Note 9 — Chapter II · HAUNTED GLENS AND HOUSES

Robert Dudley [1532-1588] seems not to have been an admirable man, but certain facts of his life appear to have been considerably misrepresented. He married Amy Robsart, daughter of Sir John Robsart, of Siderstern, Norfolk, on June 4, 1550, publicly, and in presence of King Edward the Sixth. Amy Robsart never became Countess of Leicester, but died, in 1560, four years before Dudley became Earl of Leicester, by a "mischance,"—namely, an accidental fall downstairs,—at Cumnor Hall, near Abingdon. She was not at Kenilworth, as represented in Scott's novel, at the time of the great festival in honour of Queen Elizabeth, in 1575, because at that time she had been dead fifteen years. Dudley secretly married Douglas Howard, Lady Sheffield, in 1572-73, but would never acknowledge her. His third wife was the Lætitia whose affection deplores him, in the Beauchamp chapel.