ABSTRACT
Born in about 1532, Amy Robsart was the daughter of Sir John Robsart of
Syderstone, Norfolk, a prominent county gentleman who served as knight of
the shire and (twice) as sheriff of Norfolk. Robert Dudley, also born about 1532,
later earl of Leicester, came from a more remarkable family.2 His grandfather
was Edmund Dudley, Henry VII’s grasping minister who was executed for
alleged treason in 1509. His father was John Dudley, who rose in Henry VIII’s
service, especially in the 1540s, to become earl of Warwick, and then the
effective ruler of England in the latter part of the minority of Edward VI,
between 1549 and 1553, taking the title of duke of Northumberland in 1551.
Northumberland attempted on Edward VI’s death in 1553 to divert the
succession away from Mary to Lady Jane Grey, an attempt that failed and led
to his ultimate execution for treason in 1554. In more prosperous times
Northumberland had been trying to establish himself as an influential regional
magnate, acquiring lands in Norfolk held by the Howards dukes of Norfolk.
As part of this policy, no doubt, he married Robert, one of his younger sons,
to Amy Robsart, a marriage that brought a potential inheritance of several
north-west Norfolk manors. It is also possible (though speculative) that
Northumberland was also paying off some political debts to the Robsart family,
if one supposes that the rebellion in East Anglia led by Robert Ket may in part
have been instigated or at least furthered by Northumberland to embarrass
Protector Somerset. A prosperous yeoman-farmer-cum-tanner, Robert Ket
married Alice Appleyard, brother of Robert Appleyard whose widow married
Sir John Robsart, whose daughter Amy married Robert Dudley in 1550. How
significant was that real but indirect link between Ket and Northumberland?
Northumberland held the manor of Wymondham and leased it to Ket: Ket was
his tenant. In late 1549 Robert Ket was hanged for his part in the rebellion.
In June 1551 Northumberland gave Ket’s son William a new lease of the manor
of Wymondham, a striking gesture given that William’s father had been
executed. This raises the possibility – the faint possibility – that Warwick,
anxious to topple Protector Somerset, may have sought to demonstrate the
disastrous consequences of his rule by getting his tenant Ket to exploit agrarian
discontent, to stir up or to further riots. What actually happened might on such
an interpretation have been much more than was originally intended and it
may have gone way beyond anything that Warwick would have envisaged. All
this is fascinating, but in the last resort, I think, unpersuasive: after all it was
Warwick who ultimately bloodily defeated the Norfolk rebels.3
