‘Walk with me,’ Robert commanded his lover. ‘I must talk with you alone.’
‘She cannot,’ Cecil ruled. ‘She looks too guilty already. She can’t be seen whispering with a man suspected of murdering an innocent wife.’
Abruptly, Robert bowed to Elizabeth and left the room.
‘Good God, Cecil, they won’t blame me, will they?’ she demanded.
‘Not if you are seen to distance yourself from him.’
‘And if they find that she was murdered, and think that he did it?’
‘Then he will have to stand trial, and if guilty, face execution.’
‘He cannot die!’ she exclaimed. ‘I cannot live without him. You know I cannot live without him! All this will be a disaster if it comes to that.’
‘You could always give him a pardon,’ he said calmly. ‘If it comes to that. But it won’t. I can assure you, they will not find him guilty. I doubt that there is any evidence to link him to the crime, except his own indiscretion and the general belief that he wanted his wife dead.’
‘He looked heartbroken,’ she said pitifully.
‘He did indeed. He will take it hard, he is a very proud man.’
‘I cannot bear that he should be so distressed.’
‘It cannot be helped,’ Cecil said cheerfully. ‘Whatever happens next, whatever the inquest rules, his pride will be thrown down and he will always be known as the man who broke his wife’s neck in the vain attempt to be king.’
At Abingdon the jury was sworn in and started to hear the evidence about the death of Lady Amy Dudley. They heard that she insisted on everyone going to the fair so that she was left alone in the house. They heard that she was found dead at the foot of the small flight of stairs. The servants attested that her hood was tidy on her head, and her skirts pulled down, before they had picked her up and carried her to her bed.
In the pretty Dairy House at Kew, Robert ordered his mourning clothes but could hardly bear to stand still as the man fitted them.
‘Where is Jones?’ he demanded. ‘He is much quicker than this.’
‘Mr Jones couldn’t come.’ The man sat back on his heels and spoke, his mouth full of pins. ‘He said to send you his apologies. I am his assistant.’
‘My tailor did not come when I sent for him?’ Robert repeated, as if he could not believe the words. ‘My own tailor refused to serve me?’ — Dear God, they must think me halfway to the Tower again; if not even my tailor is troubled for my custom, then they must think me halfway to the scaffold for murder. —
‘Sir, please let me pin this,’ the man said.
‘Leave it,’ Robert said irritably. ‘Take another coat, an old coat, and make it to the same pattern. I cannot bear to stand and have you pin that damned crow colour all over me. And you can tell Jones that when I next need a dozen new suits I shall remember that he did not attend me today.’
Impatiently, he threw off the half-fitted jacket and strode across the little room in two strides.
— Two days and not a word from her — he thought. — She must think I did it. She must think me so wicked as to do such a thing. She must think me a man who would murder an innocent wife. Why would she want to marry such a man? And all the time there will be those very quick to assure her that it is just the sort of man I am. —
He broke off.
— But if she were accused, I would go to her side — he thought. — I would not care whether she were guilty or no. I couldn’t bear knowing that she was alone and frightened and feeling that she had not a friend in the world.
— And she knows that of me too. She knows that I have been accused before. She knows that I have faced a death verdict without a friend in the world. We promised each other that we would neither of us ever be so alone again. —
He paused by the window; the cold glass under his fingers sent a deep shiver through him, though he did not remember why it should be such a dreadful sensation.
‘Dear God,’ he said aloud. ‘Much more of this and I shall be carving my crest into the chimneypiece as I did with my brothers in the Tower. I have come so low again. So low, again.’
He leaned his forehead against the glass when a movement on the river caught his eye. He shaded his face against the thick glass to see more clearly. It was a barge with the drummer beating to keep the rowers in time. He squinted his eyes, he made out the flag, the royal standard. It was the royal barge.
