Question from Victoria - Amy Robsart and Robert Dudley's relationship
posted by Lara | 4:53 PM
Do you believe there ever was love between Amy Robsart abd Robert Dudley when they were first married and before he became favored by the Queen. I read one account that the marriage began very happily, and another account that said it was a contractual marriage and they were hardly ever together. Thanks.
1 Comments:
The question is anachronistic because it seems to assume that marriage in the sixteenth century necessarily invloved "love," as we define it today. While "love" may have been involved at lower socio-economic levels, such as the lesser gentry and below, it seldom figured in aristocratic and noble marriages. Indeed, when it did figure in such upper-level marriages, it was usually cause for scandal (e.g.: Frances Brandon Grey's second marriage to her much younger servant, her daughter Katherine's marriage to Edward Seymour in late 1560, Henry VIII's marriages to Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Katherine Howard). Without some direct documentary statement from the hand of Amy Robsart or Robert Dudley to suggest otherwise, it is doubtful that the match was based on "love" rather than property and increasing Dudley's wealth. Amy was her father's sole legitimate heir, and when the marital contract was arranged, her father agreed that his entire estate would pass to her. Under English law at that time, that was legally essentially the same as passing it to Dudley himself. Dudley thus had a very great motivator, i.e., money, to wed Amy. The fact that Dudley spent so much time apart from her and that Amy never served at court mitigate against the idea that the couple were "in love." In the absence of solid evidence to the contrary, circumstantial evidence suggests it was a property-based marriage, not a "love match." Further, as one historian has noted, there is virtually no evidence of any pregnancy or miscarriage, and certainly no children. That too suggests that the couple were not close.
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