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Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester

Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, KG, PC (24 June 1532[note 1] – 4 September 1588) was an English statesman and the favourite of Elizabeth I from her accession until his death. He was a suitor for the queen's hand for many years.[1][2]


The Earl of Leicester

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, c. 1564. In the background are the devices of the Order of Saint Michael and the Order of the Garter; Robert Dudley was a knight of both.
Tenure1564–1588
Other titlesLord of Denbigh
Known forFavourite of Elizabeth I
Born24 June 1532
Died4 September 1588 (aged 56)
Cornbury, Oxfordshire, Kingdom of England
BuriedCollegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick
NationalityEnglish
ResidenceKenilworth Castle, Warwickshire
Leicester House, London
Wanstead, Essex
LocalityWest Midlands
North Wales
Wars and battlesKett's Rebellion
Campaign against Mary I, 1553
Battle of St. Quentin, 1557
Dutch Revolt
Spanish Armada
OfficesMaster of the Horse
Lord Steward of the Royal Household
Privy Councillor
Governor-General of the United Provinces
Spouse(s)Amy Robsart (m. 1550; d. 1560)
Lettice Knollys (m. 1578)
IssueSir Robert Dudley (illegitimate)
Robert Dudley, Lord of Denbigh
ParentsJohn Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland
Jane Guildford
Signature

Dudley's youth was overshadowed by the downfall of his family in 1553 after his father, The Duke of Northumberland, had failed to prevent the accession of Mary I. Robert Dudley was condemned to death but was released in 1554 and took part in the Battle of St. Quentin under Mary's husband and co-ruler, Philip, which led to his full rehabilitation. On Elizabeth I's accession in November 1558, Dudley was appointed Master of the Horse. In October 1562, he became a privy councillor and, in 1587, was appointed Lord Steward of the Royal Household. In 1564, Dudley became Earl of Leicester and, from 1563, one of the greatest landowners in North Wales and the English West Midlands by royal grants.

The earl of Leicester was one of Elizabeth's leading statesmen, involved in domestic as well as foreign politics alongside William Cecil and Sir Francis Walsingham. Although he refused to be married to Mary, Queen of Scots, Leicester was for a long time relatively sympathetic to her until, from the mid-1580s, he strongly advocated for her execution. As patron of the Puritan movement, he supported non-conforming preachers but tried to mediate between them and the bishops of the Church of England. A champion also of the international Protestant cause, he led the English campaign in support of the Dutch Revolt (1585–87). His acceptance of the post of governor-general of the United Provinces infuriated Queen Elizabeth. The expedition was a military and political failure, and it ruined the earl financially. Leicester was engaged in many large-scale business ventures and was one of the main backers of Francis Drake and other explorers and privateers. During the Spanish Armada, the earl was in overall command of the English land forces. In this function, he invited Queen Elizabeth to visit her troops at Tilbury. This was the last of many events he had organised over the years, the most spectacular being the festival at his seat Kenilworth Castle in 1575 on the occasion of a three-week visit by the Queen. Leicester was a principal patron of the arts, literature, and the Elizabethan theatre.[3]

Leicester's private life interfered with his court career and vice versa. When his first wife, Amy Robsart, fell down a flight of stairs and died in 1560, he was free to marry the queen. However, the resulting scandal very much reduced his chances in this respect. Popular rumours that he had arranged for his wife's death continued throughout his life, despite the coroner's jury's verdict of accident. For 18 years he did not remarry for Queen Elizabeth's sake and when he finally did, his new wife, Lettice Knollys, was permanently banished from court. This and the death of his only legitimate son and heir were heavy blows.[4] Shortly after the child's death in 1584, a virulent libel known as Leicester's Commonwealth was circulated in England. It laid the foundation of a literary and historiographical tradition that often depicted the earl as the Machiavellian "master courtier"[5] and as a deplorable figure around Elizabeth I. More recent research has led to a reassessment of his place in Elizabethan government and society.

Youth

 
Quartered arms of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester

Education and marriage

Robert Dudley was the fifth son of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, and his wife Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Guildford.[6] His paternal grandfather, Edmund Dudley, had been an adviser to King Henry VII and was executed for treason in 1510 by King Henry VIII. John and Jane Dudley had 13 children in all and were known for their happy family life.[7] Among the siblings' tutors figured John Dee,[8] Thomas Wilson, and Roger Ascham.[9]

Roger Ascham believed that Robert Dudley possessed a rare talent for languages and writing, including in Latin, regretting that his pupil had done himself harm by preferring mathematics.[10] Robert learned the craft of the courtier at the courts of Henry VIII, and especially Edward VI, among whose companions he served.[11]

In 1549, Robert Dudley participated in crushing Kett's Rebellion and probably first met Amy Robsart, whom he was to wed on 4 June 1550 in the presence of the young King Edward.[12] She was of the same age as the bridegroom and the daughter and heiress of Sir John Robsart, a gentleman-farmer of Norfolk.[13] It was a love-match, the young couple depending heavily on their fathers' gifts, especially Robert's. John Dudley, who since early 1550 effectively ruled England, was pleased to strengthen his influence in Norfolk by his son's marriage.[14] Lord Robert, as he was styled as a duke's son, became an important local gentleman and served as a Member of Parliament for Norfolk in 1551–52, March 1553 and 1559.[15] His court career went on in parallel.[16]

Condemned and pardoned

On 6 July 1553, King Edward VI died and the Duke of Northumberland attempted to transfer the English crown to Lady Jane Grey, who was married to his second youngest son, Lord Guildford Dudley.[17] Robert Dudley led a force of 300 into Norfolk where Edward's half-sister Mary was assembling her followers. After some ten days in the county and securing several towns for Jane, he took King's Lynn and proclaimed her in the marketplace.[18] The next day, 19 July, Jane's reign was over in London. Soon, the townsmen of King's Lynn seized Robert Dudley and the rest of his small troop and sent him to Framlingham Castle before Mary I.[19]

Robert Dudley was imprisoned in the Tower of London, attainted, and condemned to death, as were his father and four brothers. His father went to the scaffold.[20] In the Tower, Dudley's stay coincided with the imprisonment of his childhood friend,[21] Edward and Mary's half-sister Elizabeth, who was sent there on suspicion of involvement in Wyatt's rebellion. Guildford Dudley was executed in February 1554. The surviving brothers were released in the autumn; working for their release, their mother (who died in January 1555) and their brother-in-law, Henry Sidney, had befriended the incoming Spanish nobles around Philip of Spain, Mary's husband.[6]

In December 1554, Ambrose and Robert Dudley took part in a tournament held to celebrate Anglo-Spanish friendship.[6] Yet, the Dudley brothers were only welcome at court as long as King Philip was there,[22] otherwise they were even suspected of associating with people who conspired against Mary's regime.[23] In January 1557 Robert and Amy Dudley were allowed to repossess some of their former lands,[24] and in March of the same year Dudley was at Calais where he was chosen to deliver personally to Queen Mary the happy news of Philip's return to England.[25] Ambrose, Robert, and Henry Dudley, the youngest brother, fought for Philip II at the Battle of St. Quentin in August 1557.[26] Henry Dudley was killed in the following siege by a cannonball—according to Robert, before his own eyes.[27] All surviving Dudley children — Ambrose and Robert with their sisters, Mary and Katherine — were restored in blood by Mary I's next parliament in 1558.[21]

Royal favourite

 
Elizabeth's coronation procession: Robert Dudley is on horseback on the far left, leading the palfrey of honour.

[28]Robert Dudley was counted among Elizabeth's special friends by Philip II's envoy to the English court a week before Queen Mary's death.[21] On 18 November 1558, the morning after Elizabeth's accession, Dudley witnessed the surrender of the Great Seal to her at Hatfield. He became Master of the Horse on the same day.[6] This was an important court position entailing close attendance on the sovereign. It suited him, as he was an excellent horseman and showed great professional interest in royal transport and accommodation, horse breeding, and the supply of horses for all occasions. Dudley was also entrusted with organising and overseeing a large part of the Queen's coronation festivities.[29]

 
Elizabeth I coronation miniature

In April 1559 Dudley was elected a Knight of the Garter.[30] Shortly before, Philip II had been informed:

Lord Robert has come so much into favour that he does whatever he likes with affairs and it is even said that her majesty visits him in his chamber day and night. People talk of this so freely that they go so far as to say that his wife has a malady in one of her breasts[note 2] and the Queen is only waiting for her to die to marry Lord Robert ... Matters have reached such a pass ... that ... it would ... be well to approach Lord Robert on your Majesty's behalf ... Your Majesty would do well to attract and confirm him in his friendship.[31]

Within a month the Spanish ambassador, Count de Feria, counted Robert Dudley among three persons who ran the country.[note 3] Visiting foreigners of princely rank were bidding for his goodwill. He acted as an official host on state occasions and was himself a frequent guest at ambassadorial dinners.[32] By the autumn of 1559 several foreign princes were vying for the Queen's hand; their impatient envoys came under the impression that Elizabeth was fooling them, "keeping Lord Robert's enemies and the country engaged with words until this wicked deed of killing his wife is consummated."[33] "Lord Robert", the new Spanish ambassador de Quadra was convinced, was the man "in whom it is easy to recognise the king that is to be ... she will marry none but the favoured Robert."[34] Many of the nobility would not brook Dudley's new prominence, as they could not "put up with his being King."[35] Plans to kill the favourite abounded,[36] and Dudley took to wearing a light coat of mail under his clothes.[37] Among all classes, in England and abroad, gossip got underway that the Queen had children by Dudley—such rumours never quite ended for the rest of her life.[38]

Amy Dudley's death

Already in April 1559 court observers noted that Elizabeth never let Dudley from her side;[39] but her favour did not extend to his wife.[40] Amy Dudley lived in different parts of the country since her ancestral manor house was uninhabitable.[41] Her husband visited her for four days at Easter 1559 and she spent a month around London in the early summer of the same year.[42] They never saw each other again; Dudley was with the Queen at Windsor Castle and possibly planning a visit to her, when his wife was found dead at her residence Cumnor Place near Oxford on 8 September 1560:[43]

There came to me Bowes, by whom I do understand that my wife is dead and as he sayeth by a fall from a pair of stairs. Little other understanding can I have of him. The greatness and the suddenness of the misfortune doth so perplex me, until I do hear from you how the matter standeth, or how this evil should light upon me, considering what the malicious world will bruit, as I can take no rest.[44]

 
Lord Robert Dudley c. 1560

Retiring to his house at Kew, away from court as from the putative crime scene, he pressed for an impartial inquiry which had already begun in the form of an inquest.[45] The jury found that it was an accident: Lady Dudley, staying alone "in a certain chamber", had fallen down the adjoining stairs, sustaining two head injuries and breaking her neck.[46] It was widely suspected that Dudley had arranged his wife's death to be able to marry the Queen. The scandal played into the hands of nobles and politicians who desperately tried to prevent Elizabeth from marrying him.[47] Most historians have considered murder to be unlikely.[48] The coroner's report came to light in The National Archives in 2008 and is compatible with an accidental fall as well as suicide or other violence.[49] In the absence of the forensic findings of 1560, it was often assumed that a simple accident could not be the explanation[50]—on the basis of near-contemporary tales that Amy Dudley was found at the bottom of a short flight of stairs with a broken neck, her headdress still standing undisturbed "upon her head",[51] a detail that first appeared as a satirical remark in the libel Leicester's Commonwealth of 1584 and has ever since been repeated for a fact.[52] To account for such oddities and evidence that she was ill, it was suggested in 1956 by Ian Aird, a professor of surgery, that Amy Dudley might have suffered from breast cancer, which through metastatic cancerous deposits in the spine, could have caused her neck to break under only limited strain, such as a short fall or even just coming down the stairs.[51] This explanation has been widely accepted.[48] Suicide has also often been considered an option, motives being Amy Dudley's depression or mortal illness.[53]

Marriage hopes and proposals

 
Lord Leicester. An 18th-century copy of his portrait and autograph

Elizabeth remained close to Dudley and he, with her blessing and on her prompting, pursued his suit for her hand in an atmosphere of diplomatic intrigue.[54] His wife's and his father's shadows haunted his prospects.[6] His efforts leading nowhere, in the spring of 1561 Dudley offered to leave England to seek military adventures abroad; Elizabeth would have none of that and everything remained as it was.[6]

In October 1562 the Queen fell ill with smallpox and, believing her life to be in danger, she asked the Privy Council to make Robert Dudley Protector of the Realm and to give him a suitable title together with twenty thousand pounds a year. There was universal relief when she recovered her health; Dudley was made a privy councillor.[55] He was already deeply involved in foreign politics, including Scotland.[56]

In 1563, Elizabeth suggested Dudley as a consort to the widowed Mary, Queen of Scots, the idea being to achieve firm amity between England and Scotland and diminish the influence of foreign powers.[57] Elizabeth's preferred solution was that they should all live together at the English court, so that she would not have to forgo her favourite's company.[6] Mary at first enquired if Elizabeth was serious, wanting above all to know her chances of inheriting the English crown.[58] Elizabeth repeatedly declared that she was prepared to acknowledge Mary as her heir only on condition that she marry Robert Dudley.[59] Mary's Protestant advisors warmed to the prospect of her marriage to Dudley,[60] and in September 1564 he was created Earl of Leicester, a move designed to make him more acceptable to Mary.[6] In January 1565, Thomas Randolph, the English ambassador to Scotland, was told by the Scottish queen that she would accept the proposal.[61] To his amazement, Dudley was not to be moved to comply:

But a man of that nature I never found any ... he whom I go about to make as happy as ever was any, to put him in possession of a kingdom, to lay in his naked arms a most fair ... lady ... nothing regardeth the good that shall ensue unto him thereby ... but so uncertainly dealeth that I know not where to find him.[62]

Dudley indeed had made it clear to the Scots at the beginning that he was not a candidate for Mary's hand and forthwith had behaved with passive resistance.[63] He also worked in the interest of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, Mary's eventual choice of husband.[64] Elizabeth herself wavered as to declaring Mary her heir, until in March 1565 she decided she could not bring herself to it.[65] Still, she finally told the Spanish ambassador that the proposal fell through because the Earl of Leicester refused to cooperate.[66]

By 1564, Dudley had realised that his chances of becoming Elizabeth's consort were small.[67] At the same time he could not "consider ... without great repugnance", as he said, that she chose another husband.[68] Confronted with other marriage projects, Elizabeth continued to say that she still would very much like to marry him.[69] Dudley was seen as a serious candidate until the mid-1560s and later.[70] To remove this threat to Habsburg and Valois suitors, between 1565 and 1578, four German and French princesses were mooted as brides for Leicester, as a consolation for giving up Elizabeth and his resistance to her foreign marriage projects.[71] These he had sabotaged and would continue to sabotage.[72] In 1566 Dudley formed the opinion that Elizabeth would never marry, recalling that she had always said so since she was eight years old; but he still was hopeful—she had also assured him he would be her choice in case she changed her mind (and married an Englishman).[73]

Life at court

 
Robert Dudley, dressed partly in tilting armour, 1575[74]

As "a male favourite to a virgin queen", Robert Dudley found himself in an unprecedented situation.[6] His apartments at court were next to hers,[75] and—perceived as knowing "the Queen and her nature best of any man"—his influence was matched by few.[76] Another side of such privileges was Elizabeth's possessiveness and jealousy. His company was essential for her well-being and for many years he was hardly allowed to leave.[6] Sir Christopher Hatton reported a growing emergency when the Earl was away for a few weeks in 1578: "This court wanteth your presence. Her majesty is unaccompanied and, I assure you, the chambers are almost empty."[77]

On ceremonial occasions, Dudley often acted as an unofficial consort, sometimes in the Queen's stead.[78] He largely assumed charge of court ceremonial and organised hundreds of small and large festivities.[79] From 1587 he was Lord Steward,[80] being responsible for the royal household's supply with food and other commodities. He displayed a strong sense for economising and reform in this function, which he had de facto occupied long before his official appointment.[81] The sanitary situation in the palaces was a perennial problem, and a talk with Leicester about these issues inspired John Harington to construct a water closet.[82] Leicester was a lifelong sportsman, hunting and jousting in the tiltyard, and an indefatigable tennis-player.[82] He was also the Queen's regular dancing partner.[83]

Ancestral and territorial ambition

 
Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, Robert Dudley's elder brother

After the Duke of Northumberland's attainder the entire Dudley inheritance had disappeared. His sons had to start from scratch in rebuilding the family fortunes, as they had renounced any rights to their father's former possessions or titles when their own attainders had been lifted in January 1558.[84] Robert Dudley financed the lifestyle expected of a royal favourite by large loans from City of London merchants until in April 1560 Elizabeth granted him his first export licence, worth £6,000 p.a.[85] He also received some of his father's lands, but since he was not the family heir it was a matter of some difficulty to find a suitable estate for his intended peerage.[86] In June 1563 the Queen granted him Kenilworth Manor, Castle, and Park, together with the lordships of Denbigh and Chirk in North Wales. Other grants were to follow.[87] Eventually, Leicester and his elder brother Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, came to preside over the greatest aristocratic interest in the West Midlands and North Wales.[88]

Denbighshire

At the time Robert Dudley entered his new Welsh possessions there had existed a tenurial chaos for more than half a century. Some leading local families benefited from this to the detriment of the Crown's revenue. To remedy this situation, and to increase his own income, Dudley affected compositions with the tenants in what Simon Adams has called an "ambitious resolution of a long-standing problem ... without parallel in Elizabeth's reign".[89] All tenants that had so far only been copyholders were raised to the status of freeholders in exchange for newly agreed rents. Likewise, all tenants' rights of common were secured as were the boundaries of the commons, thus striking a balance between property rights and protection against enclosure.[90]

