The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies

From Cumnor, Blount replied on September 11. He only knew that ‘my lady is dead, and, as it seemeth, with a fall, but yet how, or which way, I cannot learn.’ Not even at Cumnor could Blount discover the manner of the accident. On the night of the ninth he had lain at Abingdon, the landlord of the inn could tell him no more than Dudley already knew. Amy’s servants had been at ‘the fair’ at Abingdon: she herself was said to have insisted on their going thither very early in the day; among them Bowes went, as he told Blount, who met him on the road, as he rode to see Dudley. He said that Amy ‘was very angry’ with any who stayed, and with Mrs. Oddingsell, who refused to go. Pinto (probably Amy’s maid), ‘who doth love her dearly,’ confirmed Bowes. She believed the death to be ‘a very accident.’ She had heard Amy ‘divers times pray to God to deliver her from desperation,’ but entirely disbelieved in suicide, which no one would attempt, perhaps, by falling down two flights of stairs.

Before Blount arrived at Cumnor on September 10, the coroner’s jury had been chosen, sensible men, but some of them hostile to Forster. By September 12 (NOT 27) Dudley had retired from Court and was at Kew, but had received Blount’s letter. He bade Blount tell the jury to inquire faithfully and find an honest verdict. On the thirteenth Blount again wrote from Cumnor, meaning to join Dudley next day: ‘I I have ALMOST NOTHING that can make me so much [as?] to think that any man can be the doer of it… the circumstances and the many things which I can learn doth persuade me that only misfortune hath done it and nothing else.’ There is another letter by Dudley from Windsor, without date. He has had a reassuring letter from Smythe, foreman of the jury. He wishes them to examine ‘as long as they lawfully may,’ and that a fresh jury should try the case again. He wishes Sir Richard Blount to help. Appleyard and Arthur Robsart have been present. He means to have no more dealings with the jury; his only ‘dealings’ seem to have been his repeated requests that they would be diligent and honest. ‘I am right glad they be all strangers to me.‘*

*Pettigrew, pp. 28-32.

These letters are wholly inconsistent with guilt, in the faintest degree, on the side of Dudley. But people were not satisfied. There is a letter to Cecil, of September 17, from Lever, a minister at Coventry, saying that the country was full of mutterings and dangerous suspicions, and that there must be earnest searching and trying of the truth.*

*Burghley Papers, Haynes, 362.

Suspicion was inevitable, but what could a jury do, more than, according to Blount, the jury had done? Yet there is dense obscurity as to the finding of the jury. We have seen that Appleyard, Amy’s half-brother, was at Cumnor during the inquest. Yet, in 1567, he did not know, or pretended not to know, what the verdict had been. ‘Leicester’s Commonwealth’ says ‘she was found murdered (as all men said) by the crowner’s inquest,’ as if the verdict was not published, but was a mere matter of rumour – ‘as all men said.’ Appleyard’s behaviour need not detain us long, as he was such a shuffling knave that his statements, on either side, were just what he found expedient in varying circumstances. Dudley, after Amy’s death, obtained for him various profitable billets; in 1564 he was made keeper of the Marshalsea, had a commission under the Great Seal to seize concealed prizes at sea without legal proceedings, had the Portership of Berwick, and the Sheriffship of Norfolk and Suffolk, while Leicester stood guarantor of a debt of his for 400 pounds. These facts he admitted before the Privy Council in 1567.* But Leicester might naturally do what he could for his dead wife’s brother: we cannot argue that the jobs done for Appleyard were hush-money, enormous as these jobs were. Yet in this light Appleyard chose to consider them. He seems to have thought that Leicester did not treat him well enough, and wanted to get rid of him in Ireland or France, and he began, about 1566-67, to blab of what he could say an’ he would. He ‘let fall words of anger, and said that for Dudley’s sake he had covered the murder of his sister.’

*Rye, pp. 60-62. Hatfield MSS., Calendar, i. 345-352, May 1567.

