Tudor True Crime: Murder of Amy Dudley

Summary

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Not Just the Tudors – "Tudor True Crime: Murder of Amy Dudley" (August 21, 2025)

Podcast: Not Just the Tudors
Host: Professor Suzannah Lipscomb
Guest: Dr. Joanne Paul

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Overview

This episode dives into the mysterious and controversial death of Amy Robsart Dudley in 1560, a case that shook Elizabethan England and reverberated through the Tudor court. Professor Suzannah Lipscomb, joined by historian Dr. Joanne Paul, examines the evidence, the contemporary rumors of murder, suicide, and accident, and the far-reaching consequences for Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley. Using fresh archival findings and period testimonies, the episode unpacks a true crime that changed the course of English history.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Introduction: Setting the Scene

[02:06–04:30]

• Suzannah Lipscomb introduces Amy Robsart Dudley as the wife of Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth’s closest courtier and rumored lover.
• The circumstances of Amy’s death—falling down stairs at Cumnor Place in 1560—sparked intense speculation, rumors of murder, and a royal scandal.

Amy Robsart: Her Life and Marriage

[05:55–09:55]

• Amy was born into a Norfolk gentry family, marrying Robert Dudley shortly before both turned 18. There are suggestions that it was a love match, but also practical motivations linked to property and alliances.
• Little is known of Amy’s personality or daily life; only two of her letters survive.
• Amy and Robert’s marriage was childless, which likely brought significant pressure and disappointment.

Notable Quote:
“We know precious little about Amy at all. We can take guesses at her education, her personality… but beyond that it’s only two letters and there’s very little you can get from that.”
—Dr. Joanne Paul [09:08]

Dudley, Elizabeth I, and Courtly Intrigue

[10:03–11:50]

• Robert Dudley’s closeness to Elizabeth was a source of court gossip and diplomatic anxiety.
• Rumors that Elizabeth wanted to marry the already-married Dudley led to speculation that Amy was an obstacle.

Notable Quote:
“There are rumors that they will marry, that there is something illicit going on between the two of them… But every time there was a rumor that the pair would marry someone would go, he's already married, though. He would have to do away with his wife…”
—Dr. Joanne Paul [11:15]

The Day of Amy’s Death and Immediate Aftermath

[11:50–14:07]

• Retelling the sequence: Amy sends all her servants away to a fair, insisting on being left alone despite their protestations.
• Returns to find Amy at the foot of the stairs, with a broken neck and two head wounds.
• Coroner’s jury rules “death by misfortune,” but the precise circumstances are ambiguous. The recently rediscovered (2008) coroner’s report deepens rather than solves the mystery, due to the nature of the wounds.

The Evidence: Accident, Suicide, or Murder?

[14:07–20:18]

• Dr. Paul highlights the image of a “detective” figure—Thomas Blunt, Robert Dudley’s servant—who interviews witnesses and reports the town gossip.
• Letters reveal nervousness among Amy’s household, ambiguous hints at her state of mind, and disputes whether her death was accidental, self-inflicted, or the result of foul play.
• The physical evidence: two wounds (one “two thumbs deep”, interpreted as about two inches) and a broken neck – could they really result from an accidental fall, or do they look like a blow?
• The coroner was not a trained professional – verdicts were shaped by gossip and local power interests.

Notable Quote:
“One imagines, not a gash, but something more like a stab wound. And if that's the case, it's difficult to see how that would have happened had she just tripped and fallen.”
—Dr. Joanne Paul [18:32]

Suicide Theories and Societal Context

[23:34–25:36]

• Suicide by throwing oneself down stairs was rare and would have been considered “self-murder”—a grave sin leading to posthumous shame and loss of family property.
• Amy’s sending away of her servants might support a suicide interpretation, but the evidence is ambiguous, and later witnesses and officials had reasons to conceal suicide to protect reputations.

Notable Quote:
“Suicide in the 16th century was a deeply shameful and sinful topic...a betrayal of the gift of life that God had given you.”
—Dr. Joanne Paul [36:55]

Murder Theories and Motives

[27:34–34:25]

• Amy’s death benefited Robert Dudley’s rivals far more than Robert himself, whose marriage prospects to the queen were effectively ruined by scandal.
• William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth’s advisor, is discussed as a beneficiary—his political interests aligned with removing Dudley as a credible suitor.
• The episode draws on ambassadorial letters and external court rumors, as well as the political climate (memories of the Dudley family’s involvement in Lady Jane Grey’s coup).

