Walter Bayly,sometime fellow of New College,then living in Oxford,and professor of 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 lady so pitifully murdered,instead of saying pitifully slain.This Earl,after all his murders and poisonings,was himself poisoned by that which was prepared for others (some say by his wife at Cornbury Lodge before mentioned),though Baker in his Chronicle would have it at Killingworth;anno 1588.[Ashmole's Antiquities of Berkshire,vol.i.,p.149.The tradition as to Leicester's death was thus communicated by Ben Jonson to Drummond of Hawthornden:--The Earl of Leicester gave a bottle of liquor to his Lady,which he willed her to use in any faintness,which she,after his returne from court,not knowing it was poison,gave him,and so he died.--BEN JONSON'SINFORMATION TO DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN,MS.,SIR ROBERT SIBBALD'SCOPY.]
The same accusation has been adopted and circulated by the author of Leicester's Commonwealth,a satire written directly against the Earl of Leicester,which loaded him with the most horrid crimes,and,among the rest,with the murder of his first wife.