72 Amye Robsart. 
Appleyard, and an illegitimate brother, Arthur Robsart. So Dudley 
adds, in a postscript :— 
“T have sent for my brother [t.e. brother-in-law] Appleyarde, because he 
is her brother, & other of her frendes also, to be theare, that they may be 
previe & see how all things do proceede.” 
Mr. Appleyard was a Norfolk man, High Sheriff of that county 
the next year. Mr. Norris, and Sir Richard Blount, both of well- 
known Berkshire families, were also there. The jurymen were all 
strangers to Dudley: but such was the jealousy towards Court 
favourites, that there were some among them who would have been 
glad to connect him with the death if they could. Yet the answer 
sent to him was that after the most searching enquiry they could 
make, they could find no presumption of evil dealing. Sir Thomas 
Blount himself asked in every direction, and declared he could not 
find or hear of anything to make him suspect that violence had been 
used by any person. Lord Robert then writes to desire that a second 
jury of substantial honest men should be summoned: and to them 
he sent this message: “To deal earnestly, carefully, and truly, and 
to find as they shall see it fall out. And if it fall out a chance or 
misfortune, so to find, and if it appear villainy (as God forbid so 
mischievous or wicked body should live) then to find it so, and God 
willing, I shall néver feare the due prosecution accordingly, what 
person soever it may appear any way to touch: as well for the just 
punishment of the act as for myne own trewe justification : for as 
I would be sorry in my heart any such evil should be committed, so 
shall it well appear to the world my innocency.” 
Here, before proceeding, two or three remarks. 
1. If he had really in any way encouraged, or connived at, a 
violent death, it is next to impossible that he could have faced the 
ordeal of inquiry in such a tone as this. 
2. These letters, which passed between Dudley and Forster at the 
very moment, annihilate some of the common falsehoods. For example 
(1), Verney and Forster, (who by the way, are not even mentioned 
in the letters as being near the place,) are said in the slanderous 
narrative to have sent away all ¢he servants. It was Lady Dudley’s 