Though an absentee landlord, Leicester, who was also Lord of Denbigh, regarded the lordship as an integral part of a territorial base for a revived House of Dudley.[91] He set about developing the town of Denbigh with large building projects;[92] the church he planned, though, was never finished, being too ambitious. It would have been not only the largest,[93] but also the first post-Reformation church in England and Wales built according to a plan where the preacher was to take the centre instead of the altar, thus stressing the importance of preaching in the Protestant Church. In vain Leicester tried to have the nearby episcopal see of St. Asaph transferred to Denbigh.[94] He also encouraged and supported the translation of the Bible and the Common Prayer Book into Welsh.[95]

Warwick and Kenilworth

 
Fireplace at Kenilworth Castle, with shield displaying in bend the Ragged Staff of the Earls of Warwick, with the letters R and L for "Robert Leicester" for Robert Dudley[96]

Ambrose and Robert Dudley were very close, in matters of business and personally.[97] Through their paternal grandmother they descended from the Hundred Years War heroes, John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, and Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick.[98] Robert Dudley was especially fascinated by the Beauchamp descent and, with his brother, adopted the ancient heraldic device of the earls of Warwick, the Bear and Ragged Staff.[99] Due to such genealogical aspects the West Midlands held a special significance for him.[100] The town of Warwick felt this during a magnificent visit by the Earl in 1571 to celebrate the feast of the Order of Saint Michael, with which Leicester had been invested by the French king in 1566.[101] He shortly afterwards founded Lord Leycester's Hospital, a charity for aged and injured soldiers still functioning today.[102]Kenilworth Castle was the centre of Leicester's ambitions to "plant" himself in the region,[103] and he substantially transformed the site's appearance through comprehensive alterations.[104] He added a 15th-century style gatehouse to the castle's medieval structures, as well as a formal garden and a residential wing which featured the "brittle, thin walls and grids of windows" that were to become the hallmark of Elizabethan architecture in later decades.[105] His works completed, the Earl staged a spectacular 19-day-festival in July 1575 as a final, allegorical bid for the Queen's hand; it was as much a request to give him leave to marry someone else.[6] There was a Lady of the Lake, a swimming papier-mâché dolphin with a little orchestra in its belly, fireworks, masques, hunts, and popular entertainments like bear baiting.[106] The whole scenery of landscape, artificial lake, castle, and Renaissance garden was ingeniously used for the entertainment.[107]

Love affairs and remarriage

 
Sir Robert Dudley, son of Lady Douglas Sheffield and Robert Dudley

Confronted by a Puritan friend with rumours about his "ungodly life",[108] Dudley defended himself in 1576:

I stand on the top of the hill, where ... the smallest slip seemeth a fall ... I may fall many ways and have more witnesses thereof than many others who perhaps be no saints neither ... for my faults ... they lie before Him who I have no doubt but will cancel them as I have been and shall be most heartily sorry for them.[109]

With Douglas Sheffield, a young widow of the Howard family, he had a serious relationship from about 1569.[110] He explained to her that he could not marry, not even in order to beget a Dudley heir, without his "utter overthrow":[111]

You must think it is some marvellous cause ... that forceth me thus to be cause almost of the ruin of mine own house ... my brother you see long married and not like to have children, it resteth so now in myself; and yet such occasions is there ... as if I should marry I am sure never to have [the Queen's] favour".[112]

Although in this letter Leicester said he still loved her as he did at the beginning, he offered her his help to find another husband for reasons of respectability if she so wished.[113] The affair continued and in 1574 Douglas gave birth to a son, also called Robert Dudley.[114]

 
Robert Dudley, Anglo/Netherlandish School, c. 1565, National Trust, Montacute House

Lettice Knollys was the wife of Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, and a first cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth on her mother's side. Leicester had flirted with her in the summer of 1565, causing an outbreak of jealousy in the Queen.[115] After Lord Essex went to Ireland in 1573, they possibly became lovers.[116] There was much talk, and on Essex's homecoming in December 1575, "great enmity between the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Essex" was expected.[117] In July 1576 Essex returned to Ireland, where he died of dysentery in September.[116] Rumours of poison, administered by the Earl of Leicester's means, were soon abroad. The Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Henry Sidney, conducted an official investigation which did not find any indications of foul play but "a disease appropriate to this country ... whereof ... died many".[118] The rumours continued.[119]

The prospect of marriage to the Countess of Essex on the horizon, Leicester finally drew a line under his relationship with Douglas Sheffield. Contrary to what she later claimed, they came to an amicable agreement over their son's custody.[6] Young Robert grew up in Dudley's and his friends' houses, but had "leave to see" his mother until she left England in 1583.[120] Leicester was very fond of his son and gave him an excellent education.[121] In his will he left him the bulk of his estate (after his brother Ambrose's death), including Kenilworth Castle.[122] Douglas Sheffield remarried in 1579. After the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, the younger Robert Dudley tried unsuccessfully to prove that his parents had married 30 years earlier in a secret ceremony. In that case, he would have been able to claim the earldoms of Leicester and Warwick.[123] His mother supported him, but maintained that she had been strongly against raising the issue and was possibly pressured by her son.[124] Leicester himself had throughout considered the boy as illegitimate.[125][note 4]

On 21 September 1578 Leicester secretly married Lady Essex at his country house at Wanstead, with only a handful of relatives and friends present.[126] He did not dare to tell the Queen of his marriage; nine months later Leicester's enemies at court acquainted her with the situation, causing a furious outburst.[127] She already had been aware of his marriage plans a year earlier, though.[128] Leicester's hope of an heir was fulfilled in 1581 when another Robert Dudley, styled Lord Denbigh, was born.[129] The child died aged three in 1584, leaving his parents disconsolate.[130] Leicester found comfort in God since, as he wrote, "princes ... seldom do pity according to the rules of charity."[131] The Earl turned out to be a devoted husband:[132] In 1583 the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau, wrote of "the Earl of Leicester and his lady to whom he is much attached", and "who has much influence over him".[133] Leicester was a concerned parent to his four stepchildren,[134] and in every respect worked for the advancement of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, whom he regarded as his political heir.[135]

The marriage of her favourite hurt the Queen deeply. She never accepted it,[136] humiliating Leicester in public: "my open and great disgraces delivered from her Majesty's mouth".[137] Then again, she would be as fond of him as ever.[138] In 1583 she informed ambassadors that Lettice Dudley was "a she-wolf" and her husband a "traitor" and "a cuckold".[139] Lady Leicester's social life was much curtailed.[140] Even her movements could pose a political problem, as Francis Walsingham explained: "I see not her Majesty disposed to use the services of my Lord of Leicester. There is great offence taken at the conveying down of his lady."[141] The Earl stood by his wife, asking his colleagues to intercede for her; there was no hope:[142] "She [the Queen] doth take every occasion by my marriage to withdraw any good from me", Leicester wrote even after seven years of marriage.[143]

Colleagues and politics

 
Robert Dudley in 1576, aged 44, as is stated in the margin. Miniature by Nicholas Hilliard[6]

For the first 30 years of Elizabeth's reign, until Leicester's death, he and Lord Burghley were the most powerful and important political figures, working intimately with the Queen.[144] Robert Dudley was a conscientious privy councillor, and one of the most frequently attending.[145]

In 1560 the diplomat Nicholas Throckmorton advocated vehemently against Dudley marrying the Queen, but Dudley won him over in 1562.[146] Throckmorton henceforth became his political advisor and intimate. After Throckmorton's death in 1571, there quickly evolved a political alliance between the Earl of Leicester and Sir Francis Walsingham, soon to be Secretary of State. Together they worked for a militant Protestant foreign policy.[147] There also existed a family relationship between them after Walsingham's daughter had married Philip Sidney, Leicester's favourite nephew.[148] Leicester, after some initial jealousy, also became a good friend of Sir Christopher Hatton, himself one of Elizabeth's favourites.[149]

Robert Dudley's relationship with William Cecil, Lord Burghley, was complicated. Traditionally they have been seen as enemies, and Cecil behind the scenes sabotaged Dudley's endeavours to obtain the Queen's hand.[70] On the other hand, they were on friendly terms and had an efficient working relationship which never broke down.[150] In 1572 the vacant post of Lord High Treasurer was offered to Leicester, who declined and proposed Burghley, stating that the latter was the much more suitable candidate.[151] In later years, being at odds, Dudley felt like reminding Cecil of their "thirty years friendship".[152]

On the whole, Cecil and Dudley were in concord about policies while disagreeing fundamentally about some issues, such as the Queen's marriage and some areas of foreign policy.[153] Cecil favoured the suit of Francois, Duke of Anjou, in 1578–1581 for Elizabeth's hand, while Leicester was among its strongest opponents,[72] even contemplating exile in letters to Burghley.[154] The Anjou courtship, at the end of which Leicester and several dozen noblemen and gentlemen escorted the French prince to Antwerp,[155] also touched the question of English intervention in the Netherlands to help the rebellious provinces. This debate stretched over a decade until 1585, with the Earl of Leicester as the foremost interventionist. Burghley was more cautious of military engagement while in a dilemma over his Protestant predilections.[156]

Until about 1571/1572 Dudley supported Mary Stuart's succession rights to the English throne.[157] He was also, from the early 1560s, on the best terms with the Protestant lords in Scotland, thereby supporting the English or, as he saw it, the Protestant interest.[158] After Mary Stuart's flight into England (1568) Leicester was, unlike Cecil,[159] in favour of restoring her as Scottish queen under English control, preferably with a Protestant English husband, such as the Duke of Norfolk.[160] In 1577 Leicester had a personal meeting with Mary and listened to her complaints about her captivity.[161] By the early 1580s Mary had come to fear Leicester's influence with James VI, her son, in whose privy chamber the English Earl had placed a spy.[6] She spread stories about his supposed lust for the English throne,[6] and when the Catholic anti-Leicester libel, Leicester's Commonwealth, was published in 1584 Dudley believed that Mary was involved in its conception.[162]

The Bond of Association, which the Privy Council gave out in October 1584, may have originated in Dudley's ideas.[163] Circulated in the country, the document's subscribers swore that, should Elizabeth be assassinated (as William the Silent had been a few months earlier), not only the killer but also the royal person who would benefit from this should be executed.[164] Leicester's relations with James of Scotland grew closer when he gained the confidence of the King's favourite, Patrick, Master of Gray, in 1584–1585. His negotiations with the Master were the basis for the Treaty of Berwick,[6] a defensive alliance between the two British states against European powers. In 1586 Walsingham uncovered the Babington Plot. Following the Ridolfi Plot (1571) and the Throckmorton Plot (1583), this was another scheme to assassinate Elizabeth in which Mary Stuart was involved. Following her conviction, Leicester, then in the Netherlands, vehemently urged her execution in his letters; he despaired of Elizabeth's security after so many plots.[165]

Leicester having returned to England, in February 1587 Elizabeth signed Mary's death warrant, with the proviso that it be not carried out until she gave her approval. As there was no sign of her doing so, Burghley, Leicester, and a handful of other privy councillors decided to proceed with Mary's execution in the interest of the state. Leicester went to Bath and Bristol for his health; unlike the other privy councillors involved, he escaped Elizabeth's severe wrath on hearing the news of Mary's death.[166]

Patronage

Exploration and business

 
Sir Francis Drake. Leicester was happy to invest in his ventures and invite him to play cards.[167]

Robert Dudley was a pioneer of new industries; interested in many things from tapestries to mining, he was engaged in the first joint stock companies in English history.[168] The Earl also concerned himself with relieving unemployment among the poor.[169] On a personal level, he gave to poor people, petitioners, and prisons on a daily basis.[82] Due to his interests in trade and exploration, as well as his debts, his contacts with the London city fathers were intense.[82] He was an enthusiastic investor in the Muscovy Company and the Merchant Adventurers.[170] English relations with Morocco were also handled by Leicester. This he did in the manner of his private business affairs, underpinned by a patriotic and missionary zeal (commercially, these relations were loss-making).[171] He took much interest in the careers of John Hawkins and Francis Drake from early on, and was a principal backer of Drake's circumnavigation of the world. Robert and Ambrose Dudley were also the principal patrons of Martin Frobisher's 1576 search for the Northwest Passage.[172] Later Leicester acquired his own ship, the Galleon Leicester, which he employed in a luckless expedition under Edward Fenton, but also under Drake. As much as profit, English seapower was on his mind, and accordingly, Leicester became a friend and leading supporter of Dom António, the exiled claimant to the Portuguese throne after 1580.[173]

Learning, theatre, the arts, and literature

Apart from their legal function, the Inns of Court were the Tudor equivalents of gentlemen's clubs.[174] In 1561, grateful for favours he had done them, the Inner Temple admitted Dudley as their most privileged member, their "Lord and Governor".[175] He was allowed to build his own apartments on the premises and organised grand festivities and performances in the Temple.[176] As Chancellor of Oxford University Dudley was highly committed.[177] He enforced the Thirty-nine Articles and the oath of royal supremacy at Oxford, and obtained from the Queen an incorporation by Act of Parliament for the university.[178] Leicester was also instrumental in founding the official Oxford University Press,[179] and installed the pioneer of international law, Alberico Gentili, and the exotic theologian, Antonio del Corro, at Oxford. Over del Corro's controversial case he even sacked the university's Vice-Chancellor.[180]

Around 100 books were dedicated to Robert Dudley during Elizabeth's reign.[181] In 1564/1567 Arthur Golding dedicated his popular translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses to the Earl.[182] Dudley took a special interest in translations, which were seen as a means to popularise learning among "all who could read."[183] He was also a history enthusiast, and in 1559 suggested to the tailor John Stow to become a chronicler (as Stow recalled in 1604).[184] Robert Dudley's interest in the theatre was manifold, from academic plays at Oxford to the protection of the Children of St. Paul's and of the Royal Chapel, and their respective masters, against hostile bishops and landlords.[185] From at least 1559 he had his own company of players,[186] and in 1574 he obtained for them the first royal patent issued to actors to allow them to tour the country unmolested by local authorities.[187] The Earl also kept a separate company of musicians who in 1586 played before the King of Denmark; with them travelled William Kempe, "the Lord Leicester's jesting player".[188]

 
Queen Elizabeth at Wanstead Hall. The figures in the garden may include representations of Robert and Lettice Dudley.[189] Painting by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder

Leicester possessed one of the largest collections of paintings in Elizabethan England, being the first great private collector.[190] He was a principal patron of Nicholas Hilliard, as well as interested in all aspects of Italian culture.[191] The Earl's circle of scholars and men of letters included, among others, his nephew Philip Sidney, the astrologer and Hermeticist John Dee, his secretaries Edward Dyer and Jean Hotman, as well as John Florio and Gabriel Harvey.[192] Through Harvey, Edmund Spenser found employment at Leicester House on the Strand, the Earl's palatial town house, where he wrote his first works of poetry.[193] Many years after Leicester's death Spenser wistfully recalled this time in his Prothalamion,[194] and in 1591 he remembered the late Earl with his poem The Ruins of Time.[195]

Religion

Robert Dudley grew up as a Protestant. Presumably conforming in public under Mary I,[6] he was counted among the "heretics" by Philip II's agent before Elizabeth's accession.[196] He immediately became a major patron to former Edwardian clerics and returning exiles.[6] Meanwhile, he also helped some of Mary's former servants and maintained Catholic contacts.[197] From 1561 he advocated and supported the Huguenot cause,[198] and the French ambassador described him as "totally of the Calvinist religion" in 1568.[199] After the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572 this trait in him became more pronounced, and he continued as the chief patron of English Puritans and a champion of international Calvinism.[200] On the other hand, in his household, Leicester employed Catholics like Sir Christopher Blount, who held a position of trust and of whom he was personally fond. The Earl's patronage of and reliance on individuals was as much a matter of old family loyalties or personal relationships as of religious allegiances.[201]

Leicester was especially interested in the furtherance of preaching, which was the main concern of moderate Puritanism.[202] He went to great lengths to support non-conforming preachers, while warning them against too radical positions which, he argued, would only endanger what reforms had been hitherto achieved.[203] He would not condone the overthrow of the existing church model because of "trifles", he said.[204] "I am not, I thank God, fantastically persuaded in religion but ... do find it soundly and godly set forth in this universal Church of England."[205] Accordingly, he tried to smooth things out and, among other moves, initiated several disputations between the more radical elements of the Church and the episcopal side so that they "might make reconcilement".[206] His influence in ecclesiastical matters was considerable until it declined in the 1580s under Archbishop John Whitgift.[207]

Governor-General of the United Provinces

 
Leicester as Governor-General, 1586. Engraving by Hendrik Goltzius

During the 1570s Leicester built a special relationship with Prince William of Orange, who held him in high esteem. The Earl became generally popular in the Netherlands. Since 1577 he pressed for an English military expedition, led by himself (as the Dutch strongly wished) to succour the rebels.[208] In 1584 the Prince of Orange was murdered, political chaos ensued, and in August 1585 Antwerp fell to the Duke of Parma.[209] An English intervention became inevitable; it was decided that Leicester would go to the Netherlands and "be their chief as heretofore was treated of", as he phrased it in August 1585.[210] He was alluding to the recently signed Treaty of Nonsuch in which his position and authority as "governor-general" of the Netherlands had only been vaguely defined.[211] The Earl prepared himself for "God's cause and her Majesty's" by recruiting the expedition's cavalry from his retainers and friends, and by mortgaging his estate to the sum of £25,000.[212]

