Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/121

Dudley death reached London (11 Sept.): 'They [i.e. the queen and Dudley] were thinking of destroying Lord Robert's wife. . . . They had given out that she was ill, but she was not ill at all ; she was very well and taking care not to be poisoned. . . . The queen, on her return from hunting [on 4 Sept.], told me that Lord Robert's wife was dead or nearly so, and begged me to say nothing about it.' According to this statement Dudley and the queen conspired to murder Lady Amy, but this terrible charge is wholly uncorroborated. Lady Amy's death undoubtedly removed the chief obstacle to the marriage of the queen with Dudley, and the influential persons at court, who were determined that Elizabeth should not take this disastrous step, naturally exaggerated the rumours of Dudley's guilt in order to disqualify him for becoming the royal consort. Throgmorton, the English ambassador at Paris, frequently reported to Cecil that Dudley was universally credited on the continent with the murder of his wife, but this was Throgmorton's invariable preface to an impassioned protest against the proposed marriage of the queen with her favourite. On 30 Nov. the queen told one of her secretaries that the verdict of the jury left no doubt that Lady Amy had died accidentally, and Sir Henry Sidney, Dudley's brother-in-law, in the following January assured the Spanish ambassador that the malicious rumours were totally unfounded. Cecil, although no friend to Dudley, comes to the conclusion that they could not be supported. In 1567 the charge of murder was revived by John Appleyard, who declared that the jury was suborned, but on being examined by the privy council he made an abject apology and confessed that he had wilfully slandered Dudley because he had been disappointed in not receiving greater gifts from his brother-in-law. In 1584 the story adopted by Sir Walter Scott in 'Kenilworth' was first published in a libel on Dudley usually known as 'Leicester's Commonwealth' (see infra). There Anthony Forster and Sir Richard Verney, apparently of Compton Verney, Warwickshire, one of Dudley's private friends, were said to have flung Lady Amy downstairs. But none of the statements in this libel deserves credit. There is no ground for connecting Verney in any way with the tragedy. The author of the 'Yorkshire Tragedy' (1608) obviously wrote in reference to the scandalous charge:

In spite of the suspicious circumstances of the death, nothing can be historically proved against Dudley. His absence from the inquest and funeral is a point against him. The anxiety expressed in his letters to Blount that the jury should pursue their investigation to the furthermost, at the same time that he was himself writing privately to the jury, is consistent with his guilt. But all the unpleasant rumours prove on examination to be singularly vague, and are just such as Leicester's unpopularity, caused by his relations with the queen, would have led his numberless enemies to concoct. It is difficult to believe that the alleged murder would have been hushed up when so many persons regarded it to the interest of themselves and the nation to bring it home to Dudley. The theory of suicide has most in its favour.

Whatever were the queen's relations with Dudley before his wife's death, they became closer after it. It was reported that she was formally betrothed to him, that she had secretly married him in Lord Pembroke's house, and that she was 'a mother already' (January 1560-1). But Elizabeth was never so completely a victim to her passion as to allow her lover to control her political action, and his presumption often led to brief though bitter quarrels. On 30 Nov. 1560 the queen promised to raise him to the peerage, but suddenly tore up the patent. Dudley tried in vain to supplant Cecil. Although Cecil was for a time out of favour with Elizabeth owing to Dudley's machinations, his position was never seriously jeopardised. The puritan preachers were hottest in their denunciation of Elizabeth's behaviour with Dudley, and this was one of the causes which led Elizabeth to yield to Dudley's unprincipled and impolitic suggestion to seek Spanish and catholic aid in bringing about their union. Sir Henry Sidney in January 1560-1 first asked De Quadra whether he would help on the marriage if Dudley undertook to restore the Roman catholic religion in England. In February Dudley and the queen both talked with the Spaniard openly on the subject; in April Dudley accepted the terms offered by De Quadra. He promised that England should send representatives to the council of Trent, and talked of going himself. On 24 June De Quadra accompanied Elizabeth and her lover on a water-party down the Thames, when they behaved with discreditable freedom. In a long conversation De Quadra undertook to press on their union on condition that they should acknowledge the papal supremacy. The negotiation was kept secret from the responsible ministers, but Cecil suspected the grounds of De Quadra's intimacy with Dudley and Elizabeth, and powerful opposition soon declared itself. Dudley's personal