Mr. Froude has here misconceived the situation, as Mr. Gairdner shows. Mr. Froude’s words are ‘being examined by Cecil, he admitted the investigation at Cumnor had after all been inadequately conducted.‘* In fact, Appleyard admitted that he had SAID this, and much more, in private talk among his associates. Before the Council he subsequently withdrew what he admitted having said in private talk. It does not signify what he said, or what he withdrew, but Mr. Froude unluckily did not observe a document which proved that Appleyard finally ate his words, and he concludes that ‘although Dudley was innocent of a direct association with the crime, the unhappy lady was sacrificed to his ambition. Dudley himself… used private means, notwithstanding his affectation of sincerity, to prevent the search from being pressed inconveniently far’ – that is, ‘if Appleyard spoke the truth.’ But Appleyard denied that he had spoken the truth, a fact overlooked by Mr. Froude.**

*Froude, vi. p. 430.

**Ibid. vi. pp 430, 431.

The truth stood thus: in 1566-67 there was, or had been, some idea that Leicester might, after all, marry the Queen. Appleyard told Thomas Blount that he was being offered large sums by great persons to reopen the Cumnor affair. Blount was examined by the Council, and gave to Leicester a written account of what he told them. One Huggon, Appleyard’s ‘brother,’ had informed Leicester that courtiers were practising on Appleyard, ‘to search the manner of his sister’s death.’ Leicester sent Blount to examine Appleyard as to who the courtiers were. Appleyard was evasive, but at last told Blount a long tale of mysterious attempts to seduce him into stirring up the old story. He promised to meet Leicester, but did not: his brother, Huggon, named Norfolk, Sussex, and others as the ‘practisers.’ Later, by Leicester’s command, Blount brought Appleyard to him at Greenwich. What speeches passed Blount did not know, but Leicester was very angry, and bade Appleyard begone, ‘with great words of defiance.’ It is clear that, with or without grounds, Appleyard was trying to blackmail Leicester.

Before the Council (May 1567) Appleyard confessed that he had said to people that he had often moved the Earl to let him pursue the murderers of Amy, ‘showing certain circumstances which led him to think surely that she was murdered.’ He had said that Leicester, on the other hand, cited the verdict of the jury, but he himself declared that the jury, in fact, ‘had not as yet given up their verdict.’ After these confessions Appleyard lay in the Fleet prison, destitute, and scarce able to buy a meal. On May 30, 1567, he wrote an abject letter to the Council. He had been offered every opportunity of accusing those whom he suspected, and he asked for ‘a copy of the verdict presented by the jury, whereby I may see what the jury have found,’ after which he would take counsel’s advice. He got a copy of the verdict (?) (would that we had the copy!) and, naturally, as he was starving, professed himself amply satisfied by ‘proofs testified under the oaths of fifteen persons,’ that Amy’s death was accidental. ‘I have not money left to find me two meals.’ In such a posture, Appleyard would, of course, say anything to get himself out of prison. Two days later he confessed that for three years he had been, in fact, trying to blackmail Leicester on several counts, Amy’s murder and two political charges.*

*See the full reports, Gairdner, English Historical Review, April 1886, 249-259, and Hatfield Calendar for the date May 1567.

The man was a rogue, however we take him, and the sole tangible fact is that a report of the evidence given at the inquest did exist, and that the verdict may have been ‘Accidental Death.’ We do not know but that an open verdict was given. Appleyard professes to have been convinced by the evidence, not by the verdict.

When ‘Leicester’s Apology’ appeared (1584-85) Sir Philip Sidney, Leicester’s nephew, wrote a reply. It was easy for him to answer the libeller’s ‘she was found murdered (as all men suppose) by the crowner’s inquest’ – by producing the actual verdict of the jury. He did not; he merely vapoured, and challenged the libeller to the duel.* Appleyard’s statement among his intimates, that no verdict had yet been given, seems to point to an open verdict.

