Life of Elizabeth I (18 page)

We should consider the behaviour of Mrs Odingsells, who stoutly refused to go to the fair, much to Amy's chagrin. Was she in league with those who sought to do Amy harm, or even with Mrs Owen? Had these two ladies, about whom we know very little, conspired to help an assassin? Was Mrs Odingsells deputed to let him in, while Mrs Owen kept Amy occupied at table, or with the game of backgammon that she was said to have been playing before she died? There are no answers to these questions, for they are mere speculation and theory.

If Amy was murdered before being laid at the foot of the stairs, how was it done? When Cumnor Place was converted into a gentleman's 
house after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, some building work was carried out and several doors were blocked up. There was a tale current after Amy's death that she had been persuaded - by whom is not clear - to lodge in a room that had a secret doorway behind the bedhead. It was through this doorway, it was claimed, that her murderer came into the room. Or perhaps the killer came upon her as she sat at table with Mrs Owen.

Some time after Amy's death, Anthony Forster was rewarded for good service by Robert Dudley, who gave him lands in fifteen counties, enabling Forster to purchase Cumnor Place and virtually rebuild it. Some believed, then and later, that Forster had been Dudley's accomplice in the murder, and that this was his reward, but there is no other evidence for this. When Forster died in 1572, Dudley bought the house from his heirs, having been given the option to do so in Forster's will. Why he should have wanted Cumnor, with its unpleasant associations, is not clear.

Several people, notably Blount, attributed Amy's death to suicide. She had been depressed and, according to her maid, in a state of near desperation before she met her end. Robert's neglect and his very public relationship with the Queen could have accounted for this, or Amy could have been in the last stages of breast cancer, suffering pain for which there was no palliative then, as well as the resulting emotional trauma. The theory that she took her own life is therefore a credible one, and would explain why she was so anxious to get her servants out of the house.

No one at the time thought to attribute Amy's death to natural causes, but since 1956, when a new theory was suggested by Professor Ian Aird, most modern historians have done so. Aird considered the possibility that Amy was suffering from breast cancer; the 'malady in one of her breasts' had first been referred to by de Quadra in April 1559. This disease, as it progresses, causes in about fifty per cent of sufferers a weakening of the bones due to cancerous deposits that break away from the original tumour and are carried through the bloodstream to settle on the bones, particularly the spine, which becomes unnaturally brittle. Thus, if Amy was in the last stages of the disease, even the slight exertion required to walk down a flight of stairs could have caused a spontaneous fracture of the vertebrae. However, if this theory is correct, it offers no explanation of Amy's unusual behaviour on the day of her death. Nor does the less commonly accepted modern theory, that she suffered from an aortic aneurism, the terminal enlargement of an artery from the heart, which causes pain and swelling in the chest, and mental aberrations - including depression or fits of anger - resulting from erratic blood-flow to the brain. Sudden slight pressure can cause the bursting of the 
aneurism, bringing instantaneous death. The resultant fall could, in Amy's case, 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 supposed expected to benefit from it. Most people believed that her husband had killed her in order to marry the Queen, and thus far he had a motive for doing so. Yet even he, thick-skinned as he often was, could not have been so stupid as to think he would get away with it, and if she were indeed dying of cancer, he had no need to do anything. On the day before her death, the Queen told de Quadra 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 - she 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 behaviour of the Queen and Dudley after the event suggests that 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.

That Dudley's chief concern was to clear his own name is understandable, given what people were saying about him, and it proves that he was well aware of what the consequences would be, and what was at stake if a credible explanation was not arrived at. It was in his interests that his wife should die a natural death, and the evidence suggests that she might shortly have done so. He was hardly likely to have gone to the trouble of having her killed, or allowing her body to be left in such suspicious circumstances.

The Queen did not interfere in the coroner's enquiry, and if she appeared to be initiating a damage limitation exercise after the verdict, that was understandable, since tongues had not been stilled and were deeminq her guilty by association because of her intimacy with Dudley. If she had had any real wish to marry him now that he was free, it was unlikely that she would be able to do so and hold on to her throne. Some of her courtiers, knowing how she had so far shied away from marriage, were of the opinion that the news of Lady Dudley's death was not welcome to her, since Lord Robert might now begin to press his suit in earnest, and even though she loved him, she might not be prepared to surrender her independence. Such an iinpasse could only cause conflict, and the courtship dance that she had so perfected with her foreign suitors might not serve her so well when it came to a man with whom she was emotionally involved.

The fact remains that there is no factual evidence whatsoever to implicate either the Queen or Dudley in his wife's death. Neither gained anything but trouble and ill-fame from it, and the almost universal belief 
in his guilt was to bedevil Dudley until the end of his days.

One man did profit from the death of Amy Dudley, and that was William Cecil. He was swiftly restored to favour as soon as the news was known and his rival banished from court, and when he visited Dudley at Kew he did so in the comfortable knowledge that their positions had been reversed and that he now had the upper hand. In such circumstances he could afford to be magnanimous.

Of all those involved in the power struggle in 1560, Cecil was the one with the strongest motive for wishing Amy Dudley dead. He was a perceptive man, and he could foresee that if she died in suspicious circumstances, as many people expected her to do, then the finger of suspicion would point inexorably to her husband - as indeed it did. Cecil also knew that Elizabeth, who was very conservative at heart, would be unlikely to risk her popularity and her crown to marry a man whose reputation was so tainted.

