The Manner of Amy's Death (26 page)

       “What? Katherine Grey?  Now there’s a flighty little piece!”
said Verney.

       Blount laughed
.  “She certainly is.  But, after Elizabeth, she has as good a claim to the throne as Mary Stuart.  And what’s more she’s not a Scottish Frenchwoman like the Queen of Scots.  If there’s a rebellion against Elizabeth and Robert, the Spanish want to bring Katherine and her Hapsburg husband back.”

       “So who wins?
” says Owain, bringing my thoughts back to the present.  “I’ll tell you who.  If Elizabeth was deposed because of her refusal to give up Robert, the Spanish would have had Katherine Grey and her husband, a representative of their own, on the English throne just as they did in Philip and Mary’s time.” 

       “
Do you think this will still happen, Owain?” I ask.

      “Not likely! 
Katherine, the crafty little vixen, made a secret marriage with Ned, Lord Hertford, about last Christmas time!”

      “What!  Without the Queen’s permission?”

       “Exactly!  And Elizabeth was furious, for it makes Katherine with her English nobleman husband a very suitable replacement for her should there be a plot to remove the Queen from the throne.  It makes Elizabeth fear the assassin’s dagger too.  She won’t give anyone an excuse for conspiring against her and this means she cannot now marry her Robert.  It would be too dangerous.  It also means that all the plotting of the Spanish was to no avail and Katherine is now taken off the marriage list for the Hapsburgs.”

       “It also means that, if
Amy was murdered by the Spanish in a plot to vilify Robert and Elizabeth and make way for a Queen Katherine and her intended Spanish husband, my dear sweet friend has died for no purpose.  She could have lived after all.”

       “And
now it seems that everyone has lost, despite all the scheming.  Elizabeth will have to distance herself from all the scandal and this means keeping her distance from Robert.  The best they can hope for from now on will be a friendship.”  Owain smiles a satisfied smile.  Like so many he does not like Robert Dudley either.

        “In the bear pit of court life, my lovely Kat, every one’s a loser.”

       “We’re so fortunate to have each other and all the love in the world, Owain.”  And after a while I add, “I wonder if they will still talk of this affair in the future or whether it will all be forgotten and I wonder, if they do, what they will think of it.  Will anyone ever discover the truth behind Amy’s death?”

Autumn 1588

I’m back at Stanfield Hall in
Norfolk and sitting on a low wall.  The year is 1549.  Amy is riding the new horse that Robert has given her and which she’s called Pavane.  Amy’s hat falls off as she canters circles around Robert who is regarding her with some concern as Pavane goes faster and faster.

       “Oi con’t stop’ur,” says Amy laughing and in her broad
Norfolk accent. 

       “Sit up straight.  I’ve told you before, Amy, if you lean forward she’ll go faster.  She’s trained to do that.”

       “Now Oi lost moi stirrup,” yells Amy, her golden curls flying out behind her.

       Robert rushes forward in concern and grabs the bridle bringing the horse to a dead stop
. Amy lurches forward like a cloth doll and Robert catches her as she leaves the saddle behind.  In the arms of this dark and handsome young man she’s safe but Robert pretends to collapse under her weight and falls backwards on the grass, laughing and complaining.  Amy falls on top of him, Pavane skips to one side and regards the two humans rolling around in the grass with an expression of disdain.  We are all in the grip of uncontrollable laughter and the most dignified being present is the horse who gives a little snort and stands stock still.

       I cast a fearful
look over my shoulder and back towards the house.  I’m here to see that Amy and Robert behave in a proper manner and rolling around in the grass screaming with laughter does not constitute propriety.  No one’s coming, thank goodness.

       The scene changes.  We are in
the church of St Mary the Virgin and the priest is delivering his funeral sermon.  He drones on and on and then I hear the words ‘Lady Dudley’ and ‘most tragically slain’.  Slain!  Slain?  What on earth is he talking about?  Has Amy been murdered?

