He is infamed by the death of
his wife," said Burghley, and the tale has since become so interwoven
with classic and legendary fiction, as well as with more authentic
history, that the phantom of the murdered Amy Robsart is sure to arise at
every mention of the Earl's name. Yet a coroner's inquest--as appears
from his own secret correspondence with his relative and agent at
Cumnor--was immediately and persistently demanded by Dudley. A jury was
impaneled--every man of them a stranger to him, and some of them
enemies. Antony Forster, Appleyard, and Arthur Robsart, brother-in-law
and brother of the lady, were present, according to Dudley's special
request; "and if more of her friends could have been sent," said he, "I
would have sent them;" but with all their minuteness of inquiry, "they
could find," wrote Blount, "no presumptions of evil," although he
expressed a suspicion that "some of the jurymen were sorry that they
could not." That the unfortunate lady was killed by a fall down stairs
was all that could be made of it by a coroner's inquest, rather hostile
than otherwise, and urged to rigorous investigation by the supposed
culprit himself. Nevertheless, the calumny has endured for three
centuries, and is likely to survive as many more.

Whatever crimes Dudley may have committed in the course of his career,
there is no doubt whatever that he was the most abused man in Europe. He
had been deeply wounded by the Jesuit's artful publication, in which all
the misdeeds with which he was falsely or justly charged were drawn up in
awful array, in a form half colloquial, half judicial. "You had better
give some contentment to my Lord Leicester," wrote the French envoy from
London to his government, "on account of the bitter feelings excited in
him by these villainous books lately written against him."

The Earl himself ascribed these calumnies to the Jesuits, to the Guise
faction, and particularly to--the Queen of Scots. He was said, in
consequence, to have vowed an eternal hatred to that most unfortunate and
most intriguing Princess. "Leicester has lately told a friend," wrote
Charles Paget, "that he will persecute you to the uttermost, for that he
supposeth your Majesty to be privy to the setting forth of the book
against him." Nevertheless, calumniated or innocent he was at least
triumphant over calumny. Nothing could shake his hold upon Elizabeth's
affections. The Queen scorned but resented the malignant attacks upon the
r