The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-08
By. Albrt Payson Terhune.

PDA boy were narrieu III { . England, on June A. lOOo. lhe girl was Amy Robsart, daughter or rich country gentleman. The young prloe- groom was Robert Dudley, younses. soh of the crafty Earl of Warwick. IL was love match, partly scheme on "ai ,r,olx,s mart to secure his son a wealthy wife.
 poine a .vounger son" Dudley had no great prospects. But he was .handsoihe' clever. interruptions, and these quaii'ieS could carry a man far In pohtlcs'
 When Queen Elizabeth in 1boS' mounted Ensland's throne, Dudley's fortune rose bv leaps and bounds. He was 21 at this time and the sort of man to catch Bhz- abeths fckle fancy. She sno"eroo wealth and honors upon him. It was even whispered that she ntenoeo 'o marry him and make him prince consore of the realm.
 au+ if Oueen Elizabeth really planned to make Dudley her husband-there was one very serious obstacle 10 the ploJs'' Amy Robsart, his wife, was stiii iNins' And while Amy lived there coulo pc ho chance of Dudleys wedding the Queen. Amy and Dudley had at first lived very bonr,Iv together. But, as the years went o and b,s duties at court took up more and more of his time, Dudley began 10 neglect his gentle country-bred wire. lie sent her to live in a ramshacKle' t"o- story building, known as Cumnor Hall' obout four miles rom Oxford. There under the care of one Anthony Forster Ca ntdl | few servants, she dragged out lonely, miserable life. Letters of hers snow now happy she was when Dudley paid one or his rare visits to Cumnor Hall ana now their brevity and infrequency distressed her.
 An odd circumstance brought out in her letters is that Amy (altogether rich heir 1 ess in her own right was hard pressed l for ready money and could not even pay her dressmakers' bills. She had lived touietly and in seclusion ever since her marriage. She could not possibly have snent much of her great fortune. It had probably gone toward advancing Duoleys interests at court and to raise him to the high position where his wife was no more l than a burden and obstacle to him. so matters stood in September, 156O, 10 years after their marriage. On September came the climax whose exact story none can ever know. Thomas Blount' kins- man and hanger-on of Amy's husband, afterward wrote to Dudley:
 "she would not, that day, suffer any one to tarry at home" Qrom a neighboring fair at Abingdon) and was so earnest to
 fotr Ia any made reason for tarrying at home she was very angry
 Why she should have wanted the house left deserted that day is not clear But I there must have been some strong reason, since it made gentle woman very angry" when any refused to go to the fair And what passed while she was supposedly left alone in Cumnor Hall IS equally mysterious.
 The servants, trocping home-from the fair at nshtfal found Amys dead body lying on the floor at the foot of a short spiral staircase The suppostion was that l she had fallen downstairs and broken her neck. Another version was that Anthony Forster had called to her from the door, falsely announcing Dudley's arrival, and that he arranged for the stairs to col lapse as she ran down to meet her hus- band. But the stairs were so short and | SO twisted that 1t would have been all most a contortion feat for any one to fall down them. Moreover, the staircase was not of the collasible sort and could not have been put to such use by Forster Still another tale says that Amy was poi soned and her body laid at the stair-foot to give the idea of a fall. But against this has been urged the fact that she would scarce have sent all her servants away in order to give some enemy a chance to kill her. And, to this day, the nature of Amy Robsart's death is shroud- ed in uncertanty Dudley did not attend her funeral nor visit Cumnor Hall again. According to local legends the poor wife s ghost haunted the house for many years
 Several modern historians believe that Dudley was not at all responsible for the tragedy. If he were, he profted little by it. For fickle Elizabeth did not marry him. He married twice after Amy's death. He also rose to great heights at court, becoming Earl of Leicester and re-