Hello everyone, welcome to History England Episode 293.

Sex and Marriage.

Last time we got onto the subject of the Queen's marriage and her romance with Robert Dudley.

Honestly, I sought to wrap things up last week, but I got my pacing wrong, so you're

going to have to suffer for it now.

Rather tangentially, we left with Amy Robsoot, otherwise known as Mrs Dudley, sending

out all her staff to a local fair on the 8th of September, 1560.

We do not know an awful lot about Amy.

She and Robert were married in June, 1550, and they lived in London at Summerset House for

a while.

Amy stayed in London while her hub was defacing the walls of Beech and Tower.

The couple were then apart, rather a lot over the next few years.

The Dudley's had been attainted and Robert needed support from Amy's folks for a while,

and Amy stayed in Hartfordshire when Robert was at court.

Then they moved together to Cymna near Oxford, but again Amy was mainly on her own, as

far as we know it has to be said.

There are relatively few records on her whereabouts.

But it's quite possible she did not see her husband at all in 1559, so you know, the

fires of passion don't appear to be burning terribly high.

But then another couple of marriages are foreign country, as they say.

Did they say that?

So on the 8th of September 1560, Amy insisted that many of her staff go to Abingdon Fair.

...