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LEICESTER, ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL of (c. 15311588). This favourite of Queen Elizabeth came of an ambitious family. They were not, indeed, such mere upstarts as their enemies loved to represent them; for Leicester's grandfatherthe notorious Edmund Dudley who was one of the chief
of Henry VII.'s extortionswas descended from a younger branch of the barons of Dudley. But the love of power was a passion which seems to have increased in them with each succeed- ing generation, and though the grandfather was beheaded by Henry VIII. for his too devoted services in the preceding reign, the father grew powerful enough in the days of Edward VI. to trouble the succession to the crown. This was that John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, who contrived the marriage of Lady Jane Grey with his own son Guildford Dudley, and involved both her and her husband in a common ruin with himself. Robert Dudley, the subject of this article, was an elder brother of Guildford, and shared at that time in the misfortunes of the whole family. Having taken up arms with them against Queen Mary, he was sent to the Tower, and was sentenced to Saxon named Edgar has been described as the 1st earl
390 LEICESTER, EARLS OF liberty, but appointed him master of the ordnance. On the to Leicester's discredit and was kept secret at first; but it was revealed to the queen in 1579 by Simier, an emissary of the duke of Alencon, to whose projected match with Elizabeth the earl
secret about the capture of Brill. When Alencon actually arrived, indeed, in August 1579, Dudley being in disgrace, showed himself for a time anti-French; but he soon returned to his former policy. He encouraged Drake's piratical expeditions against the Spaniards and had a share in the booty brought home. In February 1582 he, with a number of other noblemen and gentlemen, escorted the duke of Alencon on his return to Antwerp to be invested with the government of the Low Countries. In 1584 he inaugurated an association for the protection of Queen Elizabeth against conspirators. About this time there issued from the press the famous pamphlet, supposed to have been the work of Parsons the Jesuit, entitled Leicester's Commonwealth, which was intended to suggest that the English constitution was subverted and the government handed over to one who was at heart an atheist and a traitor, besides being a man of in-famous life and morals. The book was ordered to be suppressed by letters from the privy council, in which it was declared that the charges against the earl were to the queen's certain knowledge untrue; nevertheless they produced a very strong impression, and were believed in by some who had no sympathy with Jesuits long after Leicester's death. In 1585 he was appointed commander
Such are the main facts of Leicester's life. Of his character it is more difficult to speak with confidence, but some features of it are indisputable. Being in person tall and remarkably handsome, he improved these advantages by a very ingratiating manner. A man of no small ability and still more ambition, he was nevertheless vain, and presumed at times upon his influence with the queen to a degree that brought upon him a sharp
accession of Elizabeth he was also made master of the horse. He as then, perhaps, about seven-and-twenty, and was evidently rising rapidly in the queen's favour. At an early age he had been married to Amy, daughter of Sir John Robsart. The match had been arranged by his father, who was very studious to provide in this way for the future fortunes of his children, and the wedding was graced by the presence of King Edward. But if it was not a love match, there seems to have been no positive estrangement between the couple. Amy visited her husband in the Tower during his imprisonment; but afterwards when, under the new queen, he was much at court, she lived a good deal apart from him. He visited her, however, at times, in different parts of the country, and his expenses show that he treated her liberally. In September 156o she was staying at Cumnor Hall
Cambridge , she at his request addressed the university in Latin. The honours shown him excited jealousy, especially as it was well known that he entertained still more ambitious hopes, which the queen apparently did not altogether discourage. The earl of Sussex, in opposition to him, strongly favoured a match with the archduke Charles of Austria. The court was divided, and, while arguments were set forth on the one side against the queen's marrying a subject, the other party insisted strongly on the disadvantages of a foreign alliance. The queen, however, was so far from being foolishly in love with him that in 1564 she recommended him as a husband for Mary Queen of Scots. But this, it was believed, was only a blind, and it may be doubted how far the proposal was serious. After his creation as earl of Leicester great attention was paid to him both at home and abroad. The university of Oxford made him their chancellor, and Charles IX. of France sent him the order of St Michael. A few years later he formed an ambiguous connexion with the baroness dowager of Sheffield, which was maintained by the lady, if not with truth at least with great plausibility, to have been a valid marriage, though it was concealed from the queen. Her own subsequent conduct, however, went far to discredit her statements; for she married again during Leicester's life, when he, too, had found a new conjugal partner. Long afterwards, in the days of James I., her son, Sir Robert Dudley, a man of extraordinary talents, sought to establish his legitimacy; but his suit was suddenly brought to a stop, the witnesses discredited and the documents connected with it sealed up by an order of the Star Chamber.In 1575 Queen Elizabeth visited the earl at Kenilworth, where she was entertained for some days with great magnificence. The picturesque account of the event given by Sir Walter Scott has made every one familiar with the general character of the scene. Next year Walter, earl of Essex, died in Ireland, and Leicester's subsequent marriage with his widow again gave rise to very serious imputations against him. For report said that he had had two children by her during her husband's absence in Ireland, and, as the feud
and his letters were pervaded by expressions of religious feeling which it is hard to believe were insincere. Of the darker suspicions against him it is enough to say that much was certainly reported beyond the truth; but there remain some facts sufficiently disagreeable, and others, perhaps, sufficiently mysterious, to make a just estimate of the man a rather perplexing problem. No special biography of Leicester has yet been written except in biographical dictionaries and encyclopaedias. A general account of him will be found in the Memoirs of the Sidneys prefixed to Collins's Letters and Memorials of State; but the fullest yet published is Mr Sidney Lee's article in the Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1888) where the sources are given. Leicester's career has to be made out from documents and state papers, especially from the Hatfield MSS. and Major Hume's Calendar of documents from the Spanish archives bearing on the history of Queen Elizabeth. This last is the most recent
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156o, on which so much has been built. (J. GA.) End of Article: LEICESTER, ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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