*Sidney’s reply is given in Adlard’s Amye Robsart and the Earl of Leicester. London, 1870.

The subject is alluded to by Elizabeth herself, who puts the final touch of darkness on the mystery. Just as Archbishop Beaton, Mary’s ambassador in Paris, vainly adjured her to pursue the inquiry into Darnley’s murder, being urged by the talk in France, so Throgmorton, Elizabeth’s ambassador to the French Court, was heartbroken by what he heard. Clearly no satisfactory verdict ever reached him. He finally sent Jones, his secretary, with a verbal message to Elizabeth. Jones boldly put the question of the Cumnor affair. She said that ‘the matter had been tried in the country, AND FOUND TO THE CONTRARY OF THAT WAS REPORTED.’

What ‘was reported’? Clearly that Leicester and retainers of his had been the murderers of Amy. For the Queen went on, ‘Lord Robert was in the Court, AND NONE OF HIS AT THE ATTEMPT AT HIS WIFE’S HOUSE.’ So Verney was not there. So Jones wrote to Throgmorton on November 30, 1560.* We shall return to Throgmorton.

*Hardwicke Papers, i. 165.

If Jones correctly reported Elizabeth’s words, there had been an ‘attempt at’ Cumnor Place, of which we hear nothing from any other source. How black is the obscurity through which Blount, at Cumnor, two days after Amy’s death, could discern – nothing! ‘A fall, yet how, or which way, I cannot learn.’ By September 17, nine days after the death, Lever, at Coventry, an easy day’s ride from Cumnor, knew nothing (as we saw) of a verdict, or, at least, of a satisfactory verdict. It is true that the Earl of Huntingdon, at Leicester, only heard of Amy’s death on September 17, nine days after date.* Given ‘an attempt,’ Amy might perhaps break her neck down a spiral staircase, when running away in terror. A cord stretched across the top step would have done all that was needed.

*Nineteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 431. Huntingdon to Leicester, Longleat MSS. I repose on Canon Jackson’s date of the manuscript letter.

We next find confusion worse confounded, by our previous deliverer from error, Baron Kervyn Lettenhove! What happened at Court immediately after Amy’s death? The Baron says: ‘A fragment of a despatch of de la Quadra, of the same period, reports Dudley to have said that his marriage had been celebrated in presence of his brother, and of two of the Queen’s ladies.’ For this, according to the Baron, Mr. Froude cites a letter of the Bishop of Aquila (de Quadra) of September 11.* Mr. Froude does nothing of the sort! He does cite ‘an abstract of de Quadra’s letters, MS. Simancas,’ without any date at all. ‘The design of Cecil and of those heretics to convey the kingdom to the Earl of Huntingdon is most certain, for at last Cecil has yielded to Lord Robert, who, he says, has married the Queen in presence of his brother and two ladies of her bedchamber.’ So Mr. Gairdner translates from Mr. Froude’s transcript, and he gives the date (November 20) which Mr. Froude does not give. Major Hume translates, ‘who, THEY say, was married.‘** O History! According to Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, DUDLEY says he has married the Queen; according to Mr. Gairdner, CECIL says so; according to Major Hume, ‘they’ say so!***

*Relations Politiques des Pays-Bas, etc., xlii., note 4.

**Span. Cal. i. p. 178.

***The Spanish of this perplexing sentence is given by Froude, vi. p.

433, note 1. ‘Cecil se ha rendido a Milord Roberto el qual dice que se hay casado con la Reyna…’

The point is of crucial importance to Mrs. Gallup and the believers in the cipher wherein Bacon maintains that he is the legal son of a wedding between Dudley and the Queen. Was there such a marriage or even betrothal? Froude cautiously says that this was averted ‘SEEMINGLY on Lord Robert’s authority;’ the Baron says that Lord Robert makes the assertion; Mr. Gairdner says that Cecil is the authority, and Major Hume declares that it is a mere on-dit – ‘who, they say.’ It is heart-breaking.*

*For Mr. Gairdner, English Historical Review, No. 2, p. 246.

