Amy Dudley: The Woman Who Fell Down The Stairs
We know about Queen Elizabeth I, who never married. Once, though, the Queen came awfully close to matrimony. She was very much in love with Robert Dudley and would have married him if she could. Only he had a wife: Amy Robsart, the woman who fell down the stairs and became famous for it. Let’s look at Lady Amy Dudley’s short life for once, instead of her mysterious death. After all, her life came before her untimely demise at the bottom of the stairs.
Amy Robsart was born on June 7th, 1532. Amy was the only child of Sir John Robsart, and his wife, Elizabeth. As the only legitimate child of Sir John Robsart, she was the heir to his estate and fortune. She grew up in a fervently Protestant household. Amy was very well educated and had beautiful handwriting. She was also known to be a very pretty young woman who loved to dress up.
Unusually for a woman of the time, and especially for one of her social standing, Amy probably married for love, but the marriage was also quite advantageous. Three days before her eighteenth birthday, in 1550, she married the tall and handsome Robert Dudley. Robert was also eighteen at the time. They married at Greenwich Palace, with even King Edward VI coming to the wedding. Amy and Robert’s fathers made a prenuptial agreement that Amy and Robert would not inherit her father’s wealth and estates until both her parents died. The Dudleys were the most powerful family in England by this time. Her father-in-law was the king’s regent, and Robert was one of his younger sons. Nice choice of a husband, Amy.
In the early years of their marriage, they stayed with Robert’s parents. Amy’s father-in-law was John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. He was the king’s regent and arguably the most powerful man in England. If he sounds familiar, you’re probably thinking of the right guy. Soon, Amy and Robert moved into their own home, Somerset House.
In 1553, the King, Edward VI, was on his deathbed. He was a Protestant, but his heir, Mary, was a Catholic. Their father, Henry VIII, had broken England from the Catholic Church to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, who had failed to bear him a son. Edward had done much to convert the country to Protestantism, but if Mary became Queen, she would likely undo all his reforms the moment she came to the throne. So Edward and his advisors, including Amy’s father-in-law, came up with a plan to skip over Mary. If they were going to skip over Mary, then they had no legal way to put Edward’s Protestant sister, Elizabeth on the throne. So, they decided on Lady Jane Grey.
Lady Jane Grey was the fervently Protestant granddaughter of Henry VIII’s younger sister. Conveniently for the Duke of Northumberland, his eldest son, Guildford Dudley, was married to Jane, so we know there was probably a lot of influence from Northumberland on this decision. Having your daughter-in-law as Queen basically means your son will be king. But he’s young, so you control everything. Now, Amy’s sister-in-law was to be the next English monarch, and Jane didn’t even know that she was going to be Queen of England quite soon.
All we need to know is that Mary raised an army and claimed her throne after only nine days. Jane, Guildford Dudley, Amy’s father-in-law, and Robert himself were all arrested. Robert was put in the Tower of London and sentenced to death. It was a terrible time for Amy; all she could do was sit around and wait for news of Robert. While Dudley was in the Tower of London, he met Princess Elizabeth, Mary’s heir who had also ended up imprisoned after Wyatt’s Rebellion. The two formed a close friendship while imprisoned together, awaiting their executions. Amy was allowed to visit Dudley a few times, just like the other Dudley wives.
The Duke of Northumberland, Guildford Dudley, and Lady Jane Grey were all soon executed. Robert, however, wasn’t directly involved in putting Jane on the throne, so he was released after eighteen months in the Tower of London. Why? Mary had not originally wanted to execute Jane and the Dudleys, but after Wyatt’s Rebellion in favor of Protestant Elizabeth, most of the Protestant Dudleys were executed, and Princess Elizabeth was arrested. Wow, Wyatt, you really messed everything up.
After his release from prison, Amy and Robert were poorer than ever. They relied on the generosity of Amy’s father. Robert, though, still gambled and spent a lot of money, drowning in debt. Amy’s father died in 1554, but Amy and Robert couldn’t inherit his money until Amy’s mother died, as the prenuptial agreement said. Sadly — but also happily — Amy’s mother died in 1557, so the couple could finally pay off some of their debts.
In 1557, Queen Mary I got into a teensy spat with France, which resulted in a war. Robert went off to fight, leaving his smart wife, Amy, to settle some of his debts. Amy was a true businesswoman. She managed her husband’s affairs and her father’s estates. She was truly a brainy woman and did much to help her husband during this time.
