By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.8.A. 67 
ruffs, collars, and the like. I mention these matters, merely to 
observe that, as to dress, she appears to have been liberally supplied 
with the finery of the day: no sign of parsimony in her apparel. 
Also because all this must have been during her Cumnor life, one of 
the last items having been, of necessity, incurred after her death, viz: 
“4 mantle of cloth for the chief mourner.” (For the whole bill see 
Appendix, No. IV.) } 
Upon this letter, which, for some reason or other, appears to 
have been kept by Edney the woman’s taylor, and delivered, together 
with his bill, to the auditors of Lord Robert’s accounts, the single 
remark I venture to make is: that the “ charges” for “ making-up,” 
in A.D. 1560, even when multiplied six or seven times, contrast, as I 
am assured hy competent judges, very favourably with those presented 
by the woman’s-taylors of A.D. 1876. This is now the second letter 
from her known to exist. . 
It was whilst she was living at Cumnor during the last year of 
her life, perfectly free from restraint, so far as appears from the 
documents before us, that the Court, and indeed the whole country, 
began to be filled with various rumours about Robert Dudley and 
the Queen. All these rumours arose from the Queen being a young 
unmarried lady, and from the anxiety which her counsellers, the 
nation, and foreign nations too, felt, upon this question, vz: who, in 
1Though it is quite impossible that Sir Walter Scott could have seen 
this bill, his description of Amye’s dress approximates so nearly to the style of 
dresses mentioned in it, as to show his accurate knowledge of the costumes of 
the day. At the beginning of the novel, when the mercer Goldthread and 
Tressilian, visit Cumnor, the mercer, who had seen her first, is asked by the 
other: ‘‘ What was her appearance, Sir?” “Oh, Sir,” replied Master Gold- 
thread, “I promise you, she was in gentlewoman’s attire—a very quaint and 
pleasing dress, that might have served the Queen herself: for she had a fore- 
part with body and sleeves, of ginger-coloured satin, which, in my judgement, 
must have cost by the yard, some thirty shillings, lined with murrey taffata 
and laid down and guarded with two broad laces of gold and silver. And her 
hat, Sir, was truly the best-fashioned thing that I have seen in these parts, 
being of tawny taffeta, embroidered with scorpions of Venice gold, and having 
a border garnished with gold fringe :—I promise you, Sir, an absolute and all- 
surpassing device. Touching her skirts, they were in the old pass-devant 
fashion.” 
F2 
