Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester

“ 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 rebuff. Yet Elizabeth stood by him. ”

“ His nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, and Count Maurice of Nassau, with a body of troops and a great procession of civil functionaries; were in readiness to receive him, and to escort him to the lodgings prepared for him.
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was then fifty-four years of age. There are few personages in English history whose adventures, real or fictitious, have been made more familiar to the world than his have been, or whose individuality has been presented in more picturesque fashion, by chronicle, tragedy, or romance. ”

“ 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 grandfather—the notorious Edmund Dudley who was one of the chief instruments of Henry VII.’s extortions—was descended from a younger branch of the barons of Dudley. ”

“ It is true that it would have strengthened her position to have had a child to succeed her; but it would have weakened her personal sway to have had a husband. She wanted to rule as well as to reign. Her many suitors were encouraged just sufficiently to flatter her vanity and to attain her diplomatic ends. First, her brother-in-law Philip sought her hand, and was promptly rejected as a Spanish Catholic. Then, there was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, apparently her favorite in spite of his worthless character, but his rank was not high enough. ”

“ This marriage, at all events, tended 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 Alençon, to whose projected match with Elizabeth the earl seemed to be the principal obstacle. The queen showed great displeasure at the news, and had some thought, it is said, of committing Leicester to the Tower, but was dissuaded from doing so by his rival the earl of Sussex. He had not, indeed, favoured the Alençon marriage, but otherwise he had sought to promote a league with France against Spain. ”

“ She asserted that they were, at Esher in Surrey, but her marriage with Sir Edward Stafford of Grafton, after her desertion by Leicester, would seem to be a tacit confession that her claim had no foundation. Her son Robert was born in May 1573, was recognized by Leicester, and sent to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1587. He inherited all Leicester’s property under the earl’s will at his death in 1588, and in the following year the property of Ambrose Dudley, earl of Warwick. In 1594 he made a voyage to the West Indies, and in 1596 he took part in the expedition to Cadiz and was knighted. ”

“ Certain it is that Dudley continued to rise in the queen’s favour. She made him a Knight of the Garter, and bestowed on him the castle of Kenilworth, the lordship of Denbigh and other lands of very great value in Warwickshire and in Wales. In September 1564 she created him baron of Denbigh, and immediately afterwards earl of Leicester. ”

“ He did indeed look quite bad, and I sez soothin’ly—
“Wall, Martin will be for goin’ back before long now. He is gittin’ hungry himself; I heard him say so.”
We didn’t stop to but one more place on our way back to the tarvern where we had dinner, and that wuz to that old horsepital founded by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in 1571. It wuz meant in the first place for one Master and twelve bretheren, the bretheren to be of the Earl’s servants, or his soldiers who had been injured in battle. But now they are appointed from Warwick and Gloucester, and have a comfortable livin’. ”

“ On Leicester’s death it was found that he had bequeathed the castle for life to his brother Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, and after him to his son by Lady Douglas Sheffield, whom he termed Sir Robert Dudley.
The only portion now habitable of what was anciently one of the finest baronial fortress homes in the kingdom is Leicester’s magnificent gate–house, which many authorities are agreed equals in its size and beauty of architecture many a manor–house itself. ”

“ Did you think my leech would not serve me as fair as he would serve the Earl of Leicester? You have not bought us all, Robert Dudley, who have bought and sold so long. The good leech did your bidding and sent your note to the lady; but there your bad play ended and Fate's began. A rabbit's brains, Leicester—and a rabbit's end. Fate has the brains you need."
Leicester's anger burst forth now under the lash of ridicule. "I cannot hope to win when your Majesty plays Fate in caricature."
With a little gasp of rage Elizabeth leaned over and slapped his face with her long glove. ”

“ He remained at the University till 1581, when he retired to his country house in Pembrokeshire, and seemed to have ‘become enamoured of a rural life.’ In 1584, on his first presentation at Court, he found his stepfather, the Earl of Leicester, reigning supreme, with whom he was in no way inclined to stand on friendly relations. The sudden death of Essex’s father, and the indecent haste of his mother’s marriage with Robert Dudley, were too vivid in his remembrance. ”

“ He died abroad, probably at Venice, where this medal appears to have been executed.
29. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1587. Obv. Bust, three-quarters l., wearing cap and armour much ornamented. ROBE. CO. LEIC. ET IN BELG. GVBER. 1587. Rev. Sheep in flat country, dog leaving them; under dog, INVITVS DESERO; around, NON GREGEM SED INGRATOS. Silver. Size 1·85. Cast and chased. Dutch.
Leicester, being superseded in the command of the combined armies of the English and Protestants of the United Provinces by Maurice second son of the Prince of Orange, left the country in disgust. ”

