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Death and the Virgin Queen: Elizabeth I and the Dark Scandal That Rocked the Throne, by Chris Skidmore
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In the tradition of Alison Weir’s New York Times bestselling Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, comes the most sensational crime story of Tudor England.
On the morning of September 8, 1560, at the isolated manor of Cunmor place, the body of a young woman was found at the bottom of a staircase, her neck broken. But this was no ordinary death. Amy Robsart was the wife of Elizabeth I’s great favorite, Robert Dudley, the man who many believed she would marry, were he free. Immediately people suspected foul play and Elizabeth’s own reputation was in danger of serious damage. Many felt she might even lose her throne. An inquest was begun, witnesses called, and ultimately a verdict of death by accident was reached. But the mystery refused to die and cast a long shadow over Elizabeth’s reign. Using recently discovered forensic evidence from the original investigation, Skidmore is able to put an end to centuries of speculation as to the true causes of Robsart’s death. This is the story of a treacherous period in Elizabeth’s life: a tale of love, death, and tragedy, exploring the dramatic early life of England’s Virgin Queen.- Sales Rank: #1649898 in Books
- Published on: 2011-01-18
- Released on: 2011-01-18
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.53" h x 1.49" w x 6.47" l, 1.36 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 448 pages
Most helpful customer reviews
55 of 59 people found the following review helpful.
"So sudden a chance"
By Christine Arabella
This book presents the transcript of the coroner's report of Robert Dudley's (later Earl of Leicester) wife's death in 1560, believed lost for centuries, but finally found by Dr. Steven Gunn in The Natinonal Archives (England). It says that Amy Robsart had a broken neck and two wounds at unspecified locations on her head, one of which would have involved some form of skull fracture. Since such injuries are not uncommon in serious and fatal stair falls, and since the report is a 16th century piece of paper and not the actual body, it must remain inconclusive. Skidmore concedes that its findings are compatible with an accidental downstairs fall (the jury's verdict), but then goes on to make a case that Amy Dudley was first poisoned for some 18 months and then murdered by over-assiduous men of Dudley's following without their master's knowledge; in the end he hints that Dudley, and possibly Queen Elizabeth, did somehow influence the jury.
The book is essentially a narrative account, the author clearly prefers to tell a story (so much so that the apocryphical "I will have here but one mistress and no master"-anecdote appears three times) than to do a systematic and open-ended case investigation. For a biography of Dudley, however, it is too selective and misleading (not a word about the Kenilworth festival, the Netherlands, the Armada). As a political narrative it is too crudely simplistic and outdated, especially from c.1563; the players become increasingly caricatures. Paradoxically, while (unintentionally?) making clear the hatred of the Habsburg ambassadors against Dudley, the author relies heavily on their gossip for his case. Similarly, Cecil's and Throckmorton's frantic underhand intrigues against "Dudley as royal consort" become admirably clear; nevertheless Skidmore parades Cecil's patently self-interested talk with the Spanish ambassador around the time of Amy's death as evidence that Dudley's men tried to poison her.
So, while there is some exciting material, including three photos of manuscript letters by Amy and Robert Dudley, there are many strange misattributions and inaccuracies, and the forcing of documents into a totally misleading context to press an argument is a recurrent feature. For example: As proof of the alleged extreme loyalty of Dudley's servants to their master (which the author needs for his murder theory), Skidmore quotes the military oath of allegiance to Robert Dudley as Lieutenant-General of the Queen's forces for the Netherlands expedition of 1587, 27 years after Amy's death. Skidmore implies that oath was common practice in the Dudley household in 1560!
In many instances, Skidmore falsifies the picture by suppressing facts and by misrepresenting and even misquoting sources. For example, in order to argue that Amy Dudley was not ill, the author goes so far as to make the Spanish ambassador's archival original, "está muy mala de un pecho" (she is very ill in one breast), into "enferma y mala de un pecho" (sick and ill in one breast). From the fact that Lady Amy speaks of her husband as "my lord" in a letter he deduces that she held him in awe. Now, he must know it was absolute standard for a wife to speak of her husband as her "lord", "my lord's" etc. Even Juliet talks of Romeo as her lord as soon as they are secretly married. More striking examples of these problems are the accounts of Dudley's affairs with Lady Douglas Sheffield and Lettice Knollys; they are deeply flawed and distorted. By witholding vital facts the author paints Dudley, and only him, in an unattractive light: even when he redeems a diamond of Amy's from a pawn-broker after her death, this shows his selfish, materialistic nature: "Jewels, Dudley must have considered, would be wasted on the dead."
