Hi guys. Finally I have uploaded my re-write, which I have requested the extension from Paul. It was so hard with the topic I have chosen but I think I have tried my best to put the history together from a lot of research. I was not able to write exactly the same as my proposal in the part of Spanish Armada due to the space. But I am pleased to cover the romantic story in the English history of love triangle between Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Robert Dudley and Lady Amy Robsart which I have re-write ideas from the movie “Elizabeth”. I hope you all enjoy my re-write.
Cumnor Place in 1557
In Robert’s dream, he saw once again the empty room, he was accompanied by a priest of the newly restored Roman Catholic Church, and he had repented of his sins and recanted his principles. He had begged for forgiveness and slavishly apologised. He had thrown away all fidelity for the chance of forgiveness, and by the anxious turning of his head as he searched the faces of the small crowd, he was hoping for the arrival of his pardon at this late, this theatrical moment.
He had every reason to hope. The new monarch was a Tudor and the Tudors knew the power of appearances. She was devout, surely would not reject a contrite heart. But more than anything else; she was a woman, a soft hearted, thick-headed woman. She would never have the courage to take the decision to execute such a great man; she would never have the stamina to hold to her decision.
The door behind Robert opened and a gaoler came in and laughed to see the two young men up at the window, shading their eyes against midsummer sun. ‘Don’t jump’, he said. ‘Don’t rob the axe man; it’ll be you two next.’
‘I will remember you for this, after our pardons have come, and we are released,’ Robert promised him and turn his attention back to the green. Below on the scaffold, the priest stepped up to the condemned man, and read him prayers from his Latin Bible. Robert found he was suddenly cold, chilled to ice by the glass of the window he was resting his forehead and the palms of his hands, as if the warmth of his body was bleeding out of him, sucked out by the scene below. On the scaffold, his father knelt humbly before the block. The axe-man stepped forward and tied the blind-fold over his eyes, he spoke to him. The prisoner turned his bound head to reply.
‘Be still.’ Robert roared, hammering against the thick glass of the window. ‘Father, be still! For God’s sake, be still.’ The blood was pumping from the wound but the man still scrabbled like a dying pig in the straw.
‘Father!’ Robert cried out in agony as the axe came down. ‘Father!’
‘Robert?’ ‘My Lord?’ He opened his eyes and Amy before him, her brown eyes open wide.
‘Good God! What a nightmare! What a dream. God keep me from it. God keep me from it.’
‘Was it the same dream?’ she asked. ‘The dream of your father’s death?’
He could not even bear that she should mention it. ‘Just a dream,’ he said shortly, trying to cover his wits. ‘Just a terrible dream.’
‘But the same dream?’ she persisted.
He shrugged. ‘It’s hardly surprising that it should come back to me. Do we have some ale?’
Amy threw back the covers and rose from the bed, pulling her nightgown around her shoulders. But she was not to be diverted.
‘It’s an omen,’ she said flatly, as she poured him a mug of ale. ‘It’s a warning,’ she said.
Robert took a draught of ale, burying his face in the mug to avoid her accusing gaze.
‘A bad dream like that is a warning. You should not sail with King Philip.’
‘We’ve been through this a thousand times. You know I have to go.’
‘Not now! Not after you dreamed of your father’s death. Your father is warning you beyond the grave. You be a good husband,’ she retorted. ‘And don’t leave me. Where am I to go when you have sailed for the Netherlands? They will think you have left me because you are tired of me,’ she said reproachfully. ‘Anyone would think so. You have only just come home to me and you are leaving me again.’
‘Amy, forgive me. These months have been like a lifetime. With my name attained by treason I can own nothing in my own right, I cannot trade or sell or buy. Everything my family had was seized by the Crown. I know, everything that you had has been lost by me. I have to get it back for you. I have to get it back for us.’
‘I don’t want it at this price,’ she said flatly. ‘It is not what I want, it’s no good for me. I want you by my side.’
‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘I would rather be dead and my name cleared by my death, than live like this, an undischarged traitor from a disgraced family, in Mary’s England.’
‘Why? Would you rather have Elizabeth’s England?’ she hissed.
‘With all my heart,’ he answered truthfully.
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1558
“The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.”
“The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.”
“The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.”
All the bells in Norfolk were ringing for Elizabeth, Pounding the peal into Amy’s head, first the treble bell screaming out like a mad woman, and then the whole agonising, jangling sob till the great bell boomed a warning that the whole discordant carillon was about to shriek out again.
She pulled the pillow over her head to shut out the sound, and yet still it went on, until the rooks abandoned their nests and went streaming into the skies, toss in and turning in the wind like a banner of ill omen, and the bats left the belfry like a plume of black smoke as if to say that the world was upside down now, and day should be forever night.
