April 7, 2023 • 54 mins
Lord Robert Dudley was besties with his childhood friend, Elizabeth Tudor. After she snagged a promotion to Queen of England, she kept him close and eventually fell in love with him. But when Robert's wife Amy mysteriously died, the rumors started flying about what the Queen and her alleged lover might be capable of! Was it an assassination? An accident? Or something... spookier?? Well we think we cracked this 600 year old case!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, they're friends. Hey everybody, how's it going out there?
I'm Eli, I'm Diana. What a week? What a week? Indeed,
we're going to a wedding this weekend. I'm excited about that. Ye,
dear friend Gabby, very excited about this. It's gonna be
a really fun wedding. Yeah, we're worried about keeping up.
They're hard drinkers. They are a couple professional partiersessional partiers. Yeah,
(00:25):
she's a professional dancer, so stamina is kind of her thing.
It's true. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I
don't understand it. And having done the Fringe Festival for
a period of time now I have learned that dancers
camp party. Oh my god, dancers be throwing down constantly. Yeah,
because I don't know how well they do. They've got
(00:46):
the metabolism of like hummingbirds. It's insane, well and and
a bit of an unhealthy body image thing. So they'll
always be like, oh, before a show, I just don't
eat for a few days, and I'll be like, so
they just drink everything. I remember when I was a
(01:06):
big energy drinker or a soda drinker, and I felt
bad if I didn't have one right, So my body
would start alerting me like, hey, we need the thing
you always drink. Oh god, it's been two hours. I
better crack another energy drink. Oh. Then I got kidney
stones and I never drank one again, and I still
(01:27):
get kidney stones. So I guess maybe I should just
keep drinking. I'm wait a second, Hey, well now I
actually remember that. What does that show my strange addiction
or something like that where they had this she was
like a nervous or a nursing student or something, and
she she just ate a crazy amount of sugar every day,
Like she drank a bunch of soda, and she ate
(01:48):
like Doritos for lunch. And I remember them trying to
physically show her how much sugar in a day she
was drinking by like bringing pounds of sugar, you know,
and like showing her the mini bags yea, And none
of that worked, like them showing her the amount of sugars.
She was like, ah, hush, sure, And then they did
a test on her and found she was pre diabetic,
(02:10):
and she was like that really messed me up. What
did you expect? Did you not pay attention to medical skills?
Learning how to be a nurse. I think that's the
thing too, is like you can feel fine right and
and be you know, and your body is shutting down
one by one it's organs, and you can also feel
terrible and you're perfectly good. I think that's that's most
(02:31):
of my thing is like a lot of times I'm like, God,
where's this sharp stabbing pain in my abdomen? And they
go and they're like blood work scans, you know, physical tests,
all these things. You're fine, dude. I don't know why
you feel stabbing pains all over your body. Maybe someone
out there has like a voodoo dollar of you. I mean,
you know, some kind of magic, definitely snappening. What do
(02:53):
you do to someone that they have a voodoo Where
to begin? Where to begin? Oh? The many times I've
been a real all of my enemies out there, they're
always doing things well. Actually, speaking of people who have
a lot of enemies, that's kind of a good leader. Today,
I'm very excited about this story because actually it's about
a distant relation of mine, an ancestor of mine. Oh.
(03:18):
I may have talked before about my Scottish granny, but
on her side we are descended from Lord Robert Dudley,
who was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth the First No
Kidding and an earle. So by extension, you should be
a favorite of Prince Harry. Well. Listen, if he had
(03:38):
met me, I would be I'm sure we would get
along great. He likes actresses, so oh yeah, there you go,
there you go. That's here. That's the number one quality
he's looking for in a person. And he likes California.
I like California. Come on, he enjoys having money. I
enjoy having money. I'm sure once I have I'm starling
(04:00):
speculation station. I enjoy money. But I'm pretty sure. Hey,
he's got a podcast. You've got a podcast? Hey, right there?
In fact, he and I could have a podcast, and
you and Megan could have a podcast. Would that be
fun if we did, like a podcast host swap? I
think you I think you would end up doing a
(04:20):
ridiculous romance episode about me and Megan Mark run off together. Yeah,
she'd been like, sure, the handsome prince was fine and all,
but you, sir um um, have a quality as well
that I like. And it is the kidney stone, you know,
(04:49):
random stabbing pains you get in your body all the time,
just get me going huge turn on. You know, she
would probably like that, you know how like low drama,
you know what I mean, because like nobody no offense
to you, but nobody in England really cares what you do.
(05:09):
So she's probably like, Wow, we can go on a
date and like nobody even asks a question. That's fair.
But I would speculate that part of Megan Markle's thing
is that she must like the drama a little right. Well,
perhaps she can't have not known what she was getting into. Yeah,
I guess, I guess you don't go you know what,
I like a low key life. Yeah, I'm gonna marry
(05:30):
Prince Harry of England. I was really not expecting this drama.
All right. Well, we've got some English folk to talk about.
We sure do. Because Queen Elizabeth the First had a
favorite at court, her handsome and dashing master of the horse,
Lord Robert Dudley, the Earl of Lester, my distant ancestor,
(05:55):
and Elizabeth was so into him that people thought that
she would surely marry him and make him the king consort.
There's only one problem. Robert Dudley was already married to
a beautiful woman named Amy, Rob's Heart. But one day
Amy was found dead and the kingdom exploded with speculation
(06:16):
that Robert had killed his wife in cold blood so
that he could marry the queen. So today we want
to talk about the possible love affair between Lord Robert
Dudley and Queen Elizabeth and decide once and for all
if Robert Dudley is guilty of married. Let's go, hey
the French, come listen. Well, Elia and Diana got some
(06:39):
stories to tell. There's no matchmaking a romantic tips. It's
just about ridiculous relationships. A lover might be any type
of person at all, an abstract concert, a concrete wall.
But if there's a story where the second plants ridiculous
romans a production of iHeartRadio. All right, Since his story
(07:00):
involves royals, we know how complicated that can get. So
it's best to get a little background and context. Let's
light a candle, put on our best seductive smile, and
have a quick fling with history. What a mess. King
Henry the Eighth had royally rumbled England with his Church
(07:23):
of England stunts. Oh sure, right, we all know he
wanted to divorce his wife, Catherine of Arragon, in order
to marry his mistress Anne Bolin, but the Pope would
not let him, so he declared that England would have
a new religion, Protestantism. Easier to invent a new religion
than to change the Pope's mind. But Henry actually kept
a lot of the same Catholic doctrine and rituals with
(07:45):
his new religion. Like, his main concern was to just
get rid of Katherine, and after that he kind of
lost interest in Protestantism. Whatever. Wow, I was just like, yeah, yeah,
I got what I needed out of you. Yeah, very
single minded individual. You're telling me that King the Eighth
wasn't very devoted to his religion. Not a guy would
(08:06):
like a lot of the courage of his conviction. Yeah,
whatever religion was going on was really just an inconvenience
to him, exactly. I mean, I just need one thing
from you. Well. King Henry had one son and heir, Edward,
with his third wife Jane Seymour, and Edward would be
the first monarch to be raised Protestants, and unlike his dad,
(08:27):
Edward was extremely enthusiastic. Yeah. In fact, he became somewhat
obsessed with the new Church and with setting it apart
from the Catholic religion, so when Edward ascended to the
throne at the tender age of nine, he banned Catholic
rituals like Mass as well as clerical celibacy. Wow. What
a precocious nine year olds geez. Well, of course, at
(08:50):
that age Edward wasn't really old enough to act as king,
so he had this royal counsel around him, who were
really the ones run in the show. One of his
prince advisors was a guy named John Dudley, the Earl
of Warwick, who was a staunch Protestant like most of
the council. Of course, Edward wanted a lot of pro
Protestants around him, and John Dudley had led religious reform
(09:14):
under King Henry. He also fought the Scots and he
pretty ruthlessly put down land rebellions in Norfolk, so he
was basically the top dog around court. His service to
the young King Edward won him a couple of dukedoms,
and he became better known as the Duke of Northumberland,
the Humberland. John Dudley had thirteen children, and his one, two,
(09:38):
three four fifth oldest son, born in fifteen thirty two,
was Robert Dudley, and he's the subject of our episode today.
Of course, Diana's great great great great grand cousin of
Gold whatever it is. Somehow, somewhere somewhere in that tree,
one of them branches is Robert. Robert grew up, of course,
(10:02):
around Royalty. He lived at court as a companion to
young King Edward. He's just a little bit older than him,
and he even shared a tutor with edwards half sister,
Elizabeth Well tutor. So who was tutors tutor? I love it.
I think his name is Roger or something. I just
love the idea of Roger. I'm a tutors tutor. Roger
(10:25):
the tutors Tutor, starring Jude Law this year on HBO.
The Tutors Tutor. So Robert and his little classmate Elizabeth
had a lot in comment. They were the same age,
they were both smart and curious. They loved hunting and
dancing and lively conversation, so they became very close friends,
(10:47):
and fifteen fifty Robert fell in love with Amy robs Hart,
who was the daughter of a wealthy gentleman farmer in Norfolk,
who he likely met when he participated in oppressing that
farmer's rebellion alongside his father. Oh yeah, okay, riding into
Norfolk and being like you Norfuker is better, better stop
(11:07):
rebellion around here. We're gonna put you down, you know.
And I had a lot of sympathy for that rebellion
because they were basically like, we need land to like
grow food. You know, nine times out of ten a
farmer's rebellion. You want to be on the farmer's side. Yeah,
of course I like because usually it's like, hey, we're
feeding the whole country and you're screwing us over But
(11:29):
you know, peasants, right, I always want if you give
a farmer a salary, he's gonna want a glass of milk.
You know what I'm saying. You can't let him have
an inch. Well, anyway, this was a pretty good match.
Robert was a noble from a family with considerable influence. Obviously,
it's so pretty good husband material. He didn't have a
(11:50):
lot of money of his own though, because he's, you know,
the fifth eldest son. He's not in line to inherit
a lot of stuff. I guess by the time you
get down to the fifth son, there's not much left
to give, I know, right, yeah, so he needed a
rich wife and that you know, Amy's the daughter of
this wealthy gentleman farmer. Okay, so that could lead to
some money in the coffers. Meanwhile, John Dudley was very
(12:10):
pleased for Robert to marry a Norfolk lady because that
would increase his influence in Norfolk, where a lot of
Norfolks did not like him because of the whole ruthless
pushing down a rebellion there. So it was all good
with the family, and they got married with King Edward
in attendance very fancy wedding, and another of King Edward's
(12:31):
principal advisors, John Dudley's colleague, William Cecil, disparagingly called it
a quote carnal match or a love match at the wedding.
