The Original Staircase: The Death of Amy Dudley 

Having slipped and fallen down stairs myself, resulting in a fractured neck, I can say that falling happens in a split second, though it feels like slow motion. (had slick, wet leather soles on.) Also, I've been both a Renaissance Faire and Civil War reenactor and can say yards of fabric around your legs is treacherous. On some stairs, there's landings that are triangular, so if you start down on the wrong foot, at the landing you step into space where your mind thinks a step should be.If there's no rail, there's no stopping the momentum. Guess we'll never know about Amy. Great analysis Dr. Kat -- I'm really enjoying your work.

I’m sure she would of never thought that 460yr’s after her death people would be discussing her life & death!

BTW, one of the reasons I've stayed with your channel is the fact you use music sparingly and effectively, NOT constantly droning away in the background, distracting and detracting from the content. Other channels should learn from you that you don't NEED such repetitive junk going on in the background (though if the content is bad enough, I guess it helps to drown it out).

My staircase tried to do me in once too

A friend of mine was planning a vacation and dinner with her husband the day she jumped off the roof of a parking garage. People who are depressed to the point of suicide often come across perfectly normal, even better, because of the relief that comes from deciding that they're done. So her buying dresses doesn't surprise me if she was also actively suicidal. But I think the William Cecil explanation makes the most sense. He didn't want Dudley to be king so this was the most expedient way to do it. Or maybe she did fall and hit her head on stuff that might have been in the staircase at the time. How large was this staircase? A different friend of mine, her mother tumbled down a short flight of stairs and managed to break her neck. Dying instantly. She was a tangled mess at the bottom. Were these Tudor stairs stone? Was there a railing? Was the railing decorative? Was it metal or wood? She could have hit her head against it as she fell. As for her hood still being on her head, physics is weird. Tornado's can take out a whole neighborhood and leave one house still standing. Cars have landed on roofs and yet there's no damage to the roof. How were hoods secured to women's heads in that era? How tight were they? The whole shooing the servants away on the day of is pretty suspicious. I have no idea what to make of that.

When a woman buys a new dress and then sends everyone away so she can be alone, my first thought is that she's expecting a lover that must be kept secret. Could it have been her husband? If Robert had written to her, saying he wanted to come see her because he misses her, but it has to be a secret because Elizabeth is jealous and if she finds out he might lose his position in court, would Amy have understood and agreed?

I am in remission from ovarian cancer. Sometimes the pain was so bad that I contemplated suicide but not by throwing myself downstairs. There were and are easier ways. However a sudden extreme pain when going downstairs could easily cause someone to fall. It stops you in your tracks and you double up causing you to over balance. The clearing of the house is what bothers me - why?

You should do the Princes in the Tower or have like a 'past true crime' series. This is awesome, thanks!

Suicides can be impulsive and mental illness unpredictable, so I personally don't find it unusual that there's at least one piece of evidence of her being in an up mood or making future plans soon before she potentially took her own life.

I'd say your argument for Cecil being behind it is the strongest one. Certainly, if it was a simple matter of a husband or his lover getting rid of an inconvenient wife, they could have found a less suspicious means. Cecil, on the other hand, feared Dudley's influence over the Queen, and was devious enough to think of setting up Dudley to be the fall guy, at least in terms of public opinion, to contain the threat he posed. And yes of course; if she'd received a letter from any of these people to clear the house, hush-hush, she would simply have complied. Thanks for another great video! The detail you provide about this period, and the way you tie it all together, makes it really interesting.

You're my new RU-vid obsession! As an American, I wasn't taught much about the British monarchy, but I find all the court intrigue fascinating, and you really bring it to life!