‘Oh, God, she has come!’ he said. At once he could feel his heart pounding. — I knew she would come. I knew she would never leave me, whatever it cost her, whatever the danger, we would face it down together. I knew she would be at my side, always. I knew she would be faithful. I knew she would love me. I never doubted her for a moment. —
He tore open the door and ran from the room, through the river entrance and into the pretty orchard where he had given Elizabeth her May Day breakfast only sixteen months ago.
‘Elizabeth!’ he shouted, and ran through the orchard towards the landing stage.
It was the royal barge; but it was not Elizabeth getting out of the barge to the landing stage. Dudley halted, suddenly sick with disappointment.
‘Oh, Cecil,’ he said.
William Cecil came down the wooden steps towards him and held out his hand. ‘There,’ he said kindly. ‘Never mind. She sent her best wishes.’
‘You have not come to arrest me?’
‘Good God, no,’ Cecil said. ‘This is a courtesy visit, to bring you the queen’s best wishes.’
‘Her best wishes?’ Robert said brokenly. ‘Is that all?’
Cecil nodded. ‘She can’t say more, you know that.’
The two men turned and walked to the house.
‘You are the only man to come to see me from the court,’ Robert said as they entered the house, their boots ringing on the wooden floor in the silence. ‘Think of that! Of all my hundreds of friends and admirers that flocked around me every day when I was at the very centre of the court, of all the thousands of them who were proud to call me their friend, who claimed my acquaintanceship even when I hardly knew them … and you are the only visitor I have had here.’
‘It’s a fickle world,’ Cecil agreed. ‘And true friends are few and far between.’
‘Far between? Not for me, since I have no true friends at all, I see. You are my only friend, as it turns out,’ Dudley said wryly. ‘And I would not have given you good odds a mere month ago.’
Cecil smiled. ‘Well, I am sorry to see you brought so low,’ he said frankly. ‘And sorry to find you with such a heavy heart fitting your mourning clothes. Do you have any news from Abingdon?’
‘I daresay you know more than me,’ Robert said, conscious of Cecil’s formidable spy network. ‘But I have written to Amy’s half-brother and asked him to go and make sure the jury do their best to discover the facts, and I have written to the foreman of the jury and begged him to name whoever did it, whoever it may be, without fear or favour. I want the truth to come out of this.’
‘You insist on knowing?’
‘Cecil, it is not me, so who? It’s easy enough for everyone else to think it murder and me with blood on my hands. But I know, as no-one else can know, that I did not do it. So if I did not do it, who would do such a thing? Whose interest would be served by her death?’
‘You don’t think it was an accident?’ Cecil inquired.
Robert gave a brief laugh. ‘Good God, I wish I could think that, but how could it be? Such a short flight of stairs, and her sending everyone out for the day? My worst, my constant fear is that she harmed herself, that she took some poison or a sleeping draught and then threw herself down the stairs head first, to make it look like an accident.’
‘Do you think she was so unhappy that she would have killed herself? I thought her more pious than that? Surely she would never imperil her immortal soul, even if she were heartbroken?’
Robert dropped his head. ‘God forgive me, it was I who broke her heart,’ he said quietly. ‘And if she did
herself to death then her love of me cost her a place in heaven as well as happiness on earth. I was unkind to her, Cecil, but before God I never thought it would end like this.’
‘You really think you drove her to take her own life?’
‘I can think of nothing else.’
Gently, Cecil touched the younger man’s shoulder. ‘It is a heavy burden you carry, Dudley,’ he said. ‘I cannot think of a heavier burden of shame.’
Robert nodded. ‘It has brought me very low,’ he said softly. ‘So low that I cannot think how to rise again. I think of her, and I remember her when I first met her, and first loved her, and I know I am the sort of fool who picks a flower to put in his button hole and then drops it and leaves it to die from mere wanton carelessness. I took her up like a primrose, as my mother called her, and then I tired of her, and I dropped her as if I was a selfish child; and now she is dead and I can never ask her forgiveness.’
There was a silence.