Y everything to say at somebody's wedding. So we know
that Amy and Robert were in love, like they were
sincerely into each other. Right, And William Cecil is like, yeah,
(12:51):
a marriage for love. Disgust disgusting, irresponsible. Right, I'm sure
he thought, Oh, Robert Dudley could do better than this
armer's daughter, right, Right, I don't care how much money
she has. Right, But Robert is like, he looks at
her lovingly and it makes me want to puke. Robert's like,
go ahead and puke, then William. Now neither Robert nor
(13:12):
Amy had any money at this juncture, because Amy would
not inherit anything until both her parents had died. Okay,
so they relied on both of their families to kind
of keep them afloat as a married couple. That's all
well and good, except Robert's family was about to suffer
quite a fall. See, because Edward the six the Young King,
was very sick, probably with tuberculosis, and by the time
(13:35):
he was only fifteen years old, it was very apparent
that he was not going to live much longer. So
Edward's new obsession became the succession. It's just like, my
current obsession is succession. He's like, I just love Tom Wombs,
Dams and the discuss. I know, but can you believe
the Kendall? Okay, we won't spoil anything, but like, oh
(13:56):
my god. So Edward the sixth did not want his
half sister Mary Tudor, who was the next in line
to become queen after he died, because she was Catholic,
so he wanted to dismiss her as a successor, but
Duke John Dudley told him, hey, look, rules are rules,
(14:16):
and if you disinherit your half sister Mary, you're gonna
have to disinherit your other half sister, Elizabeth Tutor, even
though she was Protestant. So King Edward would much rather
have had Elizabeth. So he's like, can I get rid
of Mary? And they're like, if you get rid of Mary,
Elizabeth's gotta go too. So you lose both of them, right,
I think, because the reason being, you know, she's a
(14:38):
half sister and so on and so forth. So they're like,
she's you know, if she doesn't have a claim, then
neither does elizab M can't You can't reason your way
through this one, buddy. So Edward's like, all right, fine,
forget the Tutor girls. And he ended up naming his cousin,
Lady Jane Gray as his heir, and this totally ignored
(14:58):
the acts of succession that his father, King Henry the
Eighth had set up, and Edward wrote his own decree,
which he called the Devise for the Succession. John Dudley,
Robert's father, was by King Edward's side the whole time,
as they worked out the details, and he promised Young Edward,
you know, don't you worry about it, my lord, I
will uphold your wishes after your death and make sure
(15:21):
Lady Jane Gray is queen. We've got it right here
in writing. You're the king. How could anyone have a
problem with that? There will be no Catholic Queen of
England while I live. Absolutely so. When King Edward died
in July of fifteen fifty three, John Dudley got to
work proclaiming Lady Jane as the Queen of England. But
(15:43):
a lot of people did not really love this plan.
What like a bunch of people in the Council of
the Royal in the court really hated it because Lady
Jane Gray just happened to be newly married to the
Duke of Northumberland, John Dudley's second youngest son, Oldford Dudley.
So they saw this whole thing as just a grab
(16:04):
for power for Dudley's own family. How convenient, Yeah, that, Oh,
Lady Jane is going to be queen and she just
happens to be, you know, I mean, you can see
why John Dudley was so on board with it. Of course,
my Lord if that's what you wish for my son's
wife to be your heir, then you know I'll go
(16:25):
for it. I guess my hands are tied. What can
I do? What can I say? Now? Another person who
hated Edward's little device for the succession was Mary herself. Obviously.
Instead of attending Edward's deathbed, which was really just a
plot to grab Mary and keep her from fomenting a rebellion,
Mary smartly fled to Norfolk. Oh Now, remember most of
(16:48):
Norfolk hated John Dudley, and it's also where a lot
of Catholics lived, so Mary was able to rally a
lot of support to her side. She went to exactly
the right place for sympathetic ear. Yeah. Meanwhile, John Dudley
was in London crowning Lady Jane Gray, and he sent
his son Robert Dudley, along with three hundred men to
(17:09):
Norfolk to suppress Mary's plans, while John stayed behind in
London to gather forces to meet her army. So he's
very much prepared for an uprising from Mary's Mary's side,
but it was too late. Mary had already written to
the council in London, and since they did not like Dudley,
they went ahead and named Mary the Queen behind his back.
(17:31):
So Mary immediately got to work punishing the people who
tried to prevent her ascension, and the Duke of Northumberland
John Dudley was arrested, he was forced to convert to Catholicism,
and he was beheaded ah, and he used his last
words to plead for mercy for his sons. Man. This
(17:53):
religious wars, I mean, I am not I think it's
been said. I'm I'm no theologian, h nor am I
practicing Christian. But I do get so caught up in
these Catholic and Protestant wars where I'm like, well, we
believe the exact same thing that you do, but differently.
(18:14):
I know, But dare you so crazy? Yeah? It's a lot.
And the fact that's during Edward and Mary's reigns they
were burning people at the state. Yeah, for being either
Catholic or Protestants, depending on who's in charge at the time.
You better accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior.
I did, well, do it different next time? Well, you know,
(18:38):
it's almost like people in power are using I don't
want to sound crazy here, are using you know, fine,
details and reinterpretations of religion to further their power and
oppress other people. But you know, speculations state. So after
poor John Dudley was beheaded, Mary, through his sons Robert
(19:03):
and Guildford, and lady Jane into the Tower of London
to await their trial and punishment. Robert Dudley was there
in July of fifteen fifty three, and his wife Amy
was able to visit him during his imprisonment. But Mary's
troubles were not over yet because her main order of
business was to get married and have an heir. That's
what you do as a queen, right well, and look
(19:25):
at how much trouble had come from a succession. Everyone
was obsessed with it, like, let's just get a nice
get this chaos done. A lady has a baby, the
baby is the heir, Done and done. No stepdaughters, half sisters,
weird uncles were done with that. We're done now. Of course,
everyone wanted her to marry an Englishman, preferably this Earl
(19:47):
who was named Edwood Courtney. But King Charles the fifth
of Spain wanted to ally with England, so he brought
over his son Prince Philip, and was like Leionot a leag,
this handsome boy, and Mary was actually like, I do
I do like him, Maybe I'll marry Prince Philip. But
(20:08):
there was one big problem with these two getting married,
because Philip was just as staunchly Catholic as Mary was,
and people started to worry that if they had a
Catholic queen and a Catholic king that this would completely
upend the Church of England and return the nation to
strict Catholicism. So before they got married, a bunch of Protestants,
(20:29):
led by Thomas Wyatt the Younger, hatched a plot against
Mary called Wyatt's Rebellion, where they would assassinate Mary, place
her sister Elizabeth on a throne as a Protestant queen,
and have her Mary Edward Courtney, the guy they wanted
her first place real into Edward Courtney. They love it,
but the plot was discovered and three thousand insurgents were arrested.
(20:54):
Robert Dudley got a new cell mate in the Tower
of London his old childhood friend Elizabeth Tudor, who was
put in jail on suspicion of being part of the rebellion,
probably because all the rebels were marching around chanting her name,
waving flags with her face on. Right. Yeah, history historians
are like, she probably didn't really have anything to do
(21:16):
with it, but of course, you know, got in jail.
She's just like, oh my god, all these people are
in the streets. They want me. I've got nothing to
do with this. I said nothing, but if you don't
want okay, okay, I'll do it. Well. Eventually, Lady Jane Gray,
whose father had taken part in Wyatt's rebellion and also
of course was the ex Queen, She was known as
(21:39):
the Nine Days Queen oh Man, Her husband Guildford Dudley,
and one hundred and fifty if the Wyatt's Rebellion insurgents
were executed, and Edward Courtney was exiled, which I feel
sorry for him. He's like, I'm just a perspective groom
for two ladies and then kicked out of my country,
like this is great. But Robert Dudley and Elizabeth Tudor
(22:01):
were set free. You oh, they were allowed to Elizabeth
was allowed to join her half sister, Queen Mary at court,
and Robert Dudley went back to his wife Amy Robsart
in October fifteen fifty four. So it's been a little
over a year at the tower. Robert and Amy. You know,
they needed a lot of help financially at this point,
(22:21):
since Robert's family had fallen so far from grace. Until
Amy inherited her family's money and property in fifteen fifty seven,
were sort of put them on some more stable ground.
But they still moved around a lot, so they were
often staying with different friends in different parts of the country.
But in August of that same year, fifteen fifty seven,
Robert went to fight for the now King Philip the Second,
(22:43):
after which he and his surviving family members were restored
to respectability at Mary's next parliament. Okay, all right, so
all right, yes, you guys like kind of tried to
overthrow us, or at least your families did, right, But
Elizabeth wanted you come sit at my feet in court.
It's probably as much of an insult as it is forgiveness, right,
(23:06):
And Robert, you just go off and fight for me,
and if you don't die, we'll be friends again, right, Okay,
And that is quite a relief, because it's no comfortable
thing to be in disgrace with the monarch. Yeah, although
sometimes being the favorite isn't so comfortable either, as Robert
was about to discover. Oh, they will tell you all
about that right after these words, welcome back to Queen
(23:33):
Mary's court. So Queen Mary the First, who we might
know better as Bloody Mary, but that's another story, died
in November of fifteen fifty eight, and it looks like
she never produced another heir because her sister, Queen Elizabeth
the First, ascended to the throne. And this is where
everything changed for Robert Dudley and his wife Amy. One
(23:56):
of the first things that Elizabeth did was make her bestie,
Robert Dudley, her Master of Horse. This is a very
prominent position. It basically meant that he was in charge
of all of his favorite things, like everything to do
with the horses and the hounds, also royal transportation and accommodation.
And he planned most of the festivities around her coronation too.
(24:17):
So he's like the royal party planner, right, the royal
guy who gets to hang out with the horses and dogs. Like,
can I have this position I've had? I mean he
was in charge of everything like the breeding dud horses,
the meat, like he's in charge of all of it
and then also whenever the court moved, which they did
a lot, he had to make sure. He had to
arrange all the transportation for all the stuff and all
(24:39):
the people and everything. He's like, you know those blankets
we put over him. I don't like the yellow trim anymore.
Let's make it purple. Give it some pizzas trumpet logo
on the side. He's like, feeling the seats, the cushions,
you know, Royal chaise. She's like, oh, you think these
squabs are good enough? Of the Queen's ass stuff with
(25:00):
more goose feathers. So obviously this was a huge job,
and everybody agreed that Robert Dudley was eminently suited for
this position. He was apparently quite the horseman. He was
also an expert jouster as well as an indefatigable tennis player,
(25:20):
and he was the Queen's most frequent dance partner. By
April of fifteen fifty nine, he was elected a Night
of the Garter, the highest honor in the Kingdom. Not
Dad Robert right from from below from the Tower of London.
So the Night of the Garter in a matter of years,
but of course, having eighty six jobs at court, meant
(25:43):
that he was never really back at his own home
very much. He visited his wife Amy a couple of
days over Easter in fifteen fifty nine, and she got
to come out and watch him work for a month
in May at court, and he also would send her
presents all the time. You know, Sorr, I can make
it m stuff and goose feathers again tonight. But that
(26:05):
was pretty much it. Otherwise she was in Hertfordshire and
he was at court. He was just required to be
at the beck and call of his best friend, the Queen,
which brings us to this episode's side piece, and what
a side piece she is. It's time to party. Queen
(26:25):
Elizabeth the First had fallen super in love with her
BFF Robert Dudley. She basically never let him leave her side.
One court chronicle recorded that Robert was quote commanded to
say he did nothing with his wife when he came
to her, as seldom he did. Wow wow, So he
(26:46):
straight up how to be there. I didn't touch her,
I didn't her. We did nothing. So it's oh, so Robert,
you were visiting your wife. What did you two get into?
H We sat very far apart and I turned my
back on her. In fact, that's right, you did what
I did, my beautiful wife. I told her she was
disgusting looking. That's what you're contractually obligated to say. Thank
(27:10):
you very much. King Philip of Spain, who remember, was
married to bloody Mary, right, and after she died, he
presented himself to Elizabeth as like a husband. Option. Oh sure,
because he's like one sister's as good as the other.
