Who was rumoured to to have had his first wife Amy Robsart poisoned, in the hope of marrying Queen Elizabeth the First?
Amy Robsart Amy Robsart Amy Dudley (née Robsart) (7 June 1532 – 8 September 1560) was the first wife of Lord Robert Dudley, favourite of Elizabeth I of England. She 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 and at nearly 18 married Robert Dudley, a son of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. In 1553 Robert Dudley was condemned to death and imprisoned in the Tower of London, where Amy Dudley was allowed to visit
Amy Robsart again called Varney. The notion that Amy Robsart was murdered gained new strength with the discovery of the Spanish diplomatic correspondence (and with it of poison rumours) by the Victorian historian James Anthony Froude. Generally convinced of Leicester's wretchedness, he concluded in 1863: "she was murdered by persons who hoped to profit by his elevation to the throne; and Dudley himself … used private means … to prevent the search from being pressed inconveniently far." There followed the Norfolk antiquarian Walter Rye with "The Murder of Amy Robsart" in 1885: here she was first poisoned and then, that method failing,