Royal Murder Read online

  Edward’s body was translated to Shaftesbury Abbey with magnificent ceremony in 980, and it was soon reported that miracles of healing were occurring at the tomb which became a famous shrine with the result that Edward was revered as a saint and officially styled a martyr in 1001.

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  The twilight of Saxon England deepened when Ethelred, the son of murderous parents, came to the throne in 979. The boy was only ten years of age when he stood by his mother’s side and saw his beloved elder brother murdered. It made him cry so bitterly that Elfrida beat him unmercifully with a big candle until he thought she was going to kill him and for the rest of his life he refused to have candles carried in procession before him.

  Dunstan is said to have forecast on his coronation day that his reign would be an evil one because he had come to the throne through the murder of his brother. Through history he has been known as “The Unready”, but in his day he was nicknamed “Ethelred the Redeless”, which means lacking good counsel. For a while this boy king was greatly under the sinister influence of his ambitious mother, but as he grew up this declined and finally she retired to a nunnery she had built at Wherwell in which she spent her remaining years in prayerful repentance.

  After the Norman Conquest information on royal murder becomes more detailed though contemporary chroniclers often remained understandably circumspect, while those who came later were inclined to slant their histories to avoid offending the ruling house. Tudor writers — with Shakespeare prominent among them — were particularly prone to present history to the advantage of their royal masters. Thus for centuries the last Plantagenet king has been regarded a homicidal monster as a result of writings by those whose interest it was to make the Tudor seizure of his kingdom appear justifiable.

  There is no doubt, however, that the Plantagenets were the most murderous — and the most murdered — of our kings. The legend that they had the blood of the Devil in their veins must have found few disbelievers in their day. The story went that an Angevin ancester was married to a strange lady who would always leave the mass before the host was elevated. This disturbed her husband who one day tried to prevent her leaving, with the result that she seized two of her children and flew out of the window never to return. St Bernard once remarked of Henry II, the first Plantagenet king of England, “From the devil he comes, to the devil he will go.”

  Murder at court ceased with the Plantagenets, not that the Tudors were less bloodthirsty but they had a passion for the law — they saw no need to prepare poisons or send secret assassins when enemies could be removed legally by a stroke of the headsman’s axe or, if religion was involved, by being burnt at a Smithfield stake.

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  When Henry VIII fell in love with Jane Seymour he disguised the murder of Queen Anne Boleyn behind an elaborate legal charade. Early in May, 1536, she was accused of incest with her brother Lord Rochfort and of adultery with three gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and a musician. Three days before her hearing her four alleged paramours were condemned to death for high treason, which meant that the queen’s case was already judged before she was tried. One of the peers who pronounced them guilty was Anne’s father, thereby implying the guilt of his daughter. When she and her brother appeared before twenty-six peers, each gave a verdict of guilty. One of the witnesses was Rochfort’s wife, but she could not be regarded as very reliable as she was later put to death for helping Catherine Howard in her intrigues. Anne’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, passed sentence on them and an ecclesiastical court ruled her marriage to the king invalid on May 17, the same day her brother was decapitated.

  Two days later Anne was led to Tower Green where she declared to the assembled nobility and the London aldermen that she accused no one of her death and, while not acknowledging the charges on which she had been condemned, expressed submission to the law. The manner of her death was a novelty for the spectators as an executioner had been brought from Calais to strike off her head with a sword, a French custom then unknown in England.

  Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower, was so moved by the courage with which she faced her execution that he wrote: “This lady has much joy and pleasure in death.”

  There was a curious phenomenon about the quiet acceptance of death on the scaffold by Henry’s victims. While there was an occasional protestation of innocence, there was never a suggestion that a sentence was illegal or unfair. When it was Thomas Cromwell’s turn to place his head on the block he declared: “I am by the law condemned to die. I have offended my prince, for the which I ask him heartily forgiveness.” And Lord Rochfort, whose guilt like his sister’s has been greatly doubted, remarked that he had not come to preach but “to serve as mirror and example.”

