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Hello, and welcome to Western Sieve
episode two hundred and ninety seven. King

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Robert Dudley. My first evidence that
Queen Elizabeth was becoming emotionally involved with Robert

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Dudley appears in a dispatch from the
Imperial Ambassador to King Philip, dated the

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eighteenth of April fifteen fifty nine.
He writes as follows quote. During the

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last few days, Lord Robert has
come so much into favor that he does

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whatever he likes with affairs. It
has even said that Her Majesty visits him

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in his chamber day and night.
People talk of this so freely that they

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go so far as to say that
his wife as a malady in one of

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her breasts, and that the Queen
is only waiting for her to die to

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marry Lord Robert. I can assure
your Majesty that matters have reached such a

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pass that I have been brought to
consider whether it would be well to approach

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Lord Robert on your Majesty's behalf,
promising your help and favor, and come

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to terms with him end quote.
It is essential that Dudley be made to

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see the advantages of a continuing friendship
to England and Spain. The ambassador goes

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on to sort of summarize his letter. Others too, saw what was going

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on between the Queen and the Master
of Horse, and gossip was soon spreading

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throughout the courts of Europe. The
Venetian ambassador to the Court of Philip the

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Second reported to the doge there and
the Senate quote, Dudley is a very

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handsome young man, towards whom,
in various ways the Queen evinces such affection

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and inclination that many Pearsons believe that
if his wife, who has been ailing

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for some time, were perchance to
die, the Queen might easily take him

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for a husband. End quote.
Another observed quote, my Lord Dudley is

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in great favor and very intimate with
Her Majesty on this subject. I ought

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to report the opinion of many,
but I doubt whether my letters may not

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miscarry or be read. Wherefore it
is better to keep silence than to speak

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ill end quote. Already Elizabeth,
we know was consulting Dudley on state affairs,

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and there are indications that he had
influenced her to stand her ground against

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the bishops during the discussions that had
preceded recent religious legislation. Certainly, he

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was instrumental in the advancement of no
less than twenty seven of the higher clergy

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during the early years of her reign, and of course the Spanish ambassador still

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held out hope for a Habsburg match, but he was becoming more and more

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pessimistic. In some ways, it
was only natural that Elizabeth and Dudley would

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grow closer together. They were together
most days and spent significant time together at

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courtly entertainments. Other than William Cecil, no other male spent more time with

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the Queen. She openly danced spirited
ballads with him when it came to Dudley.

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For someone who normally set such a
high value on the opinion of her

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people, Elizabeth did not seem to
care what her people thought of her relationship

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with her favorite. On April twenty
third, the first Saint George's Day she

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celebrated as Queen, Elizabeth bestowed the
Order of the Garter upon Dudley and upon

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three senior peers of the realm,
the Duke of Norfolk, who was actually

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Dudley's great rival, the Marquess of
Northampton, and the Earl of Rutland.

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This caused bad feelings the three other
noblemen had for years served their country in

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various capacities, while Ley, on
the other hand, was the son and

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grandson of traitors. His only qualification
for the honor were good looks and superb

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horsemanship. Before long, Dudley was
doling out his own favor is obtained from

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the Queen and building his own powerbase
within court. But don't get me wrong,

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however, this wasn't all machiavellian behavior
on the part of Robert Dudley.

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He clearly had strong feelings for Elizabeth. Dudley's letters to the Queen are all

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warm and deeply sincere. One of
Elizabeth's nickname for Dudley, for of course

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she had multiple, was that he
was her eyes. But truly, for

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Elizabeth, Dudley offered her one supreme
advantage compared to all her other suitors.

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He could not marry her. Dudley, as I mentioned, was already married.

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His wife, however, lived in
the countryside, and he saw her

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only infrequently. Thus, Dudley could
spend all his time with Elizabeth and she

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never had to worry about a marriage
proposal. We cannot be sure whether Dudley

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ever truly entertained the idea of marrying
Elizabeth. Personally, I think he'd have

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to have been insane not to have
at least thought about it. His wife,

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as the different ambassadors alluded to before, was often ill, but again

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we can't say for certain. On
the second of July, Elizabeth retired to

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her residency at Greenwich for some leisure
time and entertainment. That's where she was

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when word reached England from France that
King Henry the Second had suffered a serious

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wound in a jousting match. Word
arrived the next day that the French monarch

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had died. This event had potentially
major repercussions for Elizabeth. While Henry had

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touted Mary, Queen of Scots,
as the rightful Queen of England, he

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had always been too much of a
realist to jeopardize the fragile peace between the

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two kingdoms on the chance that he
might prevail in an attempted coup. His

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son, Francis the Second was a
child, The regency would be run by

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Catherine de Medici and the ultra Catholic
Geese family, who knew what they would

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do. The English government feared that
a two pronged attack on England might be

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attempted by the French and the Scots, who were supposed allies, although their

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friendship had become a little strained of
recent times. That might not necessarily be

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to England's advantage. There were French
troops in Scotland, and if they gained

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the upper hand there, they might
decide to invade England from the north.