Notable Quote:
“If he didn’t plan it, it looks like he did. A lot of people minded about the prospect of Robert marrying Elizabeth.”
—Dr. Joanne Paul [31:46]

Verdict: What Do We Know?

[40:12–42:23]

• Dr. Paul lists the three possibilities: accident, suicide, murder.
• She rules out Robert Dudley himself as the likely murderer, citing his experience and lack of motive—“it didn’t do him any favors and he would have known it.”
• The murder by a rival (possibly Cecil or another enemy) is most plausible from the evidence; accident is deemed by Dr. Paul as least likely.

Notable Quote:
“What ends up being the least likely scenario, I think, is the suggestion that the coroner himself comes to, which is that it's a misfortune, that it's an accident.”
—Dr. Joanne Paul [42:20]

The Long Shadow: Impact on Queen Elizabeth and History

[42:23–44:18]

• Amy’s death fundamentally changed the possibilities for Robert and Elizabeth. It bolstered the cult of the "Virgin Queen," as Elizabeth could never marry Dudley without appearing complicit in Amy’s death.
• Elizabeth’s later personal writings and mementoes reflect a lasting affection for Dudley, suggesting this was a deeply personal as well as political tragedy.

Notable Quote:
“One of the many tragedies involved in the death of Amy, which include, of course, Amy's own death and the fact that we know so little about her life, was the fact that Robert and Elizabeth, because of it, also had to remain apart and were never able to fully realize what may have been a very loving and very romantic relationship.”
—Dr. Joanne Paul [44:15]

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On historical detective work:
  “We have all of his [Blunt’s] letters back to Robert where he details word for word, these conversations that he has.”
  —Dr. Joanne Paul [16:04]

• On the temptation to speculation:
  “One so often comes across a little phrase, four words or something, on which great edifices of speculation have been built... It's impossible in the end to conclude that they definitely are.”
  —Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb [25:06]

• On why people can't stop talking about the mystery:
  “Because there’s so little information and it’s such a great mystery, because it cuts to the very heart of power in the Tudor court at the time.”
  —Dr. Joanne Paul [27:05]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• The Setting and Crime Introduction: [02:06–04:30]
• Amy’s Background and Marriage: [05:55–09:55]
• The Day of the Death – What Happened?: [11:50–14:07]
• Examining the Evidence (Head wounds, coroner, and witness sources): [14:07–21:18]
• Theories: Accident, Suicide, Murder: [23:34–42:23]
• Consequences for Elizabeth I and Aftermath: [42:23–44:18]

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Summary Table: Theories of Amy Dudley’s Death

| Theory | Supporting Evidence | Objections & Problems | |----------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------| | Accident | Coroner’s verdict, possibility of falling on stairs in heavy dress | Depth and nature of head wounds; suspicion over verdict | | Suicide | Amy dismissing household, hints of distress, isolation | Unusual method, social/religious consequences, inconclusive | | Murder | Motive for enemies or rivals, political climate, head wounds | No direct evidence, identities speculative |

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Conclusion

This episode navigates the enduring mystery of Amy Dudley’s death with both rigor and empathy, exposing the thinness of the sources and the vastness of the speculation around one of Tudor England’s most notorious cold cases. Historical uncertainties leave all major theories possible but incline the experts toward murder by a rival, rather than accident or suicide – or any plot by Dudley himself. The episode illustrates how a single, murky event could steer the fate not only of individuals, but of a queen and an entire dynasty.

Final Note: As Dr. Paul reflects, “It’s a story which lends itself perhaps more to fiction, because that’s where we can start to play with the possibilities.” [40:49]

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Transcript

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb. If you'd like Not Just the Tudors ad free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to historyhit with a historyhit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my own recent two part series A World Torn, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe.

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[Dr. Joanne Paul]

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[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb, and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Murder, wrote the Jacobean playwright Thomas Middleton. Sure, tis a meritorious deed to rid a man of such a woman. But for the unfortunate victim in my investigation today, the ignoble death she suffered.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Was surely not warranted.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

She had committed committed no crime. But she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was the wife of a prominent courtier. But not just any old courtier, Queen Elizabeth I's favorite and potential suitor. All this month on Not Just the Tudors, I'M delving into our archives to revisit some of the extraordinary true crimes that shook England in the early modern period. Last time we looked at the murder of Christopher Marlowe. But today's shocking crime is the death of Amy robsart Dudley. On 6 September 1560, Amy fell down a case of stairs at Cumnor Place in Oxfordshire and died. But even that simple statement bears scrutiny. Did she fall, was she pushed? Or did she throw herself down those stairs?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

That was exactly the sort of question.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

That Tudor courtiers, servants and foreign ambassadors were asking at the time. It mattered because Amy was the wife of Elizabeth I's leading courtier and close friend, some said very close friend, Robert Dudley. Amy's death could have cleared the way for the Queen to marry her Robin. But in practice, the notorious circumstances of Amy's death precluded any royal marriage for Dudley.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So what really happened?

