Kenilworth | Page 4

physic in that university; whom, because he would not
consent to take away her life by poison, the Earl endeavoured to
displace him the court. This man, it seems, reported for most certain
that there was a practice in Cumnor among the conspirators, to have
poisoned this poor innocent lady, a little before she was killed, which
was attempted after this manner:--They seeing the good lady sad and
heavy (as one that well knew, by her other handling, that her death was
not far off), began to persuade her that her present disease was
abundance of melancholy and other humours, etc., and therefore would
needs counsel her to take some potion, which she absolutely refusing to
do, as still suspecting the worst; whereupon they sent a messenger on a
day (unawares to her) for Dr. Bayly, and entreated him to persuade her
to take some little potion by his direction, and they would fetch the
same at Oxford; meaning to have added something of their own for her
comfort, as the doctor upon just cause and consideration did suspect,

seeing their great importunity, and the small need the lady had of
physic, and therefore he peremptorily denied their request; misdoubting
(as he afterwards reported) lest, if they had poisoned her under the
name of his potion, he might after have been hanged for a colour of
their sin, and the doctor remained still well assured that this way taking
no effect, she would not long escape their violence, which afterwards
happened thus. For Sir Richard Varney abovesaid (the chief projector
in this design), who, by the Earl's order, remained that day of her death
alone with her, with one man only and Forster, who had that day
forcibly sent away all her servants from her to Abington market, about
three miles distant from this place; they (I say, whether first stifling her,
or else strangling her) afterwards flung her down a pair of stairs and
broke her neck, using much violence upon her; but, however, though it
was vulgarly reported that she by chance fell downstairs (but still
without hurting her hood that was upon her head), yet the inhabitants
will tell you there that she was conveyed from her usual chamber where
she lay, to another where the bed's head of the chamber stood close to a
privy postern door, where they in the night came and stifled her in her
bed, bruised her head very much broke her neck, and at length flung her
down stairs, thereby believing the world would have thought it a
mischance, and so have blinded their villainy. But behold the mercy
and justice of God in revenging and discovering this lady's murder; for
one of the persons that was a coadjutor in this murder was afterwards
taken for a felony in the marches of Wales, and offering to publish the
manner of the aforesaid murder, was privately made away in the prison
by the Earl's appointment; and Sir Richard Varney the other, dying
about the same time in London, cried miserably, and blasphemed God,
and said to a person of note (who hath related the same to others since),
not long before his death, that all the devils in hell did tear him in
pieces. Forster, likewise, after this fact, being a man formerly addicted
to hospitality, company, mirth, and music, was afterwards observed to
forsake all this, and with much melancholy and pensiveness (some say
with madness) pined and drooped away. The wife also of Bald Butter,
kinsman to the Earl, gave out the whole fact a little before her death.
Neither are these following passages to be forgotten, that as soon as
ever she was murdered, they made great haste to bury her before the
coroner had given in his inquest (which the Earl himself condemned as

not done advisedly), which her father, or Sir John Robertsett (as I
suppose), hearing of, came with all speed hither, caused her corpse to
be taken up, the coroner to sit upon her, and further inquiry to be made
concerning this business to the full; but it was generally thought that
the Earl stopped his mouth, and made up the business betwixt them;
and the good Earl, to make plain to the world the great love he bare to
her while alive, and what a grief the loss of so virtuous a lady was to
his tender heart, caused (though the thing, by these and other means,
was beaten into the heads of the principal men of the University of
Oxford) her body to be reburied in St, Mary's Church in Oxford, with
great pomp and solemnity. It is remarkable, when Dr. Babington, the
Earl's chaplain, did preach the funeral sermon, he tript once or twice in
his speech, by recommending to their memories that virtuous