‘And the worst thing,’ Dudley said heavily, ‘is that I cannot ever tell her that I am sorry that I hurt her so badly. I was always thinking of myself, I was always thinking of the queen, I was chasing my own damned ambition and I did not think what I was doing to her. God forgive me, I put the thought of her away from me, and now she has taken me at my word, and gone away from me, and I will never see her again, and never touch her, and never see her smile. I told her I did not want her any more, and now I do not have her.’
‘I will leave you,’ Cecil said quietly. ‘I did not come to intrude on your grief; but just to tell you that in all the world, at least you have one friend.’
Dudley raised his head and reached out his hand for Cecil.
The older man gripped it hard. ‘Courage,’ he said.
‘I cannot tell you how thankful I am that you came,’ Robert said. ‘Will you remember me to the queen? Urge her to let me come back to court as soon as the verdict is known. I won’t be dancing for a while, God knows, but I am very lonely here, Cecil. It is exile as well as mourning.’
‘I’ll speak to her for you,’ Cecil assured him. ‘And I will pray for you, and for Amy’s soul. You know, I remember her on her wedding day, she just shone with happiness, she loved you so much, she thought you the finest man in the world.’
Dudley nodded. ‘God forgive me for teaching her differently.’
Windsor Castle
Memorandum to the queen
Saturday 14th September 1560
1. The jury has delivered a verdict of accidental death on Amy Dudley and so Sir Robert may return to court to his usual duties, if you wish.
2. The scandal of his wife’s death will always cling to his name; he knows this, and so do we all. You must never, by word or deed, indicate to him that this shame could ever be overcome.
3. And so you will be safe from any further proposals of marriage from him. If you must continue your love affair it must be with the utmost discretion. He will now understand this.
4. The matter of your marriage must be urgently addressed: without a son and heir we are all working for nothing.
5. I shall bring to you tomorrow a new proposal from the archduke that I think will be much to our advantage. Sir Robert cannot oppose such a marriage now.
Thomas Blount, Dudley’s man, stood at the back of the church of St Mary the Virgin at Oxford and watched the Dudley standard of the ragged staff and bear ride past him at slow march, followed by the elaborate black-draped coffin that was all that was left of little Amy Robsart.
It was all done just as it should be. The queen was represented, and Sir Robert was not there, as was the custom. Amy’s half-brothers and the Forsters were there to show Lady Dudley every respect in death that she had lacked in the last days of her life. Lizzie Oddingsell did not attend, she had gone back to her brother’s house, filled with such anger and grief that she would speak to no-one of her friend except to say once, ‘She was no match for him,’ which Alice Hyde gleefully fell on as proof of murder, and which William saw as a fair description of a marriage that had been ill-starred from start to finish.
Thomas Blount waited to see the body interred and the earth shovelled in the ground. He was a thorough man, and he worked for a meticulous master. Then he went back to Cumnor Place.
Amy’s maid, Mrs Pirto, had everything ready for him, as he had ordered. Amy’s box of jewels, locked with their key, Amy’s best gowns, folded neatly and wrapped with bags of lavender heads, the linen from her bed, the furniture that travelled with her wherever she went, her box of personal goods: her sewing, her rosary, her purse, her gloves, her little collection of wax seals cut from the letters that Robert had sent her over the eleven years of their marriage, and all his letters, tied with a ribbon and arranged by date, worn by constant handling.
‘I’ll take the jewel box and the personal things,’ Blount decided. ‘You shall take the rest back to Stanfield and leave them there. Then you can go.’
Mrs Pirto bowed her head and whispered something about wages. ‘From the bailiff at Stanfield when you deliver the goods,’ Thomas Blount said. He ignored the woman’s red eyes. All women wept easily, he knew. It meant nothing, and as a man, he had important business to transact.
Mrs Pirto murmured something about a keepsake.
‘Nothing worth remembering,’ Thomas Blount said roundly, thinking of the trouble that Amy had caused his master in life and in death. ‘Now you get on, as I must.’
He tucked the two boxes under his arm and went out to his waiting horse. The jewel box slid easily into his saddlebag, the box of personal effects he handed to his groom to strap on his back. Then he heaved himself up into the saddle and turned his horse’s head for Windsor.