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Was it accident, suicide or murder? Let's rewind to February 2023, when Dr. Joanne Paul joined me to investigate the.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Death of Amy Dudley.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Dr. Paul is no stranger to Not Just the Tudors. The episodes we've done together include the recent rise and Fall of Thomas Moore, a look at her acclaimed book on the House of Dudley, and and the French history, A Gory Poem. All are well worth revisiting. And Jo is a regular on my Not Just the Tudors Lates panels. Listen out for more of those later this year. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and you're listening to Not Just the Tudors From History hit.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Dr. Paul, Joanne, welcome to Not Just the Tudors. It is an absolute pleasure as always to speak to you. You are wonderful scholar and you're wonderful at sharing all your research with people, not least in the House of Dudley. And today we're going to be picking up on one of the themes of that. So welcome back.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

Thank you. I appreciate you having me back a few times. I guess I must be doing something right. And yeah, we're going to talk about another aspect of the House of Dudley that we only barely touched on I think, last time.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

You're absolutely right. I think you are our most frequent guest.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

Now, do I get like a pin or something?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yes. The prize will be coming through the post.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So it's a delight to see you again. So today we're going to be talking about the death of Amy Robsart Dudley and whether it was an accident, suicide, murder, who possibly by. So maybe we can start by talking about who Amy was.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

Amy. We know her as the wife of Robert Dudley who becomes Earl of Leicester, who is rumoured, of course to have been a paramour of, of Elizabeth I. She was born in June 1532, in the same month as her future husband. They were about in age when they got married, just shy of their 18th birthday. And she was the daughter of a country gentleman in Norfolk.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And so this is quite a young match between her and Robert.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

There's a lot of suggestions that it's a love match. There are advantages on either side. Robert is the son of an earl at the time who becomes a duke. Amy carries a lot of property with her, particularly in Norfolk, East Anglia, where the Dudleys don't have a lot of property and they don't have a lot of sway. So it makes sense on all sorts of levels. But even at the time there is the suggestion that it is a love match, or as William Cecil will later put it, I carnal marriage, that these are two teenagers in love, essentially.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And what do we know beyond that suggestion, if anything, about the nature of her relationship with Robert Dudley, whether it was a happy marriage or not?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

We know precious little about Amy at all. We can take guesses at her education, we can take guesses at her personality, her likes, her dislikes, and when it comes to their relationship, again, a lot of it is guesswork. So the suggestion that they were madly in love as young people is just a suggestion. We don't know for sure. They seem to have had a solid relationship. Later on, when Robert is imprisoned in the Tower, for instance, Amy is there petitioning for his release. We know that to have been the case and they do spend a significant amount of time together. That dwindles with the arrival of Elizabeth I on the scene. And once he joins her court, they don't see very much of each other. We also know that they don't have any children and that this is a significant pressure on them both because they're.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Married for 10 years, aren't they?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

So over 10 years without any children. And we can look for instance at Robert's elder brother Ambrose, whose second wife, who is contemporary to Amy, her sister in law, suffers a phantom pregnancy at the middle of the century, around the same time that Mary I suffers her phantom pregnancy. And that of course comes with a pressure to be pregnant, to produce a child. And so the fact that Amy's sister in law is feeling that amount of pressure, we can assume that she must have felt some as well. And her sister in law, Elizabeth, is abandoned in the end by Robert's brother Ambrose, and she dies not long after Amy. So we can see that there is a huge amount of expectation that Amy would produce a child. And so that Robert and Amy have what we'll go to Cecil again calls a sterile marriage, is probably a mark against her, something that she probably feel very keenly.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I'm really struck by the fact that we're going to be talking about her death, and yet here's a woman whose life we know so little about.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

Oh, we know far more about her death than her life. And far more has been written about her death than her life. The sources just aren't there, really. We have two letters that she wrote during her life. They tell us certain things. They tell us that she probably had a fairly good education. Her writing is very clear and of the standard of the time. They tell us that she was involved in her husband's affairs. She's writing about the production of wool on their lands and ensuring that happens, and that gets to them. She's sending orders for a dress to be made. So she is involved, a mistress of a household in that way. But beyond that, it's only two letters and there's very little you can get from that.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

