by unsolicited advice against a marriage with Lord Robert, she declared the inquest had shown "the matter … to be contrary to which was reported" and to "neither touch his honesty nor her honour." However, her international reputation and even her position at home were imperilled by the scandal, which seems to have convinced her that she could not risk a marriage with Dudley. Dudley himself had no illusions about his destroyed reputation, even when he was first notified of the jury's decision: "God's will be done; and I wish he had made me the poorest that creepeth on the ground, so this mischance had not happened to me." In September 1561, a month after the coroner's verdict was officially passed, the Earl of Arundel, one of Dudley's principal enemies, studied the testimonies in the hope of finding incriminating evidence against his rival. John Appleyard John Appleyard had profited in terms of offices and annuities from his brother-in-law's rise ever since 1559; he was nevertheless disappointed with what he had got from Robert Dudley, now Earl of Leicester. In 1567 he was approached, apparently on behalf of the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Sussex, to accuse Leicester of the murder of his wife for a reward of £1,000 in cash. He refused to cooperate in the plot, although he had, he said, in the last few years come to believe that his half-sister was murdered. He had always been convinced of Dudley's innocence but thought it would be an easy matter to find out the real culprits. He said he had repeatedly asked for the Earl's help to this effect, claiming the jury had not yet come up with their verdict; Dudley had always answered that the matter should rest, since a jury had found that there was no murder, by due procedure of law. Now, as Leicester became aware of a plot against him, he summoned Appleyard and sent him away after a furious confrontation. Some weeks later the Privy Council investigated the allegations about Norfolk, Sussex, and Leicester, and Appleyard found himself in the Fleet prison for about a month. Interrogated by Cecil and a panel of noblemen (among them the Earl of Arundel, but not Robert Dudley), he was commanded to answer in writing what had moved him to implicate "my Lord of Norfolk, the Earl of Sussex and others to stir up matter against