Very briefly, the real facts concerning Amy Robsart are as follows. The only legitimate child of Sir John Robsart of Siderstern, she was born in 1532, and was married at the age of eighteen on 4th June, at the Royal Palace of Sheen, to Lord Dudley, in the presence of Edward VI. and many members of the Court. She lived chiefly in the country during the time that her husband was in attendance on the Court, and ten years after her marriage, in 1560, was residing at Cumnor Place, rented from William Owen, a son of George Owen, who had been one of the physicians to King Henry VIII. At this time there were staying with her a Mrs. Odingsells, sister of Mr. Hyde, and Mrs. Owen, wife of the owner of the house. It was on Sunday, 8th September, that she was found dead at the foot of a staircase, with her neck broken, by the servants, who had been allowed to visit the fair at Abingdon. In due course an inquest was held, and full inquiry made into the circumstances of her death, but nothing was discovered in the least implicating any one as accessory to it. Although Robert Dudley was undoubtedly secretly married at the time of his Sovereign’s visit to Kenilworth, it was not to Amy Robsart. Four years previous to the Queen’s visit he had engaged himself to Lady Douglas Sheffield, whom he had privately married in May two years later, a son, Robert, being shortly afterwards born to them. This marriage (concerning the legality of which there seems to be some doubt) he ultimately endeavoured to repudiate, and at the time of the festivities at Kenilworth he was actually carrying on a clandestine intrigue with Lettice, Countess of Essex, whose husband died in the following year. In 1578, although Lady Douglas Sheffield was alive, he married Lady Lettice, who was a daughter of Sir Francis Knollys, and a son was born to them, who, however, died in 1584. On Leicester’s death it was found that he had bequeathed the castle for life to his brother Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, and after him to his son by Lady Douglas Sheffield, whom he termed Sir Robert Dudley. The only portion now habitable of what was anciently one of the finest baronial fortress homes in the kingdom is Leicester’s magnificent gate–house, which many authorities are agreed equals in its size and beauty of architecture many a manor–house itself. The old–time entrance passage of this gate–house nowadays forms two rooms and small additions. The magnificent fireplace in one of the rooms of the house is said to be a relic brought from the castle, probably at the time of its dismantlement by the Parliamentarians. [Illustration: MAXSTOKE CASTLE.] The entrance to the castle is through a small gateway, a few yards distant from the gate–house; and after passing through a strip of garden the outer court of the castle is reached, and an impressive and fairly extensive view of the whole building is obtained.