Metastatic breast cancer is a heck of a thing. It spreads from the breast through the lymph nodes to the thoracic vertebrae causing bone cancer resulting, amongst other things, anemia. Perhaps she was ordering a gown made of heavy, warm velvet because the winter was approaching and she was already cold in the house (as evidenced by the fact that she was wearing a hood inside the house already, in the presumably warmer upstairs). If she was that cold from anemia, it's feasible her body was shunting blood away from her skin in an attempt to support vital organs. You're thinking of her from the point of view of a relatively young, healthy lady. What if this wasn't the case? What if she closing in on the end of her life? Perhaps the cancer had spread to her lungs and she had hypoxic agitation, perhaps she just wanted a minute without the hullabaloo of a full house. We don't know why she was going downstairs, perhaps to get something to eat or drink, at any rate, Elizabethian gowns, plus a cloak with a hood would've been awkward and heavy, especially for someone at the end of her life. Especially if they were lower to the floor due to weight loss. She either trips on the hem, or maybe gets dizzy and loses her balance at the top of the stairs, pitches forward and hits her head hard on a spindle or stair edge. This first hit would've been the hardest due to the initial lurch and weight of the gown. A force of 130 (100 for her, 30 for the dress) pounds at one corner is certainly enough to crush diseased bone of the skull. Then she slides down the rest of the stairs in her slippery velvet or taffeta and hits the bottom of the stairs hard, resulting in the second head injury and broken neck. We also don't know about the hood, it could've been tied in such a way it wouldn't have come off. If that first hit killed her (likely), there would only be minor blood loss as there was no beating heart to throw blood around. I would also like to point out that the heavy, white, lead makeup worn would have further exacerbated anemia and masked any paleness so popular in that time anyway. My thoughts are: hidden option E. There was no crime, just a tragic death of a very ill lady.

Cecil had her murdered which made everyone suspect Dudley and stop Elizabeth from thinking of marrying Dudley.

According to my Coroner friend the wounds all depend on the hight of the staircase, depth, width, length, wood, stone, steal, was there a railing, a half landing, etc. pushed, tripping over, jumping, someone that faints and falls, falls different to someone that is tripping over… what kind of clothes did the person wore. Someone with a lot and heavy clothes on will have less bruising, but maybe more bones being broken… what a fascinating case. Thank you for sharing.

My brother had a dangerous fall downstairs alone in a cathedral after everyone else had left. He tumbled helplessly head over heals and received deep purple bruises on his skull and upper back. He lived, but that was a close call. Poor Amy's fall seems completely believable to me, life is so unfair and so cruel.

I first read about Amy Dudley in a novel by Jean Plaidy in the 1970s. She set the scene for Amy’s death very well. It was a nail biting read to a young teenage girl! Anyway, that was the start of my obsession with all things Tudor and Elizabethan, and the mystery of Amy’s death still fascinates me.

Reports say Amy was already dying, so why would anyone need to kill her? Someone wanting to discredit Dudley or the Queen?

My sister's BFF almost died few weeks ago by falling of the stairs. The culprit? The long evening gown she was wearing, stepped on it and went unconscious immediately. She had a 30% chance of survival. She miraculously made it and thanks to modern medicine, she's doing great and recovering at home. Would she have made it in the 1500s? No way Jose. So yes, I do find the staircase and a reinassance dress perfectly capable to do that kind of damage

(Several years late, but I just found your channel the other day.) I wanted to speak on the dresses as a factor against her suicide. A few years ago, I started having gallbladder attacks. They were horribly painful and came on almost without warning. Over the course of about a year, they started coming on more and more frequently. It was when they were happening weekly that I finally saw a doctor for them. She sent me to a specialist, who wanted to have me in surgery that afternoon. I refused. My fear of surgery- of going under anesthetic and never coming back out, of dying on the table, etc., etc.- was stronger than the pain. We scheduled it for two weeks later. Over the course of the following weekend, I went from being calm and relatively cheerful to begging my husband for a knife, a spoon, anything that would get my gallbladder out. I prayed for an end to the pain. And I called my doctor to beg him for a sooner surgery. Thankfully he had an opening a day or so later, and I was pain free and gallbladder-less in 72 hours. So yes, I absolutely can believe Amy Dudley could go from a happy, not-quite-content wife cheerfully ordering dresses to a woman willing to face eternal damnation in under two weeks. Personally (and this is probably quite obvious, given my story), I think Amy did commit suicide. I don't know if it was to release herself from her pain or to release her husband to marry again or even possibly as a last act of revenge against her husband and the queen. A way to get the last laugh, maybe. Anyway, this was a fantastic video and I enjoyed every moment! I can't wait to watch the rest of your work.

What a mystery! The story of Diana, Princess of Wales, throwing herself down the stairs in a suicidal attempt as well comes to my mind. But, I think your points about Cecil are super intriguing! I wish we knew more about the cancer rumor, the pain treatments of the day, and the staircase itself. Dismissing her household is a big red flag for murder, I must say. I love this channel.

