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.

[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.

[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.

[16] 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.

[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.

[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.

[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 20,000 pounds a year.

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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".

[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.

[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.

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".

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.

[260] 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.

[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".

[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.