On Thursday 9 December 1585, the Earl of Leicester set sail for the Low Countries from Harwich and landed after a swift crossing of less than 24 hours, the fleet anchored at Flushing (Vlissingen). At the end of December 1585 Leicester was received in the Netherlands, according to one correspondent, in the manner of a second Charles V; a Dutch town official already noted in his minute-book that the Earl was going to have "absolute power and authority".[213] After progress through several cities and so many festivals he arrived in The Hague, where on 1 January 1586 he was urged to accept the title governor-general by the States General of the United Provinces. Leicester wrote to Burghley and Walsingham, explaining why he believed the Dutch importunities should be answered favourably. He accepted his elevation on 25 January, having not yet received any communications from England due to constant adverse winds.[214]

The Earl had now "the rule and government general" with a Council of State to support him (the members of which he nominated himself).[215] He remained a subject of Elizabeth, making it possible to contend that she was now sovereign over the Netherlands. According to Leicester, this was what the Dutch desired.[216] From the start such a position for him had been implied in the Dutch propositions to the English, and in their instructions to Leicester; and it was consistent with the Dutch understanding of the Treaty of Nonsuch.[217] The English queen, however, in her instructions to Leicester, had expressly declined to accept offers of sovereignty from the United Provinces while still demanding of the States to follow the "advice" of her lieutenant-general in matters of government.[218] Her ministers on both sides of the Channel hoped she would accept the situation as a fait accompli and could even be persuaded to add the rebellious provinces to her possessions.[213] Instead her fury knew no bounds and Elizabeth sent Sir Thomas Heneage to read out her letters of disapproval before the States General, Leicester having to stand nearby.[219] Elizabeth's "commandment"[220] was that the Governor-General immediately resign his post in a formal ceremony in the same place where he had taken it.[221] After much pleading with her and protestations by the Dutch, it was postulated that the governor-generalship had been bestowed not by any sovereign, but by the States General and thereby by the people.[222] The damage was done, however:[223] "My credit hath been cracked ever since her Majesty sent Sir Thomas Heneage hither", Leicester recapitulated in October 1586.[224]

 
Engraving of Robert Dudley as Governor-General, on horseback

Elizabeth demanded of her Lieutenant-General to refrain at all costs from any decisive action with Parma, which was the opposite of what Leicester wished and what the Dutch expected of him.[225] After some initial successes,[226] the unexpected surrender of the strategically important town of Grave was a serious blow to English morale. Leicester's fury turned on the town's governor, Baron Hemart, whom he had executed despite all pleadings. The Dutch nobility were astonished: even the Prince of Orange would not have dared such an outrage, Leicester was warned; but, he wrote, he would not be intimidated by the fact that Hemart "was of a good house".[227]

Leicester's forces, small and seriously underfinanced from the outset, faced the most formidable army in Europe.[228] Unity among their ranks was at risk by Leicester's and the other officers' quarrels with Sir John Norris, who had commanded previous English contingents in the Netherlands and was now the Earl's deputy.[229] Elizabeth was angry that the war cost more than anticipated and for many months delayed sending money and troops.[230] This not only forced Dudley to raise further funds on his own account, but much aggravated the soldiers' lot.[231] "They cannot get a penny; their credit is spent; they perish for want of victuals and clothing in great numbers ... I assure you it will fret me to death ere long to see my soldiers in this case and cannot help them", Leicester wrote home.[232]

Many Dutch statesmen were essentially politiques; they soon became disenchanted with the Earl's enthusiastic fostering of what he called "the religion".[233] His most loyal friends were the Calvinists at Utrecht and Friesland, provinces in constant opposition to Holland and Zeeland.[234] Those rich provinces engaged in a lucrative trade with Spain which was very helpful to either side's war effort. On Elizabeth's orders Leicester enforced a ban on this trade with the enemy, thus alienating the wealthy Dutch merchants.[235] He also affected a fiscal reform. In order to centralise finances and to replace the highly corrupt tax farming with direct taxation, a new Council of Finances was established which was not under the supervision of the Council of State. The Dutch members of the Council of State were outraged at these bold steps.[236] English peace talks with Spain behind Leicester's back, which had started within days after he had left England, undermined his position further.[237]

In September 1586 there was a skirmish at Zutphen, in which Philip Sidney was wounded. He died a few weeks later. His uncle's grief was great.[238] In December Leicester returned to England. In his absence, William Stanley and Rowland York, two Catholic officers whom Leicester had placed in command of Deventer and the fort of Zutphen, respectively, went over to Parma, along with their key fortresses—a disaster for the Anglo-Dutch coalition in every respect.[239] His Dutch friends, as his English critics, pressed for Leicester's return to the Netherlands. Shortly after his arrival in June 1587 the English-held port of Sluis was lost to Parma, Leicester being unable to assert his authority over the Dutch allies, who refused to cooperate in relieving the town.[240] After this blow Elizabeth, who ascribed it to "the malice or other foul error of the States",[241] was happy to enter into peace negotiations with the Duke of Parma. By December 1587 the differences between Elizabeth and the Dutch politicians, with Leicester in between, had become insurmountable; he asked to be recalled by the Queen and gave up his post.[242] He was irredeemably in debt because of his personal financing of the war.[6]

Armada and death

 
A letter from Leicester to Elizabeth I, written at the Armada camp and signed with his nickname, "Eyes"

In July 1588, as the Spanish Armada came nearer, the Earl of Leicester was appointed "Lieutenant and Captain-General of the Queen's Armies and Companies".[243] At Tilbury on the Thames he erected a camp for the defence of London, should the Spaniards land. Leicester vigorously counteracted the disorganisation he found everywhere, having few illusions about "all sudden hurley-burleys", as he wrote to Walsingham.[244] When the Privy Council was already considering disbanding the camp to save money, Leicester held against it, setting about to plan with the Queen a visit to her troops. On the day she gave her famous speech he walked beside her horse, bare-headed.[245]

 
The tomb of Robert and Lettice Dudley, erected by the Countess. Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick

After the Armada the Earl was seen riding in splendour through London "as if he were a king",[246] and for the last few weeks of his life he usually dined with the Queen, a unique favour.[246] On his way to Buxton in Derbyshire to take the baths, he died at Cornbury Park near Oxford, on 4 September 1588. Leicester's health had not been good for some time; historians have considered malaria and stomach cancer as causes of death.[247] His death came unexpectedly,[6] and only a week earlier he had said farewell to Elizabeth. She was deeply affected and locked herself in her apartment for a few days until Lord Burghley had the door broken.[248] Her nickname for Dudley had been "Eyes", which was symbolised by the sign of ôô in their letters to each other.[249] Elizabeth kept the letter he had sent her six days before his death in her bedside treasure box, endorsing it with "his last letter" on the outside. It was still there when she died 15 years later on 24 March 1603.[250]

Leicester was buried, as he had requested, in the Beauchamp Chapel of the Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick on 10 October 1588—in the same chapel as Richard Beauchamp, his ancestor, and the "noble Impe", his little son.[251] Countess Lettice was also buried there when she died in 1634, alongside the "best and dearest of husbands", as the epitaph, which she commissioned, says.[252]

Historiographical treatment

The book which later became known as Leicester's Commonwealth was written by Catholic exiles in Paris and printed anonymously in 1584.[253][note 5] It was published shortly after the death of Leicester's son, which is alluded to in a stop-press marginal note: "The children of adulterers shall be consumed, and the seed of a wicked bed shall be rooted out."[254] Smuggled into England, the libel became a best-seller with underground booksellers and the next year was translated into French.[255] Its underlying political agenda is the succession of Mary, Queen of Scots, to the English throne,[256] but its most outstanding feature is an all-round attack on the Earl of Leicester. He is presented as an atheistic, hypocritical coward, a "perpetuall Dictator",[257] terrorising the Queen and ruining the whole country. He is engaged in a long-term conspiracy to snatch the Crown from Elizabeth in order to settle it first on his brother-in-law, the Earl of Huntingdon, and ultimately on himself. Spicy details of his monstrous private life are revealed, and he appears as an expert poisoner of many high-profile personalities.[258] This influential classic is the origin of many aspects of Leicester's historical reputation.[259] Similar conspiracies are often mentioned in coded letters from Mary, Queen of Scots, to the French ambassador.[260]

 
Queen Elizabeth and Leicester by William Frederick Yeames, 1865

In the early 17th century, William Camden saw "some secret constellation" of the stars at work between Elizabeth and her favourite;[261] he firmly established the legend of the perfect courtier with the sinister influence.[262] Some of the most often-quoted characterisations of Leicester, such as that he "was wont to put up all his passions in his pocket", his nickname of "the Gypsy", and Elizabeth's "I will have here but one mistress and no master"-reprimand to him, were contributed by Sir Henry Wotton and Sir Robert Naunton almost half a century after the Earl's death.[263]

The Victorian historian James Anthony Froude saw Robert Dudley as Elizabeth's soft plaything, combining "in himself the worst qualities of both sexes. Without courage, without talent, without virtue".[264] The habit of comparing him unfavourably to William Cecil[265] was continued by Conyers Read in 1925: "Leicester was a selfish, unscrupulous courtier and Burghley a wise and patriotic statesman".[266] Geoffrey Elton, in his widely read England under the Tudors (1955), saw Dudley as "a handsome, vigorous man with very little sense."[267]

Since the 1950s, academic assessment of the Earl of Leicester has undergone considerable changes.[268] Leicester's importance in literary patronage was established by Eleanor Rosenberg in 1955. Elizabethan Puritanism has been thoroughly reassessed since the 1960s, and Patrick Collinson has outlined the Earl's place in it.[268] Dudley's religion could thus be better understood, rather than simply to brand him as a hypocrite.[269] His importance as a privy councillor and statesman has often been overlooked,[78] one reason being that many of his letters are scattered among private collections and not easily accessible in print, as are those of his colleagues Walsingham and Cecil.[6] Alan Haynes describes him as "one of the most strangely underrated of Elizabeth's circle of close advisers",[270] while Simon Adams, who since the early 1970s has researched many aspects of Leicester's life and career,[271] concludes: "Leicester was as central a figure to the 'first reign' [of Elizabeth] as Burghley."[272]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ There is a popular tradition that Robert Dudley was the same age as Elizabeth I; however, in a letter to William Cecil he denotes 24 June as his birthday, and a 1576 portrait miniature by Nicholas Hilliard gives his age as 44, "so 1532 is the most likely year of his birth" (Adams 2008b).
  2. ^ "está muy mala de un pecho" ("she is very ill in one breast"), in the original Spanish (Adams 1995 p. 63).
  3. ^ The others he listed were William Cecil and his brother-in-law Nicholas Bacon (Chamberlin 1939 p. 101).
  4. ^ Sir Robert Dudley lost his case in the Star Chamber in 1605 (Warner 1899 p. xlvi). Historians have had differing views on the problem: While Derek Wilson believes in a marriage (Wilson 1981 p. 326), it has been rejected by, for example, Conyers Read (Read 1936 p. 23), Johanna Rickman (Rickman 2008 p. 51), and Simon Adams (Adams 2008d).
  5. ^ The original title began: The copie of a leter, wryten by a Master of Arte of Cambrige ... (WorldCat. Retrieved 5 April 2010.) In 1641, it was reprinted in London as Leycesters Commonwealth (Burgoyne 1904 p. vii).