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What Elizabeth's advisers could not foresee,
however, was that France would soon be

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so torn apart by religious wars between
Catholics and the Huguenots. They're the French

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Protestants, and that's a story we're
going to be getting into very soon here,

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that she would have little time to
make war on England, nor would

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the Scots be likely to support it, because many were in sympathy with the

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Huguenots and distrusted the Catholics who were
in power in France. For the moment,

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though, the Queen was sufficiently worried
about her vulnerable situation to reconsider her

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position on marriage. If she could
make mischief for the French and keep them

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occupied, as she would, and
when she heard of France as the Second

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had boasted that he would have himself
proclaimed the King of England, she loudly

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declared, quote, I will take
a husband who will give the King of

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France some trouble and do him more
harm than he expects end quote. The

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man that she had in mind was
a thorn in the side of the French.

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His name was James Hamilton, Earl
of Aaron, and had been thought

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of as a husband for Elizabeth as
far back as fifteen forty three by none

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other than Henry the Eighth. Until
Mary Stuart bore a child. Aaron was

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the heir to the Scottish throne,
and the Protestant lords in Scotland were in

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favor of a match between him and
Elizabeth, since both were chief upholders of

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God's religion in the Scots word,
and their marriage would unite England and Scotland.

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Aaron was more than willing to follow
the plan. Until recently he had

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been a refugee in Switzerland, having
fled there from the French, who feared

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the threat that he posed to Mary
Stuart's throne. At the beginning of July,

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Elizabeth had organized his escape, sending
a regent, Thomas Randolph, an

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expert on Scottish affairs, actually with
instructions to smuggle him secretly to England.

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Disguised as a merchant. Soon people
were beginning to openly wonder whether Erin might

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be in England, and the Imperial
ambassador was in the daily expectation of an

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announcement of the Queen's betrothal to the
Earl, whom he believed was a little

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more than just a guest. Now, in fact, what we know and

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what they didn't know, is that
Elizabeth was using her rumored interest in Aaron

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as merely a weapon against the French, and he actually didn't arrive in London

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until the end of August. What
Elizabeth was really after here was support.

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She wanted the support of either the
Emperor or King Philip in the event of

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a French invasion, so to that
end she revived the marriage negotiations and sought

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to draw them out as long as
possible. Elizabeth spent that summer on progress,

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a tour of the realm. English
monarchs did these every summer unless the

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plague intervened. It gave them a
chance to see their kingdom in crucially for

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their subjects to see them. But
it was during this particular summer progress that

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Elizabeth and Dudley grew even closer,
a fact which only intensified the feelings of

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envy already simmering within the Privy Council
wanted to see Dudley, the son of

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a traitor, become the next King
of England, least of all Cecil who

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resented Dudley with the passion of a
thousand sons. To Dudley's credit, his

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loyalty to Elizabeth was without question.
That being said, he certainly realized that

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should she marry, his influence would
plummet. Hence, whenever possible, he

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slandered his various rivals for the Queen's
time and affection. In her letters,

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Elizabeth also referred to Dudley as her
Bonnie sweet Robin. Throughout that summer,

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the rumors that the two were engaged
in a more physical affair reached a crescendo.

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Back in Augsburg, the Emperor frantically
wrote to his ambassador in England to

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determine if there was any truth to
the rumors. The ambassador reported back,

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quote, I have employed as my
agent a certain Francis Bora, who is

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on very friendly terms with the ladies
of the Bedchamber and all other persons who

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have been about the Queen and have
brought her up since childhood. They all

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swear by all that is Her holy
majesty has most certainly never been forgetful of

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her honor. Yet it is not
without significance that her majesty shows her liking

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for Lord Robert more markedly than is
consistent with her reputation, than dignity,

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than quote. No matter how much
she protested that she had no time for

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love, the fact remained that the
Queen looked, at least outwardly so to

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be falling in love with her master
of Horse. On the twenty eighth of

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April, the Earl of Aaron secretly
arrived in London and was smuggled into Cecil's

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house at Westminster, where he was
to stay. On the following day,

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he was granted a private audience with
the Queen at Hampton Court, and two

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days later left for Scotland, escorted
by Thomas Randolph. The plan was that

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he should lead the rebel Protestant lords
against the Queen's regent government, and thus

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divert the Scots and French from turning
their ambitious eyes toward England. All talk

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of a marriage alliance with Elizabeth had
been abandoned, as she was evidently not

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impressed by the Earl. Personally,
Aaron's story sadly was to end in tragedy.