The main thing is that I want to be King
of England. Yeah, I was married to a queen. Everyone
else is a step down. It's so true. You know,
we gotta moves, at least, if not up moves. So
(27:35):
he had been kind of trying to court Elizabeth himself,
but he was informed by the Spanish ambassador quote, Lord
Robert has come so much into favor that he does
whatever he likes with affairs. And it is even said
that Her Majesty visits him in his chamber day and night.
Oh my goodness. So people all over the kingdom kind
(27:59):
of all over the world. This was like an international thing, right.
We're speculating that the queen wanted to marry Robert Dudley,
and Robert Dudley was thinking of divorcing Amy Rob's heart,
and there were rumors that Amy was terminally ill with
breast cancer and they were just waiting for her to die.
And then there were other rumors that the cancer rumor
was totally untrue, and Robert was just spreading that rumor,
trying to make everyone think she was sick though, so
(28:21):
that when she died it would be less suspicious rumors. Wow.
The Spanish ambassador was so sure that Robert would be
king one day that he concluded his letter to King
Philip quote, it would be well to approach Lord Robert
on your Majesty's behalf. Your Majesty would do well to
attract and confirm him in his friendship. Damn they were
(28:45):
really convinced. Oh yeah. In another letter he straight up said,
no one else will be king but Robert. Wow, this
is the guy. The Spanish ambassador was not the only
person who was certain that Robert would end up the
king consort. Elizabeth's court thought the same thing, and they
did not like it because Elizabeth was the unmarried queen
(29:06):
of a powerful country. So tons of foreign princes were
coming through with parades and trumpets and you know, all
the moisturizer on just trying to present themselves as the
perfect suitor. You know, Prince Ali is here, all all
the fanfare you can imagine. But like Jasmine, Elizabeth was like,
(29:29):
I am not a prize to be one. And she
turned down every one of those suitors. And they started
getting mad and whispered that, well, she's just not going
to marry anyone but Lord Robert, and that she was
just trying to distract everyone by pretending to entertain their
marriage proposals while Robert worked out had to kill his wife, damn.
(29:52):
And plenty of plots existed to kill Robert too and
get him out of the way. They're like, if this
guy's gone, we can finally marry this lady. So many
in fact, that Robert started wearing a light chainmail coat
under his clothes at all times. Couldn't get surprise stabbed
in the street. He was straight up like I need
to be walking around a bulletproof vest on mule. Well,
(30:15):
it all came to a head in September fifteen sixty
Amy rob Start Dudley was in Berkshire. She was living
in the best apartments at a relative's house called Cumnor
Place with ten servants. She's paying her own bills, she's
handling her own business, she's buying nice dresses and so
and so forth. But the morning of the eighth a
(30:37):
fair was being held in Abingdon, the nearby town, and
all the servants went to that fair, leaving Amy alone
in the house. When they returned, they found Amy in
a heap on the floor by the stairs, dead of
a broken neck. Immediately, the speculation and rumors began. Sure,
(30:58):
was it just a tragic accident? I mean, it's certainly possible,
But a lot of people were skeptical because the flight
was only eight stairs high, and that did not seem
steep enough to cause a fatal fall. So had Amy
been murdered so her husband could marry the queen? And
if so, who had done the evil deed? Well, I
(31:19):
say that we take a look at the facts and
the suspects and decide for ourselves once and for all.
Let's crack this case wide open. Right. If scholars who've
dedicated their entire lives to studying Queen Elizabeth haven't figured
it out yet, then we can do it in one
hour on a podcast. Yeah. So, welcome to the Court,
the Ridiculous Romance Court. Yeah, is in session. First, let's
(31:41):
look at the suspects. Obviously Robert himself. I'm sure someone
walked into the room saw Amy at the foot of
the stairs and the first thing they said was Robert
did it? Of course. I mean they had been speculating
for a very time that he was trying to do
this well, and he had a lot to gain from
Amy's death. Once she was out of that picture. He
(32:02):
could become one of the most powerful men in England
if he married the queen. People have done far worse
for less, you know, and not just the power aspect,
but he actually might have been just as in love
with Elizabeth as she was with him. Right, Robert wasn't
with Amy at the time of her death. He was
in Windsor with the Queen, which is a pretty solid
alibi and probably a lot of witnesses. But he could
(32:26):
easily have arranged someone else to act for him, right,
and one of his supporters was in Berkshire that day.
His name was Sir Richard Verney. Amy had stayed with
him for a while after her Easter visit to Robert
at court, and theories flew that Sir Richard had been
slowly poisoning Amy like Misha Barton in the sixth sense,
(32:48):
and when the poison didn't work, he was just like,
I'll just shove down the stairs, or at least broke
her neck and placed her at the bottom of the stairs. Right,
he went over to her house, scurry doll her servants
out to the spare, bro snapped her nick and then
just like placed her carefully at the bottom of the stairs. Well,
let's go over the defense. Historians are pretty skeptical that
(33:12):
Robert Dudley had anything to do with Amy's death. Historians,
what do they know? His story? I've got a gut
feeling after learning, you know, a few of the facts.
That's all I need, That's all I want to know. Well,
Robert's letters, you know, after he received a message that
she had died. His letters seemed to show a man
who is fully caught off guard. He's extremely upset, he's
(33:34):
very surprised by this news, and he is desperately wanting
to understand what happened. Okay, and of course, the point
of him killing his wife would be that he could
marry the queen. But the fact of the matter is
that so many rumors were flying around about Robert and
the queen and the nature of their relationship that if
Amy died under mysterious circumstances, there's no way that would
(33:56):
help them get together. The rumors would get too insane, yea.
And the scandal was so crazy that it's pretty impossible
for them to get married. This is the kind of
thing that could destabilize Elizabeth's rule and foment a rebellion. Okay,
so she has to be real careful. He has to
be real careful. So historians are kind of like, this
would not have led to what he wanted, so why
(34:16):
would you do this? And they also find the idea
of Sir Richard Verney trying to poison Amy slowly and
then snapping her neck and everything to be pretty specious.
And I do too. It does not seem like, yeah,
so I'm like, yet to stretch a lot that he
would be like, oh, seriously poisoning her for many months
(34:38):
drink hop But Robert, of course, was far from the
only suspects. And we will go over a few more
right after this. Welcome back to Court, where we're discovering
if Lord Robert Dudley is a murderer. The court, the courts,
(34:59):
the court Court. Next on court court don't. So we've
covered Robert Dudley and his buddy, Sir Richard Verney, but
what about Elizabeth herself. She was the queen and she
wanted to marry her favorite boy toy, So why don't
just take matters into her own hands or a lackeys
and just kind of clear the way. I mean, how
hard is it for a queen to whisper to someone
(35:21):
like I don't think she should be around anymore. Wink wink,
winky wink. It's all very house of the Dragon, very true. Yeah,
she totally got like little Finger over. She's like, hey,
little Finger, you know what event I'd love to attend
Amy robs Out Dudley's funeral. Yeah, that's the party. I
(35:42):
want to go. Real tragedy if anything were to happen
to her, But you wouldn't know anything about that would
But the thing is, Queen Elizabeth has pretty much the
same defense that Robert has. If she wanted to marry
this guy, it couldn't be with all these rumors flying
around about them conspiring to murder his wife together, right
and again, the ensuing scandal made it impossible for them
(36:04):
to marry anyway. And Elizabeth was not stupid, like she
would have been smart enough to realize that her enemies
would use this against her. In fact, when Mary and
Queen of Scott's, her chief rival, heard the news, she
immediately responded that Elizabeth would quote soon marry her horse keeper.
That's actually I heard recording of Mary, Queen of Scott,
(36:25):
that's exactly, which sounds like, oh what a bit I
love is she's acting like he's not also a lord
like noble. She's like she's basically like Mary and her groom.
Or she might as well marry the horse. Oh that's
what her mother to do. Well. Elizabeth was also notoriously
(36:48):
against marrying anyone. In fact, when her third stepmother, Catherine Howard,
was executed when Elizabeth was only eight years old, she
confided in her best see, Robert Dudley, that she never
get married. That's right, And some people think that's why
Robert married Amy in the first place, because he knew
that he would never be able to marry Elizabeth. Although
(37:08):
I gotta throw out there that, I mean, I think
I said when I was eight years old that I
would never get married. Gross girls are grit, you know.
I just think that's not really something you would take
seriously and long termed here a child say, I feel you,
But the child of King Henry who watched that many women.
I mean, she's got a lot of reasons to not
(37:31):
trust that. I feel like she would have definitely been like,
you know what, this is the third one. No way,
no way am I ever letting a man fucking be
able to swing no sword over? Yeah. I guess her
example of married couples was not too strong. Yeah, you're
eight year old. Marriage marriage ideas were very different from hers. Thank,
(37:52):
So who are you? What do you have a strong
father figure at home? Well, he's King Henry the eighth,
so a little too strong, designed to get well. Our
next suspect is that love match hating principal secretary William Cecil.
Do we remember him? Who's that? William Cecil was the
guy who was at Robert and Amy Robsart's wedding and
(38:14):
disparagingly called it a love match. Oh, here's the one
who vomited all over his shirt at the idea of
two people marrying for love. Disgusting about Well, William Cecil
was now like a main secretary guy in Elizabeth's court,
so he had even more sway over the queen than
(38:36):
Robert Dale. All right. It was basically Robert, William Cecil
and Sir Francis Walsingham who were in charge of the
country while the Elizabeth was queen. Ok. They were her
like three main dudes, and William Cecil's had been one
of the loudest disapproving voices at court, saying Lord Robert
could never be king, that was not an acceptable person
(38:58):
for her to marry, regardless of his marriage to Amy already.
He just didn't want Robert and Elizabeth together. Yeah, they
love each other. I won't have it. I say, this
man has too much sensibility. Now. Once Amy Rob's Heart died,
William Cecil certainly went around town saying, just as loudly,
(39:20):
you know, oh, there's all these crazy rumors going around
that Robert Dudley killed his wife. Man, that's so wild.
You think you know a guy you know? Wow? Like,
so he's walking around definitely spilling tea, drinking the tea,
and so he ruined the tea, he ruined the teaser.
That's so true. So William Cecil definitely benefited the most
(39:42):
from the scandal that blew up around Amy Rob's Heart's death,
and that's why people were starting to be like, maybe
William Cecil had something to do with this. Oh wow, okay,
like he who smelt it, dealt it, he who smells
It's kind of what they're saying. It's usually what we
find here at the Court of Ridiculous Romance. But his
defense is that historian feel that William Cecil, as much
as he disliked the idea of Robert becoming king, would
(40:04):
never have risked Elizabeth's reputation or his own by killing
Amy robs Hart. Okay, everybody knew that this amount of
scandal would not turn out well for anybody close to Elizabeth,
so it would not have made sense. And William Cecil
did not really believe himself that Amy had been murdered
at all. Oh okay, you know, he and Robert were
rivals at times, but they also worked together and they
(40:27):
spoke well of one another for years too. Okay, so
William Cecil was just using this scandal to benefit himself
in his career like any good politician. Sure. Yeah, Now
another suspect was Amy Robsert Dudley herself. Lots of folks
believe then and believe now that Amy actually committed suicide
(40:48):
that day by throwing herself down the stairs. The evidence
is actually pretty strong for this. The day after her death,
Robert wrote to his steward, Thomas Blunt, asking him to
open an inquest to figure out what the hell happened here?