  Perhaps these sentiments were the fruit of the king’s method of making everything conform to law, though a more chilling suggestion was that such behaviour was the price of an easy death in the days when victims were frequently “drawn” (disembowled). Tyndale wrote in The Practice of Prelates: “When any great man is put to death, how his confessor entreateth him, and what penance is enjoined him, concerning what he shall say when he cometh unto the place of execution, I would guess at a practice that might make men’s ears glow.”

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  Apart from the question of Queen Elizabeth’s famed virginity, the greatest puzzle during her reign was whether the wife of her lover had been murdered. On September 9, 1560, Amy Robsart, the neglected wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was found at the bottom of a staircase in Cumnor Place with her neck broken. The suspicion that she had been assassinated so her husband would be free to marry the queen not only swept England but the whole of Europe.

  The most curious and sinister aspect of the tragedy was that prior to September there was a general expectation that Amy Robsart was doomed, a sacrificial victim to the queen’s passion and the earl’s ambition. It was expected that Elizabeth and Dudley would marry, the queen had practically announced it herself, yet all knew that the match would be out of the question as long as Dudley’s wife was alive.

  Following Amy’s death reports that the wedding was about to take place caused English ambassadors at foreign courts to send urgent messages to London, imploring the Council to halt it as Dudley was regarded by the world as his wife’s murderer, and there was little doubt about the queen’s acquiescence in the affair. If they were to wed it would be taken as an admission of guilt. As it turned out Queen Elizabeth’s head ruled her heart and she did not make the same mistake as Mary Queen of Scots who lost her kingdom through marrying the man who had engineered the death of her husband Darnley.

  When Elizabeth inherited the throne in November, 1558, one of the first to offer his homage was Robert Dudley who galloped to her residence at Hatfield on a snow-white horse. The new queen and the earl were already friends; together they had been prisoners of the late Queen Mary in the Tower of London, and now she rewarded his devotion by making him her Master of Horse. When she made her magnificent entry into London on November 28 it was Dudley who escorted her.

  Although the new queen proclaimed, “This shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, has died a virgin,” she made no attempt to hide her feelings for her dashing Master of Horse. Though he was married he spent all his time with the queen while his wife lived a life of unofficial banishment at Cumnor Place in Berkshire — the house of Anthony Forester who has been described as “a creature of her husband’s”. Honours were heaped upon the young earl by his doting queen; he was made a member of the Council, the Order of Garter was bestowed upon him, as was the lieutenancy of Windsor Castle and a highly profitable licence to export duty free wool. The queen also gave him a handsome mansion at Kew.

  Elizabeth’s infatuation with Dudley was the talk of court and kingdom, and its development was reported to the Continental sovereigns by their ambassadors who saw political implications in every kiss and tiff.

  The Spanish ambassador Bishop Alva
rez de Quadra wrote to the King of Spain in November, 1559, “I have heard from a person who is accustomed to giving me veracious news that Lord Robert has sent to poison his wife. Certainly all that the Queen will do with us in the matter of her marriage is only keeping the country engaged with words until this wicked deed is consummated.”

  By the middle of the following year Sir William Cecil, the queen’s chief secretary, returned from Scotland to find that his royal mistress seemed to be completely infatuated by Dudley, to the point that she neglected state business while the object of her affections became increasingly powerful, being referred to as “the king that will be”.

  In a remarkable conversation with de Quadra, Cecil revealed his anxieties about the queen’s behaviour. “He begged me for the love of God to warn the queen as to her irregular conduct and to persuade her not to abandon her business as she did,” wrote the ambassador. “Then he repeated to me twice over that Lord Robert, were better in Paradise. And finally he said they were scheming to put Lord Robert’s wife to death, and that now she was publicly reported to be ill, but she was not so, on the contrary was quite well and taking good care not to be poisoned.”

