68 Amye Robsart. 
case of her death, was to be the Successor to the Throne. It would carry 
me too far into the general history of the times, to recite the schemes 
and intrigues that were going on all around the Queen. There were 
princes abroad, and noblemen at home, ready to be promoted. 
Dudley was known to be in high favour; the Queen was believed 
to be really attached to him. It was therefore easy enough for idle 
gossip to grow into serious report: and consequently, when one man 
said to his neighbour that she meant to marry Dudley, that neighbour 
would say to the next, that, of course the wife would have to be got rid 
of. Then it was said, that she was very ill: that she had a fatal com- 
plaint, that she was to be divorced, that she was to be poisoned: that 
Dudley had actually given instructions for her quiet disappearance. 
We may imagine the effect of these horrible whisperings reaching 
the poor lady’s ear. To any hopes that Dudley might be entertaining 
they would only be most damaging : because though the Queen had 
declared, rather pettishly, to her ministers, that “she was not going 
to marry a subject, or allow any one beneath her to be called My 
Lord’s Grace,” still, should she change her mind, public opinion would 
hardly allow a Queen of England to select for a husband a man who 
had caused his wife to be murdered. The last thing therefore that 
Dudley would wish to hear among all these untoward rumours, would 
be that his wife Aad met with a violent, i.e.,a sudden death. What 
took place when that news actually reached him is described in some 
letters, preserved (in transcript) in the Pepysian Library, at Cambridge. 
These have already appeared in print, but as many of you may not have 
met with them, and they bear rather closely upon my own narrative, I 
will state their substance to you as concisely as I can. 
Lord Robert was at Windsor, when (it is not known how—but news 
travels in a marvellous way) he was informed that something was 
wrong at Cumnor. He immediately sent off Sir Thomas Blount, 
one of his confidential officers, to that place, about forty miles from 
Windsor, to see what was the matter. This was on Monday, 9th 
September, 1560. Whilst riding on his way towards Cumnor, Sir 
Thomas Blount meets a messenger named Bowes, who was going to 
Windsor with the intelligence that on the evening before, 7.e., of 
Sunday, the 8th September, Lady Dudley had been found lying on 
