In the usual blundering way, Mr. Pettigrew dates one letter of Dudley’s ‘September 27.’ If that date were right, it would suggest that TWO coroner’s inquests were held, one after Amy’s burial (on September 22), but Mr. Gairdner says that the real date of the letter is September 12.* So the date is given by Bartlett, in his ‘History of Cumnor Place,’ and by Adlard (1870), following Bartlett, and Craik (1848). *English Historical Review, No. 2, p. 243, note. The first letter, from Dudley, at Windsor ‘this 9th day of September in the evening,’ proves that Blount, early on September 9, the day after Amy’s death, went from Leicester, at Windsor, towards Berkshire. He had not long gone when Bowes (a retainer of Leicester, of Forster, or of Amy) brought to Dudley the fatal news. ‘By him I do understand that my wife is dead and, as he saith, by a fall from a pair of stairs. Little other understanding can I have from him.’ Throughout the correspondence Leicester does not utter one word of sorrow for Amy, as, had the letters been written for exhibition, he would almost certainly have done. The fear of his own danger and disgrace alone inspires him, and he takes every measure to secure a full, free, and minute examination. ‘Have no respect to any living person.’ A coroner’s jury is to be called, the body is to be examined; Appleyard and others of Amy’s kin have already been sent for to go to Cumnor. From Cumnor, Blount replied on September 11. He only knew that ‘my lady is dead, and, as it seemeth, with a fall, but yet how, or which way, I cannot learn.’ Not even at Cumnor could Blount discover the manner of the accident. On the night of the ninth he had lain at Abingdon, the landlord of the inn could tell him no more than Dudley already knew. Amy’s servants had been at ‘the fair’ at Abingdon: she herself was said to have insisted on their going thither very early in the day; among them Bowes went, as he told Blount, who met him on the road, as he rode to see Dudley. He said that Amy ‘was very angry’ with any who stayed, and with Mrs. Oddingsell, who refused to go. Pinto (probably Amy’s maid), ‘who doth love her dearly,’ confirmed Bowes. She believed the death to be ‘a very accident.’ She had heard Amy ‘divers times pray to God to deliver her from desperation,’ but entirely disbelieved in suicide, which no one would attempt, perhaps, by falling down two flights of stairs.