Why is my wife dead? Thomas wrote back that he
had questioned everyone, and that Amy had insisted that all
(41:10):
of her servants attend the fair at Abingdon that day.
One of them even had refused to go. She said
it was quote no day for a gentlewoman to go.
That makes me think she's got a little mister Carson
in her now. He was like, frivolity. When there are
shows to be done, we could be polishing the silva totally. Well.
(41:34):
After this servant refused to go, Amy got really mad
at her and was like, you better get your ass
to Abingdon. I don't want you around this house. I
need the place to myself. I'm gonna put some music on,
you know, or relax. I don't want no peeping eyes.
That's right. Well, Thomas concluded in his report, quote certainly,
my lord, as little while as I have been here,
(41:55):
the tales I do hear of her maketh me to
think she had a strange mind in her. Scholars today
think that she was suffering from breast cancer and depression,
maybe exacerbated by all these rumors about her husband and
the queen. So of course she's just chilling at home
and just has to hear about all this all the
(42:17):
time every day. Well you know, your husband's fucking the
queen all night and she's like, okay, thanks, and we
know they were in love, right, So she definitely would
have been, I think, very sad and maybe anxious too,
because again, it's just it's not great for the king
or queen to like or hate you too much. Yeah,
it really seems to be like a very complicated situation. Regardless,
(42:39):
it seems like the best thing is if the king
or queen does not know you exist for real, and
she might be thinking that, Yeah, there's she's got the
same idea as everyone else, like any day someone's going
to try and take me out, right awful. So they
think that might have been why she would have died
by suicide in this way. Yeah, our final suspect is cancer,
(43:03):
the worst suspect of all because the chief reason that
people at the time thought that she was murdered. Besides,
of course all these rumors about Queen Elizabeth and Robert
Dudley was that the flight of stairs was only eight
steps deep, right, But the inquest at the time pointed
out that when she fell, all her body weight kind
(43:24):
of landed on her neck, so the height of the
fall didn't really matter. It was the weight, the weight
on her neck that killed her. And then in nineteen
fifty six, a medical professor named Ian Aird suggested that
Amy had metastatic cancerous deposits in her spine, which would
cause the bones to break even with limited strains. Oh wow, okay,
(43:45):
so it just kind of increased the fragility, right if
break would have been possible even at that high I
mean eight steps, it really feels like I mean, and
she didn't know that about her spine being more fragile
than usual, right, right, So it's still weird for me
to for her to think, oh, I'll just throw myself
down this very short flight of stairs and that will
(44:07):
definitely kill me, right, which is why it's more than
likely it was an accident because she just fell down
the stairs and happened to have weaker bones and died,
you know, like anyone else maybe would have been able
to pick themselves up or off the floor, but like
in her case, that wasn't possible. But then why did
she send everyone? I mean, we all want a day
(44:27):
at home alone. Maybe the fair was just her opportunity
to be like, please get out of here. And she
didn't know she was condemning herself at that point, But
it is so weird that she was so insistent, like
y'all need to leave. It's one of those where, like
you know, sometimes a lot of coincidences come together and
tragedy happens. But it does look sus as we say today,
(44:48):
like y'all go to the fair because I want to
dance around in my underwear with a broom, singing songs
like risky business. Yeah, And I can't have y'all spreading
rumors around this whole kingdom, not my weird hobbies. Right,
And she whacked the floor, put her socks on, went
slid down the hallway, and stumbled right down the stairs.
I also have to say, some stairs from the fifteen
(45:09):
hundred are incredibly steep. That's even at eight stairs. The
stairs might be higher than our normal standard stairs today. Right,
So I read or those witch stairs. Have you seen those? Yeah,
they're just incredibly, incredibly shallow steps, they're not uniform. Basically
a staircase made to murder somebody, but they used it
(45:29):
all the time. Oh, those are the murder stairs, the
murder stairs. So I don't know it is. There's so
many strange coincidences here. Yeah, and it could also be
that Amy. I don't know this. This doesn't necessarily work
with her character. I don't know much about her or anything,
but I'm wondering if she knew about all these rumors, right,
and they're making a real upset and she's super mad,
(45:52):
and she's like, you know what, I'm dying anyway. So
I'm gonna make it look real fucked up for them
so that they can never be together. I guess, like
from the grave revenge. Yeah, that's like down. Oh wow, Okay,
wait a second. I got two wild theories. I'm ready,
but I think they're accurate, but speculation station. Just to
(46:14):
be safe, go ahead. One, she found herself a body
and she faked her death. She pulled out her own teeth,
replaced them, put him in the put him in the cadaver,
broke its neck, threw it down the stairs and was like,
I'm out of here. Wow, I'm sick. Yeah. Then now
she's coming in out there in the world, she's coming in.
(46:35):
She's living free Tuter England. Yeah, coming in Tutor England,
in England, new on any Well, now i'd have to
be a reality so next on Bravo. Okay, in England.
But if that's too crazy for you, then how about
this the ghost of Bloody Mary. Huh, that's the problem.
(47:00):
Amy went into the bathroom and she was like, oh man,
you know, I'm just having such a hard time with
my husband and Queen Elizabeth I almost with her sister
was still queen what was her name? Um, what was it?
Bloody Mary? Bloody Mary, Yeah, Bloody Mary. And then Bloody
Mary came out of the mirror and shoved her down
(47:22):
the stairs. Oh my god. Look I'm saying that's that. Honestly,
that's a more believable theory than a lot of these. Listen,
I think Bloody marries go. Okay, So the Court of
Ridiculous Romance has found that Bloody Mary, for bey all
the Grave killed Amy robs O Dudley, just because that's
just that's just what her ghost does. Otherwise, she had
(47:44):
no reason too, but that's just how it worked. That's
why I was. I mean, I was too scared to
do it as a little kid. But I do remember
thinking later it's like, oh, you say her name three
times and she appears in the mirror. And I was like, then,
what I know? Worry what she can do? She's in
the mirror. But that's scary enough. But also I'm not
challenging Bloody Mary to show me what she does. Can
(48:04):
I tell you something really stupid? I would love for
you to tell me something really stupid. When I was young,
we did do Bloody Mary like everybody and sure, I
was like ten or something, and we said Bloody Mary
three times in the mirror, but I never opened my eyes. Yeah,
and we left the bathroom. And ever since, I have
been afraid that if I go into the bathroom one
(48:26):
night and look in the mirror, she'll be there because
she's just been waiting. She's been ever since I said it. Wow.
Sometimes when I like, I have to go to the
bathroom in the middle of the night or something, and
I don't turn on the light, I keep my eyes
closed while I washed, so dumb. I know it's stupid,
but I still can't that stuff berries in your brain.
(48:46):
I totally get it. Still can't damn like bloody Mary
oh man, she's waiting for you. It's so stupid. Every
time I do it, I'm like, you were so dumb.
But I can't help it. You know, I've had plenty
of nights where I'm like, I need the lights on.
I'm a spooky night. I'm in my thirties. But you know, ghosts,
(49:09):
I don't want them. I had no interest could be
out there. Yeah, I don't want them evolved in my life.
I gotta say, I'm sitting here in a brightly lit
room with no mirrors, recording this podcast in the middle
of the day, but I said it her name three times,
and there will be a part of my brain for
the next six weeks. Right that thinks like I'm gonna
turn the lights on in the bathroom. So I get it.
(49:31):
That's not that stupid. Well, I hope that they did
light as a feather, stiff as a board to get
Amy off the floor, just around it all out. Oh,
I'm glad we solved the mystery. I am too. You know,
historians are welcome to reach out to see how we
reached our conclusion that it's definitely bloody married ghosts coming
(49:52):
out the mirror. We're in speculation station. I can do
what I'm doing. That's a legal rule. Well, regardless of
the fact that we're absolutely right and it was the
ghost of Mary. The first a jury at the time
found that Amy robs Hard Dudley's death was accidental, just
a tragic accident. She accidentally said bloody Mary three times
in the bathroom. Okay, so she accidentally committed suicide. Now,
(50:17):
of course this decision relieved Robert somewhat, even though he
actually asked for a second trial so that another jury,
preferably one that included Amy's brothers, could examine the evidence.
He was like, please let John Appleyard was his name,
Please let him come and look at everything. Now, nothing
came of that request. They were like, no, we've already
(50:38):
done this and we've decided and that's it. But that
request makes it really clear that Robert really wanted to
be like extra exonerated, and that he completely understood that
no matter what a jury said one, two or three
or four times, the court of public opinion had already
decided that he was guilty, and his reputation was forever
(51:00):
a kind of destroyed by this, right right, So you know,
even though Robert and Elizabeth were now free to marry,
technically it could never happen at this point, but the
aftermath is actually just as fascinating as the murder mystery.
Even more damning rumors about these two star crossed lovers
(51:21):
started flying. Elizabeth tried a little matchmaking with poor results.
Robert knocked up his mistress in which created another murky
legal situation, and when he finally did find true love again,
he had to hide her from his unofficial girlfriend for
as long as possible. This is all crazy stuff, and
(51:41):
we are going to tell you all about it in
the next episode. That's right, Robert and Queen Elizabeth just
had too much going on. One episode of ridiculous romance.
Ridiculous romance, and if all this hadn't happened, we might
not have ridiculous romance today because of course, Robert Dudley
one of your ancestors, that's right, which I guess, I mean, well,
(52:04):
we'll get more into that next time, and we tell
you all about his other lovers and everything. Yeah, I
want to know how straight this line is, right, But
he didn't have kids with Amy, so we I know
we were not descended from the gentleman farmer from Norfolk. Oh,
I'm very incended from another woman. A well. I hope
you're all titillated by the potential there and join us
(52:28):
again next time. I'm very excited that we did this
because my parents mentioned it the other day, my father
and mother, and they said if we did this story,
they'd finally listen to the show. So we have two
new downloads today from my loving parents. Wow, we doubled
(52:49):
our listeners, so I hope you liked it, mom and dad.
We absolved our ancestor of murder by blaming it on
a ghost. Yes, you're well, it is decided. Well, that's exciting.
I'm very excited for next week's episode. I hope you
all are too, because I actually this is Diana's episode.
(53:11):
I don't know what happens next. Oh my god, I
can't wait to find out. I'm obsessed the edge of
my seat and I've got the lights on in the bathroom.
You know you know, how do you? Well? I hope
you loved it as much as I did. I love
a court intrigue. There's so many different relationships in this
that are ridiculous in different ways, so it's just a
really fun one to go over. Would love to hear
your thoughts. As always, we love to hear from you guys,
(53:33):
anything you have to say. If you have your own
speculation station about who murdered whom in this situation, would
love to hear it. Our email is Riddic Romance at
gmail dot com, yes, or reach out on Instagram. Tell
us if you've had an experience with Bloody Mary, either
the queen or the ghost. Either way you can find
(53:53):
us I'm at Oh great, it's Eli, I'm at Dynamite Boom,
or just mess with the show at Riddic Romance right.
