The death of Amy Robsart on the 8th September 1560 is an Elizabethan mystery that has caused controversy and speculation for over 450 years with historians still debating whether it was accident, suicide or murder. And if it was murder who ordered the deed?
Amy was the wife of Robert Dudley, Master of the Queen's Horse, the future Earl of Leicester. As the favourite of Queen Elizabeth I Dudley spent most of his time at court, he hadn't seen his wife, who may have been suffering from breast cancer, for sometime when she met her demise.
On 8th September Amy insisted that her servants attended Abingdon Fair leaving her alone at Cumnor Place, they returned to find her dead from head injuries and a broken neck. She appeared to have fallen down the stairs.
The inquest at the time ruled the death as accidental but suspicion remained that she may have been killed on the orders of her husband who many believed hoped to marry Queen Elizabeth.
Amy Robsart 's ghost is reputed to revisit her childhood home of Rainthorpe Hall, Tasburg near Norwich on the anniversary of her death where she appears in the garden with a gentleman who may be either her half brother, John Appleyard or her husband Robert Dudley. A September Haunting.
Amy Robsart 's ghost was also said to haunt Cumnor Place and The Old Syderstone Hall.
Before it was demolished in 1810, Amy's ghost would appear by the staircase where she met her death at Cumnor Place and it was seen walking the grounds at Christmas time.
There's a local legend that 9 parsons came from Oxford to lay the ghost of Amy Robsart in a pond which hasn't frozen over since.
Her ghost was seen at the home of her parents, Old Syderstone Hall, until that too was demolished. After the demolition poltergeist activity was reported at the nearby Rectory, it has been suggested that this was also the work of Amy's ghost.
Legend also tells that her ghost visited Dudley warning him of his impending death and that he died within the week.
Image: By William Frederick Yeames [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Other September hauntings:
Ghost of King Edward II Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire
The Grenadier Pub, Wilton Row, London
The Ghost of Annie Chapman, a September Haunting
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