  This meeting between the secretary and the ambassador took place on Friday, September 6, at Windsor. The next day the queen told de Quadra that “Lord Robert’s wife was dead or nearly so”, but asked him not to speak about it.

  On the Sunday a trusted servant in Robert Dudley’s household by the name of Thomas Blount left Windsor for Cumnor Place. On the journey he encountered another servant named Bowes who was hurrying towards Windsor with the news that his mistress Amy Robsart had been found that morning at the foot of the staircase with her neck broken. He had no explanation as to how the accident had occurred, she had been alone in the house when it happened. For some inexplicable reason she had insisted that everyone in her household should visit the Abingdon Fair.

  Elizabeth ordered Dudley to stay at his house at Kew until the verdict of the inquest was known. This was the expected “death by misadventure”, but it did nothing to stem the rumours. One of the most persistent of these was that assassins employed by Dudley — and the queen — had poisoned the unfortunate woman and then thrown her down the stairs in the deserted house in order to make it look like an accidental death.

  What has always remained a mystery was why she should voluntarily empty the house on that fatal morning. Was she expecting a visitor whom she did not want her servants to see, or had she planned an elaborate suicide in order to revenge herself by casting suspicion on her husband and the queen? What seemed to be the most damning fact in the case was Elizabeth’s remark to de Quadra about Lord Robert’s wife being “dead, or nearly so” a few hours before the event. Had there been a delay in the timetable of the murder?

  Ironically the death of Amy Robsart prevented the marriage which it should have made possible. Elizabeth must have been shocked at the allegations and suspicions which turned not only her own countrymen against her but became powerful political weapons for the Catholic kings across the Channel. It seems that the day had come when royal murder could no longer be overlooked. Elizabeth knew that if she married Dudley it would be construed that, even if she was not involved personally, she was condoning the Earl who was regarded as the instigator of the plot — yet if she did not marry him it would appear that she doubted his professed innocence. Her solution was to do nothing. Dudley remained the honoured favourite and behind the scenes the faithful Cecil worked to repair the damage caused by the scandal.

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  After the Amy Robsart affair murder was not associated with our monarchy until the establishment of the House of Hanover. Prior to assuming the crown of England George I was — as we shall see further on in this book — suspected of being responsible for the assassination of his wife’s lover. Later in England a son of George III was involved in a curious case of attempted murder, though at the time it was hinted that the would-be assassin was actually the victim.

  Born at Kew in 1771, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, grew up to distinguish himself as a soldier with the Hanovarian Army before returning to England in 1796. Here he remained until he became King of Hanover when that state separated from Britain on Queen Victoria’s accession. In the first battle of Tourney the duke had lost an eye and was severely wounded in the right arm in hand-to-hand fighting. Later he was conspicuous for his personal bravery in the sortie from Nimeguen when he lifted a French dragoon from his horse and carried him a prisoner back to his lines.

  In 1810 the duke was unexpectedly wounded again. The Dictionary of National Biography states: “On the night of 31 May 1810 the duke was found in his apartments in St James’s Palace with a terrible wound on his head which would have been mortal had not the assassin’s weapon struck against the duke’s sword. Shortly afterwards his valet, Sellis, was found dead in his bed with his throat cut. On hearing the evidence of the surgeons and other witnesses, the coroner’s jury returned a verdict that Sellis had committed suicide after attempting to assassinate the duke. The absence of any reasonable motive caused this event to be greatly discussed and the democratic journalists did not hesitate to accuse the duke of horrible crimes, and even hint that he murdered Sellis.” In 1813 Henry White was sentenced to fifteen months’ imprisonment and fined £220 for suggesting the duke was responsible for Sellis’ death. In 1832 a pamphleteer named Joseph Phillips stated that the “general opinion was that His Royal Highness had been the murderer of his servant Sellis.” The duke prosecuted Phillips who was found guilty without the jury retiring and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.

