Amy Robsart - Aftermath

Aftermath

Amy Dudley's death, happening amid renewed rumors about the Queen and her favourite, caused "grievous and dangerous suspicion, and muttering" in the country. Robert Dudley was shocked, dreading "the malicious talk that I know the wicked world will use". William Cecil, the Queen's Principal Secretary, felt himself threatened by the prospect of Dudley becoming king consort and spread rumours against the eventuality. Already knowing of her death before it was officially made public, he told the Spanish ambassador that Lord Robert and the Queen wished to marry and were about to do away with Lady Dudley by poison, "giving out that she was ill but she was not ill at all". Likewise strongly opposed to a Dudley marriage, Nicholas Throckmorton, the English ambassador in France, went out of his way to draw attention to the scandalous gossip he heard at the French court. Although Cecil and Throckmorton made use of the scandal for their political and personal aims, they did not believe themselves that Robert Dudley had orchestrated his wife's death.

In October Robert Dudley returned to court, many believed, "in great hope to marry the Queen". Elizabeth's affection and favour towards him was undiminished, and, importuned by unsolicited advice against a marriage with Lord Robert, she declared the inquest had shown "the matter ... to be contrary to which was reported" and to "neither touch his honesty nor her honour." However, her international reputation and even her position at home was imperilled by the scandal, which seems to have convinced her that she could not risk a marriage with Dudley. Dudley himself had no illusions about his destroyed reputation, even when he first got notice of the jury's decision: "God's will be done; and I wish he had made me the poorest that creepeth on the ground, so this mischance had not happened to me." In September 1561, a month after the coroner's verdict was officially passed, the Earl of Arundel, one of Dudley's principal enemies, studied the testimonies in the hope of finding incriminating evidence against his rival.