I've thought for decades that William Cecil was behind Amy's death. He hated Dudley and knew that a scandal around Amy's death would make it impossible for Elizabeth and Dudley to ever be together. I'm sure Elizabeth and Dudley both were heartbroken by the turn of events. Elizabeth even kept the last letter she ever received from Dudley which shows the depth of emotion she had for him. They were indeed star crossed lovers.

My money's on Cecil or someone like-minded. They or whoever they contracted to do it might have been too squeamish to treat an innocent noblewoman violently and so used the minimum of force. Sweet Robin made a lot of enemies. One of my favorite bits from Elizabeth R is when one of the other noblemen declares that, "One day, Dudley, someone's going to plunge a dagger into your heart." To which Dudley's own sister rejoins, "If he can find it!" Another possibility is that she was killed by someone who honestly thought they were doing a favor to Dudley and Elizabeth and were desperate for Elizabeth to produce an heir.

If she had cancer of the Breast, it could have moved into her bones, weakening them so that falling down the stairs would have caused her neck to break and even with her hood on hitting her head the bone of the skull could have been soften enough to split open as well. Or it could have been someone who hated Robert enough to want him tried and executed for his wife's death to get him out of the way for their own advancement at court. He certainly had enough enemies at court for that.

I have read alot about poor Amy, I felt sorry for her. Always believed Cecil needed her killed to set up Robert Dudley to stop his desires for Elizabeth and the crown and ruin his reputation. Cecil knew Dudley wanted power through the queen. The Dudleys were always power hungry. Only just stumbled onto Kat's wonderful videos.

You are a brilliant historian and gifted storyteller. Brava! Thank you.

I’ve always wondered if it was another Dudley trying to advance the family in an inept way.

My 40 year old daughter fell down some stairs and got a huge deep gash in her upper thigh left a nasty scar , she said she just simply lost her balance kind of steep/thin stairs ! Thank you for posting this !

Cecil was a secret go between long before Elizabeth became queen. He got secret messages to her when she was under house arrest when Queen Mary was having the Wyatt rebellion investigated. He had always intrigued on Elizabeth's behalf and did so later in his own interests - and the Queen's. If she fell so would he......

Much ado is made of the hood not falling off; I have to say that from wearing many, many hoods for reinactments and being naturally clumsy, the number of pins and fixtures keeping such hoods to your hair is such that yes, it could've absolutely stayed on, even through quite vigorous falling and pulling-at least in both my opinion and experience, anyway. Also from experience, nothing showing outside on her dress etc didn't actually preclude her from being hurt underneath; I was in a cycling accident and wearing pants made out of a gardarobe kind of fabric, and the pants were totally untouched, seemingly, but underneath I had such severe road rash I needed stitches, but the fabric was stronger than my skin and didn't rip (and I think also stopped it bleeding too much). If you consider that such a hood was stiffened with buckram and that the lappets may have been very dense, thick velvet, and then also consider the climate, while I agree that it initially does not seem to be plausible, in fact I do believe that her falling but maintaining her costume in such a way etc could in fact be honestly quite possible (although I do completely see your reasonings). We will never know for sure, either way though, sadly!! Edit: grammar & spelling

I believe the last thing Elizabeth wanted was marriage and especially to Dudley. While she may have loved him, she was well aware of his rabid ambition and was too intelligent to put a schemer in that position. In fact, I think she liked Amy and found her the perfect excuse not to marry Robert, enabling her to keep him as close as she desired when she did, and dismissing him when she so desired. I think she accidentally fell and tripping over those "deadly" skirts is easier to understand than any plot against her. Nov 2021

It makes me so excited that we are still finding documents like this. Who knows what is still undiscovered? Also, there is a documentary called 'Medieval Murders - Amy Dudley' about Amys' death if anyone wants more information.

I can’t like this enough. You are such a good story teller , wonderful thank you x

you are an epic teacher xx

I don't think Elizabeth realized the full extent of the ructions and scandal Amy's death would bring about until it happened. it became an international scandal and scurrilous books were written about the whole affair. She really did face losing her crown and maybe her life. So to quieten down the rumours and gossip, she sent Robert away from court, more or less throwing him under the bus to save her own reputation - and throne. He had to wait to be allowed to return. She must have known by then that she could never marry him. And her marriage would have to be a political alliance......