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He became insane and never got to
enjoy the power and prestige that might

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have been his birthright. But none
of that mattered. It now appeared that

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the only foreign contender for the Queen's
hand with any chance of success was the

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Archduke Charles. Now much of this
I will not go into because it's just

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way too detailed for this show,
but suffice it to say that by early

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October, the Imperial Ambassador had become
absolutely convinced that Elizabeth would marry the arch

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Duke Charles, despite Elizabeth herself committing
to no such thing. Hence, by

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the autumn of fifteen fifty nine,
he was writing back to the Emperor telling

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him to send his son to England
without delay. Things then became problematic for

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Dudley because he was seen as the
reason a match with a powerful ally had

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not already been concluded. Elizabeth recognized
this reality as well, and so did

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her best to encourage her various suitors
by making it clear she would marry no

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one Dudley included the Queen, and
the Imperial Ambassador continued, they're heated and

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often confused, and I do mean
super confusing marital negotiations. The Imperial Ambassador

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at one point told Elizabeth that Charles
was on a ship already on his way

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to marry her. Elizabeth took offense
at this, angrily telling him that she

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had never agreed to marry Charles,
that she had only agreed for him to

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come to England so that they could
get to know each other. Exasperated,

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the ambassador then declared that if such
were the case, it might be better

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for him not to come at all. Spoiler alert, he wasn't coming and

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had never left Austria, and frankly, this whole episode would be comical if

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it weren't for the fact that thousands
of people could potentially lose their lives in

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a war fermented by all this idiotic
confusion. Now, while all this was

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going on, Dudley continued to build
his own power base. In November,

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he was appointed as the Lord Constable
of Windsor Castle and dold out many of

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the lesser roles there to his supporters. But Dudley was actively doing something else

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all the while. He had now
begun to style himself as the champion of

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Protestant England. He promoted Protestant interest
within the Privy Council. He even did

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his best to set England on a
course of conflict with the Catholic Habsburgs.

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It was on his advice that Elizabeth
sent a square quadron of ships to support

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the Protestant Scottish lords in their civil
war against Scotland's Catholic regent, the mother

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of Mary, Queen of Scott's.
Dudley seems to have recognized that he was

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becoming the envy of all and as
a result unpopular. He needed a source

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of legitimacy. He found one in
the Protestant cause. In December of fifteen

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fifty nine, the Imperial ambassador finally
gave up and left England, realizing he

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had failed in his efforts to court
Elizabeth. But that did not mean that

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the door was opened for Dudley.
The same ambassador reported back to the Emperor

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in January fifteen sixty that the English
court was gearing up for a fight anti

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Dudley. Feeling was at an all
time high, according to some. By

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March, he was already boasting that
quote, if he lives another year,

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he will be in a very different
position from now and quote, Yet all

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the accusations seems to have been baseless. Dudley never took any actions to have

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his present marriage dissolved. Early in
the new year, the Imperial Master returned

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once more to England in an attempt
to revive the Habsburg marriage negotiations. The

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King of Bohemia and the Duke of
Bavaria, both vassals of the Emperor,

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sent envoys urging the Queen to reconsider, and suggested to Charles that it might

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be better if he went and did
his courting in person. But the Emperor,

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deeply offended by Elizabeth's apparent indifference to
this match, was now refusing to

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let his son go to England unless
she made some commitment beforehand. Thus,

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the two sides had reached a stalemate, and by February was obvious that the

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marriage negotiations had once again collapsed.
On the nineteenth, the ambassador gave his

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opinion that the queen's strategies would lead
to her ruin, because without the support

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and friendship of the Habsburg monarchies,
quote, not only will the French despise

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her, but her own people as
well, and she will be left helpless

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and quote. Of course, the
question on everybody's minds was did Elizabeth care

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or did she only want the way
cleared to marry Robert Dudley. In February

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fifteen sixty, affairs in Scotland grew
more serious. The English reached an agreement

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with the rebellious Protestant Scottish lords that
Elizabeth would take Scotland under her protection so

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long as the rightful Queen then Mary, Queen of Scots, remained in France.

