TUDOR MURDER FILES

The author speculates that there were five times as many murders in Tudor times than our own, and among the 30 murders investigated here some are well known, whereas others represent dark deeds lurking well out of sight. Among the population of just over four million many murders were domestic, involving sex and extra-marital affairs, with financial matters coming second. No surprises there, then. Almost everyone in the 16th century would have had access to a knife or dagger, while poisoning was considered to be a method favoured by women and servants and was much feared by men because it could be done secretly and was hard to prove. As the century wore on, a gun became the assassination method of choice. Among the period's unsolved murders is the question of who killed the playwright Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare's rival, who was stabbed in a pub brawl in 1593. The perpetrator was acquitted as having acted in self-defence, but Marlowe was a spy in the notorious intelligence network of Sir Francis Walsingham and there were plenty of people who wanted him out of the way. Amy Robsart, the wife of Robert Dudley, is the centre of another famous unsolved case. Did she fall downstairs, or was she pushed? The stigma of suspicion meant that her husband Robert Dudley would never be able to marry Queen Elizabeth, a possibility which was already being gossiped about at court as a result of their flirtation. The murder of David Riccio, the secretary of Mary Queen of Scots, was a political act in which her husband Lord Darnley was implicated, and soon Darnley's own life was also forfeit. The chief suspect, Bothwell, was acquitted and with outrageous daring proceeded to marry Mary, but an unstoppable train of events had been put in motion. Meanwhile the unknown Anne Brewen and her lover John Parker poisoned Anne's husband and were convicted when neighbours heard them rowing about it through the wall. 207pp, paperback, photos.