To deepen the darkness and distress, the official, printed, Spanish Documentos Ineditos do not give this abstract of November 20 at all. Major Hume translates it in full, from Mr. Froude’s transcript.

Again, Mr. Froude inserts his undated quotation, really of November 20, before he comes to tell of Amy Robsart’s funeral (September 22, 1560), and the Baron, as we saw, implies that Mr. Froude dates it September 11, the day on which the Queen publicly announced Amy’s death.

We now have an undated letter, endorsed by Cecil ‘Sept. 1560,’ wherein Dudley, not at Court, and in tribulation, implores Cecil’s advice and aid. ‘I am sorry so sudden a chance should breed me so great a change.’ He may have written from Kew, where Elizabeth had given him a house, and where he was on September 12 (not 27). On October 13 (Froude), or 14 (‘Documentos Ineditos,’ 88, p. 310), or 15 (Spanish Calendar, i. p. 176) – for dates are strange things – de Quadra wrote a letter of which there is only an abstract at Simancas. This abstract we quote: ‘The contents of the letter of Bishop Quadra to his Majesty written on the 15th’ (though headed the 14th) ‘of October, and received on the 16th of November, 1560. It relates the way in which the wife of Lord Robert came to her death, the respect (reverencia) paid him immediately by the members of the Council and others, and the dissimulation of the Queen. That he had heard that they were engaged in an affair of great importance for the confirmation of their heresies, and wished to make the Earl of Huntingdon king, should the Queen die without children, and that Cecil had told him that the heritage was his as a descendant of the House of York… That Cecil had told him that the Queen was resolved not to marry Lord Robert, as he had learned from herself; it seemed that the Arch Duke might be proposed.’ In mid-October, then, Elizabeth was apparently disinclined to wed the so recently widowed Lord Robert, though, shortly after Amy’s death, the Privy Council began to court Dudley as future king.

Mr. Froude writes – still before he comes to September 22 – ‘the Bishop of Aquila reported that there were anxious meetings of the Council, the courtiers paid a partial homage to Dudley.‘* This appears to be a refraction from the abstract of the letter of October 13 or 14: ‘he relates the manner in which the wife of Lord Robert came to her death, the respect (reverencia) paid to him immediately by members of the Council and others.’

*Froude, vi. p. 432.

Next we come, in Mr. Froude, to Amy’s funeral (September 22), and to Elizabeth’s resolve not to marry Leicester (October 13, 14, 15?), and to Throgmorton’s interference in October-November. Throgmorton’s wails over the Queen’s danger and dishonour were addressed to Cecil and the Marquis of Northampton, from Poissy, on October 10, when he also condoled with Dudley on the death of his wife! ‘Thanks him for his present of a nag!’ * On the same date, October 10, Harry Killigrew, from London, wrote to answer Throgmorton’s inquiries about Amy’s death. Certainly Throgmorton had heard of Amy’s death before October 10: he might have heard by September 16. What he heard comforted him not. By October 10 he should have had news of a satisfactory verdict. But Killigrew merely said ‘she brake her neck… only by the hand of God, to my knowledge.‘** On October 17, Killigrew writes to Throgmorton ‘rumours… have been very rife, BUT THE QUEEN SAYS SHE WILL MAKE THEM FALSE… Leaves to his judgment what he will not write. Has therefore sent by Jones and Summers’ (verbally) ‘what account he wished him to make of my Lord R.’ (Dudley).

*For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, pp. 347-349.