The other relationship we need to talk about, of course, is the relationship between Robert Dudley and Elizabeth I. What's going on there?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

I wish I could tell you the things that we do know. We know that as soon as Elizabeth comes to the throne, Robert is made her master of the horse, and that this is a very close position. It gives a sense of personal proximity to the monarch, to Elizabeth. There's a great image of her coronation and she's sat in the litter after a huge parade of people come before her and a huge parade come after. But in that image of her in the litter, there are two men who are very close to her physically, and that's Robert and his brother Ambrose. And I think that really is a very visual representation of how important they were to her and to the reign. And it wasn't long after she came to the throne and was crowned that the rumors began that Robert might be courting her and that she might return his affection as well. And there are rumors that they will marry, that there is something illicit going on between the two of them, and there was access there. There was possibility of something happening, though. As Elizabeth herself says, she's always under the eye of everyone, and so people would know if something happened that could be her protesting a bit too much. But there were rumors that something was going on. But of course, every time there was a rumor that the pair would marry and that Robert would become king, Someone would go, he's already married, though he would have to do away with his wife in order for that to happen.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Which sets up what happens 22 months after Elizabeth comes to the throne in early September 1560. Can we talk about that day? The day about which we know such strange things? Tell us what happened that day.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

From the information that was gathered after her death, we know that Amy rose very early that morning and seemed in a very strange mood. She ordered all of her servants to go to a fair nearby. And that in itself wouldn't necessarily be strange, except she insisted that all of them go, that she'd be left entirely alone in the house. And when some of them protested that, surely that didn't make sense, they shouldn't leave her, she apparently became very angry and put her foot down and ordered that they all go. So they all went to the fair. When they returned, that's when they found her at the bottom of a flight of stairs with a broken neck and two injuries to her head. And, of course, immediately called for the authorities and a coroner and a jury were put together to investigate. He concluded that it was an accident, that she fell down the stairs, that the primary cause of death was the broken neck and not the two head injuries.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So there was a coroner's inquest, and I know the coroner's report was found actually only quite recently, wasn't it, in 2008, by Stephen Gunn. What did the coroner conclude about Amy's death?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

Reading the coroner's report, it's a difficult exercise because one has to take a grain of salt with every reading of a source. And the fact that these two head injuries existed seems to perhaps contradict the idea that it was the broken neck that did it. The question becomes whether she broke her neck falling down the stairs and then sustained the two injuries to her head, or whether the two injuries to her head preceded the broken neck. Because the report describes the two injuries to her head as one being, and it literally uses a thumbs deep in the Latin, which is about an inch. If you think from tip of your thumb to the first knuckle is about an inch, one is about a quarter of a thumbs deep. So a quarter of an inch deep, which is not very deep. The other is two thumbs deep or two inches deep, which is very deep head wound. So it brings up the question of whether she was struck before she fell down the stairs or whether she hit something that did that damage to her head while falling down the stairs. One would hope that the coroner's report would solve the mystery. I think it just deepens it.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

That's a really important source. But you also mentioned that she felt angry when her servants contested her wanting to be left alone. What source is that coming from?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

That's coming from the letters of Robert Dudley's servant, who is sent by Robert to investigate essentially what happens when Robert hears about the death of his wife. And that's a man named Thomas Blunt. And Blunt had been on his way to see Amy anyway as a servant of the household. And as he was riding out from where Robert was with the court, he sees another Dudley servant coming towards him, who is racing towards Robert to tell him this news. And so he gets this news from this servant, but continues on his way and then is stopped by a servant coming from Robert, who tells him that he is to investigate, he is to find out what happened and what people are saying about it. And that's very important. He wants to know not just what happened that day, what might have happened to Amy, but what the sort of the gossip of the town is, because that can be very important in the 16th century in determining a murder conviction. So he stops at Abingdon on the way to Cumnor, which is where Amy died and where the fair was, where she had sent all her servants was at Abingdon. And he interrogates essentially the innkeeper, he poses as just a traveler on his way to Gloucester and asks him all these questions about the news of the town. And then when the innkeeper tells him about Amy, he asks him, what do you think happened? What are people saying about it? What are servants saying? Oh, they weren't there. Why weren't they there? And gets a lot of information from him. And then he continues the next day on to Cumnor and starts to hold interviews essentially with various servants and get information from them as well. And we're very fortunate. We have all of his letters back to Robert where he details word for word, these conversations that he has.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yes, that's an incredible insight that you've got your on the Scene detective, really going round and interviewing everybody concerned. What else comes out of those letters that you think is pertinent?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