We thank you so much for spending your time with
us today. We love you so much and we'll see
you soon for the next episode. Bye bye, so long friends,
it's time to go. Thanks for listening to our show.
Tell your friends neighbor's uncle s in dance to listen
(54:16):
to a show Ridiculous Roll Dance
Hey, they're friends. Hey everybody, how's it going out there?
I'm Eli, I'm Diana. What a week? What a week? Indeed,
we're going to a wedding this weekend. I'm excited about that. Ye,
dear friend Gabby, very excited about this. It's gonna be
a really fun wedding. Yeah, we're worried about keeping up.
They're hard drinkers. They are a couple professional partiersessional partiers. Yeah,
(00:25):
she's a professional dancer, so stamina is kind of her thing.
It's true. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I
don't understand it. And having done the Fringe Festival for
a period of time now I have learned that dancers
camp party. Oh my god, dancers be throwing down constantly. Yeah,
because I don't know how well they do. They've got
(00:46):
the metabolism of like hummingbirds. It's insane, well and and
a bit of an unhealthy body image thing. So they'll
always be like, oh, before a show, I just don't
eat for a few days, and I'll be like, so
they just drink everything. I remember when I was a
(01:06):
big energy drinker or a soda drinker, and I felt
bad if I didn't have one right, So my body
would start alerting me like, hey, we need the thing
you always drink. Oh god, it's been two hours. I
better crack another energy drink. Oh. Then I got kidney
stones and I never drank one again, and I still
(01:27):
get kidney stones. So I guess maybe I should just
keep drinking. I'm wait a second, Hey, well now I
actually remember that. What does that show my strange addiction
or something like that where they had this she was
like a nervous or a nursing student or something, and
she she just ate a crazy amount of sugar every day,
Like she drank a bunch of soda, and she ate
(01:48):
like Doritos for lunch. And I remember them trying to
physically show her how much sugar in a day she
was drinking by like bringing pounds of sugar, you know,
and like showing her the mini bags yea, And none
of that worked, like them showing her the amount of sugars.
She was like, ah, hush, sure, And then they did
a test on her and found she was pre diabetic,
(02:10):
and she was like that really messed me up. What
did you expect? Did you not pay attention to medical skills?
Learning how to be a nurse. I think that's the
thing too, is like you can feel fine right and
and be you know, and your body is shutting down
one by one it's organs, and you can also feel
terrible and you're perfectly good. I think that's that's most
(02:31):
of my thing is like a lot of times I'm like, God,
where's this sharp stabbing pain in my abdomen? And they
go and they're like blood work scans, you know, physical tests,
all these things. You're fine, dude. I don't know why
you feel stabbing pains all over your body. Maybe someone
out there has like a voodoo dollar of you. I mean,
you know, some kind of magic, definitely snappening. What do
(02:53):
you do to someone that they have a voodoo Where
to begin? Where to begin? Oh? The many times I've
been a real all of my enemies out there, they're
always doing things well. Actually, speaking of people who have
a lot of enemies, that's kind of a good leader. Today,
I'm very excited about this story because actually it's about
a distant relation of mine, an ancestor of mine. Oh.
(03:18):
I may have talked before about my Scottish granny, but
on her side we are descended from Lord Robert Dudley,
who was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth the First No
Kidding and an earle. So by extension, you should be
a favorite of Prince Harry. Well. Listen, if he had
(03:38):
met me, I would be I'm sure we would get
along great. He likes actresses, so oh yeah, there you go,
there you go. That's here. That's the number one quality
he's looking for in a person. And he likes California.
I like California. Come on, he enjoys having money. I
enjoy having money. I'm sure once I have I'm starling
(04:00):
speculation station. I enjoy money. But I'm pretty sure. Hey,
he's got a podcast. You've got a podcast? Hey, right there?
In fact, he and I could have a podcast, and
you and Megan could have a podcast. Would that be
fun if we did, like a podcast host swap? I
think you I think you would end up doing a
(04:20):
ridiculous romance episode about me and Megan Mark run off together. Yeah,
she'd been like, sure, the handsome prince was fine and all,
but you, sir um um, have a quality as well
that I like. And it is the kidney stone, you know,
(04:49):
random stabbing pains you get in your body all the time,
just get me going huge turn on. You know, she
would probably like that, you know how like low drama,
you know what I mean, because like nobody no offense
to you, but nobody in England really cares what you do.
(05:09):
So she's probably like, Wow, we can go on a
date and like nobody even asks a question. That's fair.
But I would speculate that part of Megan Markle's thing
is that she must like the drama a little right. Well,
perhaps she can't have not known what she was getting into. Yeah,
I guess, I guess you don't go you know what,
I like a low key life. Yeah, I'm gonna marry
(05:30):
Prince Harry of England. I was really not expecting this drama.
All right. Well, we've got some English folk to talk about.
We sure do. Because Queen Elizabeth the First had a
favorite at court, her handsome and dashing master of the horse,
Lord Robert Dudley, the Earl of Lester, my distant ancestor,
(05:55):
and Elizabeth was so into him that people thought that
she would surely marry him and make him the king consort.
There's only one problem. Robert Dudley was already married to
a beautiful woman named Amy, Rob's Heart. But one day
Amy was found dead and the kingdom exploded with speculation
(06:16):
that Robert had killed his wife in cold blood so
that he could marry the queen. So today we want
to talk about the possible love affair between Lord Robert
Dudley and Queen Elizabeth and decide once and for all
if Robert Dudley is guilty of married. Let's go, hey
the French, come listen. Well, Elia and Diana got some
(06:39):
stories to tell. There's no matchmaking a romantic tips. It's
just about ridiculous relationships. A lover might be any type
of person at all, an abstract concert, a concrete wall.
But if there's a story where the second plants ridiculous
romans a production of iHeartRadio. All right, Since his story
(07:00):
involves royals, we know how complicated that can get. So
it's best to get a little background and context. Let's
light a candle, put on our best seductive smile, and
have a quick fling with history. What a mess. King
Henry the Eighth had royally rumbled England with his Church
(07:23):
of England stunts. Oh sure, right, we all know he
wanted to divorce his wife, Catherine of Arragon, in order
to marry his mistress Anne Bolin, but the Pope would
not let him, so he declared that England would have
a new religion, Protestantism. Easier to invent a new religion
than to change the Pope's mind. But Henry actually kept
a lot of the same Catholic doctrine and rituals with
(07:45):
his new religion. Like, his main concern was to just
get rid of Katherine, and after that he kind of
lost interest in Protestantism. Whatever. Wow, I was just like, yeah, yeah,
I got what I needed out of you. Yeah, very
single minded individual. You're telling me that King the Eighth
wasn't very devoted to his religion. Not a guy would
(08:06):
like a lot of the courage of his conviction. Yeah,
whatever religion was going on was really just an inconvenience
to him, exactly. I mean, I just need one thing
from you. Well. King Henry had one son and heir, Edward,
with his third wife Jane Seymour, and Edward would be
the first monarch to be raised Protestants, and unlike his dad,
(08:27):
Edward was extremely enthusiastic. Yeah. In fact, he became somewhat
obsessed with the new Church and with setting it apart
from the Catholic religion, so when Edward ascended to the
throne at the tender age of nine, he banned Catholic
rituals like Mass as well as clerical celibacy. Wow. What
a precocious nine year olds geez. Well, of course, at
(08:50):
that age Edward wasn't really old enough to act as king,
so he had this royal counsel around him, who were
really the ones run in the show. One of his
prince advisors was a guy named John Dudley, the Earl
of Warwick, who was a staunch Protestant like most of
the council. Of course, Edward wanted a lot of pro
Protestants around him, and John Dudley had led religious reform
(09:14):
under King Henry. He also fought the Scots and he
pretty ruthlessly put down land rebellions in Norfolk, so he
was basically the top dog around court. His service to
the young King Edward won him a couple of dukedoms,
and he became better known as the Duke of Northumberland,
the Humberland. John Dudley had thirteen children, and his one, two,
(09:38):
three four fifth oldest son, born in fifteen thirty two,
was Robert Dudley, and he's the subject of our episode today.
Of course, Diana's great great great great grand cousin of
Gold whatever it is. Somehow, somewhere somewhere in that tree,
one of them branches is Robert. Robert grew up, of course,
(10:02):
around Royalty. He lived at court as a companion to
young King Edward. He's just a little bit older than him,
and he even shared a tutor with edwards half sister,
Elizabeth Well tutor. So who was tutors tutor? I love it.
I think his name is Roger or something. I just
love the idea of Roger. I'm a tutors tutor. Roger
(10:25):
the tutors Tutor, starring Jude Law this year on HBO.
The Tutors Tutor. So Robert and his little classmate Elizabeth
had a lot in comment. They were the same age,
they were both smart and curious. They loved hunting and
dancing and lively conversation, so they became very close friends,
(10:47):
and fifteen fifty Robert fell in love with Amy robs Hart,
who was the daughter of a wealthy gentleman farmer in Norfolk,
who he likely met when he participated in oppressing that
farmer's rebellion alongside his father. Oh yeah, okay, riding into
Norfolk and being like you Norfuker is better, better stop
(11:07):
rebellion around here. We're gonna put you down, you know.
And I had a lot of sympathy for that rebellion
because they were basically like, we need land to like
grow food. You know, nine times out of ten a
farmer's rebellion. You want to be on the farmer's side. Yeah,
of course I like because usually it's like, hey, we're
feeding the whole country and you're screwing us over But
(11:29):
you know, peasants, right, I always want if you give
a farmer a salary, he's gonna want a glass of milk.
You know what I'm saying. You can't let him have
an inch. Well, anyway, this was a pretty good match.
Robert was a noble from a family with considerable influence. Obviously,
it's so pretty good husband material. He didn't have a
(11:50):
lot of money of his own though, because he's, you know,
the fifth eldest son. He's not in line to inherit
a lot of stuff. I guess by the time you
get down to the fifth son, there's not much left
to give, I know, right, yeah, so he needed a
rich wife and that you know, Amy's the daughter of
this wealthy gentleman farmer. Okay, so that could lead to
some money in the coffers. Meanwhile, John Dudley was very
(12:10):
pleased for Robert to marry a Norfolk lady because that
would increase his influence in Norfolk, where a lot of
Norfolks did not like him because of the whole ruthless
pushing down a rebellion there. So it was all good
with the family, and they got married with King Edward
in attendance very fancy wedding, and another of King Edward's
(12:31):
principal advisors, John Dudley's colleague, William Cecil, disparagingly called it
a quote carnal match or a love match at the wedding.