Citations

  1. ^ "Princely pleasures at Kenilworth: Robert Dudley's three-week marriage proposal to Elizabeth I". HistoryExtra. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  2. ^ "Robert Dudley's bindings: 'A bear muzzled and chained'". blogs.bl.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  3. ^ Haynes 1992 p. 12; Wilson 1981 pp. 151–152
  4. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 145, 147
  5. ^ Adams 2002 p. 52
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Adams 2008b
  7. ^ Adams 2002 p. 133
  8. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 16
  9. ^ Chamberlin 1939 pp. 55–56
  10. ^ Chamberlin 1939 p. 55; Adams 2008b
  11. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 23, 28–29; Adams 2008b; Loades 1996 p. 225
  12. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 31, 33, 44
  13. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 135, 159
  14. ^ Loades 1996 pp. 179, 225, 285; Haynes 1987 pp. 20–21
  15. ^ Virgoe 1982 p. 66
  16. ^ Loades 1996 pp. 225–226; Wilson 1981 pp. 45–47
  17. ^ Loades 1996 pp. 256–257, 238–239
  18. ^ Ives 2009 pp. 199, 209; Haynes 1987 pp. 23
  19. ^ Haynes 1987 pp. 23–24; Chamberlin 1939 pp. 68-69
  20. ^ Loades 1996 pp. 266, 270–271
  21. ^ a b c Adams 2002 p. 134
  22. ^ Loades 1996 p. 280
  23. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 161–162
  24. ^ Loades 1996 p. 273
  25. ^ Adams 2002 p. 158; Wilson 1981 p. 71
  26. ^ Loades 1996 pp. 238, 273
  27. ^ Adams 2002 p. 134; Chamberlin 1939 pp. 87–88
  28. ^ "Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester". Historic UK. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  29. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 78, 83–92
  30. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 96
  31. ^ Hume 1892–1899 Vol. I pp. 57–58; Wilson 1981 p. 95
  32. ^ Owen 1980 p. 9
  33. ^ Skidmore 2010 pp. 166, 162
  34. ^ Chamberlin 1939 p. 118
  35. ^ Chamberlin 1939 pp. 116–117; Doran 1996 p. 42
  36. ^ Adams 1995 p. 78; Wilson 1981 p. 100; Chamberlin 1939 p. 117
  37. ^ Adams 1995 p. 151
  38. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 114; Doran 1996 p. 72
  39. ^ Wilson 2005 p. 261
  40. ^ Adams 2011
  41. ^ Adams 1995 pp. 380–382
  42. ^ Adams 1995 p. 378
  43. ^ Adams 1995 p. 383
  44. ^ Adams 2002 p. 136
  45. ^ Doran 1996 p. 43; Skidmore 2010 p. 382
  46. ^ Skidmore 2010 p. 378
  47. ^ Owen 1980 p. 10; Doran 1996 p. 45
  48. ^ a b Doran 1996 p. 44
  49. ^ Adams 2011; Skidmore 2010 pp. 230–233
  50. ^ Doran 1996 pp. 42–44
  51. ^ a b Jenkins 2002 p. 65
  52. ^ Jenkins 2002 p. 291
  53. ^ Gristwood 2007 pp. 115, 120–123; Doran 1996 p. 44
  54. ^ Doran 1996 p. 45–52; Adams 2008b
  55. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 136
  56. ^ Adams 2002 p. 137
  57. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 140–141
  58. ^ Chamberlin 1939 pp. 138–139
  59. ^ Chamberlin 1939 pp. 136, 160, 144–145
  60. ^ Chamberlin 1939 pp. 140, 146, 147
  61. ^ Chamberlin 1939 pp. 151–152
  62. ^ Chamberlin 1939 p. 158
  63. ^ Chamberlin 1939 pp. 143–144, 152, 158, 168; Wilson 1981 p. 141; Jenkins 2002 p. 119
  64. ^ Chamberlin 1939 p. 152; Wilson 1981 p. 142
  65. ^ Adams 2008b; Chamberlin 1939 pp. 155, 156–157, 159–161
  66. ^ Fraser 1972 p. 267; Wilson 1981 p. 243
  67. ^ Doran 1996 p. 65
  68. ^ Hume 1904 p. 90; Doran 1996 p. 65
  69. ^ Hume 1904 pp. 90–94, 99, 101–104; Jenkins 2002 p. 130
  70. ^ a b Doran 1996 p. 212
  71. ^ Hume 1904 pp. 94, 95, 138, 197; Doran 1996 p. 124
  72. ^ a b Doran 1996 pp. 212–213
  73. ^ Adams 2002 p. 139
  74. ^ Watkins 1998 p. 163
  75. ^ Gristwood 2007 p. 151; Girouard 1979 p. 111
  76. ^ Adams 2002 p. 140; Wilson 1981 p. 305
  77. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 230
  78. ^ a b Wilson 1981 p. 305
  79. ^ Adams 2002 p. 120; Wilson 1981 pp. 78, 305
  80. ^ Adams 2002 p. 43
  81. ^ Haynes 1987 pp. 141–144; Wilson 1981 pp. 326–327
  82. ^ a b c d Adams 1996
  83. ^ Loades 2004 p. 271
  84. ^ Adams 2002 p. 319
  85. ^ Adams 2008b; Adams 1996
  86. ^ Adams 2002 p. 163; Adams 2008b
  87. ^ Haynes 1987 p. 59; Adams 2002 p. 235
  88. ^ Adams 2002 p. 310; Wilson 1981 p. 170
  89. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 3, 264, 272, 275
  90. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 268–269, 275–276
  91. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 3, 276–277
  92. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 171–172
  93. ^ Adams 2002 p. 225
  94. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 172; Adams 2002 p. 225
  95. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 173
  96. ^ Morris 2010 p. 27
  97. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 322, 3
  98. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 1, 3
  99. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 312–313, 321
  100. ^ Adams 2002 p. 312–313, 320–321, 326
  101. ^ Jenkins 2002 pp. 179–181
  102. ^ Adams 2002 p. 327
  103. ^ Adams 2002 p. 312
  104. ^ Molyneux 2008 pp. 58–59
  105. ^ Morris 2010 pp. 47–48
  106. ^ Doran 1996 pp. 67–69; Jenkins 2002 pp. 205–211
  107. ^ Henderson 2005 pp. 90–92
  108. ^ Gristwood 2007 p. 249
  109. ^ Gristwood 2007 pp. 249–250
  110. ^ Rickman 2008 p. 49
  111. ^ Read 1936 p. 24
  112. ^ Read 1936 p. 25
  113. ^ Read 1936 pp. 23, 26
  114. ^ Warner 1899 pp. iii–iv
  115. ^ Jenkins 2002 pp. 124–125
  116. ^ a b Adams 2008a
  117. ^ Jenkins 2002 p. 212
  118. ^ Freedman 1983 pp. 33–34, 22
  119. ^ Freedman 1983 pp. 33; Jenkins 2002 p. 217
  120. ^ Adams 2008d; Adams 2008c
  121. ^ Warner 1899 p. vi; Wilson 1981 p. 246
  122. ^ Warner 1899 p. ix
  123. ^ Warner 1899 p. xxxix
  124. ^ Warner 1899 p. xl; Adams 2008d
  125. ^ Warner 1899 p. vi, vii
  126. ^ Jenkins 2002 pp. 234–235
  127. ^ Doran 1996 p. 161
  128. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 229–230
  129. ^ Hammer 1999 p. 35
  130. ^ Jenkins 2002 p. 287
  131. ^ Nicolas 1847 p. 382
  132. ^ Jenkins 2002 p. 362
  133. ^ Jenkins 2002 pp. 280–281
  134. ^ Adams 1995 p. 182
  135. ^ Hammer 1999 pp. 34–38, 60–61, 70, 76
  136. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 228, 230–231
  137. ^ Nicolas 1847 p. 97; Jenkins 2002 p. 247
  138. ^ Owen 1980 p. 44; Jenkins 2002 pp. 263, 305
  139. ^ Hume 1892–1899 Vol. III p. 477; Jenkins 2002 p. 279
  140. ^ Wilson 2005 p. 358; Jenkins 2002 p. 280
  141. ^ Jenkins 2002 p. 305
  142. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 247
  143. ^ Hammer 1999 p. 46
  144. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 17–18
  145. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 195
  146. ^ Doran 1996 p. 59
  147. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 215; Collinson 1960 pp. xxv–xxvi
  148. ^ Rosenberg 1958 p. 23
  149. ^ Adams 2002 p. 121
  150. ^ Adams 2002 p. 18; Alford 2002 p. 30; Doran 1996 p. 216
  151. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 217
  152. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 216
  153. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 18–19, 59
  154. ^ Jenkins 2002 p. 247
  155. ^ Doran 1996 p. 190
  156. ^ Adams 2002 p. 34
  157. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 104, 107
  158. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 137–138, 141
  159. ^ Adams 2002 p. 18
  160. ^ Jenkins 2002 pp. 159, 169
  161. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 243
  162. ^ Jenkins 2002 p. 298
  163. ^ Adams 2008b; Collinson 2007 p. 75
  164. ^ Collinson 2007 p. 75
  165. ^ Jenkins 2002 pp. 323–324
  166. ^ Hammer 1999 pp. 59–61; Gristwood 2007 p. 322
  167. ^ Gristwood 2007 p. 292
  168. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 146; Adams 2002 p. 337
  169. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 142, 337
  170. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 165
  171. ^ Haynes 1987 pp. 88–94
  172. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 164–165; Gristwood 2007 p. 198
  173. ^ Haynes 1987 pp. 145–149
  174. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 169
  175. ^ Adams 2002 p. 250
  176. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 131–132, 168–169
  177. ^ Chamberlin 1939 pp. 177–178
  178. ^ Haynes 1987 pp. 75–76; Jenkins 2002 p. 178
  179. ^ Rosenberg 1958 pp. 295–296
  180. ^ Rosenberg 1958 p. 137; Haynes 1987 p. 77
  181. ^ Rosenberg 1958 p. xiii; Adams 2008b
  182. ^ Rosenberg 1958 pp. 156–158; Jenkins 2002 p. 143
  183. ^ Rosenberg 1958 p. xvi
  184. ^ Adams 2008b; Rosenberg 1958 p. 64; Wilson 1981 pp. 160–161
  185. ^ Rosenberg 1958 pp. 301–307
  186. ^ Adams 1995 p. 56
  187. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 153
  188. ^ Rosenberg 1958 p. 305
  189. ^ Morris 2010 p. 34; Wilson 1981 illustration caption
  190. ^ Hearn 1995 p. 96; Haynes 1987 p. 199
  191. ^ Hearn 1995 p. 124; Haynes 1992 p. 12
  192. ^ Haynes 1987 pp. 76–78, 125–126; Wilson 1981 p. 307
  193. ^ Jenkins 2002 pp. 254–257
  194. ^ Jenkins 2002 p. 261
  195. ^ Adams 2002 p. 149
  196. ^ Starkey 2001 pp. 230, 231
  197. ^ Doran 1996 pp. 66–67; Skidmore 2010 pp. 129, 128; Porter 2007 p. 412
  198. ^ Doran 1996 pp. 59, 67
  199. ^ Collinson 1971 p. 53
  200. ^ MacCulloch 2001 pp. 213, 249; Adams 2002 pp. 141–142
  201. ^ Adams 1995 p. 463; Adams 2002 p. 190
  202. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 230–231
  203. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 198–205; Adams 2002 p. 231
  204. ^ Adams 2002 p. 231
  205. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 205
  206. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 231, 143, 229–232; Collinson 1960 p. xxx
  207. ^ Collinson 1960 pp. xxi–xxiii, xxxviii
  208. ^ Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp. 7–15; Wilson 1981 p. 238; Haynes 1987 p. 158
  209. ^ Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp. 20, 24
  210. ^ Adams 2002 p. 147
  211. ^ Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p. 25
  212. ^ Gristwood 2007 pp. 307–308; Hammer 2003 p. 125
  213. ^ a b Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p. 53
  214. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 276–278
  215. ^ Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp. 55, 73
  216. ^ Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p. 54
  217. ^ Haynes 1987 pp. 158–159; Bruce 1844 p. 17; Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp. 23, 25
  218. ^ Bruce 1844 p. 15
  219. ^ Gristwood 2007 pp. 311, 313; Chamberlin 1939 p. 263
  220. ^ Bruce 1844 p. 105
  221. ^ Gristwood 2007 p. 313
  222. ^ Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p. 59
  223. ^ Hammer 2003 p. 127
  224. ^ Bruce 1844 p. 424
  225. ^ Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p. 72
  226. ^ Gristwood 2007 pp. 316–317
  227. ^ Bruce 1844 p. 309; Wilson 1981 pp. 282–284
  228. ^ Adams 2002 p. 147; Gristwood 2007 p. 307; Hammer 2003 pp. 125–126
  229. ^ Adams 2002 p. 180; Hammer 2003 p. 126
  230. ^ Hammer 2003 pp. 132–133
  231. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 282; Hammer 2003 p. 133
  232. ^ Gristwood 2007 pp. 315–316
  233. ^ Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p. 75
  234. ^ Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp. 75–76; Haynes 1987 p. 175
  235. ^ Haynes 1987 pp. 172–173; Adams 2008b
  236. ^ Haynes 1987 pp. 173–174
  237. ^ Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp. 43, 50
  238. ^ Haynes 1987 pp. 170–171
  239. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 291
  240. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 291–294
  241. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 294
  242. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 294–295
  243. ^ Haynes 1987 p. 191
  244. ^ Jenkins 2002 pp. 349–351
  245. ^ Haynes 1987 pp. 191–195
  246. ^ a b Hume 1892–1899 Vol. IV pp. 420–421; Jenkins 2002 p. 358
  247. ^ Adams 1996; Gristwood 2007 pp. 333–334
  248. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 302
  249. ^ Adams 2002 p. 148; Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester: Autograph letter, signed, to Queen Elizabeth I. Folger Shakespeare Library 28 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 17 July 2009
  250. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 303
  251. ^ Adams 2002 p. 149; Gristwood 2007 p. 340
  252. ^ Gristwood 2007 p. 340
  253. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 262–265
  254. ^ Jenkins 2002 p. 294
  255. ^ Bossy 2002 p. 126; Wilson 1981 p. 251
  256. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 253–254
  257. ^ Burgoyne 1904 p. 225
  258. ^ Wilson 1981 pp. 254–259; Jenkins 2002 pp. 290–294
  259. ^ Adams 1996; Wilson 1981 p. 268
  260. ^ George Lasry, Norbert Biermann, Satoshi Tomokiyo, 'Deciphering Mary Stuart’s lost letters from 1578-1584', Cryptologia (8 Feb 2023), pp. 37, 40 doi:10.1080/01611194.2022.2160677
  261. ^ Gristwood 2007 p. 9
  262. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 53–55; Adams 2008b
  263. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 55, 56
  264. ^ Adams 2002 p. 57
  265. ^ Haynes 1987 p. 11
  266. ^ Chamberlin 1939 p. 103
  267. ^ Wilson 1981 p. 304
  268. ^ a b Adams 2002 p. 176
  269. ^ Adams 2002 pp. 226–228
  270. ^ Haynes 1992 p. 15
  271. ^ Gristwood 2007 p. 372; Adams 2002 p. 2
  272. ^ Adams 2002 p. 7

References

  • Adams, Simon (ed.) (1995): Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-55156-0
  • Adams, Simon (1996): "At Home and Away. The Earl of Leicester" History Today Vol. 46 No. 5 May 1996 Retrieved 2010-09-29
  • Adams, Simon (2002): Leicester and the Court: Essays in Elizabethan Politics Manchester University Press ISBN 0-7190-5325-0
  • Adams, Simon (2008a): "Dudley, Lettice, countess of Essex and countess of Leicester (1543–1634)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. Jan 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2010-04-04
  • Adams, Simon (2008b): "Dudley, Robert, earl of Leicester (1532/3–1588)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. May 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2010-04-03
  • Adams, Simon (2008c): "Dudley, Sir Robert (1574–1649)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. Jan 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2010-04-03
  • Adams, Simon (2008d): "Sheffield, Douglas, Lady Sheffield (1542/3–1608)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. Jan 2008 (subscription required) Retrieved 2010-04-03
  • Adams, Simon (2011): "Dudley, Amy, Lady Dudley (1532–1560)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn. Jan 2011 (subscription required) Retrieved 2012-07-04
  • Alford, Stephen (2002): The Early Elizabethan Polity: William Cecil and the British Succession Crisis, 1558–1569 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-89285-6
  • Bossy, John (2002): Under the Molehill: An Elizabethan Spy Story Yale Nota Bene ISBN 0-300-09450-7
  • Bruce, John (ed.) (1844): Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester, during his Government of the Low Countries, in the Years 1585 and 1586 Camden Society
  • Burgoyne, F.J. (ed.) (1904): History of Queen Elizabeth, Amy Robsart and the Earl of Leicester, being a Reprint of "Leycesters Commonwealth" 1641 Longmans
  • Chamberlin, Frederick (1939): Elizabeth and Leycester Dodd, Mead & Co.
  • Collinson, Patrick (ed.) (1960): "Letters of Thomas Wood, Puritan, 1566–1577" Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research Special Supplement No. 5 November 1960
  • Collinson, Patrick (1971): The Elizabethan Puritan Movement Jonathan Cape ISBN 0-224-61132-1
  • Collinson, Patrick (2007): Elizabeth I Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-921356-6
  • Doran, Susan (1996): Monarchy and Matrimony: The Courtships of Elizabeth I Routledge ISBN 0-415-11969-3
  • Fraser, Antonia (1972): Mary Queen of Scots Panther Books ISBN 0-586-03379-3
  • Freedman, Sylvia (1983): Poor Penelope: Lady Penelope Rich. An Elizabethan Woman The Kensal Press ISBN 0-946041-20-2
  • Girouard, Mark (1979): Life in the English Country House. A Social and Architectural History BCA
  • Gristwood, Sarah (2007): Elizabeth and Leicester: Power, Passion, Politics Viking ISBN 978-0-670-01828-4
  • Hammer, P.E.J. (1999): The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, 1585–1597 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-01941-9
  • Hammer, P.E.J. (2003): Elizabeth's Wars: War, Government and Society in Tudor England, 1544–1604 Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 0-333-91943-2
  • Haynes, Alan (1987): The White Bear: The Elizabethan Earl of Leicester Peter Owen ISBN 0-7206-0672-1
  • Haynes, Alan (1992): Invisible Power: The Elizabethan Secret Services 1570–1603 Alan Sutton ISBN 0-7509-0037-7
  • Hearn, Karen (ed.) (1995): Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530–1630 Rizzoli ISBN 0-8478-1940-X
  • Henderson, Paula (2005): The Tudor House and Garden: Architecture and Landscape in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Yale University Press ISBN 0-300-10687-4
  • Historical Manuscripts Commission (ed.) (1911): Report on the Pepys Manuscripts Preserved at Magdalen College, Cambridge HMSO
  • Hume, Martin (ed.) (1892–1899): Calendar of ... State Papers Relating to English Affairs ... in ... Simancas, 1558–1603 HMSO Vol. I Vol. III Vol. IV
  • Hume, Martin (1904): The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth Eveleigh Nash & Grayson
  • Ives, Eric (2009): Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery Wiley-Blackwell ISBN 978-1-4051-9413-6
  • Jenkins, Elizabeth (2002): Elizabeth and Leicester The Phoenix Press ISBN 1-84212-560-5
  • Loades, David (1996): John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland 1504–1553 Clarendon Press ISBN 0-19-820193-1
  • Loades, David (2004): Intrigue and Treason: The Tudor Court, 1547–1558 Pearson/Longman ISBN 0-582-77226-5
  • MacCulloch, Diarmaid (2001): The Boy King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation Palgrave ISBN 0-312-23830-4
  • Molyneaux, N.A.D. (2008): "Kenilworth Castle in 1563" English Heritage Historical Review Vol. 3 2008 pp. 46–61
  • Morris, R.K. (2010): Kenilworth Castle English Heritage ISBN 978-1-84802-075-7
  • Nicolas, Harris (ed.) (1847): Memoirs of the Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton Richard Bentley
  • Owen, D.G. (ed.) (1980): Manuscripts of The Marquess of Bath Volume V: Talbot, Dudley and Devereux Papers 1533–1659 HMSO ISBN 0-11-440092-X
  • Porter, Linda (2007): Mary Tudor: The First Queen Portrait ISBN 978-0-7499-5144-3
  • Read, Conyers (1936): "A Letter from Robert, Earl of Leicester, to a Lady" The Huntington Library Bulletin No. 9 April 1936
  • Rickman, Johanna (2008): Love, Lust, and License in Early Modern England: Illicit Sex and the Nobility Ashgate ISBN 0-7546-6135-0
  • Rosenberg, Eleanor (1958): Leicester: Patron of Letters Columbia University Press
  • Skidmore, Chris (2010): Death and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart Weidenfeld & Nicolson ISBN 978-0-29-784650-5
  • Starkey, David (2001): Elizabeth: Apprenticeship Vintage ISBN 0-09-928657-2
  • Strong, R.C. and J.A. van Dorsten (1964): Leicester's Triumph Oxford University Press
  • Virgoe, Roger (1982). "DUDLEY, Sir Robert (1532/33-88)". In Bindoff, S.T. (ed.). The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509–1558. Vol. 2. London: Boydell and Brewer. p. 66. ISBN 9780436042829. Retrieved 1 September 2019 – via The History of Parliament Online.
  • Warner, G.F. (ed.) (1899): The Voyage of Robert Dudley to the West Indies, 1594–1595 Hakluyt Society
  • Watkins, Susan (1998): The Public and Private Worlds of Elizabeth I Thames & Hudson ISBN 0-500-01869-3
  • Wilson, Derek (1981): Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester 1533–1588 Hamish Hamilton ISBN 0-241-10149-2
  • Wilson, Derek (2005): The Uncrowned Kings of England: The Black History of the Dudleys and the Tudor Throne Carroll & Graf ISBN 0-7867-1469-7

Further reading

  • Goldring, Elizabeth (2014): Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and the World of Elizabethan Art: Painting and Patronage at the Court of Elizabeth I Yale University Press
  • Peck, Dwight (ed.) (1985) Leicester's Commonwealth: The Copy of a Letter Written by a Master of Art of Cambridge (1584) and Related Documents Ohio University Press ISBN 0-8214-0800-3

External links

  • "Dudley, Robert (DDLY564R)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  • "Archival material relating to Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester". UK National Archives.  
  • Lord Robert Dudley at The Internet Movie Database
Political offices
Preceded by
Sir Henry Jernyngham
Master of the Horse
1558–1587
Succeeded by
Vacant Lord Steward
1587–1588
Succeeded by
Lord St John of Basing
Preceded by
Sir John Salusbury
Custos Rotulorum of Denbighshire
bef. 1573–1588
Succeeded by
Preceded by
John Griffith
Custos Rotulorum of Flintshire
bef. 1584–1588
Preceded by Custos Rotulorum of Warwickshire
bef. 1573–1588
Succeeded by
Preceded by Custos Rotulorum of Caernarvonshire
bef. 1579–1588
Succeeded by
Preceded by Custos Rotulorum of Merionethshire
bef. 1579–1588
Succeeded by
Preceded by Custos Rotulorum of Anglesey
bef. 1584–1588
Succeeded by
Court offices
Preceded by Master of the Buckhounds
1552–1553
Succeeded by
?
Academic offices
Preceded by
?
High Stewart of Cambridge University
1563–1588
Succeeded by
Preceded by Chancellor of the University of Oxford
1564–1588
With: Sir Thomas Bromley as deputy 1585–1588
Legal offices
Preceded by Justice in Eyre
south of the Trent