Once Robert was back from war, he and his wife began to look for a nice place to live in Norfolk. That all changed when Queen Mary I died in 1558, and Robert’s good friend from the Tower of London, Elizabeth, became Queen Elizabeth I. She clearly had not forgotten her old friend from the tower.
Queen Elizabeth’s dear friend Dudley was now always wanted at court. The Queen seemed very much in love with Robert. She even made him Master of the Horse, an honorable position. Later, she made him the Earl of Leicester. Where did that leave Amy? She lived a comfortable life, staying with various nobles. By now, most sources say that Amy was quite ill. The Queen always wanted Dudley at court, and he only went to see his wife once for Easter in 1559, and she went to see him in London later that year. Amy never saw him after that. The Queen was quite possessive of her favorite, according to the Spanish ambassador.
Everyone was afraid that the Queen would marry Dudley as soon as his ailing wife died. A rumor spread that Dudley was slowly poisoning Amy so that he could marry the Queen. Some even thought that the Queen was involved in trying to poison Amy. The Spanish ambassador wrote that Elizabeth was ‘keeping Lord Robert’s enemies and the country engaged with words until this wicked deed of killing his wife is consummated.”
Some sources say that Amy began to recover from her ailment, and Robert and Amy even began making plans to see each other again, but the plans were never more than an idea. Despite popular belief that Robert was cruel to Amy at the time, Amy wasn’t that unhappy with this arrangement. She lived comfortably, staying in the homes of various nobles. Robert even allowed Amy to freely use her inheritance, which was rare.
On September 8th, 1560, a fair was held to celebrate the Queen’s birthday. Amy sent all her servants, and when they returned, Amy was found dead at the bottom of the staircase. She was only 28. It appeared to be a fall down the stairs, but few doubted that Dudley had been behind the whole thing. Robert was with the Queen when he found out. He asked for an inquest, and the coroner’s report ended up calling Amy’s death a tragic accident. Robert paid for an elaborate burial. If he was responsible, that was a great way to cover up killing her.
After his wife died at the young age of 28, Dudley waited for the Queen to propose. But no proposal came. The Queen could not marry him, because everyone thought Dudley had killed his wife. How could the Queen of England marry a murderer? Impatient, Robert remarried in secret to a woman named Lettice Knollys. I wonder why she married him when she knew what had happened to his first wife. When Elizabeth found out that her favorite had remarried, the new Lady Dudley was banished from court.
But how did Amy die? Like the coroner’s report said, it might have simply been an accident. She might have just slipped and fallen down the stairs. But there are a few other possibilities. Did Dudley do it? Maybe. We know that Amy had head wounds, which is not exactly something that you can get from falling down a few stairs. Eight of them, to be exact.
Was it a suicide? When the coroner spoke to Amy’s maid, she said that it was definitely a suicide. Amy’s maid explained that Amy suffered from mood swings. Amy’s ailment also might have caused her much pain. On top of that, she barely got to see her husband, which might have made suicide very likely. Amy, though, had bought a very expensive dress only a week before, and why would a woman who wanted to die buy a dress, and only a week before she killed herself?
If we think of it as a murder, then perhaps the Queen’s trusted secretary, William Cecil, was behind the whole affair. He was known to have been quite nervous about the possibility of Robert Dudley marrying the Queen. How would it help to kill Dudley’s wife? William Cecil was in a position to whisper into the ears of everybody important. If he killed Dudley’s wife, he could make sure that everybody who mattered thought that Dudley did it. It would ruin Robert Dudley’s reputation in a way that there would be no chance that he could marry the Queen. Killers, after all, don’t marry monarchs. It just never happens.
What do I think? Any scenario is possible, you could make a great argument for any one of these possibilities. If I had to choose a possibility, then I would say that Amy was probably murdered — not by Dudley, though. It’s more likely that William Cecil killed Amy because I don’t think Dudley would go that far to marry the Queen. He had a brain. Dudley would’ve known that a murderer couldn’t marry the Queen of England. We may never know how exactly Amy Robsart died, or who was responsible for her death.
We always forget that Lady Amy Dudley had a life. She is famous only for her death, and possibly being killed by her husband. In Amy’s case, her life is just as intriguing and full of mystery as her death.
Amy was the daughter of a rich man, the happily married daughter-in-law of the most powerful man in England, and at one point, was visiting her husband in prison. Then, when Queen Elizabeth came along, an ailing Amy was only supposed to stay out of the way.
