneous fracture of her vertebrae. However,
if this theory is correct, it offers absolutely no explanation of Amy's unusual behavior
on the day of her death, nor does the less commonly accepted modern theory
that she suffered from an aortic aneurysm, the terminal enlargement of an artery from
the heart, which causes pain in the swelling in the chest, and mental
aberrations including depression and fits of anger resulting from the erratic blood frow to the
brain. Sudden slight pressure can cause the bursting of an aneurysm, bringing spontaneous
death. The resultant could fall in Amy's case, which then would have caused
her neck to break, Whether due to natural causes or not. Amy Dudley's
death was certainly convenient, but not ironically for the person whom many expected to
benefit from it. Most people believed that her husband had killed her in order
to marry the Queen, and thus he had a motive for doing so.
Yet he Robert Dudley, thick skinned as he was, could not have been
so stupid as to think that he'd get away with it, And if she
was indeed dying of cancer, then that he had nothing to do in the
first place. On the day before her death, the Queen had told the
Imperial ambassador that Lady Dudley was dead or nearly so. If Elizabeth was involved
in a murder plot, she was hardly likely to announce the death of the
victim before she was certain that it had happened, or even refer to it.
Elizabeth was far too clever for that. Yet her announcement would make more
sense if she had been told by Dudley that the end was near. The
behavior of the Queen and Dudley after the event strongly suggested they were both shocked
and bewildered by the news, and both did their utmost to ensure that Amy's
death was thoroughly and objectively investigated. If Dudley did murder his wife, then
he did it about the stupidest way possible to get away with it. Amy's
death had to look like it was natural. A broken neck doesn't just normally
happen. Plus, given the implications of Amy's death, it didn't give Dudley
or Elizabeth the end they wanted. Elizabeth could never marry Dudley now and keep
her throne. In the end, Amy Dudley's death was perhaps the final nail
in the Queen's virginity. In the end, the only real beneficiary of Amy's
death had been William Cecil. Once the inquest was over, he was restored
to court. Frankly, if anyone had reason to murder Amy Dudley, it
was William Cecil. He would have known that it would have ended the prospect
of Dudley's marriage to the Queen. Moreover, it would have given him the
chance to appear Dudley's friend, which he did, and which was perhaps the
key reason he was readmitted to court so quickly. It would have been easy
for Cecil, with his various connections, to instigate Amy's mysterious death. Now
that being said, I want to be clear that there is no direct evidence
of this Cecil had a motive. But then again, so I do a
lot of innocent suspects. If you've enjoyed this episode, please feel free to
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