Cecil had the most political motive. However without being able to look at the actual staircase in the actual house one cannot rule out accident or suicide

Very good. I like your analysis of the death and potential suspects. I don’t know who I think might have killed Amy, if she was indeed murdered. But I definitely don’t think it was suicide. (Not because she was having dresses made - it’s a fact that people who plan to kill themselves often appear perfectly happy, make long term plans, etc, beforehand. They don’t want others to suspect what they intend, and having made up their mind to kill themselves they may feel more at peace, knowing that their perceived suffering will soon be over). If you wanted to top yourself, a staircase is the most ineffectual way to do it; you could be throwing yourself downstairs all day without sustaining a fatal injury. Jump off the roof, yes, down the stairs, no. But the most persuasive argument against its having been a suicide is, as you state, Amy’s religious beliefs. I don’t think that she would have risked her immortal soul, no matter how unhappy she might be.

From what I know of Elizabeth the first and Robert Dudley I believe that while they may have wanted Amy dead they where both smart enough not to use a method that was so suspicious. The most likely scenarios to me are that an enemy of Dudley killed Amy to make him look bad (or manipulated reports of her accidental death to make it look deliberate) or that Amy took her own life and attempts to cover this up cast suspicions on her husband. Sadly from personal experience i can tell you that doing thing like planing for the future (ordering the dresses) do not mean someone cant snap and take their own life.

I think Cecil had her murdered. That way there always be a tainted idea that Dudley had something to do with his wife's death

Dr Kat: What do you make of Dudley not attending the funeral nor erecting a headstone? Why would he choose to do things like this that would make him look so bad?

Elizabeth may have effected to be outraged over Mary Queen of Scots execution, but she did knowingly sign the warrant and later tried to blame the servant.....She also tried to get Mary's latest jailer, one of Elizabeth's courtiers and counselors involved in a plot to poison the now aging and ailing Mary, so that she wouldn't have to be responsible for her execution. The counselor was horrified and refused. Elizabeth was not nice to Mary in many ways and let her know she was "inferior". When Mary escaped over the border into England and was staying as an invited "guest" at another courtiers castle, she arrived in nothing but her ragged clothing and she was unwell. She asked for help with clothing and Elizabeth sent her some raggedy old dressings and ripped stockings. Mary was mortified. Elizabeth was not a very nice person underneath the great queenly air. She was every inch her ruthless father's daughter and she gloried in him and his memory, despite what he had done to her innocent mother.

This 'murder mystery' is extremely interesting and well presented! I would love to see more videos like this. I'm surprised to see so many comments blaming Cecil. One person mentioned the murder scene could be perceived as an accident (which was the final verdict), and anyone wishing to frame Dudley would probably want it to be more obvious. Also, in my opinion, Cecil would not have acted without knowing where Elizabeth's inclination lay. She was famously indecisive. She knew killing another Queen would be a terrible precedent and might set all of Catholicism against her, but she did want Mary Queen of Scots gone. By doing it seemingly without her consent, Cecil freed her of her the direct burden of guilt. By killing Dudley's wife and putting him under suspicion, he would be damaging the reputation of a dear friend of hers, not to mention taking away any chance she might marry him (she probably never would have anyway, but she as shown by her reaction to his second marriage, she liked him to be single). While he didn't like Dudley, I don't think he hated him enough to betray Elizabeth like this. I don't think Cecil was without principle, and murdering an innocent sick woman is different than executing a rival queen who has participated in a plot against Elizabeth.

Robert Dudley, and Lettice Knolly's are my 12 grandparents

Dr. Kat, you are my dream channel come true! I never tire of Tudor history (or any English history, except the Hannoverian period, which bores me). Thank you so much for all you do! And I think it was Sir William Cecil. 😉

My mother fell down a flight of stairs while holding a mug of beer. That dang mug landed right side up, directly next to her head, without a drop spilling out. She had a dent on the side of her head (she landed on her back). Her heart stopped and by the time I got to her she already had bluish lips. She was lucky. I was a first responder. She was airlifted to trauma and lived for another 20+ years. She had sustained a serious brain injury and had several surgeries. When I got home that night from the ER there wasn't a drop of blood on the floor.

Many, many, many years ago, I studied Medieval History as a second major in college. I love The War of the Roses and Tudor eras..I absolutely adore your RU-vid series. I can't get enough!