Amy did not need to ask what the racket was for; she already knew. At last, poor sick queen Mary had died, and Princess Elizabeth was the uncontested heir. Praise be. Everyone in England should rejoice. The protestant princess had come to the throne and ringing bells for joy, dancing in the street and throwing prison doors. The English had their Elizabeth at last and the fear filled days of Mary could be forgotten.
Everyone but Amy.
Everyone but Amy.
This news of Elizabeth did not bring Amy to joy, she did not celebrate Elizabeth’s upward leap to the throne. “God strike her dead,” she swore into her pillow. “God strike her down in her youth and her pride and her beauty. God blast her looks and thin her hair and rot her teeth and let her die lonely and alone. Lonely and alone like me.”
Amy had no word from her husband. Another day went by and then it was a week and then it was a month. Amy guessed that he would have brought the news of Queen Mary’s death to Hatfield Palace and he would have been the first to kneel before the princess and tell her she was queen. Perhaps now he and princess were celebrating the great news together.
She knew that she should be glad to be Lady Dudley once more. She knew that she should be glad for her family and she knew she should be glad that the queen favours him. But she was not. She knew that she was a jealous wife – How could we end up like this? How could it start so well, in such a glory day and end in the hardship and loneliness like this?
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1559
The lilies were out in the Cambridgeshire in a sprawl of cream and gold in the fields by the river and the blackbirds were singing in the hedges. Amy went out riding with Mrs Woods every morning and proved to be a charming house guest.
‘How is Robert? Have you not seen him since the queen inherited?’ Mrs Woods asked incredulously.
Amy laughed it off. ‘I thought he would come home for Twelfth Night, indeed, he promised that he would; but since he is Master of Horse, he was in charge of all the festivities at court, and he had so much to do. The queen rides or hunts every day, you know.’
‘Don’t you want to join him?’ Mrs Woods asked.
‘Oh, no,’ Amy said. ‘I went to London with him when his father was alive and the whole family was at court and it was dreadful!’
Mrs Woods laughed at her. ‘What caused you to be dreadful?’
‘There is nothing to do and but stand and talk of nothing. There is the business of the Privy Council and Parliament to discuss.
Mrs Woods laughed at her again. ‘But the life in court pleases Robert. What about you?’ Mrs Woods bringing her horse alongside the younger woman.
‘I keep faith, I wait for him.’ Amy said.
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Elizabeth had restored private letter from Philip of Spain, had went far enough to alarm William Cecil and Robert Dudley.
‘I’m certain that she is only securing Philip as an ally and amusing herself,’ Mary Sidney said to reassure her brother.
‘Does she want him to stand her friend so that she can against the Scottish regent? Does she like Cecil’s plan to support the Scottish Protestants? Is she planning for war as Cecil suggested?’ Robert asked his sister worriedly.
‘She worries what enemies she might unleash here. She is living in the terror of someone coming against her and secretly harms her. She dares not to do anything to increase the number of enemies.’ She replied. ‘Cecil would have her marry Arran.’ Mary guessed. ‘Cecil hates Spanish and France is our greatest danger.’
‘Have you ever seen Arran?’ he asked.
‘No, but Catherine Knollys speaks very highly of him. She says he is handsome and clever, and of course his claim to the throne of Scotland is second only to Mary, Queen of Scots. If the queen marries him and he defeats the regent and takes the throne, then their sons would unite the Kingdoms.’ She said.
‘He is our greatest danger,’ Dudley said with his face darken.
‘She likes you better than any other man at the court,’ she said, smiling. ‘She is always saying how skilled you are and how handsome you be. She is always remarking on it.’
‘What good is that to me since I have a wife?’ he asked. ‘Elizabeth would not marry against policy, whatever her desires. And I am not a free man.’ he said.
‘The queen only has her eyes for you; the entire world can see that! Half the men at the court hate you for this.’ She said. ‘But I never dreamed that you thought of anything more.’
‘Of course I think of it,’ He said. ‘But I cannot imagine how it might come to me. I am a married man and my wife is not strong; but she is not likely to die within the next twenty years, and I would not wish it on her. Elizabeth is a Tudor inherited, she will marry for power and desire, just as her sister did. Arran would be a great match for her; he could unite the Scots against any nations. England would become an unbeatable kingdom.’
‘It is best for England, even if it might be against our own personal desires?’ she looked at her brother.
‘What is good for England is good for the great family, The Tudor, The Parrs, The Cecils and The Seymours. And the one that greatest of them all is the one that manages its own business the best,’ he said. ‘There is no point in being the favourite unless you raise yourself to the first man in the land.’
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1560
Amy paid a visit to Mrs Woods once again in end of August month and told her that she must leave at once.
‘I am so sorry you are going,’ Mrs Woods said warmly.