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This would allow said lords to use
English military firepower to ideally drive out

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the present regent, Mary Geese.
Remember, of course, the Geese family

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were ultra Catholic. The English attempted
to blockade Scotland to prevent French military aid

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from arriving. Mary Geese responded by
launching an attack at Leith, in which

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the English were soundly beaten. As
a result, Elizabeth became persona non grata

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in Paris. There were even rumors
that the French wanted to have her poisoned,

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rumors by William Cecil believed. At
the same time, Pope Pious Fourth

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sent a letter to Elizabeth and treating
her to return to the Catholic fold.

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It never reached her. Elizabeth would
not let the messenger bearing it cross the

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English Channel for the rest of her
life. In fact, she would turn

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a deaf ear to please from Rome. Then, on June eleventh, Mary

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Geese died of a protracted illness.
The French signified to England that they were

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tired of all the conflict and ready
for peace. Elizabeth dispatched Cecil to Scotland

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to negotiate a treaty. Now,
to be fair, Cecil didn't want to

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leave. He feared Elizabeth was deliberately
sending him to Edinburgh to get him out

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of the way so that Dudley could
replace all his ministers with his own men.

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But in the end, with little
recourse, Cecil left for Scotland.

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On July second, fifteen sixty the
war with Scotland was brought to an end

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by the signing of the Treaty of
Edinburgh. For Cecil, this was a

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diplomatic triumph achieved after weeks of bargaining. Under the terms of the treaty,

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the French agreed to withdraw from Scotland, leaving the government of that kingdom in

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the hands of the Scottish Council,
with the English and French undertaking not to

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interfere in the name of Queen Mary. The French commissioners promised that she would

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renounce all claims to Elizabeth's throne and
would cease to quarter the Royal arms of

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England with her own. At last, the French had agreed to recognize Elizabeth

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as Queen of England. It did
seem that a true foundation for priests had

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finally arrived, the threat of war
removed. More importantly, Elizabeth's prestige had

225
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been much enhanced in the eyes of
Europe. Cecil was satisfied with what he

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had achieved, yet Elizabeth was not. In a series of letters to Edinburgh,

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she castigated her minister for not having
secured the return of Calais, or

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for not forcing the French to reimburse
the money she had spent fighting them in

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Scotland. Cecil's happiness soon faded.
He believed that Robert Dudley was behind her

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complaints and that he was out to
discredit him. This might have been the

231
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case, but equally well, Elizabeth
had been pessimistic about the outcome of Cecil's

232
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Michigan and may have been put out
at being proved wrong. At the end

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of July, Elizabeth left London for
her summer progress once more. At the

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end of nearly every day, Elizabeth
and Dudley rode together or hunted. Elizabeth

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no longer flirted with other men.
All her attention was directed toward Dudley,

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much to the ire of everyone else
at court. When Cecil returned to court

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later that July, he found the
Queen distant and cool. Whatever his concerns

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had been before leaving, the situation
upon his return was far worse than even

239
00:21:42.559 --> 00:21:49.400
his most pessimistic expectations. The Queen
was practically treating Dudley as her husband and

240
00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:56.400
now had no time for her once
most trusted adviser. The world had turned

241
00:21:56.440 --> 00:22:02.839
upside down. The Council was despondent. Everyone expected that the Queen would now

242
00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:07.039
marry Dudley, ending any hope of
an alliance with a European power. In

243
00:22:07.119 --> 00:22:12.839
August, the Scottish Parliament abolished the
Authority of Rome and adopted Calvinism as its

244
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official religion. The goal was now
to broke her a marriage deal between Elizabeth

245
00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:23.200
and the Earl of Erin, no
matter how unlikely that exigency now seemed.

246
00:22:25.039 --> 00:22:30.200
Scotland wanted to unite with England,
forming the most powerful Protestant kingdom in Europe.

247
00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:33.880
Scotland wanted to unite with England,
forming the most powerful Protestant kingdom in

248
00:22:33.880 --> 00:22:38.000
Europe, but if the news from
the English court was true, then there

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00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:44.880
was absolutely no chance of that happening. Now, Dudley and his wife,

250
00:22:45.160 --> 00:22:48.880
remember he's married, had now been
married for eight years, but they rarely

251
00:22:48.920 --> 00:22:56.400
saw each other. We know very
little about Amy Dudley or how the rumors

252
00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:00.839
surrounding her and the queen impacted her. We know that the two had no

253
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:07.960
children, nor is there any evidence
that Amy Dudley was ever pregnant. We

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00:23:08.039 --> 00:23:15.559
do have evidence from two sources that
Amy was very depressed throughout September fifteen sixty.

255
00:23:15.279 --> 00:23:21.680
We can only guess at the cause. There were persistent rumors that Amy

256
00:23:22.079 --> 00:23:27.799
was in poor physical health as well. Some scholars have speculated that she had

257
00:23:27.839 --> 00:23:34.759
breast cancer. Elizabeth herself reported to
an ambassador on our twenty seventh birthday on

258
00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:41.240
the sixth of September, that Amy
Dudley was either dead or very near death.

