Dudley's maid and Thomas Blount asked whether she thought what had happened was "chance or villany": she said by her faith she doth judge very chance, and neither done by man nor by herself. For herself, she said, she was a good virtuous gentlewoman, and daily would pray upon her knees; and divers times she saith that she hath heard her pray to God to deliver her from desperation. Then, said I, she might have an evil toy [suicide] in her mind. No, good Mr. Blount, said Picto, do not judge so of my words; if you should so gather, I am sorry I said so much. Blount continued, wondering: My Lord, it is most strange that this chance should fall upon you. It passeth the judgment of any man to say how it is; but truly the tales I do hear of her maketh me to think she had a strange mind in her: as I will tell you at my coming. The coroner and the 15 jurors were local gentlemen and yeomen of substance. A few days later Blount wrote that some of the jury were no friends of Anthony Forster (a good sign that they would not "conceal any fault, if any be") and that they were proceeding very thoroughly: they be very secret, and yet do I hear a whispering that they can find no presumptions of evil. And if I may say to your Lordship my conscience: I think some of them be sorry for it, God forgive me. … Mine own opinion is much quieted … the circumstances and as many things as I can learn doth persuade me that only misfortune hath done it, and nothing else. The jury's foreman assured Robert Dudley in a letter of his own that for all they could find out, it appeared to be an accident. Dudley, desperately seeking to avert damage from what he called "my case", was relieved to hear the impending outcome, but thought "another substantial company of honest men" should undertake a further investigation "for more knowledge of truth". This panel should include any of Lady Amy's available friends and her half-brothers John Appleyard and Arthur Robsart, both of whom he had ordered to Cumnor immediately after Amy's death. Nothing came of this proposal. The coroner's verdict, pronounced at the local Assizes on 1 August 1561, was that Lady Amy Dudley, "being alone