THANKYOU, THANKYOU, THANKYOU, I LOVE THIS CHANNEL 👌 my name is Nicky, I am bedbound due to disabilities and pain. I look for programs such as yours . HISTORICAL AND CORRECT . Also I have seen another program that had a person who performs autopsies and he read the recently found autopsy report and he said if he had read the report then he would tell the police to look for a murderer . I THINK IS WAS SIR CECIL........

It's May 2, 2020, I am under lockdown and watching a marathon of your very informative and entertaining videos. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and your most excellent way of making it all so interesting and relatable to a non-Brit.

You should do a video about Margaret of Anjou! I haven’t been able to find really any historical fiction books about her but I find Margaret to be VERY interesting! 😊🙏

Apparently Amy ordered a new gown and hood in expectation of her husband coming to visit - after a year of ignoring and neglecting her. She would want to look her best - theirs had been a love marriage (very rare in those times) and she may have hoped to win her husband back. But perhaps also he had told her he was bringing an honoured guest..........I've always wondered why Amy never had a home of her own, and was just moved from place to place. That was also very unusual for the time. Most married couples of their stature had a county seat or estate, or even more than one. Some had dozens of manors and estates all over England. Surely Amy wanted a home of her own. And children. She and Robert never had children. Yet he had a child later on with Lettice........

She kept his picture until she died...she loved him but I never thought it was Elizabeth. .you have me thinking thank you

My thoughts on this (and they're what I've thought for quite a few years) on this case. Elizabethan history is probably my favorite time period for English history. I think Cecil was responsible for it, for the reasons you laid out. He didn't want to lose any of his power and if Elizabeth married Dudley then he would have even more power than he had as her favorite and I think Cecil worried that it would rival his or be more than his. Cecil wasn't going to allow that to happen so he made sure that he involved Dudley in a scandal that would keep Elizabeth from marrying him. I think he saw it as his only way to protect her from Dudley, who he saw as just being someone that didn't really care about the Queen. Cecil thought that if he could block Dudley from the throne then he was protecting Elizabeth because I think he thought everything he did (even the things he did against her wishes) was for her own good! I will say, just for the information, that 2 weeks is a long time when you're depressed or going through some other mental health issue. I had no clue 2 weeks before my suicide attempt that I was going to do that. So I don't know that ordering the dress is reliable to go from. Actually, you can shop more sometimes when you're depressed than when you're not. But that doesn't change who I think was responsible for her death and that's Cecil! Thanks for the video, even though I know it was 3 years ago for you. I love your channel. Take care, k

I think her husband is the most likely suspect. He was desperate to impress Elizabeth and he had, I think, a tendency to rashness. He maybe didn’t think it through and he would have found it hard to poison just her in someone else’s home. Apologies, Robert, if you were innocent of this crime. Thanks Kat- an intriguing mystery presented in your usual excellent way.

It occurs to me that when Amy hit the sharp stair edge the material of the hood would have gone into that deep 2" cut or at least have been torn .

I love that you made this a Halloween video! 2018 seems like such a long time ago! A few thoughts: You are right, we’ll never know. However, throwing yourself down a staircase seems like an unreliable way to attempt suicide. I think drowning was more common then. And if it didn’t work, you’d be alone and wounded. One thing is that Dudley and Elizabeth could never marry with just an annulment. Her legitimacy was always in question because her father had a living ex. So he would have to be a widower. I see him as more likely to be this ruthless than Elizabeth. Did Cecil have any good reason to not want Dudley as consort?

I doubt Elizabeth was behind Amy Dudley's death; Elizabeth would never have trusted anyone enough to carry out such a scheme. She would have given it a minute's thought and realised that anyone she commissioned would then hold a powerful bit of blackmail over her. I doubt Robert Dudley did it because he knew he'd be the first suspect. And ditto on being able to trust anyone else to kill Amy. Plus, if Amy were ill, he would know that all he need do was wait for her illness to cause her death; people did not know what caused cancer or have any truly effective treatments but they did know it existed and how it generally progressed. I think Amy Dudley committed suicide but not in the manner the inquest thought. I think she did something in some other location that resulted in the head trauma and then... got up and walked away. There are many known cases of people suffering severe head trauma where in the immediate aftermath, they can walk around and seem quite normal for a short period, up to a couple hours. Then, as the brain slowly swells, they become disoriented and die. So I think it is possible that Amy threw herself from some other height, did not die but wandered around a bit, then attempted to return to her bedchamber and collapsed before making it up more than a step or two. The blood would have been pooled wherever it was that she attempted suicide but since people assumed she died at the foot of the steps, they didn't look for a blood pool elsewhere. If the blood were outside on vegetation, it would be easy to overlook. Tangential thought: even today, it is not unusual for suicidal people to remove or set aside things they were wearing before they attempt suicide, such as hats or scarves. If she had set aside her hood before throwing herself to the ground in some outdoor location, she may have knocked herself unconscious, then come to, straightened out her clothing and put her hood (and veil) back on. Perhaps not even remembering what she had just done, due to the brain trauma. As for her state of mind, a lot can happen in two weeks. If she were seriously depressed, she may have been indulging in a bit of retail therapy to lift her spirits.