259
00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:48.920
All the while, William Cecil continued
to contemplate his position, assuming that

260
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:53.559
he would need to resign very soon. However, he calmly noted at the

261
00:23:53.599 --> 00:24:00.079
time that even should Amy Dudley die, her husband would never be able to

262
00:24:00.079 --> 00:24:04.480
to marry the Queen. The answer
was simple. The public outcry would simply

263
00:24:04.839 --> 00:24:11.319
be too great. Everyone in England
would assume that Dudley had murdered his wife,

264
00:24:11.359 --> 00:24:15.799
even if he hadn't. And so
it was that, ironically, the

265
00:24:15.880 --> 00:24:22.200
one exigency that would make him able
to marry Elizabeth and become king would simultaneously

266
00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:33.279
preclude the same action. And then
something truly shocking happened. What was traditionally

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00:24:33.319 --> 00:24:37.680
known as Our Lady's Fair opened at
Abington in England on Sunday, the eighth

268
00:24:37.759 --> 00:24:42.920
of September, and Amy Dudley,
in her residency, gave all her servants

269
00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:48.200
permission to go. Indeed, she
seemed unduly anxious that they should go,

270
00:24:48.839 --> 00:24:52.519
for when some protested that it wasn't
fitting to attend a fair on a Sunday,

271
00:24:53.240 --> 00:24:59.640
she insisted they obey her order.
Nevertheless, there were a few that

272
00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:03.079
were made stubborn, declaring it was
unseemly for her to go to a place

273
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where they might have to rub shoulders
with servants of lesser bred persons. The

274
00:25:10.359 --> 00:25:12.920
same servant reasoned with her that if
she went to the fair, there would

275
00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:15.559
be no one left at home at
all with Amy to dine with her.

276
00:25:17.119 --> 00:25:22.079
Amy responded angrily that she could do
as she pleased. This particular servant retired,

277
00:25:22.400 --> 00:25:26.079
and the rest went off to the
fair. At around eleven am,

278
00:25:26.200 --> 00:25:30.720
Amy Dudley took her dinner, but
otherwise the entire household was quiet, the

279
00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:34.599
most of the servants having gone,
and everyone seems to have kept to their

280
00:25:34.680 --> 00:25:41.599
rooms or quarters. But then when
her servants returned from the fair late that

281
00:25:41.680 --> 00:25:48.200
afternoon, they were shocked and bewildered
to find Amy Dudley's body at the foot

282
00:25:48.200 --> 00:25:52.559
of a shallow flight of stone steps
that led from her rooms to the hall.

283
00:25:52.759 --> 00:26:00.240
Her neck had been broken. The
author of a later report asserted much

284
00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:03.839
later on that her head dress and
her clothing were still in place and not

285
00:26:03.920 --> 00:26:11.799
disarranged, but this information appears nowhere. In other contemporary records. The same

286
00:26:11.880 --> 00:26:15.119
author refers to the body being discovered
at the foot of a pair of stairs

287
00:26:15.240 --> 00:26:18.839
i e. A staircase, likely
with a landing in the middle, which

288
00:26:18.839 --> 00:26:25.960
corroborates contemporary accounts. One day later, on September the ninth, a hurried

289
00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:30.599
messenger reached court and informed Elizabeth Ann
Dudley what had transpired. They were both

290
00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:38.279
utterly shocked. That very evening,
Dudley wrote the following letter home quote the

291
00:26:38.359 --> 00:26:44.359
greatness and suddenness of the misfortune does
so perplex me until I do hear from

292
00:26:44.440 --> 00:26:48.440
you he's writing to one of his
servants, how the matter standeth, or

293
00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:52.440
how this evil should light upon me? Considering what the malicious world will brew

294
00:26:52.519 --> 00:26:56.640
it, I can take no rest. And because I have no way to

295
00:26:56.680 --> 00:27:00.559
purge myself of the malicious talk that
I know the wicked world will use,

296
00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:03.359
but one which is the very plain
truth to be known, I do pray

297
00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:07.240
you as you have loved me,
and do tender me my quietness, and

298
00:27:07.279 --> 00:27:11.279
as now my special trust is in
you, that you will use all the

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00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:18.720
devices and means you can possibly have
for learning of the truth. Wherein have

300
00:27:18.880 --> 00:27:23.079
no respect for any living person end
quote. In other words, what Dudley

