The Forgotten Sister. Nicola Cornick
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Arthur’s father (c.1500–1554)
Elizabeth, Lady Robsart, previously Appleyard, née Scott, mother of Amy and Anna (c.1504–1557)
Anna Appleyard, Amy’s half-sister (c.1525–1565)
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland (1504–1553), father of Robert Dudley and of:
John Dudley, 2nd Earl of Warwick, who married Anne Seymour, daughter of Duke of Somerset (1527–21 Oct 1554)
Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick (1528–21 Feb 1589)
Henry Dudley (c.1531–10 Aug 1557)
Guildford Dudley, married Lady Jane Grey, who became Queen 10 July 1553 (1535–12 Feb 1554)
‘O, call back yesterday, bid time return.’
SHAKESPEARE, RICHARD II
Contents
Amy Robsart, Cumnor Village
They came for me one night in the winter of 1752 when the ice was on the pond and the trees bowed under the weight of the hoar frost. There were nine priests out of Oxford, garbed all in white with tapers in hand. Some looked fearful, others burned with a righteous fervour because they thought they were doing the Lord’s work. All of them looked cold, huddled within their cassocks, the one out ahead gripping the golden crucifix as though it were all that stood between him and the devil himself.
The villagers came out to watch for a while, standing around in uneasy groups, their breath like smoke on the night air, then the lure of the warm alehouse called them back and they went eagerly, talking of uneasy ghosts and the folly of the holy men in thinking they could trap my spirit.
The hunt was long. I ran through the lost passageways of Cumnor Hall with the priests snapping at my heels and in the end, exhausted and vanquished, my ghost sank into the dark pool. They said their prayers over me and returned to their cloisters and believed the haunting to be at an end.
Yet an unquiet ghost is not so easily laid to rest. They had trapped my wandering spirit but I was not at peace. When the truth is concealed the pattern will repeat. The first victim was Amyas Latimer, the poor boy who fell to his death from the tower of the church where my body was buried. Then there was the little serving girl, Amethyst Green, who tumbled from the roof of Oakhangar Hall. Soon there will be another.