I say Amy Dudley was killed by being hit on the head with a strong object that caused the 2 inch wound. After that, she fell or she was pushed down the staircase.

I have just found your videos, and after one , I have subscribed . I absolutely love this channel and your wonderful. I am looking forward to watching all the others. It is as if I just found a new pile of presents under the Christmas tree that I had no idea existed!!!!!

Thank you, this is such a fascinating story, at the heart of which is a poor lady who was most likely very depressed by her situation. My thoughts are that it’s Cecil behind her death thinking he is doing the right thing for the country by making Robert Dudley impossible for the queen to marry now amidst such a scandal. I bet they were close to finding a way to be together before Cecil resorted to this awful measure. Just my opinion. Thank you. 😊

Thank you for your posts, they are thought provoking and enjoyable 💐

I'm just revisiting some Dr Kat videos. Each time I re watch I learn something new.

Dear Dr Kat, Thank you for this fascinating , scholarly, absolutely brilliant study of Amy Dudley‘s death and the associated tangled webs Anne

Hello from 2020, which is definitely going much slower than 2018 😣. Thanks for helping it along though - just discovered your channel this week.

I would absolutely love to see this turned into an ongoing series!! 😍

This story is so fascinating to me, thank you for your always thoughtful and interesting storytelling. As a history student your videos are always an excellent example of careful studied speculation based on primary sources and understanding of the period of time in which you are discussing and I greatly appreciate your ability to consider all evidence and points of view rather than ignoring something that may be in conflict with another piece of evidence. I had actually never heard the detail of Amy’s hood being over her head and that key piece of evidence has now had me questioning everything I thought I knew about the case as previously I had thought it was an accident or suicide due to her sending all of her servants away, but the evidence of the hood makes it seem very staged after the fact and now has me leaning toward murder rather than outright dismissing it as speculation and gossip from the era. I love how your videos are so convincing due to your thoroughness in your analysis and assessments of primary sources rather than mere conspiracy theories.

Maybe she ordered the dress to be buried in.

Love your channel, Dr Kat. Can't stop watching! Surely there were "hit men" so that Cecil (or Walsingham) didn't have to soil their own hands.

Dr Kat - I love love love your attitude in this one - please do another one!

Katflix!!! Gotta love that. Love your channel... accurate, fun, thankyou for all you do. 👑👑👑👑👑

Fascinating! One of my favorite historical periods! Somewhere I thought I read that ER1 was so shocked at AD's death she sent RD away. He of course subsequently married LK. If that was the case, I doubt RD would have been unable to predict ER1's reaction, given he'd known her since childhood. ER1 was VERY politically shrewd. She played all the various suitors til in old age. She knew EXACTLY how important an advantageous marital alliance, and heir, was. Lord knows how Cecil kept reminding her of it. Marry a commoner? Doubtful. ER1 was far too aware of her royal status. Cecil could AND would do whatever is necessary to remove a threat to the Crown and the Realm. Period. Full stop. Cecil no doubt had faithful minions who could be depended upon to discretely perform any necessary task he put before them. Suicide, regardless of how desperate one's situation might be, was an seen up until fairly recently to be such a grievous sin, it's punishment was a powerful deterrent. AD would have had to have been severely mentally ill in order to ignore that prohibition. As for ordering a new gown, it is typical of those seriously contemplating. suicide (and who successfully accomplish it) will. GIVE things away, as oppose to acquiring new possessions. I know this personally from the experience of a family member. Bottom line: Cecil did it.

So glad I've found your channel I love the Tudor era Dudley was Elizabeth's passion she definitely had a hand in it Elizabeth's temper knew no bounds quite a cruel woman

Definitely one of my favourite videos to date! Enjoyed it so much 😊

Your amazing Dr Kat! I watch your videos daily! I love them! Thank you !