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  A different version of the events was given by J. Heneage Jesse in his Memoirs of the Life and Reign of George III, published in 1867. He wrote: “The murder took place early on the morning of the 31st of May. At about half past twelve the duke, after dining at Greenwich and attending the benefit of the Royal Society of Musicians, entered his apartments overlooking Cleveland Row. He retired at one. His sleeping room which was dimly lighted by a lamp which stood behind a screen in the fireplace. On the sofa by the duke’s military sabre which his favourite valet, Sellis, a Piedmontese, had recently repaired and sharpened. At two thirty the duke was aroused by a blow on the head, followed by a second blow. He thought a bat had got into his ap.artment. The light, however, gleamed on the sabre, he at once saw the extreme peril of his situation. He felt for the bellrope but it was not there. Now receiving a third stroke, he sprang from his bed and rushed to the door of the apartment of the page Neale who was in attendance. His assailant pursued him. He opened the door but not until he had received a wound in the thigh and other injuries. The assassin, having dropped the sabre, now made good his retreat. In the meantime the duke, with the assistance of the page Neale had succeeded in alarming his Royal Highness’ household.

  “The duke asked for Sellis and some people, dispatched to summon him, found the door of his apartment fastened. To their repeated exclamation that the duke had been assassinated no answer was returned. They then went through another entrance by the principle staircase, opened the door of Sellis’ apartment and were appalled by the most horrifying sight of Sellis sitting half undressed in a reclining position on his bed with his throat cut from ear to ear with life extinct. His countenance was not only composed but was said to have worn a smiling expression. On a chest of drawers near the bedside lay a razor and a basin containing water tinged with blood. It was suggested that after having attacked his master he rushed back to his own apartment with the intention of washing the duke’s blood from his hands and getting into bed as soon as possible. The approach of the persons sent in search of him told him that detection was inevitable and he committed suicide.

  “The fact is worthy of mention that Sellis was a left-handed person whereas it was the conviction of one of the physicians who examined his body after death that the wound must have been inflicted with the right hand.”

  In the Diaries and Correspondence of the Rt Hon George R
ose, we find the following account: “It was noticed, that there was a smear of blood on the left hand side of the doorcase, from the duke’s bedroom, to the state apartments — between four and five feet from the floor — and some unfavourable inferences seem to have been drawn from this. Sir Thomas Dyer told us that he saw Sellis’ body in the room, exactly in the state it had been found; that he sat, lying back upon the bed, his hands on each side, and his face composed, and with rather a smiling expression. That his coat was off, and hanging on a chair, as far as could be from the bed in so small a room. He observed that it gave proof that the blood had gushed from the wounds while it was warm; for that the left sleeve, between the shoulder and the elbow, was soaked with blood, which must have streamed on it from the sabre held in the right hand. One of his half-gaiters was off, and the other half unbuttoned; in short he had the appearance of having been interrupted in undressing, and of having thrown himself hastily onto the bed. When it was observed that the blood on the sleeve accounted for that on the doorcase, he said, he had not seen it, nor had he heard it noticed; but afterwards remarked on inquiry that Sellis could not have taken his coat off and placed it where it was after having cut his throat.”

  Colonel Willis, a gentleman who was well known in Court circles, wrote at the time what he thought might have been Sellis’ reason for attacking his master, declaring: “I strongly suspect that the motives which activated Sellis in his attempt to assassinate the Duke of Cumberland were the taunts and sarcasms the duke was constantly, in his violent, coarse manner lavishing on Sellis’ religion, who was a Catholic (sic). This conduct, in addition to the part the duke had notoriously taken to prevent the extension of entire toleration of that religion, appeared to be very sufficient motives to induce a bigot to commit this most desperate action.”

  Was Sellis a bigot? At the inquest servants who worked with him complained that he was irreligious. At this inquiry the jury heard evidence for four hours, debated upon it for an hour and returned a verdict of suicide against Sellis. The body was interred in the “high road” in Scotland Yard.