       A piercing voice behind
me screams, “God’s truth!  Who is this idiot?  Do I have to sit here and listen to such nonsense?  Will no one remove this foolish man from my presence?”

       I turn around and there behind me are Robert and Elizabeth, he looking very embarrassed and she flaming with anger
.  What are they doing here?  They weren’t supposed to be among the mourners.

      The scene changes and I’
m sitting in the hall of the little farmhouse that Owain and I own.  Over the fireplace is a portrait that I’ve never seen before.  Owain is sitting and staring into the fire and I am looking at the painting.  It depicts a man in dark clothing, a dark skinned man with a black beard, who is sitting sideways at a table, his elbow resting on it and his leg outstretched before him.  The man in the painting stands and looks at me.  Is it Robert?  Or a Spanish gentleman?  Or is it Sir Richard Verney? 

      “Where is she?” he shouts and then, even louder, “Where is she?  Where is she?”
   

       “Where’s who?”
I ask, scared out of my wits.  I cast a glance at Owain who is still staring into the fire and hasn’t noticed.

       “Where is she?” bellows the man in the portrait, stepping out of it and onto the mantel piece.  I
jump to my feet, terrified.

       “I don’t know.  Where’s who?  Who do you mean?”

       To my horror the man in the black clothes jumps down from the mantelpiece and strides menacingly towards me.

       “I don’t know who you me
an. Where’s who?”  I’m sick with fear.  To my concern he now turns away from me and strides towards Owain.

       “Where is she?  Where is she?  Her
e she is.”

       “Grandmother, grandmother look at this.  Just look
!”

       What are my grandchildren doing in my dream.  In my dream!  I’m wakening, thank God, and they come rushing towards me.

       “Grandmother, you were dreaming I think.  You were shouting ‘No, No!  Go away’.”  They laugh.

       “Look at this!”  Young Philip opens his hand to show me a painted
brooch.

       “Philip, where did you get this?  Who gave it to you?”

       “A gentleman on a fine horse came riding by, grandmother.  He gave me this brooch and said, “Give this to your grandmother from me.  He looked very ill and when I asked him if he would like a glass of beer, he smiled and said, ‘God bless you lad but no.  I have to make a long journey to Kenilworth and then to take the waters in Derbyshire and I fear I will not return.  You will see your grandmother gets this?’  I said I would and he rode off very slowly back to his friends who were waiting for him.”

       “You’
re a good boy Philip.  I think I know the man who gave you this.”

       I loo
k at the pretty carved and painted brooch in my hand.  It was Amy’s.  And there is a gilly flower for eternal love and an oak leaf intertwined.  The oak leaf is a joke as the Latin for oak is quercus robur and Amy always said that stood for Robert, the oak on whom she could always depend.

Sir Anthony Forster
– bought Cumnor Place a year after Amy’s death and lived there with his wife until he died, obviously unafraid of any ghosts that may inhabit the old house.  After his death the Place stood unoccupied or was occasionally occupied by farmers who never stayed for long.  It gradually fell into disrepair.  Then Sir Walter Scott wrote his novel
Kenilworth
and interest in Cumnor was revived as tourists flocked to the area ……. but it was too late since the Earl of Abingdon, who now owned the Place, had demolished it a few years earlier!  It was said that he was ready to hang himself for losing the opportunity of a lucrative source of income!

Sir Richard Verney
– died claiming that all the hounds of hell were after him according to the gossip of the time, and this was taken as a sure sign of his guilt by the gullible public.  This ‘information’ was published in a libellous pamphlet, Leicester’s Commonwealth, in 1583, probably instigated by Dudley’s Catholic opponents.  Robert Dudley was by this time a determined Puritan and follower of the teachings of Calvin.

John Appleyard
– Amy’s half brother who together with her illegitimate brother, Arthur Robsart, had been called by Robert Dudley to Cumnor Place to assist in the inquiry into her death – later called the inquest jury’s findings into question and thought that his sister had been murdered.  He was in dispute with Robert Dudley at the time over money matters.  After spending a month in the notorious Fleet prison, he claimed that he had read the jury’s finding and was now satisfied.