Y everything to say at somebody's wedding. So we know
that Amy and Robert were in love, like they were
sincerely into each other. Right, And William Cecil is like, yeah,
(12:51):
a marriage for love. Disgust disgusting, irresponsible. Right, I'm sure
he thought, Oh, Robert Dudley could do better than this
armer's daughter, right, Right, I don't care how much money
she has. Right, But Robert is like, he looks at
her lovingly and it makes me want to puke. Robert's like,
go ahead and puke, then William. Now neither Robert nor
(13:12):
Amy had any money at this juncture, because Amy would
not inherit anything until both her parents had died. Okay,
so they relied on both of their families to kind
of keep them afloat as a married couple. That's all
well and good, except Robert's family was about to suffer
quite a fall. See, because Edward the six the Young King,
was very sick, probably with tuberculosis, and by the time
(13:35):
he was only fifteen years old, it was very apparent
that he was not going to live much longer. So
Edward's new obsession became the succession. It's just like, my
current obsession is succession. He's like, I just love Tom Wombs,
Dams and the discuss. I know, but can you believe
the Kendall? Okay, we won't spoil anything, but like, oh
(13:56):
my god. So Edward the sixth did not want his
half sister Mary Tudor, who was the next in line
to become queen after he died, because she was Catholic,
so he wanted to dismiss her as a successor, but
Duke John Dudley told him, hey, look, rules are rules,
(14:16):
and if you disinherit your half sister Mary, you're gonna
have to disinherit your other half sister, Elizabeth Tutor, even
though she was Protestant. So King Edward would much rather
have had Elizabeth. So he's like, can I get rid
of Mary? And they're like, if you get rid of Mary,
Elizabeth's gotta go too. So you lose both of them, right,
I think, because the reason being, you know, she's a
(14:38):
half sister and so on and so forth. So they're like,
she's you know, if she doesn't have a claim, then
neither does elizab M can't You can't reason your way
through this one, buddy. So Edward's like, all right, fine,
forget the Tutor girls. And he ended up naming his cousin,
Lady Jane Gray as his heir, and this totally ignored
(14:58):
the acts of succession that his father, King Henry the
Eighth had set up, and Edward wrote his own decree,
which he called the Devise for the Succession. John Dudley,
Robert's father, was by King Edward's side the whole time,
as they worked out the details, and he promised Young Edward,
you know, don't you worry about it, my lord, I
will uphold your wishes after your death and make sure
(15:21):
Lady Jane Gray is queen. We've got it right here
in writing. You're the king. How could anyone have a
problem with that? There will be no Catholic Queen of
England while I live. Absolutely so. When King Edward died
in July of fifteen fifty three, John Dudley got to
work proclaiming Lady Jane as the Queen of England. But
(15:43):
a lot of people did not really love this plan.
What like a bunch of people in the Council of
the Royal in the court really hated it because Lady
Jane Gray just happened to be newly married to the
Duke of Northumberland, John Dudley's second youngest son, Oldford Dudley.
So they saw this whole thing as just a grab
(16:04):
for power for Dudley's own family. How convenient, Yeah, that, Oh,
Lady Jane is going to be queen and she just
happens to be, you know, I mean, you can see
why John Dudley was so on board with it. Of course,
my Lord if that's what you wish for my son's
wife to be your heir, then you know I'll go
(16:25):
for it. I guess my hands are tied. What can
I do? What can I say? Now? Another person who
hated Edward's little device for the succession was Mary herself. Obviously.
Instead of attending Edward's deathbed, which was really just a
plot to grab Mary and keep her from fomenting a rebellion,
Mary smartly fled to Norfolk. Oh Now, remember most of
(16:48):
Norfolk hated John Dudley, and it's also where a lot
of Catholics lived, so Mary was able to rally a
lot of support to her side. She went to exactly
the right place for sympathetic ear. Yeah. Meanwhile, John Dudley
was in London crowning Lady Jane Gray, and he sent
his son Robert Dudley, along with three hundred men to
(17:09):
Norfolk to suppress Mary's plans, while John stayed behind in
London to gather forces to meet her army. So he's
very much prepared for an uprising from Mary's Mary's side,
but it was too late. Mary had already written to
the council in London, and since they did not like Dudley,
they went ahead and named Mary the Queen behind his back.
(17:31):
So Mary immediately got to work punishing the people who
tried to prevent her ascension, and the Duke of Northumberland
John Dudley was arrested, he was forced to convert to Catholicism,
and he was beheaded ah, and he used his last
words to plead for mercy for his sons. Man. This
(17:53):
religious wars, I mean, I am not I think it's
been said. I'm I'm no theologian, h nor am I
practicing Christian. But I do get so caught up in
these Catholic and Protestant wars where I'm like, well, we
believe the exact same thing that you do, but differently.
(18:14):
I know, But dare you so crazy? Yeah? It's a lot.
And the fact that's during Edward and Mary's reigns they
were burning people at the state. Yeah, for being either
Catholic or Protestants, depending on who's in charge at the time.
You better accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior.
I did, well, do it different next time? Well, you know,
(18:38):
it's almost like people in power are using I don't
want to sound crazy here, are using you know, fine,
details and reinterpretations of religion to further their power and
oppress other people. But you know, speculations state. So after
poor John Dudley was beheaded, Mary, through his sons Robert
(19:03):
and Guildford, and lady Jane into the Tower of London
to await their trial and punishment. Robert Dudley was there
in July of fifteen fifty three, and his wife Amy
was able to visit him during his imprisonment. But Mary's
troubles were not over yet because her main order of
business was to get married and have an heir. That's
what you do as a queen, right well, and look
(19:25):
at how much trouble had come from a succession. Everyone
was obsessed with it, like, let's just get a nice
get this chaos done. A lady has a baby, the
baby is the heir, Done and done. No stepdaughters, half sisters,
weird uncles were done with that. We're done now. Of course,
everyone wanted her to marry an Englishman, preferably this Earl
(19:47):
who was named Edwood Courtney. But King Charles the fifth
of Spain wanted to ally with England, so he brought
over his son Prince Philip, and was like Leionot a leag,
this handsome boy, and Mary was actually like, I do
I do like him, Maybe I'll marry Prince Philip. But
(20:08):
there was one big problem with these two getting married,
because Philip was just as staunchly Catholic as Mary was,
and people started to worry that if they had a
Catholic queen and a Catholic king that this would completely
upend the Church of England and return the nation to
strict Catholicism. So before they got married, a bunch of Protestants,
(20:29):
led by Thomas Wyatt the Younger, hatched a plot against
Mary called Wyatt's Rebellion, where they would assassinate Mary, place
her sister Elizabeth on a throne as a Protestant queen,
and have her Mary Edward Courtney, the guy they wanted
her first place real into Edward Courtney. They love it,
but the plot was discovered and three thousand insurgents were arrested.
(20:54):
Robert Dudley got a new cell mate in the Tower
of London his old childhood friend Elizabeth Tudor, who was
put in jail on suspicion of being part of the rebellion,
probably because all the rebels were marching around chanting her name,
waving flags with her face on. Right. Yeah, history historians
are like, she probably didn't really have anything to do
(21:16):
with it, but of course, you know, got in jail.
She's just like, oh my god, all these people are
in the streets. They want me. I've got nothing to
do with this. I said nothing, but if you don't
want okay, okay, I'll do it. Well. Eventually, Lady Jane Gray,
whose father had taken part in Wyatt's rebellion and also
of course was the ex Queen, She was known as
(21:39):
the Nine Days Queen oh Man, Her husband Guildford Dudley,
and one hundred and fifty if the Wyatt's Rebellion insurgents
were executed, and Edward Courtney was exiled, which I feel
sorry for him. He's like, I'm just a perspective groom
for two ladies and then kicked out of my country,
like this is great. But Robert Dudley and Elizabeth Tudor
(22:01):
were set free. You oh, they were allowed to Elizabeth
was allowed to join her half sister, Queen Mary at court,
and Robert Dudley went back to his wife Amy Robsart
in October fifteen fifty four. So it's been a little
over a year at the tower. Robert and Amy. You know,
they needed a lot of help financially at this point,
(22:21):
since Robert's family had fallen so far from grace. Until
Amy inherited her family's money and property in fifteen fifty seven,
were sort of put them on some more stable ground.
But they still moved around a lot, so they were
often staying with different friends in different parts of the country.
But in August of that same year, fifteen fifty seven,
Robert went to fight for the now King Philip the Second,
(22:43):
after which he and his surviving family members were restored
to respectability at Mary's next parliament. Okay, all right, so
all right, yes, you guys like kind of tried to
overthrow us, or at least your families did, right, But
Elizabeth wanted you come sit at my feet in court.
It's probably as much of an insult as it is forgiveness, right,
(23:06):
And Robert, you just go off and fight for me,
and if you don't die, we'll be friends again, right, Okay,
And that is quite a relief, because it's no comfortable
thing to be in disgrace with the monarch. Yeah, although
sometimes being the favorite isn't so comfortable either, as Robert
was about to discover. Oh, they will tell you all
about that right after these words, welcome back to Queen
(23:33):
Mary's court. So Queen Mary the First, who we might
know better as Bloody Mary, but that's another story, died
in November of fifteen fifty eight, and it looks like
she never produced another heir because her sister, Queen Elizabeth
the First, ascended to the throne. And this is where
everything changed for Robert Dudley and his wife Amy. One
(23:56):
of the first things that Elizabeth did was make her bestie,
Robert Dudley, her Master of Horse. This is a very
prominent position. It basically meant that he was in charge
of all of his favorite things, like everything to do
with the horses and the hounds, also royal transportation and accommodation.
And he planned most of the festivities around her coronation too.
(24:17):
So he's like the royal party planner, right, the royal
guy who gets to hang out with the horses and dogs. Like,
can I have this position I've had? I mean he
was in charge of everything like the breeding dud horses,
the meat, like he's in charge of all of it
and then also whenever the court moved, which they did
a lot, he had to make sure. He had to
arrange all the transportation for all the stuff and all
(24:39):
the people and everything. He's like, you know those blankets
we put over him. I don't like the yellow trim anymore.
Let's make it purple. Give it some pizzas trumpet logo
on the side. He's like, feeling the seats, the cushions,
you know, Royal chaise. She's like, oh, you think these
squabs are good enough? Of the Queen's ass stuff with
(25:00):
more goose feathers. So obviously this was a huge job,
and everybody agreed that Robert Dudley was eminently suited for
this position. He was apparently quite the horseman. He was
also an expert jouster as well as an indefatigable tennis player,
(25:20):
and he was the Queen's most frequent dance partner. By
April of fifteen fifty nine, he was elected a Night
of the Garter, the highest honor in the Kingdom. Not
Dad Robert right from from below from the Tower of London.
So the Night of the Garter in a matter of years,
but of course, having eighty six jobs at court, meant
(25:43):
that he was never really back at his own home
very much. He visited his wife Amy a couple of
days over Easter in fifteen fifty nine, and she got
to come out and watch him work for a month
in May at court, and he also would send her
presents all the time. You know, Sorr, I can make
it m stuff and goose feathers again tonight. But that
(26:05):
was pretty much it. Otherwise she was in Hertfordshire and
he was at court. He was just required to be
at the beck and call of his best friend, the Queen,
which brings us to this episode's side piece, and what
a side piece she is. It's time to party. Queen
(26:25):
Elizabeth the First had fallen super in love with her
BFF Robert Dudley. She basically never let him leave her side.
One court chronicle recorded that Robert was quote commanded to
say he did nothing with his wife when he came
to her, as seldom he did. Wow wow, So he
(26:46):
straight up how to be there. I didn't touch her,
I didn't her. We did nothing. So it's oh, so Robert,
you were visiting your wife. What did you two get into?
H We sat very far apart and I turned my
back on her. In fact, that's right, you did what
I did, my beautiful wife. I told her she was
disgusting looking. That's what you're contractually obligated to say. Thank
(27:10):
you very much. King Philip of Spain, who remember, was
married to bloody Mary, right, and after she died, he
presented himself to Elizabeth as like a husband. Option. Oh sure,
because he's like one sister's as good as the other.
