The Tudor Society
  • 4 June – Robert Dudley and Amy Robsart get married

    On this day in Tudor history, 4th June 1550, sweethearts Robert Dudley and Amy Robsart tied the knot at the royal palace of Sheen at Richmond in a service attended by King Edward VI.

    This marriage was a love-match, but it lasted just ten years, ending with Amy’s death in 1560, a death which is surrounded by controversy.

    I share an excerpt from my book “On This Day in Tudor History” in today’s video.

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  • Amy Robsart – What do we really know about her by Christine Hartweg

    Thank you to Christine Hartweg, author of Amy Robsart: A Life and its End for writing this guest article on Amy Robsart, wife of Robert Dudley, for us today.

    Who was Amy Robsart? And what do we really know about her? And why?

    In 1559, the Imperial ambassador at Elizabeth I’s court wrote that Robert Dudley, Elizabeth’s great favourite, was “married to a beautiful wife” (but of course the ambassador had never seen her). We know for certain, on the other hand, that Amy Robsart was born on 7 June 1532 in Norfolk. Like her future husband, who was almost exactly the same age, she grew up in an “evangelical” (or Protestant) family. It is possible, even likely, that the marriage of Amy and Robert was a love match. They were married on 4 June 1550 in the presence of King Edward VI.

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  • 8 September 1560 – The Death of Amy Dudley

    On 8th September 1560, Amy Dudley (née Robsart), wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, died at her rented home, Cumnor Place in Oxfordshire.

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  • 4 June 1550 – The marriage of Robert Dudley and Amy Robsart

    On 4th June 1550 (some sources say the 5th), Robert Dudley married Amy Robsart at the royal palace of Sheen at Richmond, near London. The marriage was attended by the then king, Edward VI.

    Both Amy and Dudley were a few days short of their 18th birthdays when they got married, and the marriage was a love-match, or a “carnal marriage” as William Cecil described it, rather than an arranged union. The couple were sweethearts and very much in love, but it was not to be a happy marriage and events conspired against them.

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