William Cecil
– later Lord Burleigh, did not resign as he had threatened and continued to be Elizabeth’s first minister until he died.  Once the threat of a marriage between the Queen and Dudley was over, the two men respected each other and worked well together with no apparent animosity.

Sir Henry Sidney and Mary Sidney, Robert’s sister
– spent much of their life out of each other’s company due to Henry’s commission in Ireland although they remained married.  Mary had suffered from smallpox, contracted while she was nursing Elizabeth through the same disease; this left her horribly disfigured and some said that she wore a mask to hide her face and that her husband found it hard to look at her.  They both died in 1586.

Sir Philip Sidney
– son of Henry and Mary, named after Philip II of Spain, Queen Mary’s husband – had a distinguished career in the service of Queen Elizabeth and was a writer and poet like his mother.  He was the apple of his uncle Robert’s eye but was killed while serving with him in the Low Countries.  Philip was only thirty two and Robert was devastated by his nephew’s death which was tragically in the same year Philip’s parents died.

Sir Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester
– waited for the Queen for many years after Amy’s death.  She made him Earl of Leicester in, what many saw, as an attempt to ennoble him and befit him for marriage to her.  But Elizabeth realised that such a marriage would divide her kingdom and possibly lose her the crown.  Robert had an illegitimate son whom he brought up in a way befitting the son of a nobleman and even allowed him to spend time with his natural mother, a very ‘modern’ arrangement.  He later secretly married another woman, Lettice Knollys, a young, good looking and widowed lady-in-waiting at Elizabeth’s court.  Elizabeth was furious, banished Lettice from court and never forgave her.  It seemed that Robert and Lettice were very happy, bringing up her four children from her previous marriage as their own and then having the son and heir that Robert Dudley so longed for.  But their joy was short lived.  Robert’s beloved ‘noble Imp’ died aged three in 1584.

       Robert was by
Elizabeth’s side during the crisis of the Armada and stage managed her appearance at Tilbury when, riding a magnificent prancing horse, she famously addressed her troops.  This was his last duty.

       Two months later Robert was passing through
Oxford, on his way to Kenilworth Castle, a gift from the Queen, when he died.  He had just written to Elizabeth, the letter of a friend writing to another friend, and had intended to take the waters in Buxton with the hope of easing his painful, crippling condition.

       Lettice married again after Robert’s death – one Christopher Blount, son of Cousin Thomas Blount!  But when she died she asked to be buried in the same tomb as Robert, whom she described as the best and kindest of husbands.

The Duke of
Norfolk
– Robert’s old enemy, who once claimed that he would hit Robert in the face with his racquet after the Queen lovingly wiped the sweat from her favourite’s brow during their tennis match, was executed for treason in 1572.

Elizabeth I
– never married and became known as the Virgin Queen.  Two years after Amy’s death she contracted small pox which, she knew, may lead to her death.  Small pox was a disfiguring disease but such was the strength of Elizabeth and Robert’s friendship that she wanted him at her bedside, where he remained throughout her illness.  She had appointed Robert to govern in the interim period should she die.  She later described him as her ‘little dog’, never far away from his mistress as everyone at court knew.  This was not what Robert wished to hear and eventually, after their love affair, he began to re-evaluate his life, leading to his decision to marry Lettice Knollys. 

      
Throughout Elizabeth’s reign England was in the grip of a ‘mini ice age’, sixty years of severely cold winters and rainy summers.  Towards the end three consecutive failed harvests meant that the majority of the poor people were dying of starvation.  People were ready for a change just as they had been at the end of Mary’s reign when the bad summers and poor harvests were just beginning.  When Elizabeth died, a letter from Robert, written a few days before his death, was found in a box at her bedside; it was wrapped in ribbon and on the outside Elizabeth had written ‘His last letter’.