One of the most important interviews that Blunt has is with someone named Mrs. Pictou, who appears to have been an attendant of Amy's of some kind, a maidservant. And Blunt sits down with her and asks her, essentially, what do you think happened? And you get the sense from the letter that Picktou is very nervous for good reason. She's obviously distraught. She cared very much about her mistress and so she says, I do judge it very Chance, I think it was an accident, essentially, that it was a mishap of some kind. And then she says, and neither done by man nor by herself. Now, the suggestion that it might have been done by someone else, that it might have been a murder, had already come up. That can't help but have come up. But the suggestion that Amy might have done it to herself. Blunt reacts very strongly to this and presses this point and asks her if Amy, in the words are, had an evil toy in her mind and a toy is a plan, if she planned to kill herself. And then Pictou responds, no, do not judge so of my words, if you so should gather. I'm sorry I said so much. It just reads very like a slip and that she's trying to recover from that slip. She talks, too, about Amy being good woman who prays every night to be delivered from her troubles. And it's difficult. On the one hand, that could just be the prayers of a good Christian woman for whom all life is tribulation and deliverance comes through going to heaven and God's grace. On the other hand, we could read into that that she especially felt that she was in some sort of particular turmoil and trouble and wished to be delivered from that. Which points us to this sense that Amy was really distressed and might have wished an end for herself.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

If we think first of all, then about the coroner's conclusion in fortuni ad mortem by misfortune came to her death, how convincing do you think it is that she had an accident? You've mentioned the evidence of the wounds. Is it easy to slip down a case of Tudor stairs?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

One would think so, especially in all the clothing that women had to wear. The staircase doesn't exist anymore, and so we can't go and see it. But one assumes that it was perhaps a stone staircase. Even if it were made out of wood, it may have been worn down. And so the idea that one could slip makes sense. The counterargument to the falling down the stairs has often been, in one of the. I think it's Robert's letter. He talks about Amy falling down a pair of stairs. And so the idea that one would break one's neck and sustain two very traumatic head injuries, falling down two stairs is, of course, very unlikely, but that's not what that phrase means. A flight of stairs, which, if one tripped and fell down a flight of stairs, particularly if they were stone, or if there were various hangings on the wall or sharp edges, it's easy to see how one could sustain certainly a broken neck Perhaps head injuries. The issue with the head injuries and why I keep going on about them is the way they describe it as 2 inches deep. One imagines not a gash, but something more like a stab wound. And if that's the case, it's difficult to see how that would have happened had she just tripped and fallen. And the fact that they seem to want to downplay the head injuries to me always reads. Don't want to say it's suspicious, but it raises questions that they want to focus on the broken neck and not the head injuries, that the broken neck is the cause of death.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I've read somewhere that it was eight steps. Do we have any evidence of that, or is that just something apocryphal?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

I'm not aware of any evidence of that. It's particularly eight steps that might have come from an attempt to understand the layout of the house, but I don't think any of the sources specify that it's eight steps. And do we know anything about the.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Coroner that feels like we ought to ask this at this point as well?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

The coroner is a man named John Pudsey, and he's from a nearby town. He's a man of some status, but it's important, I think, to remember that in the Tudor period, the coroner was not a profession. It's someone who was selected from respected men of the area who is then going to lead a jury of 15 similarly selected men to decide what they think happened. They sometimes consult a medical professional, even a midwife, potentially with a woman's death. And even the entire town might come and view the court and give their opinions, which is why Robert was so concerned that Blunt find out the gossip and the feeling of the town was in regards to Amy's death. So they're not professionals by any stretch, and they're essentially guessing about what happened. They are also influenced not only by the people of the town, but people in power. No one wants to give a verdict that would displease someone who has the ability to promote or demote them.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

That seems very important.

