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An artist’s impression of Kenilworth Castle at the time of Elizabeth’s visit in 1575. Dudley
had ordered major improvements to his property in an attempt to impress the monarchAt elaborate daily
banquets laid on at
Kenilworth, guests
consumed up to 40
barrels of beer and
16 barrels of wine
each would have been about seven. It is
unclear when exactly friendship blossomed
into romance, though a turning point
seems to have occurred between 1550 –
when Dudley married Amy Robsart – and
November 1558, when Elizabeth ascended
the throne. Certainly, the new queen’s
decision to appoint Dudley to the position
of master of the horse raised eyebrows. Not
only did the post come with lodgings at
court but it also – by requiring its holder
to lift the queen on and off her horse –
ensured regular, physical contact.By spring 1559, scandalous rumours were
circulating that Elizabeth was in the habit
of visiting Dudley “in his chamber day and
night” and, moreover, “waiting for [his wife]
to die”. When, a little more than a year later,
Amy was found with a broken neck at the
foot of a staircase, Dudley’s enemies were
quick to accuse him of a murderous plot
designed to pave the way for marriage to
the queen – and kingship in all but name.
In fact, the death was almost certainly a
case of misadventure (the verdict of the
contemporary coroner’s court) or suicide;
there was no evidence of foul play, and there
is reason to believe Amy was suffering from
breast cancer, depression, or both.
As a widower Dudley was, in theory, free
to pursue the queen’s hand, but he faced
opposition at court. In 1566, William Cecil
advised the queen to choose the Habsburg
archduke Charles – a Catholic – over
Dudley, noting that Dudley’s paternal
grandfather had been “but a solicitor”.
More damning was the fact that Dudley’s
father, brother and sister-in-law, Lady Jane
Grey, had been executed as traitors forO
n Saturday 9 July
1575, at about 8pm,
Elizabeth I arrived
on horseback at
Kenilworth Castle,
the Warwickshire
power base of her
long-time favourite
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. As the
queen passed through the castle gates, along
the tiltyard and into the outer courtyard,
she was met by actors reciting speeches
of welcome and bearing symbolic gifts,
including the keys to the castle. Trumpeters
saluted her, and when Elizabeth reached the
inner courtyard, dismounted her palfrey
and made her way to her chamber, there
was a peal of guns that could, it was said,
be heard 20 miles away.
For nearly three weeks the queen, her
ladies-in-waiting and leading courtiers
were housed at the castle and entertained by
Dudley with diversions ranging from music,
masques and dancing to tilting, hunting and
bear-baiting. Elaborate banquets, at which
guests consumed up to 40 barrels of beer and
16 barrels of wine per day, were punctuated
by fireworks displays and, on at least one
occasion, the gyrations of an Italian acrobat.
In the words of the French ambassador,
nothing “more magnificent” had been seen
in England “for a long time”.
The stage upon which these splendours
unfolded was Kenilworth itself: Dudley had
reputedly spent £60,000 on building works
in anticipation of the queen’s visit. The
festivities of July 1575, which became known
as the ‘princely pleasures’, have gone down
in history as the longest, most expensive
party of Elizabeth’s 44-year reign. These
revels also constituted Dudley’s last-ditch
attempt – after nearly 15 years of trying –
to win the queen’s hand in marriage.Dudley and Elizabeth
Contemporaries described Dudley as the
man who knew Elizabeth best and who
exercised the greatest influence over her.
The two shared many interests, including
riding and hunting. But theirs was also
an attraction of opposites: the queen
was indecisive, Dudley impulsive. In all
probability they never consummated
their relationship, though there may
have been a sexual component to it.
Whatever the physical relationship, theirs
was undoubtedly a strong and enduring
emotional bond. Elizabeth’s pet name for
Dudley was ‘eyes’, and he seems to have been
the only one of her many suitors whom she
seriously contemplated marrying.
The pair met as children at the court of
Henry VIII, perhaps as early as 1540, when