The main thing is that I want to be King
of England. Yeah, I was married to a queen. Everyone
else is a step down. It's so true. You know,
we gotta moves, at least, if not up moves. So
(27:35):
he had been kind of trying to court Elizabeth himself,
but he was informed by the Spanish ambassador quote, Lord
Robert has come so much into favor that he does
whatever he likes with affairs. And it is even said
that Her Majesty visits him in his chamber day and night.
Oh my goodness. So people all over the kingdom kind
(27:59):
of all over the world. This was like an international thing, right.
We're speculating that the queen wanted to marry Robert Dudley,
and Robert Dudley was thinking of divorcing Amy Rob's heart,
and there were rumors that Amy was terminally ill with
breast cancer and they were just waiting for her to die.
And then there were other rumors that the cancer rumor
was totally untrue, and Robert was just spreading that rumor,
trying to make everyone think she was sick though, so
(28:21):
that when she died it would be less suspicious rumors. Wow.
The Spanish ambassador was so sure that Robert would be
king one day that he concluded his letter to King
Philip quote, it would be well to approach Lord Robert
on your Majesty's behalf. Your Majesty would do well to
attract and confirm him in his friendship. Damn they were
(28:45):
really convinced. Oh yeah. In another letter he straight up said,
no one else will be king but Robert. Wow, this
is the guy. The Spanish ambassador was not the only
person who was certain that Robert would end up the
king consort. Elizabeth's court thought the same thing, and they
did not like it because Elizabeth was the unmarried queen
(29:06):
of a powerful country. So tons of foreign princes were
coming through with parades and trumpets and you know, all
the moisturizer on just trying to present themselves as the
perfect suitor. You know, Prince Ali is here, all all
the fanfare you can imagine. But like Jasmine, Elizabeth was like,
(29:29):
I am not a prize to be one. And she
turned down every one of those suitors. And they started
getting mad and whispered that, well, she's just not going
to marry anyone but Lord Robert, and that she was
just trying to distract everyone by pretending to entertain their
marriage proposals while Robert worked out had to kill his wife, damn.
(29:52):
And plenty of plots existed to kill Robert too and
get him out of the way. They're like, if this
guy's gone, we can finally marry this lady. So many
in fact, that Robert started wearing a light chainmail coat
under his clothes at all times. Couldn't get surprise stabbed
in the street. He was straight up like I need
to be walking around a bulletproof vest on mule. Well,
(30:15):
it all came to a head in September fifteen sixty
Amy rob Start Dudley was in Berkshire. She was living
in the best apartments at a relative's house called Cumnor
Place with ten servants. She's paying her own bills, she's
handling her own business, she's buying nice dresses and so
and so forth. But the morning of the eighth a
(30:37):
fair was being held in Abingdon, the nearby town, and
all the servants went to that fair, leaving Amy alone
in the house. When they returned, they found Amy in
a heap on the floor by the stairs, dead of
a broken neck. Immediately, the speculation and rumors began. Sure,
(30:58):
was it just a tragic accident? I mean, it's certainly possible,
But a lot of people were skeptical because the flight
was only eight stairs high, and that did not seem
steep enough to cause a fatal fall. So had Amy
been murdered so her husband could marry the queen? And
if so, who had done the evil deed? Well, I
(31:19):
say that we take a look at the facts and
the suspects and decide for ourselves once and for all.
Let's crack this case wide open. Right. If scholars who've
dedicated their entire lives to studying Queen Elizabeth haven't figured
it out yet, then we can do it in one
hour on a podcast. Yeah. So, welcome to the Court,
the Ridiculous Romance Court. Yeah, is in session. First, let's
(31:41):
look at the suspects. Obviously Robert himself. I'm sure someone
walked into the room saw Amy at the foot of
the stairs and the first thing they said was Robert
did it? Of course. I mean they had been speculating
for a very time that he was trying to do
this well, and he had a lot to gain from
Amy's death. Once she was out of that picture. He
(32:02):
could become one of the most powerful men in England
if he married the queen. People have done far worse
for less, you know, and not just the power aspect,
but he actually might have been just as in love
with Elizabeth as she was with him. Right, Robert wasn't
with Amy at the time of her death. He was
in Windsor with the Queen, which is a pretty solid
alibi and probably a lot of witnesses. But he could
(32:26):
easily have arranged someone else to act for him, right,
and one of his supporters was in Berkshire that day.
His name was Sir Richard Verney. Amy had stayed with
him for a while after her Easter visit to Robert
at court, and theories flew that Sir Richard had been
slowly poisoning Amy like Misha Barton in the sixth sense,
(32:48):
and when the poison didn't work, he was just like,
I'll just shove down the stairs, or at least broke
her neck and placed her at the bottom of the stairs. Right,
he went over to her house, scurry doll her servants
out to the spare, bro snapped her nick and then
just like placed her carefully at the bottom of the stairs. Well,
let's go over the defense. Historians are pretty skeptical that
(33:12):
Robert Dudley had anything to do with Amy's death. Historians,
what do they know? His story? I've got a gut
feeling after learning, you know, a few of the facts.
That's all I need, That's all I want to know. Well,
Robert's letters, you know, after he received a message that
she had died. His letters seemed to show a man
who is fully caught off guard. He's extremely upset, he's
(33:34):
very surprised by this news, and he is desperately wanting
to understand what happened. Okay, and of course, the point
of him killing his wife would be that he could
marry the queen. But the fact of the matter is
that so many rumors were flying around about Robert and
the queen and the nature of their relationship that if
Amy died under mysterious circumstances, there's no way that would
(33:56):
help them get together. The rumors would get too insane, yea.
And the scandal was so crazy that it's pretty impossible
for them to get married. This is the kind of
thing that could destabilize Elizabeth's rule and foment a rebellion. Okay,
so she has to be real careful. He has to
be real careful. So historians are kind of like, this
would not have led to what he wanted, so why
(34:16):
would you do this? And they also find the idea
of Sir Richard Verney trying to poison Amy slowly and
then snapping her neck and everything to be pretty specious.
And I do too. It does not seem like, yeah,
so I'm like, yet to stretch a lot that he
would be like, oh, seriously poisoning her for many months
(34:38):
drink hop But Robert, of course, was far from the
only suspects. And we will go over a few more
right after this. Welcome back to Court, where we're discovering
if Lord Robert Dudley is a murderer. The court, the courts,
(34:59):
the court Court. Next on court court don't. So we've
covered Robert Dudley and his buddy, Sir Richard Verney, but
what about Elizabeth herself. She was the queen and she
wanted to marry her favorite boy toy, So why don't
just take matters into her own hands or a lackeys
and just kind of clear the way. I mean, how
hard is it for a queen to whisper to someone
(35:21):
like I don't think she should be around anymore. Wink wink,
winky wink. It's all very house of the Dragon, very true. Yeah,
she totally got like little Finger over. She's like, hey,
little Finger, you know what event I'd love to attend
Amy robs Out Dudley's funeral. Yeah, that's the party. I
(35:42):
want to go. Real tragedy if anything were to happen
to her, But you wouldn't know anything about that would
But the thing is, Queen Elizabeth has pretty much the
same defense that Robert has. If she wanted to marry
this guy, it couldn't be with all these rumors flying
around about them conspiring to murder his wife together, right
and again, the ensuing scandal made it impossible for them
(36:04):
to marry anyway. And Elizabeth was not stupid, like she
would have been smart enough to realize that her enemies
would use this against her. In fact, when Mary and
Queen of Scott's, her chief rival, heard the news, she
immediately responded that Elizabeth would quote soon marry her horse keeper.
That's actually I heard recording of Mary, Queen of Scott,
(36:25):
that's exactly, which sounds like, oh what a bit I
love is she's acting like he's not also a lord
like noble. She's like she's basically like Mary and her groom.
Or she might as well marry the horse. Oh that's
what her mother to do. Well. Elizabeth was also notoriously
(36:48):
against marrying anyone. In fact, when her third stepmother, Catherine Howard,
was executed when Elizabeth was only eight years old, she
confided in her best see, Robert Dudley, that she never
get married. That's right, And some people think that's why
Robert married Amy in the first place, because he knew
that he would never be able to marry Elizabeth. Although
(37:08):
I gotta throw out there that, I mean, I think
I said when I was eight years old that I
would never get married. Gross girls are grit, you know.
I just think that's not really something you would take
seriously and long termed here a child say, I feel you,
But the child of King Henry who watched that many women.
I mean, she's got a lot of reasons to not
(37:31):
trust that. I feel like she would have definitely been like,
you know what, this is the third one. No way,
no way am I ever letting a man fucking be
able to swing no sword over? Yeah. I guess her
example of married couples was not too strong. Yeah, you're
eight year old. Marriage marriage ideas were very different from hers. Thank,
(37:52):
So who are you? What do you have a strong
father figure at home? Well, he's King Henry the eighth,
so a little too strong, designed to get well. Our
next suspect is that love match hating principal secretary William Cecil.
Do we remember him? Who's that? William Cecil was the
guy who was at Robert and Amy Robsart's wedding and
(38:14):
disparagingly called it a love match. Oh, here's the one
who vomited all over his shirt at the idea of
two people marrying for love. Disgusting about Well, William Cecil
was now like a main secretary guy in Elizabeth's court,
so he had even more sway over the queen than
(38:36):
Robert Dale. All right. It was basically Robert, William Cecil
and Sir Francis Walsingham who were in charge of the
country while the Elizabeth was queen. Ok. They were her
like three main dudes, and William Cecil's had been one
of the loudest disapproving voices at court, saying Lord Robert
could never be king, that was not an acceptable person
(38:58):
for her to marry, regardless of his marriage to Amy already.
He just didn't want Robert and Elizabeth together. Yeah, they
love each other. I won't have it. I say, this
man has too much sensibility. Now. Once Amy Rob's Heart died,
William Cecil certainly went around town saying, just as loudly,
(39:20):
you know, oh, there's all these crazy rumors going around
that Robert Dudley killed his wife. Man, that's so wild.
You think you know a guy you know? Wow? Like,
so he's walking around definitely spilling tea, drinking the tea,
and so he ruined the tea, he ruined the teaser.
That's so true. So William Cecil definitely benefited the most
(39:42):
from the scandal that blew up around Amy Rob's Heart's death,
and that's why people were starting to be like, maybe
William Cecil had something to do with this. Oh wow, okay,
like he who smelt it, dealt it, he who smells
It's kind of what they're saying. It's usually what we
find here at the Court of Ridiculous Romance. But his
defense is that historian feel that William Cecil, as much
as he disliked the idea of Robert becoming king, would
(40:04):
never have risked Elizabeth's reputation or his own by killing
Amy robs Hart. Okay, everybody knew that this amount of
scandal would not turn out well for anybody close to Elizabeth,
so it would not have made sense. And William Cecil
did not really believe himself that Amy had been murdered
at all. Oh okay, you know, he and Robert were
rivals at times, but they also worked together and they
(40:27):
spoke well of one another for years too. Okay, so
William Cecil was just using this scandal to benefit himself
in his career like any good politician. Sure. Yeah, Now
another suspect was Amy Robsert Dudley herself. Lots of folks
believe then and believe now that Amy actually committed suicide
(40:48):
that day by throwing herself down the stairs. The evidence
is actually pretty strong for this. The day after her death,
Robert wrote to his steward, Thomas Blunt, asking him to
open an inquest to figure out what the hell happened here?
