THE QUESTION OF WHO KILLED AMY ROBSART DUDLEY IS one of the most intriguing historical mysteries of all time. Although the evidence was closely examined and the case formally tried at the time, no definitive conclusion was reached. Robert Dudley was implicated and reviled on and off over the years of his life and even after. In recent times it has even been conjectured that Amy’s death was not a murder, suicide, or accident of falling down the stairs: From the distance of centuries, one modern-day sleuth has claimed her broken neck was caused by a spontaneous fracture, a side effect of her advanced breast cancer.
I believe, however, that someone powerful hired a “hit man”—or woman—to dispatch Amy, either hoping to free Elizabeth to wed Dudley or to shame her publicly and discredit him permanently. The candidates for such a “sponsor” are highlighted in this novel. The undisputed fact that Amy herself insisted that nearly everyone in the household go to the Abingdon fair suggests that she had a compelling reason beyond mere whim to be alone that day.
Among the many suspicious circumstances and theories (including my fictional version), one thing, however, seems clear. As writer George Adlard put it after studying the Dudley case for years, “The mystery connected with the death of Amye [multiple spellings were common in Elizabeth’s England] Robsart will probably never be cleared up.”
The poems and song lyrics included in this story are those that could have been popular at this early stage of Elizabeth’s reign. The ones attributed to Sir Thomas Wyatt I found especially pertinent, since he was twice arrested and imprisoned in connection with charges of adultery with Queen Anne Boleyn and in both cases received a pardon and returned to King Henry VIII’s favor. It is fitting that a man with such apparent appeal be quoted in a story about the charismatic Dudley’s hold on Queen Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth.
Katherine Grey is yet to cause the queen much travail; the very month this story ends the girl committed an act of high treason that Elizabeth does not discover until later, with dreadful results. Mary, Queen of Scots, will remain the thorn in the queen’s side for years. The people who caused Elizabeth the most concern in her reign were those “blood-kin” who had various claims, however convoluted, to her throne.
Lord Robert Dudley’s story hardly ends here, nor does Cecil’s, Kat’s, Dr. Dee’s, or even Meg Milligrew’s. Look for the continuation of their tales in The Queene’s Cure.
I will close with a few lines from a 1559 song that highlights the young queen’s increasingly tense and dangerous personal and political dilemma about marriage. It is fascinating that so early in her reign, this songwriter read the queen’s dawning realization of her destiny so well:
Here is my hand,
My dear lover England.
I am thine both
With mind and with heart.
— WILLIAM BIRCH
from A Song Between the
Queen’s Majesty and England