Set in 1575, it leads up to the elaborate reception of Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle by the Earl of Leicester, who is complicit in the murder of his wife Amy Robsart at Cumnor.

Lambourne made a wager he would obtain an introduction to a certain young lady under the steward Foster's charge at Cumnor Place, seat of the Earl of Leicester, and the Cornish stranger begged permission to accompany him.

Amy was soothed in her seclusion by costly presents from the earl, and during his next visit she pleaded that she might inform her father of their marriage, but he was afraid of Elizabeth's resentment.

Tressilian's servant then gained access to the secret countess Amy as a pedlar, and, having hinted that Elizabeth would shortly marry the earl, sold her a cure for the heartache, warning her attendant Janet at the same time that there might be an attempt to poison her mistress.

Having indignantly refused to do so, and having recovered from the effects of a cordial which had been prepared for her by the astrologer Alasco, she escaped, with the help of her maid, from Cumnor, and started for Kenilworth, escorted by Wayland Smith.

Travelling thither as brother and sister, they joined a party of mummers, and then, to avoid the crowd of people thronging the principal approaches, proceeded by circuitous by-paths to the castle.

Having, with Dickie Sludge's help, passed into the courtyard, they were shown into a room, where Amy was waiting while her attendant carried a note to the earl, when she was startled by the entrance of Tressilian, whom she entreated not to interfere until after the expiration of twenty-four hours.

Receiving no reply to her note, which Wayland had lost, Amy found her way the next morning to a grotto in the gardens, where she was discovered by Elizabeth, who had just told her host that "she must be the wife and mother of England alone."

The earl was instantly summoned to the royal presence, and would have been committed to the Tower, had not Amy recalled her words, when she was consigned to Lord Hunsdon's care as bereft of her reason, Varney coming forward and pretending that she had just escaped from a special treatment for her madness.

Leicester insisted on an interview with her, when she implored him to confess their marriage to Elizabeth, and then, with a broken heart, told him that she would not long darken his brighter prospects.

Varney, however, succeeded in persuading him that Amy had acted in connivance with Tressilian, and in obtaining medical sanction for her custody as mentally disordered, asking only for the earl's signet-ring as his authority.

The next day a duel between Tressilian and the earl was interrupted by Dickie, who produced the countess's note, and, convinced of her innocence, Leicester confessed that she was his wife.

Varney, however, had shot the messenger on receiving his instructions, and had caused Amy to be conducted by Foster to an apartment reached by a long flight of stairs and a narrow wooden bridge.

The following evening the tread of a horse was heard in the courtyard, and a whistle like the earl's signal, upon which she rushed from the room, and the instant she stepped on the bridge, it parted in the middle, and she fell to her death.

The news of the countess's fate put an end to the revels at Kenilworth: Leicester retired for a time from Court, and Sir Hugh Robsart, who died very soon after his daughter, settled his estate on Tressilian.

9: In the Vale of Whitehorse, Tressilian's horse loses a shoe, and a schoolmaster, Erasmus Holiday, arranges for Dickie Sludge to conduct him to Wayland Smith, the former attendant of a quacksalver Demetrius Doboobie.

8 (20): Wayland sells Amy wares, adding a medicine which he secretly informs Janet is an antidote to counter the drug which Alasco is planning to administer to her mistress.

Wayland deduces Leicester's affection for Amy from the drunken ravings of Lambourne, who has come to Cumnor Place with Forster, Varney, and Alasco.

[b] With few exceptions they welcomed the unusual tightness of the structure, the vividness of the Court scenes, and the portrayal of Elizabeth, though there were a few objections to the highlighting of her foibles.

The chapter depicting the afflictions of Sir Hugh Robsart was generally found affecting, and the very different presentation of Lambourne was also judged striking.

Several reviewers praised the unusually dramatic qualities of the new novel, and there was much appreciation of the pervasive contrast of public splendour and private agony.

The Earl is shown as an ambition-driven man who will stoop to deceit and almost anything else in order to attain his goals, but with one saving grace—he loves Amy, and in the end gives up his pride and ambition to confess their marriage.

Amy Robsart is a pretty, spoiled child whose tragic circumstances teach her maturity and determination, although such lessons come too late to save her.

Much of the novel gives a fair depiction of the Elizabethan court, although the circumstances of Amy Robsart's death from a fall are greatly altered, and also many other events are a product of Scott's imagination.

The death of Amy Robsart had been the subject of speculation for more than 200 years, and in 1810 Cumnor Place was pulled down, it was said, solely in order to lay her ghost to rest.

[6] In 1822, the young Victor Hugo agreed with the elder Alexandre Soumet to write a five-act drama based on Scott's novel.

Soumet's earnest Emilia was produced at the Odéon in 1823 with Mademoiselle Mars, while Hugo's Amy Robsart, freely mingling tragedy with comedy, was staged in 1828.

Years later, in 1859, the María´s author and poet, Jorge Isaacs made an adaptation to theater: Amy Robsart, however, at that time his work did not receive the importance it deserved; nowadays the writer's playwright facet is recognized.

[8][non-primary source needed] The piece closed on 17 December, after playing 105 performances, but was revived four times, in 1871, 1873, 1874 and 1877, becoming one of the most successful Drury Lane shows of the Victorian period.

Several operas have been based on Kenilworth, including:[10] Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poetical illustration "Queen Elizabeth’s Entrance into Kenilworth", to an engraving of a painting by Thomas Allom in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book (1839) references Amy in this novel from the start ("Lonely sits the lovely lady, Lonely in the tower"[12]).