**Ibid., 1560, p. 350.

Then (October 28) Throgmorton tells Cecil plainly that, till he knows what Cecil thinks, he sees no reason to advise the Queen in the matter ‘of marrying Dudley.’ Begs him ‘TO SIGNIFY PLAINLY WHAT HAS BEEN DONE,’ and implores him, ‘in the bowels of Christ ‘… ‘to hinder that matter.‘* He writes ‘with tears and sighs,’ and – he declines to return Cecil’s letters on the subject. ‘They be as safe in my hands as in your own, and more safe in mine than in any messenger’s.’

*For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, p. 376.

On October 29, Throgmorton sets forth his troubles to Chamberlain. ‘Chamberlain as a wise man can conceive how much it imports the Queen’s honour and her realm to have the same’ (reports as to Amy’s death) ‘ceased.’ ‘He is withal brought to be weary of his life.‘*

*For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, p. 376.

On November 7, Throgmorton writes to the Marquis of Northampton and to Lord Pembroke about ‘the bruits lately risen from England… set so full with great horror,’ and never disproved, despite Throgmorton’s prayers for satisfaction.

Finally Throgmorton, as we saw, had the boldness to send his secretary, Jones, direct to Elizabeth. All the comfort he got from her was her statement that neither Dudley nor his retainers were at the attempt at Cumnor Place. Francis I. died in France, people had something fresh to talk about, and the Cumnor scandal dropped out of notice. Throgmorton, however, persevered till, in January 1561, Cecil plainly told him to cease to meddle. Throgmorton endorsed the letter ‘A warning not to be too busy about the matters between the Queen and Lord Robert.‘*

*For. Cal. Eliz., 1560, p. 498.

It is not necessary, perhaps, to pursue further the attempts of Dudley to marry the Queen. On January 22 he sent to de Quadra his brother-in-law, Sir Henry, father of Sir Philip Sidney, offering to help to restore the Church if Philip II. would back the marriage. Sidney professed to believe, after full inquiry, that Amy died by accident. But he admitted ‘that no one believed it;’ that ‘the preachers harped on it in a manner prejudicial to the honour and service of the Queen, which had caused her to move for the remedy of the disorders of this kingdom in religion,’ and so on.* De Quadra and the preachers had no belief in Amy’s death by accident. Nobody had, except Dudley’s relations. A year after Amy’s death, on September 13, 1561, de Quadra wrote: ‘The Earl of Arundel and others are drawing up copies of the testimony given in the inquiry respecting the death of Lord Robert’s wife. Robert is now doing his best to repair matters’ (as to a quarrel with Arundel, it seems), ‘as it appears that more is being discovered in that matter than he wished.‘** People were not so easily satisfied with the evidence as was the imprisoned and starving Appleyard.

*Documentos Ineditos, 88, p. 314; Span. Cal., i. p. 179; Froude, vi.

p. 453. The translations vary: I give my own. The Spanish has misprints.

**Span. Cal., i. p. 213; Documentos Ineditos, 88, p. 367.

So the mystery stands. The letters of Blount and Dudley (September 9-12, 1560) entirely clear Dudley’s character, and can only be got rid of on the wild theory that they were composed, later, to that very end. But the precise nature of the Cumnor jury’s verdict is unknown, and Elizabeth’s words about ‘the attempt at her house’ prove that something concealed from us did occur. It might be a mere half-sportive attempt by rustics to enter a house known to be, at the moment, untenanted by the servants, and may have caused to Amy an alarm, so that, rushing downstairs in terror, she fell and broke her neck. The coincidence of her death with the words of Cecil would thus be purely fortuitous, and coincidences as extraordinary have occurred. Or a partisan of Dudley’s, finding poison difficult or impossible, may have, in his zeal, murdered Amy, under the disguise of an accident. The theory of suicide would be plausible, if it were conceivable that a person would commit suicide by throwing herself downstairs.

We can have no certainty, but, at least, we show how Elizabeth came to be erroneously accused of reporting Amy’s death before it occurred.*

*For a wild Italian legend of Amy’s murder, written in 1577, see the Hatfield Calendar, ii. 165-170.