Excerpt from Report on the Pepys Manuscripts: Preserved at Magdalene College, Cambridge
Grindal writes to the Earl to complain of the Arianism of one Smythe. Alley, Bishop of Exeter, applies through Lord Robert for leave to eke out a net revenue of 300l. by letting out-houses and "waste" in the precincts, while Bishop Scory of Hereford, who had moved his clergy to make contributions in aid of a new Residentiary, contrary to a law for Wales and the Marches made by Henry VIII, says that the Papists intend in consequence to undo him at the next Assizes. During the War of Religion in France, Leicester's foreign correspondents are constantly appealing to his zeal for the Religion.
It seems to have been part of the duty of the Master of the Horse to provide houses for Ambassadors and Foreigners of Distinction in London. Lord Francis Bedford, at Berwick, prays that if the Lady Cecilia, Marchioness of Baden lies not in his London house herself, "order may be given for the removing of her train which, as I hear, be but a homely company and in as homely manner do use my house, breaking and spoiling windows and everything." Again, if a house must be provided for the Spanish Ambassador, Bishop Home, of Winchester, is content that no rent be paid for his town house, though he had meant to occupy it himself. If, on the other hand, the Ambassador has to find a house at his own charges, he shall pay 300 crowns till St. George's Day next. Several of the foreign correspondents of Dudley refer to horses, bought, or intended as presents for him, and Kings and Queens were constantly presenting these to one another (see index, horses). Riders also were sought out and sent to England.
Five letters in the collection [p. 3, below] on the subject of the death of Amy Robsart were printed by the third Lord Braybrooke, Hereditary Visitor of Magdalene, in the Appendix to the first edition of Pepys' Diary, but both his Lordship and Mr. Froude overlooked a most important letter of 1567 from Thomas Blount to Leicester, describing an attempt to suborn John Appleyard, half brother to Amy, to give evidence against the Earl as to her death. A merchant, instigated by the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Sussex and Thomas Heneage, had an interview with Appleyard at Hampton, offering him, in vain, 1,000l. down, and from time to time as much as he should require. A further charge against Dudley was that he was the only hinderer of the Queen's marriage.
On this matter Thomas Randolph writes to him in 1563-4, "The worst I intend you is to marry a Queen."
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