De Feria, in the summer of 1559, was succeeded as ambassador by de Quadra, bishop of Aquila. Dudley and his sister, Lady Sidney (mother of Sir Philip Sidney), now seemed to favour Spanish projects, but (November 13) de Quadra writes: ‘I heard from a certain person who is accustomed to give veracious news that Lord Robert has sent to poison his wife. Certainly all the Queen has done with us and with the Swede, and will do with the rest in the matter of her marriage, is only keeping Lord Robert’s enemies and the country engaged with words until this wicked deed of killing his wife is consummated.’ The enemies of Dudley included the Duke of Norfolk, and most of the nation. There was talk of a plot to destroy both Dudley and the Queen. ‘The Duke and the rest of them cannot put up with Lord Robert’s being king.’* Further, and later, on January 16, 1560 (Amy being now probably at Cumnor), de Quadra writes to de Feria that Baron Preyner, a German diplomatist, will tell him what he knows of the poison for the wife of Milort Robert (Dudley), ‘an important story and necessary to be known.’** Thus between November 1559 and January 1560, the talk is that Amy shall be poisoned, and this tale runs round the Courts of Europe. *Sp. Cal. i. pp. 112-114. **Relations Politiques, Lettenhove, ii. p. 187. Mr. Froude gives, what the Calendar does not, a letter of de Quadra to de Feria and the Bishop of Arras (January 15, 1560). ‘In Lord Robert it is easy to recognise the king that is to be... There is not a man who does not cry out on him and her with indignation.’* ‘She will marry none but the favoured Robert.’** On March 7, 1560, de Quadra tells de Feria: ‘Not a man in this country but cries out that this fellow’ (Dudley) ‘is ruining the country with his vanity.’*** ‘Is ruining the country AND THE QUEEN,’ is in the original Spanish. *Froude, vi. p. 311. **Relations Politiques, ii. 87, 183, 184. ***Sp. Cal. i. p. 133. Major Hume translates the text of Mr. Froude’s transcript in the British Museum. It is a mere fragment; in 1883 the whole despatch was printed by Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove.