Amy Robsart

Amy, Lady Dudley
Amy Robsart – The Beaufort Miniature by Levina Teerlinc. Portrait miniature of the same woman as in the Yale Miniature below, c.1559.[note 1] Lady Amy Dudley came to London in May 1559 for about a month. The miniature belonged to the descendants of Lettice Knollys, the second wife of Amy's widower Robert Dudley[1]
Born	Amy Robsart 7 June 1532 Norfolk, England
Died	8 September 1560 (aged 28) Cumnor Place, Oxfordshire, England
Cause of death	Broken neck
Nationality	English
Known for	Death under mysterious circumstances
Spouse	Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester ​ ​ (m. 1550)​

Amy, Lady Dudley (née Robsart; 7 June 1532 – 8 September 1560) was the first wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, favourite of Elizabeth I of England. She is primarily known for her death by falling down a flight of stairs, the circumstances of which have often been regarded as suspicious. Amy Robsart was the only child of a substantial Norfolk gentleman. In the vernacular of the day, her name was spelled as Amye Duddley.

At nearly 18 years of age, she married Robert Dudley, a son of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. In 1553, Robert Dudley was condemned to death and imprisoned in the Tower of London, where Amy Dudley was allowed to visit him. After his release the couple lived in straitened financial circumstances until, with the accession of Elizabeth I in late 1558, Dudley became Master of the Horse, an important court office. It was rumoured that the Queen soon fell in love with him and there was talk that Amy Dudley, who did not follow her husband to court, was suffering from an illness, and that Elizabeth would perhaps marry her favourite should his wife die. The rumours grew more sinister when Elizabeth remained single against the common expectation that she would accept one of her many foreign suitors.

Amy Dudley lived with friends in different parts of the country, having her own household and hardly ever seeing her husband. In the morning of 8 September 1560, at Cumnor Place near Oxford, she insisted on sending away her servants, and later was found dead at the foot of a flight of stairs with a broken neck and two wounds on her head. The coroner's jury's finding was that she had died of a fall downstairs; the verdict was "misfortune", accidental death.

Amy Dudley's death caused a scandal. Despite the inquest's outcome, Robert Dudley was widely suspected to have orchestrated his wife's demise, a view not shared by most modern historians. He remained Elizabeth's closest favourite, but with respect to her reputation she could not risk a marriage with him. A tradition that Sir Richard Verney, a follower of Robert Dudley, organized Amy Dudley's violent death evolved early, and Leicester's Commonwealth, a notorious and influential libel of 1584 against Robert Dudley, by then Earl of Leicester, perpetuated this version of events. Interest in Amy Dudley's fate was rekindled in the 19th century by Walter Scott's novel, Kenilworth. The most widely accepted modern explanations of her death have been breast cancer and suicide, although a few historians have probed murder scenarios. The medical evidence of the coroner's report, which was found in 2008, is compatible with accident as well as suicide and other violence.

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