301
00:27:23.079 --> 00:27:26.400
wanted was an inquest carried out as
to the cause of his wife's death,

302
00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:32.799
and he wanted it carried out in
secret. Two days later, Elizabeth ordered

303
00:27:32.839 --> 00:27:36.799
the news of Amy's death to be
made public. She knew the reaction would

304
00:27:36.839 --> 00:27:41.279
be swift and negative. She did
her best to avoid the public In the

305
00:27:41.279 --> 00:27:45.599
weeks after Amy Dudley's death. Meanwhile, the inquest went to head, but

306
00:27:45.799 --> 00:27:52.480
simultaneously went nowhere. The servants could
merely report what they had found. Some

307
00:27:52.640 --> 00:27:59.759
made vague references to suicide, though
the objective evidence certainly wouldn't have supported that

308
00:28:00.079 --> 00:28:04.400
conclusion. Dudley, we know from
his personal journals, was frankly shocked and

309
00:28:04.519 --> 00:28:08.880
devastated at the death of his wife, and honestly not because he really cared

310
00:28:08.880 --> 00:28:14.680
for Amy. Rather, he was
concerned that Elizabeth would now refuse to see

311
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:19.039
him, given that the conclusion as
to why Amy had died would be plain

312
00:28:19.079 --> 00:28:23.519
for all to see. It was
one thing for the queen to consort with

313
00:28:23.599 --> 00:28:30.440
a married man. It was quite
another to consort with a man suspected of

314
00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:34.880
now killing his wife so he could
marry her. William Cecil, out of

315
00:28:34.920 --> 00:28:40.480
political intrigue or genuine concern, I'm
not sure, wrote to Dudley to offer

316
00:28:40.519 --> 00:28:45.960
his condolences, and we do know
that Dudley was quite touched by his show

317
00:28:45.079 --> 00:28:51.000
of solidarity. Finally, on September
the thirteenth, the inquest drew to a

318
00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:56.599
close. The coroner could find no
quote unquote presumptions of evil. Ultimately,

319
00:28:56.960 --> 00:29:02.839
the matter was ruled an accidental death. Dudley had hoped for more. He

320
00:29:02.880 --> 00:29:06.279
had hoped for evidence of murder that
would clear his name. In vain,

321
00:29:06.359 --> 00:29:10.640
he pressed for another inquest. Truth
be told, Many in the Kingdom were

322
00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:15.559
far for certain as to Dudley's innocence. The feeling persisted even after Dudley arranged

323
00:29:15.599 --> 00:29:21.759
a lavish funeral for his late wife. But how did Amy Dudley really meet

324
00:29:21.759 --> 00:29:23.960
her death? There is no dispute
that she died of a broken neck.

325
00:29:25.480 --> 00:29:27.680
She was found at the bottom of
the staircase, and the obvious conclusion would

326
00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:30.920
be that she had fallen down those
stairs and that her death was due,

327
00:29:32.400 --> 00:29:36.359
as Dudley's supporter has asserted, to
an accident. Yet it was claimed at

328
00:29:36.359 --> 00:29:38.680
the time that the steps were far
too shallow to have caused a fatal injury,

329
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:44.680
and this led many people to deduce
that someone broke her neck and then

330
00:29:44.720 --> 00:29:47.599
placed her body at the foot of
the stairs to make it look like it

331
00:29:47.720 --> 00:29:51.319
has been an accident. Her husband, as we know, was the chief

332
00:29:51.319 --> 00:29:56.240
suspect. Many openly accused Dudley of
the murder, alleging that he had hired

333
00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:00.079
an assassin to do the deeds,
and the name of this man, according

334
00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:06.839
to many was Richard Vernie. Vernie
was a nephew of one of the servants,

335
00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:11.200
and had once been Dudley's page,
and was launchly loyal to him.

336
00:30:11.839 --> 00:30:17.720
In fact, one asserted that Vernie
was simply his to be commanded. He

337
00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:22.160
remained with Amy that day, September
eighth alone. Again, this is according

338
00:30:22.319 --> 00:30:27.000
to the assertions of some, and
we should point out Vernie rather conveniently died

339
00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:33.960
himself shortly thereafter in London. It's
almost like a sort of JFK scenario.