1585–1588
Succeeded by

robert, dudley, earl, leicester, june, 1532, note, september, 1588, english, statesman, favourite, elizabeth, from, accession, until, death, suitor, queen, hand, many, years, right, honourablethe, earl, leicesterkg, pcrobert, dudley, earl, leicester, 1564, bac. Robert Dudley 1st Earl of Leicester KG PC 24 June 1532 note 1 4 September 1588 was an English statesman and the favourite of Elizabeth I from her accession until his death He was a suitor for the queen s hand for many years 1 2 The Right HonourableThe Earl of LeicesterKG PCRobert Dudley Earl of Leicester c 1564 In the background are the devices of the Order of Saint Michael and the Order of the Garter Robert Dudley was a knight of both Tenure1564 1588Other titlesLord of DenbighKnown forFavourite of Elizabeth IBorn24 June 1532Died4 September 1588 aged 56 Cornbury Oxfordshire Kingdom of EnglandBuriedCollegiate Church of St Mary WarwickNationalityEnglishResidenceKenilworth Castle WarwickshireLeicester House LondonWanstead EssexLocalityWest MidlandsNorth WalesWars and battlesKett s RebellionCampaign against Mary I 1553Battle of St Quentin 1557Dutch RevoltSpanish ArmadaOfficesMaster of the HorseLord Steward of the Royal HouseholdPrivy CouncillorGovernor General of the United ProvincesSpouse s Amy Robsart m 1550 d 1560 Lettice Knollys m 1578 IssueSir Robert Dudley illegitimate Robert Dudley Lord of DenbighParentsJohn Dudley 1st Duke of NorthumberlandJane GuildfordSignatureDudley s youth was overshadowed by the downfall of his family in 1553 after his father The Duke of Northumberland had failed to prevent the accession of Mary I Robert Dudley was condemned to death but was released in 1554 and took part in the Battle of St Quentin under Mary s husband and co ruler Philip which led to his full rehabilitation On Elizabeth I s accession in November 1558 Dudley was appointed Master of the Horse In October 1562 he became a privy councillor and in 1587 was appointed Lord Steward of the Royal Household In 1564 Dudley became Earl of Leicester and from 1563 one of the greatest landowners in North Wales and the English West Midlands by royal grants The earl of Leicester was one of Elizabeth s leading statesmen involved in domestic as well as foreign politics alongside William Cecil and Sir Francis Walsingham Although he refused to be married to Mary Queen of Scots Leicester was for a long time relatively sympathetic to her until from the mid 1580s he strongly advocated for her execution As patron of the Puritan movement he supported non conforming preachers but tried to mediate between them and the bishops of the Church of England A champion also of the international Protestant cause he led the English campaign in support of the Dutch Revolt 1585 87 His acceptance of the post of governor general of the United Provinces infuriated Queen Elizabeth The expedition was a military and political failure and it ruined the earl financially Leicester was engaged in many large scale business ventures and was one of the main backers of Francis Drake and other explorers and privateers During the Spanish Armada the earl was in overall command of the English land forces In this function he invited Queen Elizabeth to visit her troops at Tilbury This was the last of many events he had organised over the years the most spectacular being the festival at his seat Kenilworth Castle in 1575 on the occasion of a three week visit by the Queen Leicester was a principal patron of the arts literature and the Elizabethan theatre 3 Leicester s private life interfered with his court career and vice versa When his first wife Amy Robsart fell down a flight of stairs and died in 1560 he was free to marry the queen However the resulting scandal very much reduced his chances in this respect Popular rumours that he had arranged for his wife s death continued throughout his life despite the coroner s jury s verdict of accident For 18 years he did not remarry for Queen Elizabeth s sake and when he finally did his new wife Lettice Knollys was permanently banished from court This and the death of his only legitimate son and heir were heavy blows 4 Shortly after the child s death in 1584 a virulent libel known as Leicester s Commonwealth was circulated in England It laid the foundation of a literary and historiographical tradition that often depicted the earl as the Machiavellian master courtier 5 and as a deplorable figure around Elizabeth I More recent research has led to a reassessment of his place in Elizabethan government and society Contents 1 Youth 1 1 Education and marriage 1 2 Condemned and pardoned 2 Royal favourite 2 1 Amy Dudley s death 2 2 Marriage hopes and proposals 2 3 Life at court 3 Ancestral and territorial ambition 3 1 Denbighshire 3 2 Warwick and Kenilworth 4 Love affairs and remarriage 5 Colleagues and politics 6 Patronage 6 1 Exploration and business 6 2 Learning theatre the arts and literature 6 3 Religion 7 Governor General of the United Provinces 8 Armada and death 9 Historiographical treatment 10 See also 11 Footnotes 12 Citations 13 References 14 Further reading 15 External linksYouth Edit Quartered arms of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester Education and marriage Edit Robert Dudley was the fifth son of John Dudley 1st Duke of Northumberland and his wife Jane daughter of Sir Edward Guildford 6 His paternal grandfather Edmund Dudley had been an adviser to King Henry VII and was executed for treason in 1510 by King Henry VIII John and Jane Dudley had 13 children in all and were known for their happy family life 7 Among the siblings tutors figured John Dee 8 Thomas Wilson and Roger Ascham 9 Roger Ascham believed that Robert Dudley possessed a rare talent for languages and writing including in Latin regretting that his pupil had done himself harm by preferring mathematics 10 Robert learned the craft of the courtier at the courts of Henry VIII and especially Edward VI among whose companions he served 11 In 1549 Robert Dudley participated in crushing Kett s Rebellion and probably first met Amy Robsart whom he was to wed on 4 June 1550 in the presence of the young King Edward 12 She was of the same age as the bridegroom and the daughter and heiress of Sir John Robsart a gentleman farmer of Norfolk 13 It was a love match the young couple depending heavily on their fathers gifts especially Robert s John Dudley who since early 1550 effectively ruled England was pleased to strengthen his influence in Norfolk by his son s marriage 14 Lord Robert as he was styled as a duke s son became an important local gentleman and served as a Member of Parliament for Norfolk in 1551 52 March 1553 and 1559 15 His court career went on in parallel 16 Condemned and pardoned Edit On 6 July 1553 King Edward VI died and the Duke of Northumberland attempted to transfer the English crown to Lady Jane Grey who was married to his second youngest son Lord Guildford Dudley 17 Robert Dudley led a force of 300 into Norfolk where Edward s half sister Mary was assembling her followers After some ten days in the county and securing several towns for Jane he took King s Lynn and proclaimed her in the marketplace 18 The next day 19 July Jane s reign was over in London Soon the townsmen of King s Lynn seized Robert Dudley and the rest of his small troop and sent him to Framlingham Castle before Mary I 19 Robert Dudley was imprisoned in the Tower of London attainted and condemned to death as were his father and four brothers His father went to the scaffold 20 In the Tower Dudley s stay coincided with the imprisonment of his childhood friend 21 Edward and Mary s half sister Elizabeth who was sent there on suspicion of involvement in Wyatt s rebellion Guildford Dudley was executed in February 1554 The surviving brothers were released in the autumn working for their release their mother who died in January 1555 and their brother in law Henry Sidney had befriended the incoming Spanish nobles around Philip of Spain Mary s husband 6 In December 1554 Ambrose and Robert Dudley took part in a tournament held to celebrate Anglo Spanish friendship 6 Yet the Dudley brothers were only welcome at court as long as King Philip was there 22 otherwise they were even suspected of associating with people who conspired against Mary s regime 23 In January 1557 Robert and Amy Dudley were allowed to repossess some of their former lands 24 and in March of the same year Dudley was at Calais where he was chosen to deliver personally to Queen Mary the happy news of Philip s return to England 25 Ambrose Robert and Henry Dudley the youngest brother fought for Philip II at the Battle of St Quentin in August 1557 26 Henry Dudley was killed in the following siege by a cannonball according to Robert before his own eyes 27 All surviving Dudley children Ambrose and Robert with their sisters Mary and Katherine were restored in blood by Mary I s next parliament in 1558 21 Royal favourite Edit Elizabeth s coronation procession Robert Dudley is on horseback on the far left leading the palfrey of honour 28 Robert Dudley was counted among Elizabeth s special friends by Philip II s envoy to the English court a week before Queen Mary s death 21 On 18 November 1558 the morning after Elizabeth s accession Dudley witnessed the surrender of the Great Seal to her at Hatfield He became Master of the Horse on the same day 6 This was an important court position entailing close attendance on the sovereign It suited him as he was an excellent horseman and showed great professional interest in royal transport and accommodation horse breeding and the supply of horses for all occasions Dudley was also entrusted with organising and overseeing a large part of the Queen s coronation festivities 29 Elizabeth I coronation miniature In April 1559 Dudley was elected a Knight of the Garter 30 Shortly before Philip II had been informed Lord Robert has come so much into favour that he does whatever he likes with affairs and it is even said that her majesty visits him in his chamber day and night People talk of this so freely that they go so far as to say that his wife has a malady in one of her breasts note 2 and the Queen is only waiting for her to die to marry Lord Robert Matters have reached such a pass that it would be well to approach Lord Robert on your Majesty s behalf Your Majesty would do well to attract and confirm him in his friendship 31 Within a month the Spanish ambassador Count de Feria counted Robert Dudley among three persons who ran the country note 3 Visiting foreigners of princely rank were bidding for his goodwill He acted as an official host on state occasions and was himself a frequent guest at ambassadorial dinners 32 By the autumn of 1559 several foreign princes were vying for the Queen s hand their impatient envoys came under the impression that Elizabeth was fooling them keeping Lord Robert s enemies and the country engaged with words until this wicked deed of killing his wife is consummated 33 Lord Robert the new Spanish ambassador de Quadra was convinced was the man in whom it is easy to recognise the king that is to be she will marry none but the favoured Robert 34 Many of the nobility would not brook Dudley s new prominence as they could not put up with his being King 35 Plans to kill the favourite abounded 36 and Dudley took to wearing a light coat of mail under his clothes 37 Among all classes in England and abroad gossip got underway that the Queen had children by Dudley such rumours never quite ended for the rest of her life 38 Amy Dudley s death Edit Further information Amy Robsart Already in April 1559 court observers noted that Elizabeth never let Dudley from her side 39 but her favour did not extend to his wife 40 Amy Dudley lived in different parts of the country since her ancestral manor house was uninhabitable 41 Her husband visited her for four days at Easter 1559 and she spent a month around London in the early summer of the same year 42 They never saw each other again Dudley was with the Queen at Windsor Castle and possibly planning a visit to her when his wife was found dead at her residence Cumnor Place near Oxford on 8 September 1560 43 There came to me Bowes by whom I do understand that my wife is dead and as he sayeth by a fall from a pair of stairs Little other understanding can I have of him The greatness and the suddenness of the misfortune doth so perplex me until I do hear from you how the matter standeth or how this evil should light upon me considering what the malicious world will bruit as I can take no rest 44 Lord Robert Dudley c 1560 Retiring to his house at Kew away from court as from the putative crime scene he pressed for an impartial inquiry which had already begun in the form of an inquest 45 The jury found that it was an accident Lady Dudley staying alone in a certain chamber had fallen down the adjoining stairs sustaining two head injuries and breaking her neck 46 It was widely suspected that Dudley had arranged his wife s death to be able to marry the Queen The scandal played into the hands of nobles and politicians who desperately tried to prevent Elizabeth from marrying him 47 Most historians have considered murder to be unlikely 48 The coroner s report came to light in The National Archives in 2008 and is compatible with an accidental fall as well as suicide or other violence 49 In the absence of the forensic findings of 1560 it was often assumed that a simple accident could not be the explanation 50 on the basis of near contemporary tales that Amy Dudley was found at the bottom of a short flight of stairs with a broken neck her headdress still standing undisturbed upon her head 51 a detail that first appeared as a satirical remark in the libel Leicester s Commonwealth of 1584 and has ever since been repeated for a fact 52 To account for such oddities and evidence that she was ill it was suggested in 1956 by Ian Aird a professor of surgery that Amy Dudley might have suffered from breast cancer which through metastatic cancerous deposits in the spine could have caused her neck to break under only limited strain such as a short fall or even just coming down the stairs 51 This explanation has been widely accepted 48 Suicide has also often been considered an option motives being Amy Dudley s depression or mortal illness 53 Marriage hopes and proposals Edit Lord Leicester An 18th century copy of his portrait and autograph Elizabeth remained close to Dudley and he with her blessing and on her prompting pursued his suit for her hand in an atmosphere of diplomatic intrigue 54 His wife s and his father s shadows haunted his prospects 6 His efforts leading nowhere in the spring of 1561 Dudley offered to leave England to seek military adventures abroad Elizabeth would have none of that and everything remained as it was 6 In October 1562 the Queen fell ill with smallpox and believing her life to be in danger she asked the Privy Council to make Robert Dudley Protector of the Realm and to give him a suitable title together with twenty thousand pounds a year There was universal relief when she recovered her health Dudley was made a privy councillor 55 He was already deeply involved in foreign politics including Scotland 56 In 1563 Elizabeth suggested Dudley as a consort to the widowed Mary Queen of Scots the idea being to achieve firm amity between England and Scotland and diminish the influence of foreign powers 57 Elizabeth s preferred solution was that they should all live together at the English court so that she would not have to forgo her favourite s company 6 Mary at first enquired if Elizabeth was serious wanting above all to know her chances of inheriting the English crown 58 Elizabeth repeatedly declared that she was prepared to acknowledge Mary as her heir only on condition that she marry Robert Dudley 59 Mary s Protestant advisors warmed to the prospect of her marriage to Dudley 60 and in September 1564 he was created Earl of Leicester a move designed to make him more acceptable to Mary 6 In January 1565 Thomas Randolph the English ambassador to Scotland was told by the Scottish queen that she would accept the proposal 61 To his amazement Dudley was not to be moved to comply But a man of that nature I never found any he whom I go about to make as happy as ever was any to put him in possession of a kingdom to lay in his naked arms a most fair lady nothing regardeth the good that shall ensue unto him thereby but so uncertainly dealeth that I know not where to find him 62 Dudley indeed had made it clear to the Scots at the beginning that he was not a candidate for Mary s hand and forthwith had behaved with passive resistance 63 He also worked in the interest of Henry Stuart Lord Darnley Mary s eventual choice of husband 64 Elizabeth herself wavered as to declaring Mary her heir until in March 1565 she decided she could not bring herself to it 65 Still she finally told the Spanish ambassador that the proposal fell through because the Earl of Leicester refused to cooperate 66 By 1564 Dudley had realised that his chances of becoming Elizabeth s consort were small 67 At the same time he could not consider without great repugnance as he said that she chose another husband 68 Confronted with other marriage projects Elizabeth continued to say that she still would very much like to marry him 69 Dudley was seen as a serious candidate until the mid 1560s and later 70 To remove this threat to Habsburg and Valois suitors between 1565 and 1578 four German and French princesses were mooted as brides for Leicester as a consolation for giving up Elizabeth and his resistance to her foreign marriage projects 71 These he had sabotaged and would continue to sabotage 72 In 1566 Dudley formed the opinion that Elizabeth would never marry recalling that she had always said so since she was eight years old but he still was hopeful she had also assured him he would be her choice in case she changed her mind and married an Englishman 73 Life at court Edit Robert Dudley dressed partly in tilting armour 1575 74 As a male favourite to a virgin queen Robert Dudley found himself in an unprecedented situation 6 His apartments at court were next to hers 75 and perceived as knowing the Queen and her nature best of any man his influence was matched by few 76 Another side of such privileges was Elizabeth s possessiveness and jealousy His company was essential for her well being and for many years he was hardly allowed to leave 6 Sir Christopher Hatton reported a growing emergency when the Earl was away for a few weeks in 1578 This court wanteth your presence Her majesty is unaccompanied and I assure you the chambers are almost empty 77 On ceremonial occasions Dudley often acted as an unofficial consort sometimes in the Queen s stead 78 He largely assumed charge of court ceremonial and organised hundreds of small and large