Why is my wife dead? Thomas wrote back that he
had questioned everyone, and that Amy had insisted that all
(41:10):
of her servants attend the fair at Abingdon that day.
One of them even had refused to go. She said
it was quote no day for a gentlewoman to go.
That makes me think she's got a little mister Carson
in her now. He was like, frivolity. When there are
shows to be done, we could be polishing the silva totally. Well.
(41:34):
After this servant refused to go, Amy got really mad
at her and was like, you better get your ass
to Abingdon. I don't want you around this house. I
need the place to myself. I'm gonna put some music on,
you know, or relax. I don't want no peeping eyes.
That's right. Well, Thomas concluded in his report, quote certainly,
my lord, as little while as I have been here,
(41:55):
the tales I do hear of her maketh me to
think she had a strange mind in her. Scholars today
think that she was suffering from breast cancer and depression,
maybe exacerbated by all these rumors about her husband and
the queen. So of course she's just chilling at home
and just has to hear about all this all the
(42:17):
time every day. Well you know, your husband's fucking the
queen all night and she's like, okay, thanks, and we
know they were in love, right, So she definitely would
have been, I think, very sad and maybe anxious too,
because again, it's just it's not great for the king
or queen to like or hate you too much. Yeah,
it really seems to be like a very complicated situation. Regardless,
(42:39):
it seems like the best thing is if the king
or queen does not know you exist for real, and
she might be thinking that, Yeah, there's she's got the
same idea as everyone else, like any day someone's going
to try and take me out, right awful. So they
think that might have been why she would have died
by suicide in this way. Yeah, our final suspect is cancer,
(43:03):
the worst suspect of all because the chief reason that
people at the time thought that she was murdered. Besides,
of course all these rumors about Queen Elizabeth and Robert
Dudley was that the flight of stairs was only eight
steps deep, right, But the inquest at the time pointed
out that when she fell, all her body weight kind
(43:24):
of landed on her neck, so the height of the
fall didn't really matter. It was the weight, the weight
on her neck that killed her. And then in nineteen
fifty six, a medical professor named Ian Aird suggested that
Amy had metastatic cancerous deposits in her spine, which would
cause the bones to break even with limited strains. Oh wow, okay,
(43:45):
so it just kind of increased the fragility, right if
break would have been possible even at that high I
mean eight steps, it really feels like I mean, and
she didn't know that about her spine being more fragile
than usual, right, right, So it's still weird for me
to for her to think, oh, I'll just throw myself
down this very short flight of stairs and that will
(44:07):
definitely kill me, right, which is why it's more than
likely it was an accident because she just fell down
the stairs and happened to have weaker bones and died,
you know, like anyone else maybe would have been able
to pick themselves up or off the floor, but like
in her case, that wasn't possible. But then why did
she send everyone? I mean, we all want a day
(44:27):
at home alone. Maybe the fair was just her opportunity
to be like, please get out of here. And she
didn't know she was condemning herself at that point, But
it is so weird that she was so insistent, like
y'all need to leave. It's one of those where, like
you know, sometimes a lot of coincidences come together and
tragedy happens. But it does look sus as we say today,
(44:48):
like y'all go to the fair because I want to
dance around in my underwear with a broom, singing songs
like risky business. Yeah, And I can't have y'all spreading
rumors around this whole kingdom, not my weird hobbies. Right,
And she whacked the floor, put her socks on, went
slid down the hallway, and stumbled right down the stairs.
I also have to say, some stairs from the fifteen
(45:09):
hundred are incredibly steep. That's even at eight stairs. The
stairs might be higher than our normal standard stairs today. Right,
So I read or those witch stairs. Have you seen those? Yeah,
they're just incredibly, incredibly shallow steps, they're not uniform. Basically
a staircase made to murder somebody, but they used it
(45:29):
all the time. Oh, those are the murder stairs, the
murder stairs. So I don't know it is. There's so
many strange coincidences here. Yeah, and it could also be
that Amy. I don't know this. This doesn't necessarily work
with her character. I don't know much about her or anything,
but I'm wondering if she knew about all these rumors, right,
and they're making a real upset and she's super mad,
(45:52):
and she's like, you know what, I'm dying anyway. So
I'm gonna make it look real fucked up for them
so that they can never be together. I guess, like
from the grave revenge. Yeah, that's like down. Oh wow, Okay,
wait a second. I got two wild theories. I'm ready,
but I think they're accurate, but speculation station. Just to
(46:14):
be safe, go ahead. One, she found herself a body
and she faked her death. She pulled out her own teeth,
replaced them, put him in the put him in the cadaver,
broke its neck, threw it down the stairs and was like,
I'm out of here. Wow, I'm sick. Yeah. Then now
she's coming in out there in the world, she's coming in.
(46:35):
She's living free Tuter England. Yeah, coming in Tutor England,
in England, new on any Well, now i'd have to
be a reality so next on Bravo. Okay, in England.
But if that's too crazy for you, then how about
this the ghost of Bloody Mary. Huh, that's the problem.
(47:00):
Amy went into the bathroom and she was like, oh man,
you know, I'm just having such a hard time with
my husband and Queen Elizabeth I almost with her sister
was still queen what was her name? Um, what was it?
Bloody Mary? Bloody Mary, Yeah, Bloody Mary. And then Bloody
Mary came out of the mirror and shoved her down
(47:22):
the stairs. Oh my god. Look I'm saying that's that. Honestly,
that's a more believable theory than a lot of these. Listen,
I think Bloody marries go. Okay, So the Court of
Ridiculous Romance has found that Bloody Mary, for bey all
the Grave killed Amy robs O Dudley, just because that's
just that's just what her ghost does. Otherwise, she had
(47:44):
no reason too, but that's just how it worked. That's
why I was. I mean, I was too scared to
do it as a little kid. But I do remember
thinking later it's like, oh, you say her name three
times and she appears in the mirror. And I was like, then,
what I know? Worry what she can do? She's in
the mirror. But that's scary enough. But also I'm not
challenging Bloody Mary to show me what she does. Can
(48:04):
I tell you something really stupid? I would love for
you to tell me something really stupid. When I was young,
we did do Bloody Mary like everybody and sure, I
was like ten or something, and we said Bloody Mary
three times in the mirror, but I never opened my eyes. Yeah,
and we left the bathroom. And ever since, I have
been afraid that if I go into the bathroom one
(48:26):
night and look in the mirror, she'll be there because
she's just been waiting. She's been ever since I said it. Wow.
Sometimes when I like, I have to go to the
bathroom in the middle of the night or something, and
I don't turn on the light, I keep my eyes
closed while I washed, so dumb. I know it's stupid,
but I still can't that stuff berries in your brain.
(48:46):
I totally get it. Still can't damn like bloody Mary
oh man, she's waiting for you. It's so stupid. Every
time I do it, I'm like, you were so dumb.
But I can't help it. You know, I've had plenty
of nights where I'm like, I need the lights on.
I'm a spooky night. I'm in my thirties. But you know, ghosts,
(49:09):
I don't want them. I had no interest could be
out there. Yeah, I don't want them evolved in my life.
I gotta say, I'm sitting here in a brightly lit
room with no mirrors, recording this podcast in the middle
of the day, but I said it her name three times,
and there will be a part of my brain for
the next six weeks. Right that thinks like I'm gonna
turn the lights on in the bathroom. So I get it.
(49:31):
That's not that stupid. Well, I hope that they did
light as a feather, stiff as a board to get
Amy off the floor, just around it all out. Oh,
I'm glad we solved the mystery. I am too. You know,
historians are welcome to reach out to see how we
reached our conclusion that it's definitely bloody married ghosts coming
(49:52):
out the mirror. We're in speculation station. I can do
what I'm doing. That's a legal rule. Well, regardless of
the fact that we're absolutely right and it was the
ghost of Mary. The first a jury at the time
found that Amy robs Hard Dudley's death was accidental, just
a tragic accident. She accidentally said bloody Mary three times
in the bathroom. Okay, so she accidentally committed suicide. Now,
(50:17):
of course this decision relieved Robert somewhat, even though he
actually asked for a second trial so that another jury,
preferably one that included Amy's brothers, could examine the evidence.
He was like, please let John Appleyard was his name,
Please let him come and look at everything. Now, nothing
came of that request. They were like, no, we've already
(50:38):
done this and we've decided and that's it. But that
request makes it really clear that Robert really wanted to
be like extra exonerated, and that he completely understood that
no matter what a jury said one, two or three
or four times, the court of public opinion had already
decided that he was guilty, and his reputation was forever
(51:00):
a kind of destroyed by this, right right, So you know,
even though Robert and Elizabeth were now free to marry,
technically it could never happen at this point, but the
aftermath is actually just as fascinating as the murder mystery.
Even more damning rumors about these two star crossed lovers
(51:21):
started flying. Elizabeth tried a little matchmaking with poor results.
Robert knocked up his mistress in which created another murky
legal situation, and when he finally did find true love again,
he had to hide her from his unofficial girlfriend for
as long as possible. This is all crazy stuff, and
(51:41):
we are going to tell you all about it in
the next episode. That's right, Robert and Queen Elizabeth just
had too much going on. One episode of ridiculous romance.
Ridiculous romance, and if all this hadn't happened, we might
not have ridiculous romance today because of course, Robert Dudley
one of your ancestors, that's right, which I guess, I mean, well,
(52:04):
we'll get more into that next time, and we tell
you all about his other lovers and everything. Yeah, I
want to know how straight this line is, right, But
he didn't have kids with Amy, so we I know
we were not descended from the gentleman farmer from Norfolk. Oh,
I'm very incended from another woman. A well. I hope
you're all titillated by the potential there and join us
(52:28):
again next time. I'm very excited that we did this
because my parents mentioned it the other day, my father
and mother, and they said if we did this story,
they'd finally listen to the show. So we have two
new downloads today from my loving parents. Wow, we doubled
(52:49):
our listeners, so I hope you liked it, mom and dad.
We absolved our ancestor of murder by blaming it on
a ghost. Yes, you're well, it is decided. Well, that's exciting.
I'm very excited for next week's episode. I hope you
all are too, because I actually this is Diana's episode.
(53:11):
I don't know what happens next. Oh my god, I
can't wait to find out. I'm obsessed the edge of
my seat and I've got the lights on in the bathroom.
You know you know, how do you? Well? I hope
you loved it as much as I did. I love
a court intrigue. There's so many different relationships in this
that are ridiculous in different ways, so it's just a
really fun one to go over. Would love to hear
your thoughts. As always, we love to hear from you guys,
(53:33):
anything you have to say. If you have your own
speculation station about who murdered whom in this situation, would
love to hear it. Our email is Riddic Romance at
gmail dot com, yes, or reach out on Instagram. Tell
us if you've had an experience with Bloody Mary, either
the queen or the ghost. Either way you can find
(53:53):
us I'm at Oh great, it's Eli, I'm at Dynamite Boom,
or just mess with the show at Riddic Romance right.
We thank you so much for spending your time with
us today. We love you so much and we'll see
you soon for the next episode. Bye bye, so long friends,
it's time to go. Thanks for listening to our show.
Tell your friends neighbor's uncle s in dance to listen
(54:16):
to a show Ridiculous Roll Dance
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com