I am joining this forum as I have been reading, for the fourth time, but first since the hard back came out and watching the National Geograthic on Elizabeth: Killer Queen from the book by Chris Skidmore Death and the Virgin about the alleged murder of Amy Robsart, the first wife of Robert Dudley, later Earl of Leicester, the lover of Elizabeth I. I have to agree that some of the theories are a bit out there, but the evidence does need to be revisited. However, without the physical remains of Amy, which are missing, or some of her clothing, or her blood or some other physical thing from the murder scene we cannot be sure that she was murdered. I do not believe she committed suicide, even though she may have had some depression due to the fact that she had breast cancer. She may have been on some Tudor form of morphene; they did use mercery for a number of illnesses to relieve pain and the symptoms. This may have affected her brain and may have made her crazy. She may also simply have been resting in the house, wanting to be alone, and woken up, still drosy from the drugs and could have fallen by accident, by losing her footing. If she came from her room, on the upper landing, along to the half set of stairs, then down the second set, that may have added to her confusion and she simply collapsed and fell, hitting her head and breaking her neck. You do more damage on only a few stairs than you do a full flight. The theory by Gregory that William Cecil had her killed is rubbish. Cecil saw Dudley as a rival; so why get rid of an innocent woman in order to trap his rival with a charge of murder? He could have had him done for a trumped up charge of treason and executed. After all the rest of his family had been either killed as traitors, accused of treason and put in the Tower and a charge of suspician or hiding a plot against Elizabeth was brought against him 10 years after Amy's death. Elizabeth may have ordered her death; but why? She could not marry a man accused of murder, even if she was capable of such a thing. And Robert Dudley? He may want to get rid of his wife, but he only had to wait and it is possible that she would die in any case and he was cleared at the time. But then he could have bribed the coronor and the jury? Dudley wanted an inquest and he had to clear his name; he could not remain at court unless he did. But the evidence against him or that clears him was not conclusive. And was it even murder? For many years this was something that I actually believed, but now with more evidence in the public domain it is clear that an accident is just as likely. She could have just fallen and may-be we are too keen to find someone to blame because we like a mystery with a whodonet ending. The most compelling evidence for a murder is the recently discovered coronors report and inquest. The report says that she had two wounds in her head; one a couple of inches long and another an inch or so long. But the measure is that of a thumb. Now a thumb is a subjective measure as it is individual to the owner. And how do you measure an internal wound with a thumb? It is very difficult to put a thumb into a closing wound and a hole in the skull that is not totally open, as it causes the skull to crack inwards and to fill with skin and mass. There are several problems, but I will not go into them as I am not a pathologist. They are problematic wounds and they are also wounds that we cannot verify. They are described in the report, but we do not know how they were made. We do not know if they are postmorton, at the time of death and impact, or before she fell down the stairs. We do not have the body and the skull of Amy Robsart to examine. We do not have anything to look at to establish if the wounds exist, if they are large enough to have been caused by a blunt or a sharp object, or if they are caused by the fall. We have to take the examiners word and we do not have a reason to doubt that they exist; we simply can never verify this and we simply do not know how the wounds were caused. The discovery of the body may have been helpful, but a lot would have depended on the condition of the skull. We also need to be sure that we are looking at Amy's body. Yes, she may have been killed or it could have been an acciden. The fact is, without her body, we can never really be sure.