340
00:30:34.079 --> 00:30:37.599
Of course, it's impossible to check
many of the details in this account,

341
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:44.519
since many are just so incredibly vague. Vernie's movements and whereabouts on the eighth

342
00:30:44.559 --> 00:30:48.720
of September cannot be traced with any
degree of certainty at all. The only

343
00:30:48.759 --> 00:30:53.559
contemporary mention of him in connection with
Dudley dates from the previous April, when

344
00:30:53.559 --> 00:30:56.960
the latter sent for Vernie and Vernie
had to write to apologize for not being

345
00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:03.799
able to come. Now, it
is of course possible that Vernie's aunt,

346
00:31:03.960 --> 00:31:07.759
also a servant, was in on
the murder plot. It was she who

347
00:31:07.839 --> 00:31:11.680
was the sole servant left with Amy
on that day, and she was the

348
00:31:11.759 --> 00:31:18.960
last recorded person to see Amy alive. Now, Amy was also, though

349
00:31:18.599 --> 00:31:23.640
certainly anxious to get rid of her
servants. Was this because she was expecting

350
00:31:23.640 --> 00:31:29.920
a secret visitor? Could that visitor
perhaps have been someone sent by her husband

351
00:31:29.960 --> 00:31:33.960
to discuss an annulment of their marriage. Such a development had been rumored that

352
00:31:34.039 --> 00:31:37.319
year, and in view of the
damage such rumors could do, it would

353
00:31:37.319 --> 00:31:41.480
have been natural for Robert to insist
that Amy received her visitor in private,

354
00:31:42.240 --> 00:31:48.799
perhaps with all her servants gone away. Or was it more sinister? Was

355
00:31:48.839 --> 00:31:55.480
Amy led to believe that such a
visitor was coming when something else was planned?

356
00:31:56.920 --> 00:32:00.240
On the other hand, I suppose
we could also speculate that she was

357
00:32:00.480 --> 00:32:04.400
so depressed, and possibly so ill
and desperate for some peace and quiet,

358
00:32:05.160 --> 00:32:12.519
that she simply threw herselves down the
stairs. Now, if Amy was murdered

359
00:32:12.559 --> 00:32:15.799
before being laid at the foot of
the stairs, though, how was it

360
00:32:15.880 --> 00:32:22.000
done? There's an interesting tale.
It's interesting to think about what this Dudley

361
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:28.680
residence was actually an old monastery,
and according to some legends, there was

362
00:32:28.759 --> 00:32:35.799
actually a secret door in Amy's bedchamber
that had since been essentially walled up so

363
00:32:35.839 --> 00:32:39.400
that we can no longer see it. But this secret door may have allowed

364
00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:45.920
an assassin secret entrance into the room
while Amy Dudley was asleep, who breaks

365
00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:47.640
her neck, who then places her
at the bottom of the stairs. Again,

366
00:32:47.759 --> 00:32:53.920
this is unbelievable conjecture, but it
is a story that is related,

367
00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:58.359
and I kind of think the secret
door in the monastery part is interesting.

368
00:32:58.400 --> 00:33:01.079
So that's why I told you.
Now, some of course continued to attribute

369
00:33:01.079 --> 00:33:05.079
Amy's death to a suicide. I
mean, we do know she had been

370
00:33:05.119 --> 00:33:08.200
depressed, and that would explain why
she was so anxious to get her servants

371
00:33:08.200 --> 00:33:13.720
out of the house. No one
at the time thought to attribute though Amy's

372
00:33:13.759 --> 00:33:17.759
death to natural causes. But since
then, since the year nineteen fifty six,

373
00:33:17.839 --> 00:33:22.480
in fact, a new theory has
been asserted by Professor Ian Hird,

374
00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:28.400
one of the most modern historians to
look at this case. Aired considered the

375
00:33:28.400 --> 00:33:31.519
possibility that Amy was suffering from breast
cancer. In fact, there was a

376
00:33:31.599 --> 00:33:36.480
quote malady in one of her breasts, end quote that have been first referred

377
00:33:36.519 --> 00:33:40.880
to by the Imperial Ambassador back in
April of fifteen fifty nine. This disease,

378
00:33:42.160 --> 00:33:45.599
as it progresses, causes in about
fifty percent of sufferers a weakening of

379
00:33:45.640 --> 00:33:51.480
the bones due to cancerous deposits that
break away from the original tumor and are

380
00:33:51.519 --> 00:33:57.000
carried through the bloodstream to settle on
the bones, particularly the spine, which

381
00:33:57.039 --> 00:34:01.039
then becomes unnaturally brittle the us It
follows that, if Amy was in the

382
00:34:01.119 --> 00:34:06.440
last stages of the disease, even
the slightest exertion required to walk down a

383
00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:12.800
flight of stairs could have caused a
spontaneous fracture of her vertebrae. However,

384
00:34:13.920 --> 00:34:17.920
if this theory is correct, it
offers absolutely no explanation of Amy's unusual behavior

385
00:34:17.960 --> 00:34:22.360
on the day of her death,
nor does the less commonly accepted modern theory