festivities 79 From 1587 he was Lord Steward 80 being responsible for the royal household s supply with food and other commodities He displayed a strong sense for economising and reform in this function which he had de facto occupied long before his official appointment 81 The sanitary situation in the palaces was a perennial problem and a talk with Leicester about these issues inspired John Harington to construct a water closet 82 Leicester was a lifelong sportsman hunting and jousting in the tiltyard and an indefatigable tennis player 82 He was also the Queen s regular dancing partner 83 Ancestral and territorial ambition Edit Ambrose Dudley 3rd Earl of Warwick Robert Dudley s elder brother After the Duke of Northumberland s attainder the entire Dudley inheritance had disappeared His sons had to start from scratch in rebuilding the family fortunes as they had renounced any rights to their father s former possessions or titles when their own attainders had been lifted in January 1558 84 Robert Dudley financed the lifestyle expected of a royal favourite by large loans from City of London merchants until in April 1560 Elizabeth granted him his first export licence worth 6 000 p a 85 He also received some of his father s lands but since he was not the family heir it was a matter of some difficulty to find a suitable estate for his intended peerage 86 In June 1563 the Queen granted him Kenilworth Manor Castle and Park together with the lordships of Denbigh and Chirk in North Wales Other grants were to follow 87 Eventually Leicester and his elder brother Ambrose Dudley 3rd Earl of Warwick came to preside over the greatest aristocratic interest in the West Midlands and North Wales 88 Denbighshire Edit See also Lordship of Denbigh At the time Robert Dudley entered his new Welsh possessions there had existed a tenurial chaos for more than half a century Some leading local families benefited from this to the detriment of the Crown s revenue To remedy this situation and to increase his own income Dudley affected compositions with the tenants in what Simon Adams has called an ambitious resolution of a long standing problem without parallel in Elizabeth s reign 89 All tenants that had so far only been copyholders were raised to the status of freeholders in exchange for newly agreed rents Likewise all tenants rights of common were secured as were the boundaries of the commons thus striking a balance between property rights and protection against enclosure 90 Though an absentee landlord Leicester who was also Lord of Denbigh regarded the lordship as an integral part of a territorial base for a revived House of Dudley 91 He set about developing the town of Denbigh with large building projects 92 the church he planned though was never finished being too ambitious It would have been not only the largest 93 but also the first post Reformation church in England and Wales built according to a plan where the preacher was to take the centre instead of the altar thus stressing the importance of preaching in the Protestant Church In vain Leicester tried to have the nearby episcopal see of St Asaph transferred to Denbigh 94 He also encouraged and supported the translation of the Bible and the Common Prayer Book into Welsh 95 Warwick and Kenilworth Edit Fireplace at Kenilworth Castle with shield displaying in bend the Ragged Staff of the Earls of Warwick with the letters R and L for Robert Leicester for Robert Dudley 96 Ambrose and Robert Dudley were very close in matters of business and personally 97 Through their paternal grandmother they descended from the Hundred Years War heroes John Talbot 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick 98 Robert Dudley was especially fascinated by the Beauchamp descent and with his brother adopted the ancient heraldic device of the earls of Warwick the Bear and Ragged Staff 99 Due to such genealogical aspects the West Midlands held a special significance for him 100 The town of Warwick felt this during a magnificent visit by the Earl in 1571 to celebrate the feast of the Order of Saint Michael with which Leicester had been invested by the French king in 1566 101 He shortly afterwards founded Lord Leycester s Hospital a charity for aged and injured soldiers still functioning today 102 Kenilworth Castle was the centre of Leicester s ambitions to plant himself in the region 103 and he substantially transformed the site s appearance through comprehensive alterations 104 He added a 15th century style gatehouse to the castle s medieval structures as well as a formal garden and a residential wing which featured the brittle thin walls and grids of windows that were to become the hallmark of Elizabethan architecture in later decades 105 His works completed the Earl staged a spectacular 19 day festival in July 1575 as a final allegorical bid for the Queen s hand it was as much a request to give him leave to marry someone else 6 There was a Lady of the Lake a swimming papier mache dolphin with a little orchestra in its belly fireworks masques hunts and popular entertainments like bear baiting 106 The whole scenery of landscape artificial lake castle and Renaissance garden was ingeniously used for the entertainment 107 Love affairs and remarriage Edit Sir Robert Dudley son of Lady Douglas Sheffield and Robert DudleyConfronted by a Puritan friend with rumours about his ungodly life 108 Dudley defended himself in 1576 I stand on the top of the hill where the smallest slip seemeth a fall I may fall many ways and have more witnesses thereof than many others who perhaps be no saints neither for my faults they lie before Him who I have no doubt but will cancel them as I have been and shall be most heartily sorry for them 109 With Douglas Sheffield a young widow of the Howard family he had a serious relationship from about 1569 110 He explained to her that he could not marry not even in order to beget a Dudley heir without his utter overthrow 111 You must think it is some marvellous cause that forceth me thus to be cause almost of the ruin of mine own house my brother you see long married and not like to have children it resteth so now in myself and yet such occasions is there as if I should marry I am sure never to have the Queen s favour 112 Although in this letter Leicester said he still loved her as he did at the beginning he offered her his help to find another husband for reasons of respectability if she so wished 113 The affair continued and in 1574 Douglas gave birth to a son also called Robert Dudley 114 Lettice Countess of Leicester by George Gower c 1585 Robert Dudley Anglo Netherlandish School c 1565 National Trust Montacute House Lettice Knollys was the wife of Walter Devereux 1st Earl of Essex and a first cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth on her mother s side Leicester had flirted with her in the summer of 1565 causing an outbreak of jealousy in the Queen 115 After Lord Essex went to Ireland in 1573 they possibly became lovers 116 There was much talk and on Essex s homecoming in December 1575 great enmity between the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Essex was expected 117 In July 1576 Essex returned to Ireland where he died of dysentery in September 116 Rumours of poison administered by the Earl of Leicester s means were soon abroad The Lord Deputy of Ireland Sir Henry Sidney conducted an official investigation which did not find any indications of foul play but a disease appropriate to this country whereof died many 118 The rumours continued 119 The prospect of marriage to the Countess of Essex on the horizon Leicester finally drew a line under his relationship with Douglas Sheffield Contrary to what she later claimed they came to an amicable agreement over their son s custody 6 Young Robert grew up in Dudley s and his friends houses but had leave to see his mother until she left England in 1583 120 Leicester was very fond of his son and gave him an excellent education 121 In his will he left him the bulk of his estate after his brother Ambrose s death including Kenilworth Castle 122 Douglas Sheffield remarried in 1579 After the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 the younger Robert Dudley tried unsuccessfully to prove that his parents had married 30 years earlier in a secret ceremony In that case he would have been able to claim the earldoms of Leicester and Warwick 123 His mother supported him but maintained that she had been strongly against raising the issue and was possibly pressured by her son 124 Leicester himself had throughout considered the boy as illegitimate 125 note 4 On 21 September 1578 Leicester secretly married Lady Essex at his country house at Wanstead with only a handful of relatives and friends present 126 He did not dare to tell the Queen of his marriage nine months later Leicester s enemies at court acquainted her with the situation causing a furious outburst 127 She already had been aware of his marriage plans a year earlier though 128 Leicester s hope of an heir was fulfilled in 1581 when another Robert Dudley styled Lord Denbigh was born 129 The child died aged three in 1584 leaving his parents disconsolate 130 Leicester found comfort in God since as he wrote princes seldom do pity according to the rules of charity 131 The Earl turned out to be a devoted husband 132 In 1583 the French ambassador Michel de Castelnau wrote of the Earl of Leicester and his lady to whom he is much attached and who has much influence over him 133 Leicester was a concerned parent to his four stepchildren 134 and in every respect worked for the advancement of Robert Devereux 2nd Earl of Essex whom he regarded as his political heir 135 The marriage of her favourite hurt the Queen deeply She never accepted it 136 humiliating Leicester in public my open and great disgraces delivered from her Majesty s mouth 137 Then again she would be as fond of him as ever 138 In 1583 she informed ambassadors that Lettice Dudley was a she wolf and her husband a traitor and a cuckold 139 Lady Leicester s social life was much curtailed 140 Even her movements could pose a political problem as Francis Walsingham explained I see not her Majesty disposed to use the services of my Lord of Leicester There is great offence taken at the conveying down of his lady 141 The Earl stood by his wife asking his colleagues to intercede for her there was no hope 142 She the Queen doth take every occasion by my marriage to withdraw any good from me Leicester wrote even after seven years of marriage 143 Colleagues and politics Edit Robert Dudley in 1576 aged 44 as is stated in the margin Miniature by Nicholas Hilliard 6 For the first 30 years of Elizabeth s reign until Leicester s death he and Lord Burghley were the most powerful and important political figures working intimately with the Queen 144 Robert Dudley was a conscientious privy councillor and one of the most frequently attending 145 In 1560 the diplomat Nicholas Throckmorton advocated vehemently against Dudley marrying the Queen but Dudley won him over in 1562 146 Throckmorton henceforth became his political advisor and intimate After Throckmorton s death in 1571 there quickly evolved a political alliance between the Earl of Leicester and Sir Francis Walsingham soon to be Secretary of State Together they worked for a militant Protestant foreign policy 147 There also existed a family relationship between them after Walsingham s daughter had married Philip Sidney Leicester s favourite nephew 148 Leicester after some initial jealousy also became a good friend of Sir Christopher Hatton himself one of Elizabeth s favourites 149 Robert Dudley s relationship with William Cecil Lord Burghley was complicated Traditionally they have been seen as enemies and Cecil behind the scenes sabotaged Dudley s endeavours to obtain the Queen s hand 70 On the other hand they were on friendly terms and had an efficient working relationship which never broke down 150 In 1572 the vacant post of Lord High Treasurer was offered to Leicester who declined and proposed Burghley stating that the latter was the much more suitable candidate 151 In later years being at odds Dudley felt like reminding Cecil of their thirty years friendship 152 On the whole Cecil and Dudley were in concord about policies while disagreeing fundamentally about some issues such as the Queen s marriage and some areas of foreign policy 153 Cecil favoured the suit of Francois Duke of Anjou in 1578 1581 for Elizabeth s hand while Leicester was among its strongest opponents 72 even contemplating exile in letters to Burghley 154 The Anjou courtship at the end of which Leicester and several dozen noblemen and gentlemen escorted the French prince to Antwerp 155 also touched the question of English intervention in the Netherlands to help the rebellious provinces This debate stretched over a decade until 1585 with the Earl of Leicester as the foremost interventionist Burghley was more cautious of military engagement while in a dilemma over his Protestant predilections 156 Until about 1571 1572 Dudley supported Mary Stuart s succession rights to the English throne 157 He was also from the early 1560s on the best terms with the Protestant lords in Scotland thereby supporting the English or as he saw it the Protestant interest 158 After Mary Stuart s flight into England 1568 Leicester was unlike Cecil 159 in favour of restoring her as Scottish queen under English control preferably with a Protestant English husband such as the Duke of Norfolk 160 In 1577 Leicester had a personal meeting with Mary and listened to her complaints about her captivity 161 By the early 1580s Mary had come to fear Leicester s influence with James VI her son in whose privy chamber the English Earl had placed a spy 6 She spread stories about his supposed lust for the English throne 6 and when the Catholic anti Leicester libel Leicester s Commonwealth was published in 1584 Dudley believed that Mary was involved in its conception 162 The Bond of Association which the Privy Council gave out in October 1584 may have originated in Dudley s ideas 163 Circulated in the country the document s subscribers swore that should Elizabeth be assassinated as William the Silent had been a few months earlier not only the killer but also the royal person who would benefit from this should be executed 164 Leicester s relations with James of Scotland grew closer when he gained the confidence of the King s favourite Patrick Master of Gray in 1584 1585 His negotiations with the Master were the basis for the Treaty of Berwick 6 a defensive alliance between the two British states against European powers In 1586 Walsingham uncovered the Babington Plot Following the Ridolfi Plot 1571 and the Throckmorton Plot 1583 this was another scheme to assassinate Elizabeth in which Mary Stuart was involved Following her conviction Leicester then in the Netherlands vehemently urged her execution in his letters he despaired of Elizabeth s security after so many plots 165 Leicester having returned to England in February 1587 Elizabeth signed Mary s death warrant with the proviso that it be not carried out until she gave her approval As there was no sign of her doing so Burghley Leicester and a handful of other privy councillors decided to proceed with Mary s execution in the interest of the state Leicester went to Bath and Bristol for his health unlike the other privy councillors involved he escaped Elizabeth s severe wrath on hearing the news of Mary s death 166 Patronage EditExploration and business Edit Sir Francis Drake Leicester was happy to invest in his ventures and invite him to play cards 167 Robert Dudley was a pioneer of new industries interested in many things from tapestries to mining he was engaged in the first joint stock companies in English history 168 The Earl also concerned himself with relieving unemployment among the poor 169 On a personal level he gave to poor people petitioners and prisons on a daily basis 82 Due to his interests in trade and exploration as well as his debts his contacts with the London city fathers were intense 82 He was an enthusiastic investor in the Muscovy Company and the Merchant Adventurers 170 English relations with Morocco were also handled by Leicester This he did in the manner of his private business affairs underpinned by a patriotic and missionary zeal commercially these relations were loss making 171 He took much interest in the careers of John Hawkins and Francis Drake from early on and was a principal backer of Drake s circumnavigation of the world Robert and Ambrose Dudley were also the principal patrons of Martin Frobisher s 1576 search for the Northwest Passage 172 Later Leicester acquired his own ship the Galleon Leicester which he employed in a luckless expedition under Edward Fenton but also under Drake As much as profit English seapower was on his mind and accordingly Leicester became a friend and leading supporter of Dom Antonio the exiled claimant to the Portuguese throne after 1580 173 Learning theatre the arts and literature Edit Apart from their legal function the Inns of Court were the Tudor equivalents of gentlemen s clubs 174 In 1561 grateful for favours he had done them the Inner Temple admitted Dudley as their most privileged member their Lord and Governor 175 He was allowed to build his own apartments on the premises and organised grand festivities and performances in the Temple 176 As Chancellor of Oxford University Dudley was highly committed 177 He enforced the Thirty nine Articles and the oath of royal supremacy at Oxford and obtained from the Queen an incorporation by Act of Parliament for the university 178 Leicester was also instrumental in founding the official Oxford University Press 179 and installed the pioneer of international law Alberico Gentili and the exotic theologian Antonio del Corro at Oxford Over del Corro s controversial case he even sacked the university s Vice Chancellor 180 Around 100 books were dedicated to Robert Dudley during Elizabeth s reign 181 In 1564 1567 Arthur Golding dedicated his popular translation of Ovid s Metamorphoses to the Earl 182 Dudley took a special interest in translations which were seen as a means to popularise learning among all who could read 183 He was also a history enthusiast and in 1559 suggested to the tailor John Stow to become a chronicler as Stow recalled in 1604 184 Robert Dudley s interest in the theatre was manifold from academic plays at Oxford to the protection of the Children of St Paul s and of the Royal Chapel and their respective masters against hostile bishops and landlords 185 From at least 1559 he had his own company of players 186 and in 1574 he obtained for them the first royal patent issued to actors to allow them to tour the country unmolested by local authorities 187 The Earl also kept a separate