Already in April 1559 court observers noted that Elizabeth never let Dudley from her side; but her favour did not extend to his wife.
Lady Amy Dudley lived in different parts of the country since her ancestral manor house was uninhabitable.
Her husband visited her for four days at Easter 1559 and she spent a month around London in the early summer of the same year.
They never saw each other again; Dudley was with the Queen at Windsor Castle and possibly planning a visit to her, when his wife was found dead at her residence Cumnor Place near Oxford on 8 September 1560:
There came to me Bowes, by whom I do understand that my wife is dead and as he sayeth by a fall from a pair of stairs.
Little other understanding can I have of him.
The greatness and the suddenness of the misfortune doth so perplex me, until I do hear from you how the matter standeth, or how this evil should light upon me, considering what the malicious world will bruit, as I can take no rest.

Retiring to his house at Kew, away from court as from the putative crime scene, he pressed for an impartial inquiry which had already begun in the form of an inquest.
The jury found that it was an accident: Lady Dudley, staying alone "in a certain chamber", had fallen down the adjoining stairs, sustaining two head injuries and breaking her neck.
It was widely suspected that Dudley had arranged his wife's death to be able to marry the Queen.
The scandal played into the hands of nobles and politicians who desperately tried to prevent Elizabeth from marrying him.

Most historians have considered murder to be unlikely.
The coroner's report came to light in The National Archives in 2008 and is compatible with an accidental fall as well as suicide or other violence.
In the absence of the forensic findings of 1560, it was often assumed that a simple accident could not be the explanation—on the basis of near-contemporary tales that Amy Dudley was found at the bottom of a short flight of stairs with a broken neck, her headdress still standing undisturbed "upon her head", a detail that first appeared as a satirical remark in the libel Leicester's Commonwealth of 1584 and has ever since been repeated for a fact.
To account for such oddities and evidence that she was ill, it was suggested in 1956 by Ian Aird, a professor of surgery, that Amy Dudley might have suffered from breast cancer, which through metastatic cancerous deposits in the spine, could have caused her neck to break under only limited strain, such as a short fall or even just coming down the stairs.
This explanation has been widely accepted.
Suicide has also often been considered an option, motives being Amy Dudley's depression or mortal illness.
Already in April 1559 court observers noted that Elizabeth never let Dudley from her side; but her favour did not extend to his wife. Lady Amy Dudley lived in different parts of the country since her ancestral manor house was uninhabitable. Her husband visited her for four days at Easter 1559 and she spent a month around London in the early summer of the same year. They never saw each other again; Dudley was with the Queen at Windsor Castle and possibly planning a visit to her, when his wife was found dead at her residence Cumnor Place near Oxford on 8 September 1560:
There came to me Bowes, by whom I do understand that my wife is dead and as he sayeth by a fall from a pair of stairs. Little other understanding can I have of him. The greatness and the suddenness of the misfortune doth so perplex me, until I do hear from you how the matter standeth, or how this evil should light upon me, considering what the malicious world will bruit, as I can take no rest.
Retiring to his house at Kew, away from court as from the putative crime scene, he pressed for an impartial inquiry which had already begun in the form of an inquest. The jury found that it was an accident: Lady Dudley, staying alone "in a certain chamber", had fallen down the adjoining stairs, sustaining two head injuries and breaking her neck. It was widely suspected that Dudley had arranged his wife's death to be able to marry the Queen. The scandal played into the hands of nobles and politicians who desperately tried to prevent Elizabeth from marrying him.
Most historians have considered murder to be unlikely. The coroner's report came to light in The National Archives in 2008 and is compatible with an accidental fall as well as suicide or other violence. In the absence of the forensic findings of 1560, it was often assumed that a simple accident could not be the explanation—on the basis of near-contemporary tales that Amy Dudley was found at the bottom of a short flight of stairs with a broken neck, her headdress still standing undisturbed "upon her head", a detail that first appeared as a satirical remark in the libel Leicester's Commonwealth of 1584 and has ever since been repeated for a fact. To account for such oddities and evidence that she was ill, it was suggested in 1956 by Ian Aird, a professor of surgery, that Amy Dudley might have suffered from breast cancer, which through metastatic cancerous deposits in the spine, could have caused her neck to break under only limited strain, such as a short fall or even just coming down the stairs. This explanation has been widely accepted. Suicide has also often been considered an option, motives being Amy Dudley's depression or mortal illness.
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester