“It is the scandal,” Cecil confided in him in his friendly tone. “As I told you when you left court. She could not have her name linked with yours. Your sons could never take the throne of England. You are infamed by the death of your wife. You are ruined as a royal suitor. She will never be able to marry you now.”

“What are you saying? That she will never marry me now?”

“Exactly,” Cecil replied, almost regretfully. “You are right. She can never marry you now.”

“Then why did she do it?” Dudley demanded, his whisper as soft as falling snow. “Why kill Amy, my wife, if not to set me free? Amy, the only innocent among us, Amy who had done nothing wrong but hold faith. What was the benefit if not to release me for marriage with the queen? You will have been in her counsel; you will have made this plan together. It will have been your villains who did it. Why murder little Amy if not to set me free to marry the queen?”

Cecil did not pretend to misunderstand him. “You are not released for marriage with the queen,” he said. “You are prevented forever. Any other way and you would always have been eligible. You would always have been her first choice. Now she cannot choose you. You are forever disbarred.”

“You have destroyed me, Cecil,” Dudley’s voice broke. “You killed Amy and fixed the blame on me, and destroyed me.”

“I am her servant,” Cecil said, as gentle as a father to a grieving son. “As you know.”

“She ordered the death of my wife? Amy died by Elizabeth’s order so that I should be shamed to the ground and never, never rise again?”

“No, no, it was an accidental death,” Cecil reminded the younger man. “The inquest ruled it so, the twelve good men of Abingdon, even when you wrote to them and pressed them to investigate most closely. They had their verdict; they brought it in. It was accidental death. Better for all of us if we leave it so, perhaps.”


AUTHOR’S NOTE

The mystery of how Amy Robsart died is still unsolved four centuries after her death. Several culprits have been suggested: malignant cancer of the breast which would account for reports of breast pain, and could result in the thinning of the bones of her neck; Robert Dudley’s agents; Elizabeth’s agents; Cecil’s agents; or, suicide.

Also fascinating are the incriminating and indiscreet remarks from Cecil and Elizabeth to the Spanish ambassador in the days before Amy’s death, which he recorded for his master, just as I present them in this fictional account.

It seems to me that Cecil and Elizabeth knew that Amy would die on Sunday, September 8, and were deliberately planting evidence with the ambassador to incriminate Robert Dudley. Elizabeth incriminates herself as an accessory by predicting Amy’s death before the event, and by saying that she died of a broken neck, before the detailed news reaches the court.

Why Elizabeth and Cecil should do such a thing we cannot know. I don’t believe that either of them blurted out the truth by accident, to the man most likely to circulate such scandal. I suggest that it was Elizabeth and Cecil’s plan to smear Dudley with the crime of wife-murder.

Certainly the shadow of guilt was effective in preventing Robert from attaining the throne. In 1566 William Cecil wrote a six-point memorandum to the Privy Council listing the reasons that Robert Dudley could not marry the queen: “IV. He is infamed by the death of his wife.”

Were Elizabeth and Robert full lovers? Perhaps in these more permissive days we can say that it hardly matters. What does matter is that she loved him all her life, and despite his later marriage to Laetitia Knollys (another Boleyn redhead) he undoubtedly loved her. His last letter was to Elizabeth, telling her of his love, and when she died it was with his letter by her bedside.


This is a short list of the books that helped my research for this novel. Adlard, George. Amye Robsart and the Earl of Leicester, 1870 Bartlett, A. D. An Historical Account of Cumnor Place, 1850 Brigden, Susan. New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors: 1485–1603, 2000 Clarke, John. Palaces and Parks of Richmond and Kew, 1995. Cressy, David. Birth, Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religions and the Life Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England, 1977. Darby,H.C. A New Historical Geography of England Before 1600, 1976. Doran, Susan. Monarchy and Matrimony: The Courtships of Elizabeth I, 1996. Dovey, Zillah. An Elizabethan Progress,1996. Dunn, Jane. Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens, 2003. Dunlop, Ian. Palaces and Progresses of Elizabeth I, 1962. Evans, R. J. W. St. Michael’s Church, Cumnor: A Guide, 2003 Frere, Sir Bartle. Amy Robsart of Wymondham, 1937. Grierson, Francis. “An Elizabethan Enigma,” Contemporary Review, August 1960. Guy, John. Tudor England, 1988. Haynes, Alan. The White Bear: Robert Dudley, the Elizabethan Earl of Leicester, 1987. ———. Invisible Power: The Elizabethan Secret Services 1570–1603, 1992. ———. Sex in Elizabethan England, 1997.Hibbert, Christopher. The Virgin Queen,1992. Hume, Martin A. S. The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth, 1898. Jackson, Revd. Canon. “Amye Robsart,” The Nineteenth Century, A Monthly Review, ed. James Knowles, March 1882, no 61. Jenkins, Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Leicester, 1961. Loades, David. The Tudor Court, 1986. Milton, Giles. Big Chief Elizabeth, 2000. Neale, J. E. Queen Elizabeth, 1934. Picard, Liza. Elizabeth’s London, 2003. Pettigrew, T. J. An Inquiry Concerning the Death of Amy Robsart, 1859. Plowden, Alison. The Young Elizabeth, 1999.———. Elizabeth: Marriage with My Kingdom, 1999.———. Tudor Women: Queens and Commoners, 1998. Read, Conyers. Mr. Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth, 1955. Ridley, Jasper. Elizabeth I, 1987. Rye, Walter. The Murder of Amy Robsart, A Brief for the Prosecution, 1885. Sidney, Philip. Who Killed Amy Robsart? 1901. Somerset, Anne. Elizabeth I, 1997. Starkey, David. Elizabeth, 2001. Strong, Roy. The Cult of Elizabeth, 1999. Turner, Robert. Elizabethan Magic: The Art and the Magus, 1989. Waldman, Milton. Elizabeth and Leicester, 1944. Walker, Julia M., ed. Dissing Elizabeth: Negative Representations of Gloriana, 1998. Weir, Alison. Children of England,1997. ———. Elizabeth the Queen, 1999. Wilson, Derek A. Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1533–1588, 1981. Yaxley, Susan. Amy Robsart, Wife of Robert Dudley, 1532–1560, 1996.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PHILIPPA GREGORY is the author of several novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen’s Fool. Wideacre, her debut, was a New York Times bestseller and the first in a trilogy that included The Favored Child and Meridon. A writer and broadcaster for radio and television, she lives in England.

For further information about this and any of Philippa Gregory’s other books, and on forthcoming appearances, reviews, and unpublished material, please visit her website at www.philippagregory.com.



BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The Queen’s Fool

The Other Boleyn Girl

Meridon

The Favored Child

Wideacre



TOUCHSTONE