386
00:34:22.679 --> 00:34:28.440
that she suffered from an aortic aneurysm, the terminal enlargement of an artery from

387
00:34:28.480 --> 00:34:31.159
the heart, which causes pain in
the swelling in the chest, and mental

388
00:34:31.199 --> 00:34:37.159
aberrations including depression and fits of anger
resulting from the erratic blood frow to the

389
00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:44.599
brain. Sudden slight pressure can cause
the bursting of an aneurysm, bringing spontaneous

390
00:34:44.679 --> 00:34:49.559
death. The resultant could fall in
Amy's case, which then would have caused

391
00:34:49.639 --> 00:34:55.079
her neck to break, Whether due
to natural causes or not. Amy Dudley's

392
00:34:55.079 --> 00:35:00.079
death was certainly convenient, but not
ironically for the person whom many expected to

393
00:35:00.119 --> 00:35:05.440
benefit from it. Most people believed
that her husband had killed her in order

394
00:35:05.480 --> 00:35:08.119
to marry the Queen, and thus
he had a motive for doing so.

395
00:35:09.519 --> 00:35:14.559
Yet he Robert Dudley, thick skinned
as he was, could not have been

396
00:35:14.599 --> 00:35:17.199
so stupid as to think that he'd
get away with it, And if she

397
00:35:17.280 --> 00:35:20.760
was indeed dying of cancer, then
that he had nothing to do in the

398
00:35:20.800 --> 00:35:24.000
first place. On the day before
her death, the Queen had told the

399
00:35:24.039 --> 00:35:30.320
Imperial ambassador that Lady Dudley was dead
or nearly so. If Elizabeth was involved

400
00:35:30.320 --> 00:35:32.400
in a murder plot, she was
hardly likely to announce the death of the

401
00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:36.599
victim before she was certain that it
had happened, or even refer to it.

402
00:35:37.159 --> 00:35:42.199
Elizabeth was far too clever for that. Yet her announcement would make more

403
00:35:42.239 --> 00:35:45.159
sense if she had been told by
Dudley that the end was near. The

404
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:50.639
behavior of the Queen and Dudley after
the event strongly suggested they were both shocked

405
00:35:50.679 --> 00:35:53.639
and bewildered by the news, and
both did their utmost to ensure that Amy's

406
00:35:53.639 --> 00:36:00.119
death was thoroughly and objectively investigated.
If Dudley did murder his wife, then

407
00:36:00.119 --> 00:36:05.800
he did it about the stupidest way
possible to get away with it. Amy's

408
00:36:05.800 --> 00:36:08.920
death had to look like it was
natural. A broken neck doesn't just normally

409
00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:15.239
happen. Plus, given the implications
of Amy's death, it didn't give Dudley

410
00:36:15.360 --> 00:36:20.280
or Elizabeth the end they wanted.
Elizabeth could never marry Dudley now and keep

411
00:36:20.280 --> 00:36:24.840
her throne. In the end,
Amy Dudley's death was perhaps the final nail

412
00:36:24.880 --> 00:36:31.639
in the Queen's virginity. In the
end, the only real beneficiary of Amy's

413
00:36:31.679 --> 00:36:37.079
death had been William Cecil. Once
the inquest was over, he was restored

414
00:36:37.079 --> 00:36:43.199
to court. Frankly, if anyone
had reason to murder Amy Dudley, it

415
00:36:43.280 --> 00:36:47.000
was William Cecil. He would have
known that it would have ended the prospect

416
00:36:47.079 --> 00:36:52.440
of Dudley's marriage to the Queen.
Moreover, it would have given him the

417
00:36:52.559 --> 00:36:55.920
chance to appear Dudley's friend, which
he did, and which was perhaps the

418
00:36:55.960 --> 00:37:01.280
key reason he was readmitted to court
so quickly. It would have been easy

419
00:37:01.679 --> 00:37:09.039
for Cecil, with his various connections, to instigate Amy's mysterious death. Now

420
00:37:09.079 --> 00:37:14.880
that being said, I want to
be clear that there is no direct evidence

421
00:37:14.920 --> 00:37:19.440
of this Cecil had a motive.
But then again, so I do a

422
00:37:19.440 --> 00:37:24.920
lot of innocent suspects. If you've
enjoyed this episode, please feel free to

423
00:37:25.039 --> 00:37:30.400
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week early. For two or more
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427
00:37:44.519 --> 00:37:50.039
Sieve two point zero. Do's a
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428
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back in the ancient sands of Mesopotamia
and Egypt. Right now, we're deep

429
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in Roman history again, and I
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And as always, if you've enjoyed
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