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[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Let'S think then about the possibility that Amy killed herself. How likely is throwing oneself down the stairs a practical method of suicide?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

It's not a very common one. Don't know if there are any other examples from the time of that being a method for suicide. That sort of self harm often comes about in a fit of passion. It's not necessarily a form of suicide that one has planned, but rather one that comes about out of desire to inflict harm on oneself and a feeling of distress, in which case it doesn't necessarily line up with her dismissing her servants for the day. That seems like more of a plan, but of course we can't dismiss it. And it's still the case that Amy had spent a lot of time alone, that she must have been aware of the rumors at court about her husband. There were also rumors that she was to be poisoned, that Robert or someone else was going to kill her, that in some way, shape or form she was going to be done away with. And when we remember that their marriage appears to have begun from a place of real affection, the tragedy of it all, I think starts to come out and we're faced with that image that Pictou describes of her praying nightly to be delivered from her troubles.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And I think that's really helpful Also, in terms of pointing out how when you're working on this period, one so often comes across a little phrase, four words or something, on which great edifices of speculation have been built. And yet these phrases are completely unsubstantiated or corroborated by other sources. And it's obviously very important to do the imaginative work of thinking about whether they could be true, but it's impossible in the end to conclude that they definitely are.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

Yes, there's a rumor again, we're getting these largely from ambassadors letters, if you want. The gossips of the Tudor court. They're ambassadors constantly picking up pieces of information. They're also constantly being fed pieces of information. And we have that very clearly in the case of Amy. One of them writes about someone going around the court who has always voraciously spreading rumor and sharing bits of information, and he's told him things about Amy and Robert. One of them talks about malady in one of Amy's breasts, which has led to speculation that she had breast cancer. This has supported the idea that the fall down the stairs would have broken her neck. Breast cancer can often lead to brittleness of the bones and they can be easily broken. Aside from this one line, however, we don't have a lot of information. And this ambassador didn't know anything about Heiny Robsart's breasts, really. It was just a fragment of information that he'd picked up, maybe even misheard. We don't know. There's also the suggestion that she is ill because she's being poisoned. And so there is another suggestion that she's unwell, and that's linked to the idea that she's being poisoned. But then another letter talks about her avoiding poison and that she has all her food tasted and that she's being very smart about it. So there's just so many layers of rumor and gossip. It's very difficult to get anything real. And I understand the impulse because there's so little information and it's such a great mystery because it cuts to the very heart of power in the Tudor court at the time, because, of course, it reflects on Elizabeth, on her choices of those she has near her, on the person that she might be considering marrying, might even be sharing a bed with. And so it's so important to try to understand what happened. And so these little phrases, as you say, get picked up. And there is an attempt to turn them into an answer, because we just don't have any answers.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So the other possibility, of course, is that it's neither accident nor suicide, but instead murder. So let's recap the evidence for that.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

There is a significant amount of evidence to suggest that it could be a murder. It does line up with Amy sending the servants away, that she may have been meeting someone, that she might have known someone was coming and didn't want anyone in the house. It lines up with the injuries to her head as well as the fall down the stairs. And it lines up with the larger contextual situation whereby she was in the way and there was a lot of attention on her as well as on her husband. And that killing Amy didn't necessarily ensure that Robert would marry the Queen. What it did, and we see that in the weeks and months following her death was disgrace Robert, and sure in many ways that he would never be taken seriously as a suitor to the Queen. And so murder ends up making a lot of sense out of the information that we have. And it is the thing that most consistently appears in those ambassadors letters, the rumors of the court and men who are at the heart of everything, like.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

William Cecil, other people saying, look, Robert Dudley must have done it because he stands to benefit from his wife being out of the way.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

I don't know if there are any letters that put it that frankly and that succinctly, but certainly that is the assumption on the part of many. Where you see that, I think most strongly is actually outside of the English court. So you see it in the French court, for instance, Nicholas Throckmorton, who is the English ambassador to France at the time, talks about his ears burning, being on fire with all the horrible things that are being said about Elizabeth's court and about Robert and about the death of Amy. And he writes almost in a panic, what am I supposed to say to try to quash these rumors? And the person he's writing to responds, saying, pathetically, that must be difficult. And there are a lot of rumors here, too, but the Queen will put a lie to all of them. And so this idea that the Queen is going to come in and make sure that the official line is that Amy suffered an accident and it was a misfortune.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And that, of course, is the official line that the coroner has so neatly provided. But you're suggesting that in practice, this would have actually wrecked Robert's chances for further intimacy with the Queen.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