‘I will come another year, if I can,’ she said. ‘Sir Robert has just sent for me to go to meet him at Camberwell, I have to go at once.’
‘To Camberwell? Does he mean you to go to the city? Will he take you to court? Shall you see the queen?’ Mrs Woods said.
‘I don’t know,’ Amy said, laughing with joy. ‘I will write and tell you all. Everything! What the queen is wearing, and who is with her, and everything.’
‘Perhaps she will take you as one of her ladies in waiting,’ Mrs Woods said.
Amy shook her head. ‘Oh no! I couldn’t do it. He would not ask it of me. He knows I cannot bear court life. But if we had the Flitcham Hall for all the summer, I could live with him in London in the winter.’
‘I think you could! How grand he is becoming, how grand you will be, you must not forget me.’ Mrs Woods gave a little cry. ‘Such a hurry!’
‘I cannot delay, my lord wants me.’ Amy said.
‘Perhaps I may call on you in London. Perhaps I shall call on you in your new London house.’ Mrs Woods said.
‘Thank you; I have had such a merry visit. And when my lord and I are settled in our new house you shall come and stay with me.’ Amy said.
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September 1560
Elizabeth’s birthday celebrations, which had started with a roar of guns, ended in a blaze of fireworks that she viewed from a barge in the Thames, with her closest friends and her lover at her side.
‘She will have to marry soon,’ Laetitia observed. ‘Or she’ll have left it too late. Well, you have seen to that. ‘For being betrothed without love I am unlikely to find it now.’
‘For most women it is better to marry well than to marry for love,’ Catherine said. ‘Love may follow.’
‘It didn’t follow for Amy Dudley,’ Laetitia said.
‘A man like Robert Dudley would bring trouble for his lover or his wife,’ Catherine said. As they watched, the barge rocked and Elizabeth stumbled a little. At once Robert’s arm was around her waist and, careless of the watching crowds, she let him hold her and leaned back against him so that she could feel the warmth of his body at her back.
‘Come to my room tonight,’ he whispered in her ear.
‘You will break my heart,’ she whispered. ‘But I cannot. It is my time of the month. Next week I shall come back to you.’
‘It had better be soon,’ he warned her. ‘Or I shall come to your bedchamber before the whole court.’
‘Would you dare to do that?’ she whispered.
‘Try me,’ he recommended.
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Back in Cumnor Place 8 September, 1560
Amy, seated in the silent house, waited for Robert’s arrival, as he had promised in his letter. The house was quite empty except for old Mrs Owen who had gone to sleep in her room after an early dinner. Amy had walked in the garden, and then, obedient to the instructions in Robert’s letter, gone to wait in her room in the empty house.
The window overlooked the drive and she sat in the window seat and watched for the Dudley and his horse. ‘Perhaps he has quarrelled with her,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Perhaps she is tired of him. Or perhaps she has finally agreed to marry the archduke of France and they know that they have to be apart.’
Whatever the reason be. I have to take him back without reproach. That would be my duty to him as his wife. She could not stop her heart from lifting.
She heard the sound of a single horse and she looked out of the window. It was not one of Robert’s horses, and not Robert. It was another man, bowed low over the neck of the horse, his hat pulled down over his face. Since no servants at home, she had better go and greet this stranger herself. But as she did so, her bedroom door silently opened, and a tall stranger came in quietly and shut the door behind him.
‘Who are you,’ Amy gasped.
‘Lady Amy Dudley? Sir Robert’s Dudley’s wife?’ stranger said.
‘Yes, and you are?’ She asked.
At once the man stepped behind her. In one swift motion he took her jaw in his hands and quickly twisted her neck sideways and upwards. It broke with a crack, and she slumped in his hands without even a cry.
He lowered her to the floor, listening intently. There was no sound in the house at all. She had sent everyone away, as she had been told to do. He picked her up, she was as light as a child, her cheeks still flushed pink from the moment that she thought that Robert had come to love her. The man held her in his arms and carried her carefully from the room, down the little winding stone stair, a short flight of half a dozen steps, and laid her at the foot, as if she had fallen.
He paused and listened again. Still, the house was silent. Amy’s hood was slipping back off her head, and her gown was crumpled, showing her legs. Gently, he pulled down the skirts of the gown and put the hood straight on her head. Her forehead was still warm, her skin soft to his touch. It was like leaving a sleeping child.
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Amy’s body was found by two servants who had come home from the fair, a little ahead of the others. They were courting and had hoped to steal an hour alone together. When they came into the house they saw her, lying at the foot of the stairs, her skirts pulled down, her hood set tidily on her head. The girl screamed and fainted, but the young man gently picked up the body and laid her on her bed. When Mrs Forster came home they met her at the gate and told her that Lady Dudley was dead from falling down the stairs.
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