Am I the only one that wants her to make a video with Claire Ridgeway.

All these years of knowing about Amy Dudley and her untimely end and I never came across the fact that she had holes in her skull! Awful. Poor woman.

The thumbnail for this is so awesome. Caught my attention right away!!

Ooooh so glad you have nice long video!! I just can't get enough of your videos and hats off to the fantastic editing work too! New sub here!

Elizabeth would have known the consequences of killing Amy. She was far to intelligent and perceptive to do something that clumsy and damaging.

Yes, about the clearing the house too!......

Thank you for your excellent videos, Dr. Kat, which I have been so fortunate to have found during lockdown. This video was particularly informative and a thoroughly interesting topic to contemplate from multiple perspectives. I have also subscribed to your channel and look forward to your future content!

I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW MUCH YOUR VIDEOS ENRICH MY LIFE. YOU, DR. KAT, ARE A JEWEL!

Just a few thoughts. On the whole, was a death warrant something that Elizabeth could act decisively, or as in the case of Mary Queen of Scots was she generally very uncomfortable with. Would Cecil not have the means to influence the findings to say murder: conversely Elizabeth or Dudly could have had the findings come out as suicide. Could there have been a 4th suspect? Amy lead a very independent life perhaps she was involved in something that nobody was aware of. The hood is why I think it was murder. In Tudor times a married woman always had her hair covered. The killer planning to move her body may have made sure she was correctly dressed for being outside of her room, ie shoes, hood ect. I can also see a killer putting her hood back on out of guilt. Many killers do in fact try and cover or show respect to their victims, due to guilt. Strange as it may seem.

If she had ordered a new dress and wanted it quickly and then wanted the house to herself I think she had a lover and maybe he did it. She could have been praying that they could be together but maybe they argued on the day. Shame we will never know x

I've always believed it was Cecil who orchestrated Amy's death. I love the other suspects you've mentioned too! Thank you for such a well done and well researched video! Keep 'em coming!

Dr. Kat, I loved this!!!! Thank you for your insights into this 500 year old murder mystery.

After your talk I’m convinced Cecil had a hand in it. Thanks, very interesting.

My philosophy is to always start looking for the person who had the most to gain. Now who that person might be is always a P.O.V. prospect. So if you see Robert Dudley as having the most to gain--killing his wife is absolutely the WORST way to go about it. Neither Dudley nor Elizabeth is a fool. There were a lot of better ways to go about removing Amy than pushing the poor woman down the stairs. It's also much too chancy. Not everybody dies of a tumble down the stairs or I wouldn't be typing this, having done so twice. Cecil, OTOH, had EVERY reason to promote a suspicious death. However, that also came with attendant risk, since there was no way to be certain that A. Amy would die, or B. that his agent wouldn't be discovered or talk about it. So while he COULD have arranged it, I believe he was too cautious a man to risk it. My guess is that Amy's death wasn't really the result of any individual's plot. The scenario that I see is that Amy, sick and despondent, knowing her illness is going to be long, painful and terminal, probably WAS praying for an early, easier death. She would have taken whatever painkilling concoctions were available, meaning some form of distilled poppy would have been in the mix. All the distillations from the poppy, including morphine, opium, and heroin make one very lightheaded and sleepy. Thus drugged, and possibly not even conscious, she would have tumbled limply down the stairs. It's not a far reach from there to imagine such a fall, on the irregular and unpadded steps of a Tudor house, would result in her head striking any protuberance with a good possibility of not even upsetting her headdress.

I am a new subscriber. Love the series and the style. As a Professor (but of math and computer science) I appreciate enormously the work that you do and the manner in which you integrate the technology to weave the stories and help the viewer understand. You have great style and choice of topics. I am wondering about the poll. It is no longer there, and I have my own thoughts about it, I was curious to see the results. Thank you for your wonderful videos!

I’m a first time visitor and enjoyed my visit throughly, thank u!

Well-reasoned... If her death was an "accident", I'm a baboon...

The first thing that I thought (early in the video when you laid out the basics) was that she was pregnant by someone else, and it would be very obvious as she hadn't seen her husband since the previous summer. Then she calls upon the man with whom she had the tryst and he kills her. Once you started explaining more of the circumstances, I realised that I was applying modern crime story scenarios to a 16th century death!