With hindsight, we can see that was definitely the case at the time. There were still a lot of rumors that he would marry the Queen. And of course, that doesn't really go away until he himself marries years later. There are several attempts he makes, it appears, at least to try to convince her. She says various things at various points about marrying him. She is very good at suggesting she'll marry this person and then that person, and vacillating. But the point is that is taken seriously. The Spanish ambassador seems convinced just a few months after that Robert will marry the queen and tells Philip II that he better get behind this, because it's going to happen as it happens, though. And as we can tell from the rumors in the French court, if Elizabeth had married a man who, by the way, also had at one point been convicted of treason, his brother, father and grandfather had all been executed for treason. So there's this larger context going on as well, and who was rumored to have killed his first wife, that puts her in a very vulnerable position and she won't be taken very seriously. When we look too later at the advice that she gives Mary, Queen of Scots, when she marries Bothwell, who is rumored to have killed Darnley, we can see that Elizabeth is advising Mary not to make a mistake like this, that that reputationally will destroy her. And in many ways it does. So Elizabeth knows that she can't go there and she mustn't go there, or at least she seems to know that later on.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So who then, if we were to test then the. The theory that it was murder, but not by Dudley, who then stood to benefit?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

Today we say follow the money. I think in the 16th century, we say follow the power, often follow who becomes closer to the monarch because of an event. And it's hard not to focus in and look at William Cecil in this context. Before the court knows about the death of Amy, he's talking very loudly and to people of great influence, Spanish ambassador, about people deciding that they are going to kill Amy Robsart, that she will end up dead. And in the same breath, he talks about Robert being better in paradise than here, that Robert should be killed as well. So at this point, he is very clearly not a friend of Robert Dudley's and doesn't really want him anywhere near the queen. I think Cecil is very afraid that Elizabeth will in fact marry Robert Dudley. And so he essentially gets what he wants out of the death of Amy Robsart. And it's he who swoops in the days after her death to comfort Robert. And they actually have a much closer relationship after this than they had previously. And so it all seems to work out for Cecil in a way that if he didn't plan it, it looks like he did. A lot of people minded about the prospect of Robert marrying Elizabeth. And again, it's important to remember that 1560 is only seven years after the Jane Grey Dudley coup, when Robert's father, with him involved as well, supplanted Mary the First and put the Nine Days Queen, as she's known, Lady Jane Grey, who is in fact Lady Jane Dudley, on the throne. And the whole family, essentially all the male members of the family, are convicted of treason. His brother is executed, his father is executed, and Robert's imprisoned in the Tower for a long time. So to many, he is a traitor and remains a traitor. He's also not from particularly high birth. And by marrying Robert, Elizabeth would be eliminating the possibility of a diplomatic marriage, say to the French or to the Spanish or whoever it might be. There were many people knocking on her door, Sweden as well. And so marrying Robert doesn't benefit anybody aside from Robert and maybe Elizabeth, if she likes him. Whereas I think Cecil, we can see he's a very political mind, he's a very deliberate mind, and he would want a more politically advantageous marriage for Elizabeth. He also doesn't like Robert very much. I think just personally, they don't really get on.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

It's quite a grand charge against one of England's foremost politicians, though one of the great men of the Elizabethan age, that we're calling him a murderer.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

I think Cecil avoided getting his hands dirty. That being said, he did often instruct others to get their hands dirty for him. And we know, especially later in the reign, we think of Walsingham as the spymaster, and certainly that was true. But Cecil was also intimately involved in the torture of Catholics who he saw as traitors. He writes in favor of a sort of preemptive justice when it comes to threats to the reign. It's not inconsistent with the sort of black and white thinking he had around the protection of Elizabeth and the protection of the reign. I'm not saying saying who did it, but the question was, who benefits? And the answer is William Cecil.

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[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

We know that the coroner concludes accidental death, and we can understand why they would want to cover up a potential murder. Why might they have wanted to obscure the possibility that Amy died by suicide?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

We see the same impulse in Pictou's quick renunciation of her words. If you took so much from my words, I'm sorry I said so much. It's because suicide in the 16th century was a deeply shameful and sinful topic. Self murder, as it was thought of, was far worse than the murder of someone else because it was one of the worst betrayals of the gift of life that God had given you. Christians were meant to see their lives as a sort of prison from which they wished to escape. They weren't meant to take very seriously the things going on in their mortal lives and to fixate instead on the heavenly. But that didn't mean that they were meant to do anything in order to bring that about. Someone who committed suicide could be posthumously convicted, which would mean the forfeiture of goods and lands, and they would be buried outside of church grounds. Effectively, they would be excommunicated after their death and it would bring a great shame to the entire family. And so Pickto is very quick to try to rub out any suggestion of suicide when she's talking to Blunt. Blunt, to his credit, still communicates this to Robert, though, which I think is another reason why we can take his letters so seriously. And if it were the case that the coroner, that the jury thought that there was a possibility of suicide, there would be a great incentive to cover that up and to name it an accident in order to keep Robert Dudley and all of his various clientele and allies happy with them.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So the context of this woman's situation being one that was unhappy, being one in which she may or may not have been physically unwell, but certainly was isolated apart from her husband, unable to have children in a period where a lot of emphasis was put on doing that and, you know, unlikely to if she didn't spend any time with him, all of that is concompetent with the possibility of suicide. Except we come back again to the wounds. Is there any way that she could have hit, I don't know, one of those things one used for cleaning your boots or something that was stuck into a corner at the bottom of the stairs and Hit that as she went down. Is there any way in which those wounds could have been sustained by self murder?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

