25 Facts About Amy Robsart

Amy Robsart 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 1553, Robert Dudley was condemned to death and imprisoned in the Tower of London, where Amy Robsart Dudley was allowed to visit him.

Amy Robsart Dudley lived with friends in different parts of the country, having her own household and hardly ever seeing her husband.

Amy Robsart remained Elizabeth's closest favourite, but with respect to her reputation she could not risk a marriage with him.

Amy Robsart was born in Norfolk, the heiress of a substantial gentleman-farmer and grazier, Sir John Robsart of Syderstone, and his wife, Elizabeth Scott.

Amy Robsart grew up at her mother's house, Stanfield Hall, and, like her future husband, in a firmly Protestant household.

Amy Robsart received a good education and wrote in a fine hand.

Sir John Amy Robsart died in 1554; his wife followed him to the grave in the spring of 1557, which meant that the Dudleys could inherit the Amy Robsart estate with the Queen's permission.

From this time a business letter from Amy Robsart Dudley survives, settling some of her husband's debts in his absence, "although I forgot to move my lord thereof before his departing, he being sore troubled with weighty affairs, and I not being altogether in quiet for his sudden departing".

Amy Robsart lived there with his wife and Mrs Odingsells and Mrs Owen, relations of the house's owner.

Lady Amy Robsart's chamber was a large, sumptuous upper story apartment, the best of the house, with a separate entrance and staircase leading up to it.

Chris Skidmore concurs with this in his 2010 book Death and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart, adding that Robert Dudley used the oak as a personal symbol in his youth, the sitter wearing oak leaves and gillyflowers at her breast.

The name gilliflower or gillyflower derives from the French giroflee from Greek karyophyllon meaning nut-leaf, the association deriving from the flower's scent, making it another possible wordplay for oak for Robert or even Amy Robsart, Robur being Latin for oak.

Amy Robsart desperately urged him to find out what had happened and to call for an inquest; this had already been opened when Blount arrived.

Amy Robsart informed his master that Lady Amy Dudley had risen early and.

Amy Robsart said by her faith she doth judge very chance, and neither done by man nor by herself.

Amy Robsart's coffin was covered with black cloth and the arms of the Earl of Leicester.

Amy Robsart wore mourning for about six months but, as was within custom, did not attend the funeral, at which Lady Amy Dudley's half-brothers and neighbours, as well as prominent city and county citizens, played leading parts.

Amy Robsart refused to cooperate in the plot, although he had, he said, in the last few years come to believe that his half-sister was murdered.

Amy Robsart had always been convinced of Dudley's innocence but thought it would be an easy matter to find out the real culprits.

Amy Robsart said he had repeatedly asked for the Earl's help to this effect, claiming the jury had not yet come up with their verdict; Dudley had always answered that the matter should rest, since a jury had found that there was no murder, by due procedure of law.

The first printed version of Amy Robsart's alleged murder appeared in the satirical libel Leicester's Commonwealth, a notorious propaganda work against the Earl of Leicester written by Catholic exiles in 1584.

The notion that Amy Robsart was murdered gained new strength with the discovery of the Spanish diplomatic correspondence by the Victorian historian James Anthony Froude.

Amy Robsart was buried in the chancel of St Mary's Church, Oxford, but her grave has been lost.