The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-09-29
AMY ROBSART AND HER TRAGIC
 LIFE HISTORY

Turn about is fair play" un- doubteGly thought the Lioness of England as she stroked the lovely Earl of Leicester. her new favorite- Raleigh having falleu-thrOwing her clever eye back over her fathers reign. Henry VIII who surely had his fair ladies without number.
 The LtOness of England. No other woman since the days of Great Queen Bess has deserved the title. On Sep temher 29th. the day we celebrate.
 the Earl of Leicester was enobIed by Queen Elizabeth. On that fete day coaches were first brought to London for the sumptuous event. Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester" pity, 6d- n1iration. dctestauon, swing around thy name! In the South KensinRton Museum, London, there IS Q notable canvass of a terrific event in Leices- ter's life. Blaced at the end of a long gallery in the Museum, the eye races to the picture. You long to leap and lift her, the dear dead wo- man lying at the foot of the stairs her neck broken-done to death, by the hired servants of Dudley? The corpse is the corpse of Amy Robsart. Countess of Leicester. wife of the
 
 said Dudley's own chaplain. making suddenly a sorry break as he preached Amy Robsart's funeral ser mon. Her death was the result of Leicester's desire to marry the Queen.
 Yes, he was a charming courier, was Robert Dudley. Beautiful to look at, of an address silken as a swans. Within then being the slow gathering furnace of ambition that devoured every better impulse. He eventuated into a scheming politician, and flirted reckIessly with great mon archies. He had been at courts all his life. Court of England, of Ed ward VI; Court of France of Henry IT. On Edward WIS death, he had aided his father and brothers in their attempt to place his sister-in-law. Lady Jane Grey, on the throne. It was Leicester who proclaimed her Queen of England. The poor darling young woman reigned just nine days; was committed to the Tower, and be- headed. Leicester himself was in carcerated in the Tower of London in 1858. and sentenced to death. Dur ing this period his wife,-Amy Rob sart,-visited him, and with every loving solace. Dudley had married this charming young English girl daughter of Sir John Robsart, in 1850. Amy was only eighteen years of age when sI,e became Countess of Leicester.
 "She, who in her ordinary mood could look down lion" Elizabeth daughter of a hundred kings, loved the shOwy. magnetic Leicester. There seems not a shadow of a doubt about this. But Elizab tn is almost the only female ruler throughout history who subjugated sex passion to politi- cal prudence. Says one of her bio gr1phers. "The finger of Cupid could put her feelings in motion, but the power of Hercules could not have de- stroyed their equilibrium" Again and again. Dudley her favorite was disgraced- -dismissed-an again and again restored to royal favor, but Elizabeth never yielded to his i'm portunity to marry him, and make him the Queens Consort. An, she knew, brilliant woman. that 1t would have been disastrous to her to do thus. At the height of Leicester's career there stood just one object, as he calculated, in his path. namely his vii, Amy Robsar+ "She fell down the stairs and broke her neck" was the report brought to Leicester when he was at Windsor with the Queen.
 Has the reader ever visited Kenil- worth Castle, England? Is the reader familiar with Wentworth by Sir Wal ter Scott Wentworth Castle. today one of the finest baronial ruins in Great Britain, was presented to Lei | cester by the Queen, one of the many grants of land to her favorite. The T---. To r,f| lavish magnificence. There is still shown to the tourist the small octa- FonaI chamber on the second floor of : the lordly pile of ruins, poor Amy i Robsart's chamber. The tragic ac- count of her meeting with Great 1 Eliza beth on the occasion of the Queens vsiit to Wentworth, Is stir 1 ringly told in the celebrated novel by 1 Scott, Wentworth"
 The charming, crafty Leicester | judged that his prospects as future . Queens Consort would be ruined by l the admission of his marriage with | Amy Robsart. Such magnetic hold | had Dudley on the young woman's | affections. that he easily persuaded | her that it was to her advantage, as | well as to his own, to conceal for a | time the truth concerning the nup- | Ild lS- " neu lIl6 NZuEtll NLoAAo IACAL4A- worth. Amy, Countess of Leicester, | break ks from her confinement in the ! tiny suite allotted to her in the cas- | tie, gains the garden-and there met the mighty Queen of England, her fateful rival in Leicester's affections. l The horrible denouement-her death | came quickly.
 Following upon Amy's reported ''suicide,'' the alliance between the Queen and Leicester seemed to be closer, relate the great historians. There followed quarrels; there follow ed Leicester's marriage with Lady Sheffield; there followed the Queens anger set in gunpOwder eyes. There followed Leicester's heartless intri- gues with women. It seems pathetic that Elizabeth should have restored him to favor-but she did. She made him Lord-Lieutenant of England and Ireland. When on the way to Kenn- worth, Leicester stopped at his coun- try-seat at Conbury, OxfOrdshire. He was then an i'll man. He died there, was said but