William Cecil, Elizabeth I’s chief minister, had a habit of preparing memoranda for his own later use. He would make lists of things and arguments he found worth remembering. Two of these lists concern Robert Dudley and his role as a possible husband for Elizabeth. Though undated, they were apparently written in 1565. Cecil listed everything he could think of that spoke against such a marriage. Alongside he listed everything in favour of the Archduke Charles of Austria as a husband of the queen.
Thus, under “In likelihood to love his wife”, Cecil wrote “His father, Ferdinando, ut supra“, meaning that Charles’ father, the Emperor Ferdinand had loved his wife very much. (He could not write anything about the archduke himself, as Charles had never been married so far). Turning to Robert, Cecil noted, “Nuptiae carnales a laetitia incipiunt et in luctu terminantur. Hated of many. His wife’s death”.1
The damning sentence at the end of Cecil’s remark has been eagerly cited by all who believe that Robert Dudley killed his wife. We will however turn now to Cecil’s Latin phrase at the start: Nuptiae carnales translates to “carnal marriage”, and it is from these two words that we know that Robert’s and Amy’s marriage must have been a sort of love match, apart from circumstantial evidence.
What Cecil wanted to remind himself of was that marriages of love were to be avoided at all cost. Robert’s marriage was just another example, having started in bliss or happiness (laetitia) and having ended in grief, sorrow, or mourning (luctu[s]). One scholar, Dr. Simon Adams, has translated luctu as “weeping”.
Unfortunately, Antonia Fraser in her classic biography of Mary Queen of Scots has given this phrase a sinister meaning. She translated the sentence as “Carnal marriages begin in happiness and end in strife“, placing it as a motto at the beginning of Chapter Thirteen. Mary Queen of Scots being an international bestseller, many people will have read this wrong and misleading translation and some have cited it in works of their own.
Unfortunately, though perhaps naturally, there has been a tendency in Mary’s biographers to show Elizabeth in as bad light as possible, including ill-suited comparisons between the death of Amy Robsart and the murder of Lord Darnley. The first, however, though a scandal, was likely an accident or a suicide, while the second was a political assassination never doubted even by its contemporaries.
1 Adams 2002 p. 150
2 Wilson 1981 p. 189
Adams, Simon (2002): Leicester and the Court: Essays in Elizabethan Politics. Manchester University Press.
Adams, Simon (2008): ‟Dudley, Robert, earl of Leicester (1532/3–1588)“. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online edition.
Fraser, Antonia (1970): Mary Queen of Scots. Panther.
Wilson, Derek (1981): Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester 1533–1588. Hamish Hamilton.