company of musicians who in 1586 played before the King of Denmark with them travelled William Kempe the Lord Leicester s jesting player 188 Queen Elizabeth at Wanstead Hall The figures in the garden may include representations of Robert and Lettice Dudley 189 Painting by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder Leicester possessed one of the largest collections of paintings in Elizabethan England being the first great private collector 190 He was a principal patron of Nicholas Hilliard as well as interested in all aspects of Italian culture 191 The Earl s circle of scholars and men of letters included among others his nephew Philip Sidney the astrologer and Hermeticist John Dee his secretaries Edward Dyer and Jean Hotman as well as John Florio and Gabriel Harvey 192 Through Harvey Edmund Spenser found employment at Leicester House on the Strand the Earl s palatial town house where he wrote his first works of poetry 193 Many years after Leicester s death Spenser wistfully recalled this time in his Prothalamion 194 and in 1591 he remembered the late Earl with his poem The Ruins of Time 195 Religion Edit Robert Dudley grew up as a Protestant Presumably conforming in public under Mary I 6 he was counted among the heretics by Philip II s agent before Elizabeth s accession 196 He immediately became a major patron to former Edwardian clerics and returning exiles 6 Meanwhile he also helped some of Mary s former servants and maintained Catholic contacts 197 From 1561 he advocated and supported the Huguenot cause 198 and the French ambassador described him as totally of the Calvinist religion in 1568 199 After the St Bartholomew s Day Massacre in 1572 this trait in him became more pronounced and he continued as the chief patron of English Puritans and a champion of international Calvinism 200 On the other hand in his household Leicester employed Catholics like Sir Christopher Blount who held a position of trust and of whom he was personally fond The Earl s patronage of and reliance on individuals was as much a matter of old family loyalties or personal relationships as of religious allegiances 201 Leicester was especially interested in the furtherance of preaching which was the main concern of moderate Puritanism 202 He went to great lengths to support non conforming preachers while warning them against too radical positions which he argued would only endanger what reforms had been hitherto achieved 203 He would not condone the overthrow of the existing church model because of trifles he said 204 I am not I thank God fantastically persuaded in religion but do find it soundly and godly set forth in this universal Church of England 205 Accordingly he tried to smooth things out and among other moves initiated several disputations between the more radical elements of the Church and the episcopal side so that they might make reconcilement 206 His influence in ecclesiastical matters was considerable until it declined in the 1580s under Archbishop John Whitgift 207 Governor General of the United Provinces Edit Leicester as Governor General 1586 Engraving by Hendrik Goltzius During the 1570s Leicester built a special relationship with Prince William of Orange who held him in high esteem The Earl became generally popular in the Netherlands Since 1577 he pressed for an English military expedition led by himself as the Dutch strongly wished to succour the rebels 208 In 1584 the Prince of Orange was murdered political chaos ensued and in August 1585 Antwerp fell to the Duke of Parma 209 An English intervention became inevitable it was decided that Leicester would go to the Netherlands and be their chief as heretofore was treated of as he phrased it in August 1585 210 He was alluding to the recently signed Treaty of Nonsuch in which his position and authority as governor general of the Netherlands had only been vaguely defined 211 The Earl prepared himself for God s cause and her Majesty s by recruiting the expedition s cavalry from his retainers and friends and by mortgaging his estate to the sum of 25 000 212 On Thursday 9 December 1585 the Earl of Leicester set sail for the Low Countries from Harwich and landed after a swift crossing of less than 24 hours the fleet anchored at Flushing Vlissingen At the end of December 1585 Leicester was received in the Netherlands according to one correspondent in the manner of a second Charles V a Dutch town official already noted in his minute book that the Earl was going to have absolute power and authority 213 After progress through several cities and so many festivals he arrived in The Hague where on 1 January 1586 he was urged to accept the title governor general by the States General of the United Provinces Leicester wrote to Burghley and Walsingham explaining why he believed the Dutch importunities should be answered favourably He accepted his elevation on 25 January having not yet received any communications from England due to constant adverse winds 214 The Earl had now the rule and government general with a Council of State to support him the members of which he nominated himself 215 He remained a subject of Elizabeth making it possible to contend that she was now sovereign over the Netherlands According to Leicester this was what the Dutch desired 216 From the start such a position for him had been implied in the Dutch propositions to the English and in their instructions to Leicester and it was consistent with the Dutch understanding of the Treaty of Nonsuch 217 The English queen however in her instructions to Leicester had expressly declined to accept offers of sovereignty from the United Provinces while still demanding of the States to follow the advice of her lieutenant general in matters of government 218 Her ministers on both sides of the Channel hoped she would accept the situation as a fait accompli and could even be persuaded to add the rebellious provinces to her possessions 213 Instead her fury knew no bounds and Elizabeth sent Sir Thomas Heneage to read out her letters of disapproval before the States General Leicester having to stand nearby 219 Elizabeth s commandment 220 was that the Governor General immediately resign his post in a formal ceremony in the same place where he had taken it 221 After much pleading with her and protestations by the Dutch it was postulated that the governor generalship had been bestowed not by any sovereign but by the States General and thereby by the people 222 The damage was done however 223 My credit hath been cracked ever since her Majesty sent Sir Thomas Heneage hither Leicester recapitulated in October 1586 224 Engraving of Robert Dudley as Governor General on horseback Elizabeth demanded of her Lieutenant General to refrain at all costs from any decisive action with Parma which was the opposite of what Leicester wished and what the Dutch expected of him 225 After some initial successes 226 the unexpected surrender of the strategically important town of Grave was a serious blow to English morale Leicester s fury turned on the town s governor Baron Hemart whom he had executed despite all pleadings The Dutch nobility were astonished even the Prince of Orange would not have dared such an outrage Leicester was warned but he wrote he would not be intimidated by the fact that Hemart was of a good house 227 Leicester s forces small and seriously underfinanced from the outset faced the most formidable army in Europe 228 Unity among their ranks was at risk by Leicester s and the other officers quarrels with Sir John Norris who had commanded previous English contingents in the Netherlands and was now the Earl s deputy 229 Elizabeth was angry that the war cost more than anticipated and for many months delayed sending money and troops 230 This not only forced Dudley to raise further funds on his own account but much aggravated the soldiers lot 231 They cannot get a penny their credit is spent they perish for want of victuals and clothing in great numbers I assure you it will fret me to death ere long to see my soldiers in this case and cannot help them Leicester wrote home 232 Many Dutch statesmen were essentially politiques they soon became disenchanted with the Earl s enthusiastic fostering of what he called the religion 233 His most loyal friends were the Calvinists at Utrecht and Friesland provinces in constant opposition to Holland and Zeeland 234 Those rich provinces engaged in a lucrative trade with Spain which was very helpful to either side s war effort On Elizabeth s orders Leicester enforced a ban on this trade with the enemy thus alienating the wealthy Dutch merchants 235 He also affected a fiscal reform In order to centralise finances and to replace the highly corrupt tax farming with direct taxation a new Council of Finances was established which was not under the supervision of the Council of State The Dutch members of the Council of State were outraged at these bold steps 236 English peace talks with Spain behind Leicester s back which had started within days after he had left England undermined his position further 237 In September 1586 there was a skirmish at Zutphen in which Philip Sidney was wounded He died a few weeks later His uncle s grief was great 238 In December Leicester returned to England In his absence William Stanley and Rowland York two Catholic officers whom Leicester had placed in command of Deventer and the fort of Zutphen respectively went over to Parma along with their key fortresses a disaster for the Anglo Dutch coalition in every respect 239 His Dutch friends as his English critics pressed for Leicester s return to the Netherlands Shortly after his arrival in June 1587 the English held port of Sluis was lost to Parma Leicester being unable to assert his authority over the Dutch allies who refused to cooperate in relieving the town 240 After this blow Elizabeth who ascribed it to the malice or other foul error of the States 241 was happy to enter into peace negotiations with the Duke of Parma By December 1587 the differences between Elizabeth and the Dutch politicians with Leicester in between had become insurmountable he asked to be recalled by the Queen and gave up his post 242 He was irredeemably in debt because of his personal financing of the war 6 Armada and death Edit A letter from Leicester to Elizabeth I written at the Armada camp and signed with his nickname Eyes In July 1588 as the Spanish Armada came nearer the Earl of Leicester was appointed Lieutenant and Captain General of the Queen s Armies and Companies 243 At Tilbury on the Thames he erected a camp for the defence of London should the Spaniards land Leicester vigorously counteracted the disorganisation he found everywhere having few illusions about all sudden hurley burleys as he wrote to Walsingham 244 When the Privy Council was already considering disbanding the camp to save money Leicester held against it setting about to plan with the Queen a visit to her troops On the day she gave her famous speech he walked beside her horse bare headed 245 The tomb of Robert and Lettice Dudley erected by the Countess Beauchamp Chapel Warwick After the Armada the Earl was seen riding in splendour through London as if he were a king 246 and for the last few weeks of his life he usually dined with the Queen a unique favour 246 On his way to Buxton in Derbyshire to take the baths he died at Cornbury Park near Oxford on 4 September 1588 Leicester s health had not been good for some time historians have considered malaria and stomach cancer as causes of death 247 His death came unexpectedly 6 and only a week earlier he had said farewell to Elizabeth She was deeply affected and locked herself in her apartment for a few days until Lord Burghley had the door broken 248 Her nickname for Dudley had been Eyes which was symbolised by the sign of oo in their letters to each other 249 Elizabeth kept the letter he had sent her six days before his death in her bedside treasure box endorsing it with his last letter on the outside It was still there when she died 15 years later on 24 March 1603 250 Leicester was buried as he had requested in the Beauchamp Chapel of the Collegiate Church of St Mary Warwick on 10 October 1588 in the same chapel as Richard Beauchamp his ancestor and the noble Impe his little son 251 Countess Lettice was also buried there when she died in 1634 alongside the best and dearest of husbands as the epitaph which she commissioned says 252 Historiographical treatment EditThe book which later became known as Leicester s Commonwealth was written by Catholic exiles in Paris and printed anonymously in 1584 253 note 5 It was published shortly after the death of Leicester s son which is alluded to in a stop press marginal note The children of adulterers shall be consumed and the seed of a wicked bed shall be rooted out 254 Smuggled into England the libel became a best seller with underground booksellers and the next year was translated into French 255 Its underlying political agenda is the succession of Mary Queen of Scots to the English throne 256 but its most outstanding feature is an all round attack on the Earl of Leicester He is presented as an atheistic hypocritical coward a perpetuall Dictator 257 terrorising the Queen and ruining the whole country He is engaged in a long term conspiracy to snatch the Crown from Elizabeth in order to settle it first on his brother in law the Earl of Huntingdon and ultimately on himself Spicy details of his monstrous private life are revealed and he appears as an expert poisoner of many high profile personalities 258 This influential classic is the origin of many aspects of Leicester s historical reputation 259 Similar conspiracies are often mentioned in coded letters from Mary Queen of Scots to the French ambassador 260 Queen Elizabeth and Leicester by William Frederick Yeames 1865 In the early 17th century William Camden saw some secret constellation of the stars at work between Elizabeth and her favourite 261 he firmly established the legend of the perfect courtier with the sinister influence 262 Some of the most often quoted characterisations of Leicester such as that he was wont to put up all his passions in his pocket his nickname of the Gypsy and Elizabeth s I will have here but one mistress and no master reprimand to him were contributed by Sir Henry Wotton and Sir Robert Naunton almost half a century after the Earl s death 263 The Victorian historian James Anthony Froude saw Robert Dudley as Elizabeth s soft plaything combining in himself the worst qualities of both sexes Without courage without talent without virtue 264 The habit of comparing him unfavourably to William Cecil 265 was continued by Conyers Read in 1925 Leicester was a selfish unscrupulous courtier and Burghley a wise and patriotic statesman 266 Geoffrey Elton in his widely read England under the Tudors 1955 saw Dudley as a handsome vigorous man with very little sense 267 Since the 1950s academic assessment of the Earl of Leicester has undergone considerable changes 268 Leicester s importance in literary patronage was established by Eleanor Rosenberg in 1955 Elizabethan Puritanism has been thoroughly reassessed since the 1960s and Patrick Collinson has outlined the Earl s place in it 268 Dudley s religion could thus be better understood rather than simply to brand him as a hypocrite 269 His importance as a privy councillor and statesman has often been overlooked 78 one reason being that many of his letters are scattered among private collections and not easily accessible in print as are those of his colleagues Walsingham and Cecil 6 Alan Haynes describes him as one of the most strangely underrated of Elizabeth s circle of close advisers 270 while Simon Adams who since the early 1970s has researched many aspects of Leicester s life and career 271 concludes Leicester was as central a figure to the first reign of Elizabeth as Burghley 272 See also EditAlienation Office Cultural depictions of Elizabeth I of England Lady Catherine Grey Greenwich armour Kenilworth novel Leicester s Men Maria Stuarda opera Mary Stuart play Sebastian WestcottFootnotes Edit There is a popular tradition that Robert Dudley was the same age as Elizabeth I however in a letter to William Cecil he denotes 24 June as his birthday and a 1576 portrait miniature by Nicholas Hilliard gives his age as 44 so 1532 is the most likely year of his birth Adams 2008b esta muy mala de un pecho she is very ill in one breast in the original Spanish Adams 1995 p 63 The others he listed were William Cecil and his brother in law Nicholas Bacon Chamberlin 1939 p 101 Sir Robert Dudley lost his case in the Star Chamber in 1605 Warner 1899 p xlvi Historians have had differing views on the problem While Derek Wilson believes in a marriage Wilson 1981 p 326 it has been rejected by for example Conyers Read Read 1936 p 23 Johanna Rickman Rickman 2008 p 51 and Simon Adams Adams 2008d The original title began The copie of a leter wryten by a Master of Arte of Cambrige WorldCat Retrieved 5 April 2010 In 1641 it was reprinted in London as Leycesters Commonwealth Burgoyne 1904 p vii Citations Edit Princely pleasures at Kenilworth Robert Dudley s three week marriage proposal to Elizabeth I HistoryExtra Retrieved 25 February 2023 Robert Dudley s bindings A bear muzzled and chained blogs bl uk Retrieved 25 February 2023 Haynes 1992 p 12 Wilson 1981 pp 151 152 Adams 2002 pp 145 147 Adams 2002 p 52 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Adams 2008b Adams 2002 p 133 Wilson 1981 p 16 Chamberlin 1939 pp 55 56 Chamberlin 1939 p 55 Adams 2008b Wilson 1981 pp 23 28 29 Adams 2008b Loades 1996 p 225 Wilson 1981 pp 31 33 44 Adams 2002 pp 135 159 Loades 1996 pp 179 225 285 Haynes 1987 pp 20 21 Virgoe 1982 p 66 Loades 1996 pp 225 226 Wilson 1981 pp 45 47 Loades 1996 pp 256 257 238 239 Ives 2009 pp 199 209 Haynes 1987 pp 23 Haynes 1987 pp 23 24 Chamberlin 1939 pp 68 69 Loades 1996 pp 266 270 271 a b c Adams 2002 p 134 Loades 1996 p 280 Adams 2002 pp 161 162 Loades 1996 p 273 Adams 2002 p 158 Wilson 1981 p 71 Loades 1996 pp 238 273 Adams 2002 p 134 Chamberlin 1939 pp 87 88 Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester Historic UK Retrieved 25 February 2023 Wilson 1981 pp 78 83 92 Wilson 1981 p 96 Hume 1892 1899 Vol I pp 57 58 Wilson 1981 p 95 Owen 1980 p 9 Skidmore 2010 pp 166 162 Chamberlin 1939 p 118 Chamberlin 1939 pp 116 117 Doran 1996 p 42 Adams 1995 p 78 Wilson 1981 p 100 Chamberlin 1939 p 117 Adams 1995 p 151 Wilson 1981 p 114 Doran 1996 p 72 Wilson 2005 p 261 Adams 2011 Adams 1995 pp 380 382 Adams 1995 p 378 Adams 1995 p 383 Adams 2002 p 136 Doran 1996 p 43 Skidmore 2010 p 382 Skidmore 2010 p 378 Owen 1980 p 10 Doran 1996 p 45 a b Doran 1996 p 44 Adams 2011 Skidmore 2010 pp 230 233 Doran 1996 pp 42 44 a b Jenkins 2002 p 65 Jenkins 2002 p 291 Gristwood 2007 pp 115 120 123 Doran 