The Valet's Tragedy: And Other Studies

LET him who would weep over the tribulations of the historical inquirer attend to the tale of the Mystery of Amy Robsart!

The student must dismiss from his memory all that he recollects of Scott ' Kenilworth.' Sir Walter's chivalrous motto was 'No scandal about Queen Elizabeth,' 'tis blazoned on his title-page. To avoid scandal, he calmly cast his narrative at a date some fifteen years after Amy Robsart's death, brought Amy alive, and represented Queen Elizabeth as ignorant of her very existence. He might, had he chosen, have proved to his readers that, as regards Amy Robsart and her death, Elizabeth was in a position almost as equivocal as was Mary Stuart in regard to the murder of Darnley. Before the murder of Darnley we do not hear one word to suggest that Mary was in love with Bothwell. For many months before the death of Amy (Lady

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