Robert, returning to court wearing dark mourning clothes, held his head high and looked scornfully around him as if daring anyone to speak. The Earl of Arundel hid a smile behind his hand, Sir Francis Knollys bowed from a distance, Sir Nicholas Bacon all but ignored him. Robert felt as if a chill circle of suspicion and dislike was wrapped around him like a wide black cape.
‘What the devil is amiss?’ he asked his sister. She came towards him and presented her cold cheek to be kissed.
‘I assume that they think you murdered Amy,’ she said flatly.
‘The inquest cleared me. The verdict was accidental death.’
‘They think you bribed the jury.’
‘And what do you think?’ He raised his voice and then abruptly spoke more quietly as he saw the court glance round at the two of them.
‘I think you have taken this family to the very brink of ruin again,’ she said. ‘I am sick of disgrace, I am sick of being pointed at. I have been known as the daughter of a traitor, as the sister of a traitor, and now I am known as the sister of a wife-murderer.’
‘Good God, you have not much sympathy to spare for me!’ Robert recoiled from the blank hostility of her face.
‘I have none at all,’ she said. ‘You nearly brought down the queen herself with this scandal. Think of it! You nearly ended the Tudor line. You nearly destroyed the reformed church! Certainly, you have ruined yourself and everyone who bears your name. I am withdrawing from court, I can’t stand another day of it.’
‘Mary, don’t go,’ he said urgently. ‘You have always stood by me before. You have always been my sister and friend. Don’t let everyone see that we are divided. Don’t you abandon me, as everyone else has.’
He reached out to her, but she stepped away and whipped her hands behind her back so that he could not touch her. At that childish gesture which recalled her in the schoolroom so vividly to him, he nearly cried out. ‘Mary, you would never abandon me when I am so low, and I have been so wrongly accused!’
‘But I think you are rightly accused,’ she said quietly and her voice was like ice in his ears. ‘I think you killed her because you thought in your pride that the queen would stand by you, and everyone else would wink at it. That they would all agree it was an accident and you would go into mourning a widower and come out
the queen’s betrothed.’
‘That could still happen,’ he whispered. ‘I did not kill her, I swear it. I could still marry the queen.’
‘Never,’ she said. ‘You are finished. The best you can hope for is that she keeps you on as Master of Horse and as her little disgraced favourite.’
She turned from him. Robert, conscious of the eyes of everyone upon him, could not call her back. For a moment, he made a move to catch the hem of her gown and jerk her round, before she got away; but then he remembered that everyone watching believed him to be a man who was violent to women, a man who had killed his wife, and his hands felt heavy.
There was a stir at the door of the privy chamber and Elizabeth came out. She was very pale. She had not been out riding nor walking in the garden since the day of her birthday, when she had told the Spanish ambassador that Amy was dead or nearly so – three days before anyone knew that Amy had been found dead. There were many who thought that her opinion, three whole days before the announcement of the death, that Amy was dead ‘or nearly so’ was more than a lucky guess. There were many who thought that Robert had been executioner, and Elizabeth the judge. But none of them would dare say such a thing when she could come out of her room, as now, flick her eye around the presence chamber, and count on the support of every great man in the country.
She looked past Robert and on to Sir Nicholas, she nodded at Sir Francis, and turned to speak to his wife, Catherine, who was behind her. She smiled at Cecil and she beckoned the Hapsburg ambassador to her side.
‘Good day, Sir Robert,’ she said, as the ambassador moved towards her. ‘I give you my condolences on the sad and sudden death of your wife.’
He bowed and felt his anger and his grief swell up so strongly that he thought he might vomit. He came up, his face betraying nothing. ‘I thank you for your sympathy,’ he said. He let his angry look rake them all. ‘I thank all of you for your sympathy which has been such a support to me,’ he said, and then he stepped to a window bay, out of the way, and stood all alone.
Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Page 102
