ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER.
By Zucchero.
BORN CIRCA 1532, DIED 1588.
Full length. Gold and white dress. Gorget. George and Garter. Page
holding a helmet and tilting lance. Tent in background.
HE was the fifth son of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, by the daughter and heir of Sir Henry Guildford. He began life early. In 1551 he was named Gentleman of the Bedchamber and Master of the Buckhounds to King Edward VI., by whom he was much esteemed. But it would appear that before, or shortly after, his appointment he fell in love with Amy, the fair daughter of Sir John Robsart, over whose sad fate the ‘Wizard of the North’ has thrown so dazzling a glamour, though, contrary to his version of the story, it would appear that the marriage was public and took place at Court. On the death of Edward, and the failure of the scheme devised by the Duke of Northumberland to place his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, on the throne, Lord Robert Dudley was imprisoned in the Tower on a charge of high treason, and had sentence of death passed on him, and it was supposed he only escaped sharing his father’s fate, by pleading guilty. Any way, he was liberated with a free pardon, and on the marriage of Queen Mary with Philip of Spain, he ingratiated himself into that Prince’s favour, and ‘was most serviceable to both King and Queen,’ says Strype, ‘by carrying messages between them, often riding post to do so.’ To the Princess Elizabeth he had been playfellow in childhood, and fellow-prisoner in the Tower, and when she came to the throne she did not forget old days.
She made him Master of the Horse, Knight of the Garter, and Privy Councillor, showering upon him grants and estates without number. Indeed, his influence with her was so great that Secretary Cecil (if we may credit that arch gossip, De Quadra, the Spanish Ambassador at the Court of London) wished Lord Robert Dudley in Paradise. The same writer says that the Queen told him that Lady Robert was very ill, and some time afterwards ‘che si ha rotto il collo.’ It certainly was rumoured at Court that but for the slight obstacle of a wife, the Queen would throw over all her foreign and royal suitors in favour of this handsome polished minion, as Froude calls him. The tragedy of Cumnor Hall will ever remain a mystery; but all these reports which preceded it, and the fact that Lord and Lady Robert had scarcely ever appeared together in public since their marriage, all went to strengthen suspicion against the husband.
On the other hand, no sooner did Dudley hear of his wife’s death, which he said was ‘the most unfortunate thing that could have happened to him,’ than he caused a searching inquiry to be made, and he sent down poor Amy’s half-brother to investigate the matter. On the inquest, these facts transpired: The Lady had insisted on the household leaving her to go to Abingdon Fair, and on their return she was found dead at the bottom of a staircase, without any marks of violence. By some it was suggested she might have been first suffocated and then placed in that position; others again were of opinion that she had committed suicide, seeing she had been overheard to say she prayed God to preserve her from desperation. But one of her attendants would not tolerate the idea, saying she was a good and virtuous gentlewoman. The verdict was accidental death, but the country was full of strange mutterings, the echoes of which have never died away. A few contemporaneous documents have lately been found at Longleat which throw some fresh light on the circumstances of her marriage and domestic life. It does not appear to have been one of constrained seclusion, as commonly supposed, nor is there, in the papers alluded to, any indication of estrangement on the part of her husband, still less anything to implicate him, as accessory to her violent death, if it really were such.
In forming opinions on Dudley’s moral character, it is only fair to remember that many of the stories which were spread to his prejudice have their origin in a notorious book entitled Leicester’s Commonwealth, written by men who were his deadliest enemies in politics and religion, especially ‘Parsons the Jesuit.’ This was circulated in MS. for many years, a copy being extant at Longleat; but the Queen and Privy Council published a protest against its slanders. A gorgeous funeral was decreed to the unhappy Amy at Oxford, and Dudley was free. We need not recapitulate the well-known story of Elizabeth’s vacillating conduct with regard to him and her numerous suitors; how all England believed she was on the point of selecting him as her husband; of how Mary Queen of Scots mildly remarked that the Queen of England was about to marry her horsekeeper, who had murdered his wife to make room for her; of how Elizabeth turned round and proposed he should marry Mary, saying that if she herself intended to marry, she should prefer him to all the Princes in the world; and contrasting him with his brother Lord Warwick, she said, ‘He is rough, and lacks the delicacy of Robert.’