62 Amye Robsart, 
Now it is a perfectly fair question to ask, Is there any sign of 
estrangement between husband and wife in the contents of this letter 
of Amye’s? There is none at all. On the contrary, is it every wife 
your acostomed fryndshype towardes my lorde 
& me / [Some words erased, now illegible. | I nether may nor 
can deney you y* requeste in my lordes absence 
of myne owne awtoryte ye & ytwar A gretar 
matter / as if any good occasyon may serve you so 
trye me deseyryng you furdar y* you wyll make 
salle of y® wolle so sone as ys possyble althowe 
you sell yt for Vs. the stone or as you wolde 
sell for your sealf for my lorde so ernystly 
requered me at his departyng to se thosse pore 
men satysfyed as thowe yt had bene A matter 
dependyng uppon lyff wherfore I force not to 
sustayne A lyttell losse therby to satysfy my 
lordes desyer & so to send yt mony to 
grysses house to london by _ brydwell to 
whom my lorde hathe gewen order for 
y° pamente therof / & thus I ende all waye 
trobelyng you / wyssyng y* occasyon maye 
serve me to requyte you untyll yt time / 
I must pay you wt thankes / & so to god 
I leve you frome M* heydes this vij of : 
Awguste 
Your assured duryng 
. [Addressed] lyff AmyE DuUDDLEY.” 
“To my veary frynd 
M:. flowerdwe the 
ellder gewe this.” * 
* Mr. Adland of New York, who wrote a volume about Amye Robsart, appears (p. 23) to doubt 
whether the letter in the British Museum, about Sydisterne (the only one which had been seen by 
him) was really in her own handwriting, even as to the signature: simply because the name is 
spelled ‘* Duddley,” and not ‘‘ Duddeley,”’ as her husband, and (as Mr. Adlard says) ‘* all the rest of 
the family,’’ wrote it. But all the rest of the family did not do so. Some did and some did not, 
There are examples of both at Longleat, and in page 105 of his own book Mr. Adlard gives a letter 
from John, the father of Lord Robert, who writes himself, ‘‘ Dudley.’”? Names were not spelled 
uniformly in those days, even by members of the same family. Sir Henry, father of Sir Philip, 
writes ‘‘Sydney:’’ the son, “Sidney.’? In the Pembroke family one Earl writes himself ‘* Pen- 
broke.’? Mr. Adlard admits the letter to be original, but probably written by a clerk or secretary, 
signature and all, That all was certainly written by one and the same person is evident upon close 
examination, The capital A in the signature of the Longleat letter is the same used in the word 
*‘as” in the second line. The ‘ty ” and ‘‘d” of the signature also correspond with those used in 
the body of the letter. It seems rather straining a point to suppose that the wife of Lord Robert 
Dudley could not write her own name: and if she wrote that, she certainly wrote the whole letter. 
The handwriting has, it is true, the look of such as might be used by an amanuensis, bred in 
an office. It may have been so: but it should be remembered that the handwriting of ladies in for- 
mer times was as unlike as possible to that ofour own time. It was large and masculin e. See, for 
example, in “ Phillips’s Autograph Album,” at p. 39, the writing of Margaret of Lancaster; at p. 
226, that of Anne Boleyn; both quite of the same style as Amye Robsart’s, King Henry VIII. 
(p. 226) and others also, used the same character, 