This is still my favorite video of Dr Kat’s!

Thank you for this video. I remember an exhibition on this case at Kenilworth Castle when I was a child. I found it fascinating!

First, please let me thank you for your consistently wonderful presentations-- Your skills with storytelling are delightful and riveting! The lizard part of my brain says it was not: 1. Elizabeth (she had Dudley already, and probably didn't want to marry because she didn't want to share any power) 2. Dudley -- if he had wanted Amy offed, he'd have had it look far more convincing as an accident. Unless, of course, his goon totally screwed up the effort.) 3. Amy. The two inch wound sounds highly suspect. Somebody did that to her. Plus, her hood was still up. I first thought she may have a lover, but if she was in physical pain, would she really want a lover? Hmmm. There's a lot to chew on.... So, I vote for Cecil. To the Tower!

So glad I found your channel..... so well presented! Cecil got my vote. He was totally dedicated to the queen and desperately wanted an heir. BTW... I feel that the queen knew Cecil well enough to know that if she signed Mary’s death warrant, no matter what she “instructed”, he would move forward on it. That way, she could side step responsibility for the act and appear horribly distressed about it. They were so in synch, and understood each other so well, each accommodated the other. I’m sure not a word of planning had to pass between them. Optics are important. Dudley knew the gossip surrounding Amy’s death forever tainted Dudley as a viable consort to the queen. But Dudley’s failure to attend the funeral or erecting a monument is very confusing. After all the effort to plan a proper funeral and then not attend certainly didn’t help his cause. It seems like the queen would have insisted on it.... for optics.

I love this channel more and more with every video I find.

I love you Dr Kat 💜 your videos bring me joy every day ❤

I think Cecil makes the most sense :)

Amy Dudley, the long suffering wife of Elizabeth I’s lover and wife of Robert, I believe, did have a mental illness or maybe when he locks her in the apartments to return to Elizabeth, Amy had a nervous or mental breakdown like you said was it murder or suicide? Love that you delved into this particular subject!!! I had thought that maybe this was all “movie magic” due to the movie Reign, it was possibly just due to “poetic license” by the Director or Writer. Ohhh, I didn’t know “The Staircase” was about this incident. As an RN, forensically, there’s no way that she could sustain those large and deep of lacerations and still keep her bonnet intact. The bonnet could have been replaced on her head after she was cleaned up after falling and bleeding. You ALWAYS have the best proof and Information on every subject you delve into. I personally think the continued affair put so much stress on her mental condition she, in her distressed mental state or physical distress that she committed suicide after perhaps receiving a beating or 2 knocks on the head to hopefully put her into a state of unconsciousness so someone or her own self, in a confused state, could throw or fling herself off the top of the staircase. If Elizsbeth could murder her fellow Queen and Cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, it’s highly likely that with Elizabeth’s notorious temper, she could conspire or have ORDERED someone to murder Amy or in concert with Robert. Suicide seems most likely to “frame” Elizabeth and Robert and place that stain upon the “Virgin” Queen. It’s the gashes to her head with a bonnet in place that also makes me think it could have been replaced on her head AFTER they bashed her in the head cleaned her up and pitched her off the staircase. On the other hand, poisoning was a clever and productive way of disposing of ones enemies since no toxicological tests were available in that era. Amy could have been poisoned, bashed AND pushed or she was poisoned, became dizzy, lost her balance and hit the edge of the stairs themselves causing the gashes and broke her neck from the fall. The main obstacle to suicide is the bonnet. If you believe it was indeed suicide. With Amy’s history of mental illness she very well could have committed suicide KNOWING that suspicion would fall on Elizabeth and Robert. I believe Amy KNEW 100% about the Queen and Robert’s “friendly liaisons”. Writing to the tailor could be just as part of the set up. Suicidal people often appear jovial in the days weeks prior to doing the deed. Any way you slice it, this is DEFINITELY one of the best mysteries to this day and we perhaps will never know the correct answer: Murder or Suicide????? Collusion or Self-inflicted. You certainly lay out all the facts but one thing I know for sure....I’d hate to be the one who got on Elizabeth’s bad side. You’re a goner for sure! EXCELLENT PRESENTATION! Thank you so much! 😊

Wow, you tell an incredible story. No stone unturned. Like a roaring game of Clue. Thank you.

I found this story so interesting and the way you presented it made it more so.