After brief discussion, the accident and suicide options vanish mid-way, and the book focuses entirely on one murder theory; any alternative murder scenarios are not mentioned at all! The "murder evidence" rests on the appearance of Sir Richard Verney (a Warwickshire gentleman in whose house Lady Amy had formerly stayed) as organizer of the killing in a c.1563 gossip chronicle and in the satirical libel "Leicester's Commonwealth" of 1584. Scholars have pointed out for years that this proves nothing but that there was a tradition of gossip involving Verney. As is stated even in the 1563 chronicle itself, it was by no means inside information but common talk. However, Skidmore is generally not squeamish about sources. He also ignores incongruities throughout, for example, he presupposes that the stairs Amy fell down were those leading down from the long gallery, although the report says the stairs she fell down adjoined "a certain chamber", possibly Amy's private room from which the only other stairs in the house led down. Skidmore even confidently implies that a quadrangular staircase with a landing is the same thing as a "circular newel staircase".
Verney's murder motive, unsolicited boosting of his master's career, is not at all convincing. At one point Skidmore drops the remark that Cecil would not have risked his position by murdering Amy. Sure! But neither would have Dudley! He would not have risked the axe for murder after having narrowly escaped it for treason. It was natural that all suspicion would fall on Dudley (the more if the crime occurred in his wife's lodgings!), as people were immersed in slanderous gossip regarding him and the Queen. That was a thing his servants, as his enemies in high places, were well aware of.
The "evidence" for Dudley's interference with the jury is that the jury's foreman Sir Richard Smith, formerly "the Queen's man" and later mayor of Abingdon (the town next to the village where Amy died), received some stuffs to make clothes of from Robert Dudley in 1566 -- six years after the event. Skidmore does not discuss why the "Mr. Smith, the Queen's man" of 1566 should be the same Smith as the foreman. It is worth noting that in the edition of Leicester's household accounts by Dr. Simon Adams there figure ten Smithes alone, including another "Queen's man" called Ralph Smith.
It's the same with John Stevenson, another jury member; Skidmore, not bothering to explain why, thinks he was the same man as John Steaphinson, a ferrier and servant listed near grooms of the stable on a 1559/1560 wages list of Dudley's. Skidmore also tries to implicate Dudley via some payments he made at the end of 1560. Alas, there was nothing ominous about these: Anthony Forster (in whose house Amy had lived and died) was receiving funds to wind up her household; Francis Barthewe, whom Skidmore sees as a mysterious "stranger", was a Flemish merchant to whom Dudley had owed money for some five years (comp. p. 40 of the Accounts); Anthony Butler MP was repaid a "bond" -- a normal procedure. Why should this not happen two and a half months after Amy's death?
The 15 jury members' verdict on oath was accident, "as they are able to agree at present". Skidmore makes a lot out of this disclaimer. Anyway, by its very frankness the formulation does not smack of intervention by evil forces. -- "So sudden a chance" does happen in real life.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
More on Elizabeth and Leicester
By Loves the View
The title implies this book is about the mysterious death of Amy Dudley, but there are only about 50 pages on it. While the focus on the book is elsewhere, the author, Chris Skidmore, does help the reader interpret what little is known of Amy, her teen age marriage (unusual for its day), her few surviving letters, her moving from host family to host family, and the reports of an illness, from the few scraps of surviving materials.
Also, the author heightens your awareness of the impact of Amy's suspicious death on Elizabeth, Dudley and others in the court. The death occurs two years into Elizabeth's reign. If Amy was murdered so that Dudley could take the hand of the Queen of England, the culprits suffered the consequences of its opposite effect. The suspicious death made it impossible for Elizabeth to accept Dudley's marriage proposal.
There is a lot of material, much of it new to me, about the many who pressed their marriage suits in the first half of Elizabeth's reign. There is more, too, on how Elizabeth was pressured to take a husband. Skidmore has the clearest presentation I've seen yet of the facts on and interpretations of the proposed marriage of Robert Dudley to Mary Queen of Scots. There is a lot more about Dudley, how he became an earl, his finances, gambling and his other flirtations.
Both Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester 1533-1588 and Elizabeth & Leicester: Power, Passion, Politics present a more sympathetic portrait of Robert Dudley. This book shows a more manipulative side of him. He surely is cold towards Amy, whom he lodges with host families while he is absent for months at a time. His treatment of Douglas is not much better.
It is hard for modern readers to understand the psychology of a man who experienced the beheading of a father and grandfather at the hands of a monarch. These gruesome deaths and that of Elizabeth's mother are surely part of their bond, but also may have created a need in Robert Dudley to be near the monarch. Was Dudley capable of murdering his wife, or did he carry himself in a way that his retainers would think this murder was something he wanted? Would he, and/or Elizabeth rig a jury as Skidmore suggests?
While Skidmore emphasizes some ideas and excludes others, he raises points of interest and presents more detail on this early part of Elizabeth's reign. Some reviewers have suggested that Skidmore's theory be reworked into a novel, which is a pretty good idea.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Some interesting material
By John Beyerlein
I can't dispute any of Christine Arabella's criticism. I did like the book a little better than she did. For me the coroner's report makes the likelihood of murder extremely unlikely, and therefore the latter part of the book is largely superfluous. Having just reread Arabella's review, I have to think 3 stars may be too much, but 2 seems too little, 2.5.
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