1996 p 44 Doran 1996 p 45 52 Adams 2008b Wilson 1981 p 136 Adams 2002 p 137 Wilson 1981 pp 140 141 Chamberlin 1939 pp 138 139 Chamberlin 1939 pp 136 160 144 145 Chamberlin 1939 pp 140 146 147 Chamberlin 1939 pp 151 152 Chamberlin 1939 p 158 Chamberlin 1939 pp 143 144 152 158 168 Wilson 1981 p 141 Jenkins 2002 p 119 Chamberlin 1939 p 152 Wilson 1981 p 142 Adams 2008b Chamberlin 1939 pp 155 156 157 159 161 Fraser 1972 p 267 Wilson 1981 p 243 Doran 1996 p 65 Hume 1904 p 90 Doran 1996 p 65 Hume 1904 pp 90 94 99 101 104 Jenkins 2002 p 130 a b Doran 1996 p 212 Hume 1904 pp 94 95 138 197 Doran 1996 p 124 a b Doran 1996 pp 212 213 Adams 2002 p 139 Watkins 1998 p 163 Gristwood 2007 p 151 Girouard 1979 p 111 Adams 2002 p 140 Wilson 1981 p 305 Wilson 1981 p 230 a b Wilson 1981 p 305 Adams 2002 p 120 Wilson 1981 pp 78 305 Adams 2002 p 43 Haynes 1987 pp 141 144 Wilson 1981 pp 326 327 a b c d Adams 1996 Loades 2004 p 271 Adams 2002 p 319 Adams 2008b Adams 1996 Adams 2002 p 163 Adams 2008b Haynes 1987 p 59 Adams 2002 p 235 Adams 2002 p 310 Wilson 1981 p 170 Adams 2002 pp 3 264 272 275 Adams 2002 pp 268 269 275 276 Adams 2002 pp 3 276 277 Wilson 1981 pp 171 172 Adams 2002 p 225 Wilson 1981 p 172 Adams 2002 p 225 Wilson 1981 p 173 Morris 2010 p 27 Adams 2002 pp 322 3 Wilson 1981 pp 1 3 Adams 2002 pp 312 313 321 Adams 2002 p 312 313 320 321 326 Jenkins 2002 pp 179 181 Adams 2002 p 327 Adams 2002 p 312 Molyneux 2008 pp 58 59 Morris 2010 pp 47 48 Doran 1996 pp 67 69 Jenkins 2002 pp 205 211 Henderson 2005 pp 90 92 Gristwood 2007 p 249 Gristwood 2007 pp 249 250 Rickman 2008 p 49 Read 1936 p 24 Read 1936 p 25 Read 1936 pp 23 26 Warner 1899 pp iii iv Jenkins 2002 pp 124 125 a b Adams 2008a Jenkins 2002 p 212 Freedman 1983 pp 33 34 22 Freedman 1983 pp 33 Jenkins 2002 p 217 Adams 2008d Adams 2008c Warner 1899 p vi Wilson 1981 p 246 Warner 1899 p ix Warner 1899 p xxxix Warner 1899 p xl Adams 2008d Warner 1899 p vi vii Jenkins 2002 pp 234 235 Doran 1996 p 161 Wilson 1981 pp 229 230 Hammer 1999 p 35 Jenkins 2002 p 287 Nicolas 1847 p 382 Jenkins 2002 p 362 Jenkins 2002 pp 280 281 Adams 1995 p 182 Hammer 1999 pp 34 38 60 61 70 76 Wilson 1981 pp 228 230 231 Nicolas 1847 p 97 Jenkins 2002 p 247 Owen 1980 p 44 Jenkins 2002 pp 263 305 Hume 1892 1899 Vol III p 477 Jenkins 2002 p 279 Wilson 2005 p 358 Jenkins 2002 p 280 Jenkins 2002 p 305 Wilson 1981 p 247 Hammer 1999 p 46 Adams 2002 pp 17 18 Wilson 1981 p 195 Doran 1996 p 59 Wilson 1981 p 215 Collinson 1960 pp xxv xxvi Rosenberg 1958 p 23 Adams 2002 p 121 Adams 2002 p 18 Alford 2002 p 30 Doran 1996 p 216 Wilson 1981 p 217 Wilson 1981 p 216 Adams 2002 pp 18 19 59 Jenkins 2002 p 247 Doran 1996 p 190 Adams 2002 p 34 Adams 2002 pp 104 107 Adams 2002 pp 137 138 141 Adams 2002 p 18 Jenkins 2002 pp 159 169 Wilson 1981 p 243 Jenkins 2002 p 298 Adams 2008b Collinson 2007 p 75 Collinson 2007 p 75 Jenkins 2002 pp 323 324 Hammer 1999 pp 59 61 Gristwood 2007 p 322 Gristwood 2007 p 292 Wilson 1981 p 146 Adams 2002 p 337 Adams 2002 pp 142 337 Wilson 1981 p 165 Haynes 1987 pp 88 94 Wilson 1981 pp 164 165 Gristwood 2007 p 198 Haynes 1987 pp 145 149 Wilson 1981 p 169 Adams 2002 p 250 Wilson 1981 pp 131 132 168 169 Chamberlin 1939 pp 177 178 Haynes 1987 pp 75 76 Jenkins 2002 p 178 Rosenberg 1958 pp 295 296 Rosenberg 1958 p 137 Haynes 1987 p 77 Rosenberg 1958 p xiii Adams 2008b Rosenberg 1958 pp 156 158 Jenkins 2002 p 143 Rosenberg 1958 p xvi Adams 2008b Rosenberg 1958 p 64 Wilson 1981 pp 160 161 Rosenberg 1958 pp 301 307 Adams 1995 p 56 Wilson 1981 p 153 Rosenberg 1958 p 305 Morris 2010 p 34 Wilson 1981 illustration caption Hearn 1995 p 96 Haynes 1987 p 199 Hearn 1995 p 124 Haynes 1992 p 12 Haynes 1987 pp 76 78 125 126 Wilson 1981 p 307 Jenkins 2002 pp 254 257 Jenkins 2002 p 261 Adams 2002 p 149 Starkey 2001 pp 230 231 Doran 1996 pp 66 67 Skidmore 2010 pp 129 128 Porter 2007 p 412 Doran 1996 pp 59 67 Collinson 1971 p 53 MacCulloch 2001 pp 213 249 Adams 2002 pp 141 142 Adams 1995 p 463 Adams 2002 p 190 Adams 2002 pp 230 231 Wilson 1981 pp 198 205 Adams 2002 p 231 Adams 2002 p 231 Wilson 1981 p 205 Adams 2002 pp 231 143 229 232 Collinson 1960 p xxx Collinson 1960 pp xxi xxiii xxxviii Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp 7 15 Wilson 1981 p 238 Haynes 1987 p 158 Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp 20 24 Adams 2002 p 147 Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p 25 Gristwood 2007 pp 307 308 Hammer 2003 p 125 a b Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p 53 Wilson 1981 pp 276 278 Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp 55 73 Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p 54 Haynes 1987 pp 158 159 Bruce 1844 p 17 Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp 23 25 Bruce 1844 p 15 Gristwood 2007 pp 311 313 Chamberlin 1939 p 263 Bruce 1844 p 105 Gristwood 2007 p 313 Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p 59 Hammer 2003 p 127 Bruce 1844 p 424 Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p 72 Gristwood 2007 pp 316 317 Bruce 1844 p 309 Wilson 1981 pp 282 284 Adams 2002 p 147 Gristwood 2007 p 307 Hammer 2003 pp 125 126 Adams 2002 p 180 Hammer 2003 p 126 Hammer 2003 pp 132 133 Wilson 1981 p 282 Hammer 2003 p 133 Gristwood 2007 pp 315 316 Strong and van Dorsten 1964 p 75 Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp 75 76 Haynes 1987 p 175 Haynes 1987 pp 172 173 Adams 2008b Haynes 1987 pp 173 174 Strong and van Dorsten 1964 pp 43 50 Haynes 1987 pp 170 171 Wilson 1981 p 291 Wilson 1981 pp 291 294 Wilson 1981 p 294 Wilson 1981 pp 294 295 Haynes 1987 p 191 Jenkins 2002 pp 349 351 Haynes 1987 pp 191 195 a b Hume 1892 1899 Vol IV pp 420 421 Jenkins 2002 p 358 Adams 1996 Gristwood 2007 pp 333 334 Wilson 1981 p 302 Adams 2002 p 148 Robert Dudley earl of Leicester Autograph letter signed to Queen Elizabeth I Folger Shakespeare Library Archived 28 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 17 July 2009 Wilson 1981 p 303 Adams 2002 p 149 Gristwood 2007 p 340 Gristwood 2007 p 340 Wilson 1981 pp 262 265 Jenkins 2002 p 294 Bossy 2002 p 126 Wilson 1981 p 251 Wilson 1981 pp 253 254 Burgoyne 1904 p 225 Wilson 1981 pp 254 259 Jenkins 2002 pp 290 294 Adams 1996 Wilson 1981 p 268 George Lasry Norbert Biermann Satoshi Tomokiyo Deciphering Mary Stuart s lost letters from 1578 1584 Cryptologia 8 Feb 2023 pp 37 40 doi 10 1080 01611194 2022 2160677 Gristwood 2007 p 9 Adams 2002 pp 53 55 Adams 2008b Adams 2002 pp 55 56 Adams 2002 p 57 Haynes 1987 p 11 Chamberlin 1939 p 103 Wilson 1981 p 304 a b Adams 2002 p 176 Adams 2002 pp 226 228 Haynes 1992 p 15 Gristwood 2007 p 372 Adams 2002 p 2 Adams 2002 p 7References EditAdams Simon ed 1995 Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester 1558 1561 1584 1586 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 55156 0 Adams Simon 1996 At Home and Away The Earl of Leicester History Today Vol 46 No 5 May 1996 Retrieved 2010 09 29 Adams Simon 2002 Leicester and the Court Essays in Elizabethan Politics Manchester University Press ISBN 0 7190 5325 0 Adams Simon 2008a Dudley Lettice countess of Essex and countess of Leicester 1543 1634 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn Jan 2008 subscription required Retrieved 2010 04 04 Adams Simon 2008b Dudley Robert earl of Leicester 1532 3 1588 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn May 2008 subscription required Retrieved 2010 04 03 Adams Simon 2008c Dudley Sir Robert 1574 1649 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn Jan 2008 subscription required Retrieved 2010 04 03 Adams Simon 2008d Sheffield Douglas Lady Sheffield 1542 3 1608 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn Jan 2008 subscription required Retrieved 2010 04 03 Adams Simon 2011 Dudley Amy Lady Dudley 1532 1560 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edn Jan 2011 subscription required Retrieved 2012 07 04 Alford Stephen 2002 The Early Elizabethan Polity William Cecil and the British Succession Crisis 1558 1569 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 89285 6 Bossy John 2002 Under the Molehill An Elizabethan Spy Story Yale Nota Bene ISBN 0 300 09450 7 Bruce John ed 1844 Correspondence of Robert Dudley Earl of Leycester during his Government of the Low Countries in the Years 1585 and 1586 Camden Society Burgoyne F J ed 1904 History of Queen Elizabeth Amy Robsart and the Earl of Leicester being a Reprint of Leycesters Commonwealth 1641 Longmans Chamberlin Frederick 1939 Elizabeth and Leycester Dodd Mead amp Co Collinson Patrick ed 1960 Letters of Thomas Wood Puritan 1566 1577 Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research Special Supplement No 5 November 1960 Collinson Patrick 1971 The Elizabethan Puritan Movement Jonathan Cape ISBN 0 224 61132 1 Collinson Patrick 2007 Elizabeth I Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 921356 6 Doran Susan 1996 Monarchy and Matrimony The Courtships of Elizabeth I Routledge ISBN 0 415 11969 3 Fraser Antonia 1972 Mary Queen of Scots Panther Books ISBN 0 586 03379 3 Freedman Sylvia 1983 Poor Penelope Lady Penelope Rich An Elizabethan Woman The Kensal Press ISBN 0 946041 20 2 Girouard Mark 1979 Life in the English Country House A Social and Architectural History BCA Gristwood Sarah 2007 Elizabeth and Leicester Power Passion Politics Viking ISBN 978 0 670 01828 4 Hammer P E J 1999 The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics The Political Career of Robert Devereux 2nd Earl of Essex 1585 1597 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 01941 9 Hammer P E J 2003 Elizabeth s Wars War Government and Society in Tudor England 1544 1604 Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 0 333 91943 2 Haynes Alan 1987 The White Bear The Elizabethan Earl of Leicester Peter Owen ISBN 0 7206 0672 1 Haynes Alan 1992 Invisible Power The Elizabethan Secret Services 1570 1603 Alan Sutton ISBN 0 7509 0037 7 Hearn Karen ed 1995 Dynasties Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530 1630 Rizzoli ISBN 0 8478 1940 X Henderson Paula 2005 The Tudor House and Garden Architecture and Landscape in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Yale University Press ISBN 0 300 10687 4 Historical Manuscripts Commission ed 1911 Report on the Pepys Manuscripts Preserved at Magdalen College Cambridge HMSO Hume Martin ed 1892 1899 Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in Simancas 1558 1603 HMSO Vol I Vol III Vol IV Hume Martin 1904 The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth Eveleigh Nash amp Grayson Ives Eric 2009 Lady Jane Grey A Tudor Mystery Wiley Blackwell ISBN 978 1 4051 9413 6 Jenkins Elizabeth 2002 Elizabeth and Leicester The Phoenix Press ISBN 1 84212 560 5 Loades David 1996 John Dudley Duke of Northumberland 1504 1553 Clarendon Press ISBN 0 19 820193 1 Loades David 2004 Intrigue and Treason The Tudor Court 1547 1558 Pearson Longman ISBN 0 582 77226 5 MacCulloch Diarmaid 2001 The Boy King Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation Palgrave ISBN 0 312 23830 4 Molyneaux N A D 2008 Kenilworth Castle in 1563 English Heritage Historical Review Vol 3 2008 pp 46 61 Morris R K 2010 Kenilworth Castle English Heritage ISBN 978 1 84802 075 7 Nicolas Harris ed 1847 Memoirs of the Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton Richard Bentley Owen D G ed 1980 Manuscripts of The Marquess of Bath Volume V Talbot Dudley and Devereux Papers 1533 1659 HMSO ISBN 0 11 440092 X Porter Linda 2007 Mary Tudor The First Queen Portrait ISBN 978 0 7499 5144 3 Read Conyers 1936 A Letter from Robert Earl of Leicester to a Lady The Huntington Library Bulletin No 9 April 1936 Rickman Johanna 2008 Love Lust and License in Early Modern England Illicit Sex and the Nobility Ashgate ISBN 0 7546 6135 0 Rosenberg Eleanor 1958 Leicester Patron of Letters Columbia University Press Skidmore Chris 2010 Death and the Virgin Elizabeth Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart Weidenfeld amp Nicolson ISBN 978 0 29 784650 5 Starkey David 2001 Elizabeth Apprenticeship Vintage ISBN 0 09 928657 2 Strong R C and J A van Dorsten 1964 Leicester s Triumph Oxford University Press Virgoe Roger 1982 DUDLEY Sir Robert 1532 33 88 In Bindoff S T ed The History of Parliament the House of Commons 1509 1558 Vol 2 London Boydell and Brewer p 66 ISBN 9780436042829 Retrieved 1 September 2019 via The History of Parliament Online Warner G F ed 1899 The Voyage of Robert Dudley to the West Indies 1594 1595 Hakluyt Society Watkins Susan 1998 The Public and Private Worlds of Elizabeth I Thames amp Hudson ISBN 0 500 01869 3 Wilson Derek 1981 Sweet Robin A Biography of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester 1533 1588 Hamish Hamilton ISBN 0 241 10149 2 Wilson Derek 2005 The Uncrowned Kings of England The Black History of the Dudleys and the Tudor Throne Carroll amp Graf ISBN 0 7867 1469 7Further reading EditGoldring Elizabeth 2014 Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester and the World of Elizabethan Art Painting and Patronage at the Court of Elizabeth I Yale University Press Peck Dwight ed 1985 Leicester s Commonwealth The Copy of a Letter Written by a Master of Art of Cambridge 1584 and Related Documents Ohio University Press ISBN 0 8214 0800 3External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester Dudley Robert DDLY564R A Cambridge Alumni Database University of Cambridge Archival material relating to Robert Dudley 1st Earl of Leicester UK National Archives Lord Robert Dudley at The Internet Movie DatabasePolitical officesPreceded bySir Henry Jernyngham Master of the Horse1558 1587 Succeeded byThe Earl of EssexVacant Lord Steward1587 1588 Succeeded byLord St John of BasingPreceded bySir John Salusbury Custos Rotulorum of Denbighshirebef 1573 1588 Succeeded byThomas EgertonPreceded byJohn Griffith Custos Rotulorum of Flintshirebef 1584 1588Preceded bySir Ambrose Cave Custos Rotulorum of Warwickshirebef 1573 1588 Succeeded bySir Fulke GrevillePreceded byMaurice Wynn Custos Rotulorum of Caernarvonshirebef 1579 1588 Succeeded byWilliam MauricePreceded byEllis Price Custos Rotulorum of Merionethshirebef 1579 1588 Succeeded bySir Robert SalusburyPreceded bySir Richard Bulkeley Custos Rotulorum of Angleseybef 1584 1588 Succeeded bySir Richard BulkeleyCourt officesPreceded byThe Earl of Warwick Master of the Buckhounds1552 1553 Succeeded by Academic officesPreceded by High Stewart of Cambridge University1563 1588 Succeeded bySir Christopher HattonPreceded byJohn Mason Chancellor of the University of Oxford1564 1588 With Sir Thomas Bromley as deputy 1585 1588Legal officesPreceded byThe Earl of Bedford Justice in Eyre south of the Trent1585 1588 Succeeded byThe Lord HunsdonvteFamily tree of the Earls of Leicester and Earls of Lancaster and Dukes of LancasterRoger de Beaumont c 1015 1094 EARL OF LEICESTER first creation 1107Robert de Beaumont1st Earl of Leicester c 1040 1050 1118 Henry de Beaumont1st Earl of WarwickHugh de Beaumont1st Earl of BedfordRobert de Beaumont2nd Earl of Leicester 1104 1168 Waleran de Beaumont1st Earl of WorcesterWilliam FitzRobert2nd Earl of GloucesterHawise de BeaumontRobert de Beaumont3rd Earl of Leicester d 1190 Robert de Beaumont4th Earl of Leicester d 1204 AmiceCountess of RochefortKing John 1166 1216 IsabellaCountess of GloucesterSimon de Montfort5th Earl of Leicester c 1175 1218 King Henry III 1207 1272 Eleanor of EnglandSimon de Montfort6th Earl of Leicester c 1208 1265 Earldom of Leicester forfeited 1265EARL OF LEICESTER second creation 1267EARL OF LANCASTER 1276King Edward I 1239 1307 Edmund Crouchback1st Earl of Leicester1st Earl of Lancaster 1245 1296 Earldom of Leicester restored 1324Earldom of Lancaster restored 1327King Edward II 1284 1327 Thomas of Lancaster2nd Earl of Leicester2nd Earl of Lancaster 1278 1322 Henry of Lancaster3rd Earl of Leicester3rd Earl of Lancaster 1281 1345 Earldom of Leicester forfeited 1322Earldom of Lancaster forfeited 1322DUKE OF LANCASTER 1351King Edward III 1312 1377 Henry of Grosmont4th Earl of LeicesterDuke of Lancaster c 1310 1361 Joan of Lancaster c 1312 1349 John de Mowbray3rd Baron MowbrayJohn of Gaunt 6th Earl of Leicester jure uxoris Duke of Lancaster 1340 1399 Blanche of Lancaster 1342 1368 Maud of Lancastera k a Matilda Countess of Hainault 1340 1362 William V Count of Holland 5th Earl of Leicester jure uxoris 1330 1389 Roger La WarrEleanor MowbrayHenry Bolingbroke 7th Earl of LeicesterDuke of LancasterKing Henry IV 1367 1413 Joan La WarrThomas WestEarldom of Leicester merged into the Crown 1399Dukedom of Lancaster merged into the Crown 1399DUKE OF LANCASTER 1399Henry of MonmouthDuke of LancasterKing Henry V 1386 1422 Reginald WestDukedom of Lancaster merged into the Crown 1413Richard WestThomas WestEdward GuildfordEleanor WestJohn DudleyDuke of NorthumberlandJane GuildfordEARL OF LEICESTER third creation 1564John DudleyEarl of Warwick c 1527 1554 Robert Dudley1st Earl of Leicester 1532 1588 Mary Dudley d 1586 m Henry SidneyLord Guildford Dudley c 1535 1554 Lady Jane GreyDisputed Queen of England 1537 1554 Earldom of Leicester extinct 1588EARL OF LEICESTER fourth creation 1618Philip Sidney 1554 1586 Mary Sidney 1561 1621 Robert Sidney1st Earl of Leicester 1563 1626 Robert Sidney2nd Earl of Leicester 1595 1677 Henry SidneyEarl of RomneyPhilip Sidney3rd Earl of Leicester 1619 1698 Algernon Sidney 1623 1683 Lady Lucy Sidney 1630 1685 Robert Sidney4th Earl of Leicester 1649 1702 Thomas Pelham 1653 1712 Edward Coke d 1707 Philip Sidney5th Earl of Leicester 1676 1705 John Sidney6th Earl of Leicester 1680 1737 Jocelyn Sidney7th Earl of Leicester 1682 1743 Elizabeth Pelham 1681 1711 Earldom of Leicester extinct 1743EARL OF LEICESTER fifth creation 1744Thomas CokeEarl of Leicester 1697 1759 Anne CokePhilip RobertsCharles Townshend3rd Viscount Townshend 1700 1764 Earldom of Leicester extinct 1759Wenman Roberts Coke c 1717 1776 George Townshend1st Marquess Townshend 1724 1807 EARL OF LEICESTER seventh creation 1837EARL OF LEICESTER sixth creation 1784Thomas William Coke1st Earl of Leicester 1754 1842 George TownshendEarl of Leicester2nd Marquess Townshend 1753 1811 George TownshendEarl of Leicester courtesy title 3rd Marquess Townshend 1778 1855 Earldom of Leicester extinct 1811Thomas William Coke2nd Earl of Leicester 1822 1909 Thomas William Coke3rd Earl of Leicester 1848 1941 Thomas William Coke4th Earl of Leicester 1880 1949 Arthur George Coke 1882 1915 Thomas William Edward Coke5th Earl of Leicester 1908 1976 Anthony Louis Lovel Coke6th Earl of Leicester 1909 1994 Edward Douglas Coke7th Earl of Leicester 1936 2015 Thomas Edward Coke8th Earl of Leicester b 1965 Edward Horatio CokeViscount Coke b 2003 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Robert Dudley 1st Earl of Leicester amp oldid 1142649943, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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