In September 1560, Cecil had seen Dudley in the ascendant and his own future in ruins; he feared not only for his position, which he had attained only after years of hard work and loyalty to the Tudor dynasty, but also for the future of England and the Anglican Settlement. If the Queen married Dudley it would irrevocably weaken her tenure of the throne, and could even lead to her deposition, or, worse, a bid by foreign powers to replace her with the Catholic Mary Stuart. Cecil had tried to warn Elizabeth that she was plunging headlong into disaster, but she had not listened, and he was afraid for her, afraid that she would marry Dudley and so wreck everything that Cecil had struggled to achieve. It is not, therefore, inconceivable that it was William Cecil who decided upon a course that, although regrettable, would force Elizabeth to stop and think.

Cecil was a realist and a pragmatist. It is possible that, when he heard Dudley and the Queen giving out that Amy was very ill he decided to act quickly; it would be essential for people to believe that she had been murdered. Cecil was not a cruel man, and could have reasoned that, since she was dying of a painful disease, cutting short her sufferings could only be an act of mercy. Having laid his plans, he told de Quadra on the morning of 8 September that it was not true what Elizabeth and Dudley were saying: Amy Dudley was quite well. Then, knowing that his words would echo around Europe, he confided that Dudley was plotting to kill her, thus planting the seeds of suspicion before the deed was done. He begged the Bishop to dissuade Elizabeth from marrying Dudley, but of course, there would be no need for this, and nor did de Quadra get the opportunity.

It would have been easy for Cecil, with the co-operation of an 
accomplice at Cumnor Place - perhaps Mrs Owen or Mrs Odingsells -to invent a pretext to keep Amy at home on the afternoon of the 8th. Given her perilous state of health, it would have been the work of a moment for a hired assassin to break her neck and then lay her body at the bottom of the stairs. Cecil did not normally resort to violence, but he might have felt that such an act would have been more than justified by its beneficial consequences.

There is, of course, no direct evidence to support such a theory, but the fact remains that Cecil had a compelling motive for doing away with Amy, and was the person who profited most from her death. He himself, being a patriotic man, dedicated to the service of the state, would have said that it was his country and his Queen who had been the chief beneficiaries.

Chapter 6

'Dishonourable and Naughty Reports'

Gossip about Dudley's alleged responsibility for the death of his wife spread rapidly, and in pulpits all over the country, preachers 'harped on it in a manner prejudicial to the honour and service of the Queen'.

Soon, it was the talk of Europe. From Paris on 10 October, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton wrote to Cecil that he had learned of the 'strange death' of Amy Dudley. In fact, the news was already being loudly bruited about the French court, with the most unfavourable conclusions being drawn, and in a private letter to the Marquess of Northampton, Throckmorton confided,

I wish I were either dead or hence, that I might not hear the dishonourable and naughty reports that are made of the Queen, and the great joy among the French princes for the success they take it they are like to have in England - not letting to speak of the Queen and some others, that which every hair on my head stareth and my ears glow to hear. One laugheth at us, another threateneth, another revileth the Queen. Some let not to say, 'What religion is this, that a subject shall kill his wife, and the prince not only bear withal but marry with him?' If these slandrous bruits [rumours] be not slaked, or if they prove true, our reputation is gone forever, war follows, and utter subversion of the Queen and country.

Sir Nicholas said that his heart bled for his mistress, and he prayed that, for the sake of England's security and prestige, and the Queen's own reputation, she would not 'so foully forget herself as to marry Dudley -a prayer echoed by English ambassadors at other courts.

Thomas Randolph wrote from Edinburgh that what he had heard 'so passioneth my heart that no grief I ever felt was like unto it'. By the end 
of October, weary of the malicious tongues of the French courtiers, Throckmorton thought fit to inform Cecil that it was generally accepted in France that Amy Dudley had been murdered by her husband; Mary Stuart herself had cattily commented, 'So the Queen of England is to marry her horse-keeper, who has killed his wife to make room for her!' Knowing that most people believed Elizabeth to have been an accomplice to murder, Throckmorton stressed 'how much it imports the Queen's honour to have the reports of Amy's death ceased', and warned: 'We begin already to be in derision and hatred for the bruit only, and nothing taken here more assured than our destruction; so, if it take place, God and religion, which be the fundaments, shall be out
of
estimation, the Queen our Sovereign discredited, condemned and neglected, our country ruined, undone and made prey.'

Similar damning conclusions were drawn elsewhere in Europe. Some people believed that Dudley had already married the Queen in secret. The Protestant princes of Germany were especially horrified, since they had looked to England as an ally and now saw Elizabeth apparently hellbent upon self-destruction.

De Quadra informed Throckmorton, 'The Queen your mistress doth show that she hath honour but for a few in her realm, for no man will advise her to leave her folly.' No one had the courage to tell her that she should renounce Dudley. Although Elizabeth was aware of what was being said about them both, she felt nothing but indignation, which was apparent when Throckmorton sent his secretary, Robert Jones, to ask for advice from the Council as to how to counteract the rumours in France, and hopefully dissuade the Queen from marrying Dudley.

Jones thought Her Majesty looked 'not so heavy and well as she did by a great deal. Surely the matter of my Lord Robert doth much perplex her.' She told Jones that his visit was unnecessary, but he recklessly proceeded to try and convince her of the folly of marrying Dudley, only to have her round on him in a temper and declare, 'I have heard of this before!' When he tried to remind her how Dudley had been involved in Northumberland's conspiracy to set Lady Jane Grey on the throne seven years earlier, Elizabeth just laughed at him. In desperation, he revealed to her what was being said about her and Dudley in France, to which she responded spiritedly, 'The matter has been tried and found to be contrary to that which is reported.' Dudley had been at court when his wife died, and none of his people were present at the 'attempt at his wife's house; and it has fallen out as should neither touch my lord's honesty nor my honour'.