We have to keep open the possibility that they could have been sustained while falling down the stairs, whether that was an accident or self inflicted because we just don't know enough about the wounds, we don't know enough about the staircase and what was around. And you end up having to go to feelings about things which as historians we don't do, we never put in print. I'm happy to talk about what my feeling is about these things and accept the letters and emails and tweets that will result. But certainly the fact of the matter is that we don't know and that many things are possible.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Okay, so two questions then. How far can you go with the evidence towards the conclusion and extrapolating from that evidence? Where would you as a historian end up if you had to put your money on an answer?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

I think based on the information that we have, we can't eliminate any of the three possibilities that we started with, which I know is a bit frustrating and why people are A continually are so interested in this case and B end up clinging on to bits of information to try for an answer because it is just so tempting to do. I think that we can with some level of confidence eliminate or at least downplay the possibility that Robert Dudley murdered his wife. I think that's highly unlikely. He was a man who had spent his entire life in the court. He would have known that it wouldn't have benefited him. There would have been other ways to end his marriage or to continue his favor with the Queen and to continue his upward rise without a mysterious death of his wife. That didn't do him any favors and he would have known it wouldn't have done him any favors, I think, having spent a long time with him. So I think that one can be put to the side. Any other possibilities though? I think it's fairly open season and this is a story which lends itself perhaps more than to fiction, because that's where we can start to play with the possibilities. If I had to go from the evidence alone, I think the most likely possibility is that it's a murder and that it's a murder conducted by one of Robert's enemies, whether that's William Cecil or one of his many other enemies. And as I said, he had quite a few. What ends up being the least likely scenario, I think, is the suggestion that the coroner himself comes to, which is that it's a misfortune, that it's an accident. In many ways, that ends up being the least likely scenario for how Amy Robsart Dudley died.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

The last thing I want to ask you is about the consequences of this. Essentially, does Amy's death create the Virgin Queen?

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

The death of Amy Robsart may have been one of the factors in Elizabeth I never marrying, because it's certainly one of the reasons that she doesn't marry Robert Dudley. Cecil himself later puts in a list of reasons why the Queen can't marry Robert. He adds that Robert is infeigned by the death of his wife. And so we know that this sort of stigma remains with Robert and Elizabeth not being able to marry. Arguably the only man in the world she ever really wanted to marry may have, for that reason, not married anyone else. Now, there are all sorts of other factors. Elizabeth may have decided as a child that she never wanted to marry. Politically, there were many reasons why she wanted to play various suitors off against each other and retain all of these suits for her hand. But Elizabeth undoubtedly cared very deeply for Robert and Robert for her. We have his last letter to her that he wrote just before his death in 1588, and she kept that by her bedside until her own death and wrote on it in her own hand, his last letter. So there was a real deep connection between the two of them. And it may have been that one of the many tragedies involved in the death of Amy, which include, of course, Amy's own death and the fact that we know so little about her life, was the fact that Robert and Elizabeth, because of it, also had to remain apart and were never able to fully realize what may have been a very loving and very romantic relationship.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Well, thank you so much, Dr. Duran Poole, for joining us to talk about this ever mysterious case and to try and unpick for us the threads so that we can get a sense of what we can possibly make of the thing. Thank you so much.

[Dr. Joanne Paul]

Thank you for having me back on.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

And next time on Not Just the Tudors, I'll be reopening the sensational case of the death of Thomas Overbury, a courtier in the reign of King James VI. And first, who died at the Tower of London in 1613. As the circumstances surrounding his death began to circulate, they led to a scandal that rocked the monarchy to its core. Thank you for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors from history hit. And to my producer, Rob Weinberg, we are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line and not just the [e-mail] and I look forward to joining you again for another episode next time on Not Just the.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Tutors from History Hit.

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