“ They now came to consult him more openly as to the fortunes of their mistress; and Robert Dudley, the celebrated Earl of Leicester, was sent by command of the Queen herself to know the most auspicious day for her coronation. So great was the favour he enjoyed that, some years afterwards, Elizabeth condescended to pay him a visit at his house in Mortlake, to view his museum of curiosities, and, when he was ill, sent her own physician to attend upon him. ”

“ The castle received certain small additions, not of a military character, and all now removed, from Henry VI. and Henry VIII. Elizabeth, in the fifth year of her reign, 1563, granted the domain to Lord Robert Dudley, creating him in the following year Earl of Leicester. Leicester’s works were considerable. He gutted the keep and forebuilding, fitting them up in the Tudor style; built the pile of masonry, now nodding to its fall, and which bears his name, at the south-east corner of the inner ward; he built or restored the Gallery Tower upon the outer end of the dam ”

“ The character of the Earl of Leicester, (Lord Robert Dudley) her husband, was such as to raise grave doubts as to the mode by which she came by her death, and the popular belief that Queen Elizabeth was in love with him, and was willing to marry him, gave great countenance to the prevailing suspicion that he had kept his marriage a secret, and got rid of his wife to enable him to carry out his ambitious schemes. ”

“ Leicester (Robert Dudley, eleventh Earl of) , 105. 160. 354.
Leighton (Abp.) , his burial-place, 8.
* Lemying (Christopher) of Burneston, 325.
Leslie (Charles) and Dr. Middleton, 324. 575.
Lessius (Leonard) , his Hygiasticon, 52.
Letters, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, &c., 246. 361.
Letters of eminent literary men, 7. 28.
Lewis family, 86.
* Lewis (Jenkin) , his Memoirs of the Duke of Gloucester, its editor, 542.
"Liber Passionis Domini nostri Jesu Christi," 446.
Lichfield Bower, or Wappenschau, 338.
Life and death, 226. 481. 592.
Life-belts, 348.
Life, on living over again, 591.
Lightfoot (Anna) , 233. ”

“ Sir Robert Dudley [q. v.] , to prove his legitimacy; and died, vigorous to the last, on 25 Dec. 1634, aged 94. She was buried by Leicester in Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick, and some verses on her death by Gervase Clifton were painted on a tablet hung near the Leicester monument.
'Laws and Ordinances,' drawn up for the English army in Holland, and published in London in 1587, is the only printed work of which Leicester was author, but numerous letters appear in Digges's 'Compleat Ambassador,' 1655, in 'Cabala,' 1671, and in the 'Leycester Correspondence,' 1844. They all show much literary power. ”

“ God knows, they do us grievous wrong, and the time will come when the world knows it also. I do not live in a corner; a thousand eyes see all I do, and calumny will not fasten on me for ever."
But neither Elizabeth nor Dudley (or Leicester, as we must now call him) allowed these rumours and suspicions to affect even their familiarities, which were proclaimed to all on many a public occasion; as when the Earl once, during a heated game of tennis, snatched the Queen's handkerchief from her hand and proceeded to wipe his perspiring forehead with it. ”

“ Apparently with the intention of throwing the matter back, Elizabeth offered her own favourite, Dudley, Earl of Leicester, as a husband for Mary; but on the latter, after recovering from her surprise, exclaiming, "Well, I don't mind," the virgin Queen of England, mentally responding, "Oh! yes! I dare say," backed out of her proposition. The Earl of Leicester was one of those good-looking scamps who used, in the last century, to go by the name of "pretty fellows," but in our own more enlightened age, would obtain no gentler appellation than "pretty scoundrels." ”

“ Plotter succeeds plotter, and the rough [Pg 28] lesson of the headsman seldom teaches the conspirator’s successor to cease from conspiring.
To the Norfolks succeeded Dudley, the false Earl of Leicester, the black or gipsy earl, as he was called from his swarthy Italian complexion. Leicester, like the duke before him, plotted with Mary’s Jesuits and assassins, and at the same time contrived to keep in favour with his own jealous queen, in spite of all his failures and schemings in Holland, and his suspected assassinations of his enemies in England. ”

“ It seems that it was not safe for a man to do what he would with his own, for not many weeks later a friend of his at court wrote to him:—
“Her Majesty has been informed that you were not pleased at the good sport she had in your park. Have a wary watch over your words173 and deeds. It was Leicester who brought her to your castle. He has taken no small liking to it, and it might easily be that he would claim to have good title to the same.”
The most brilliant of Elizabeth’s entertainments was given her by Robert Dudley at Kenilworth Castle not long after he became Lord Leicester. ”

“ The Earl of Warwick always seems to have treated the child with kindness. For a time Dudley lived with his mother, and his father was denied access to him. But when he was five or six Leicester obtained possession of him, and sent him to a school at Offington, near Worthing, Sussex. ”

“ Feb. 19. =Paul’s= (Titus and Gisippus) . Mask of children.
Feb. 26–March 3. Visit to Wanstead? (Earl of Leicester) . [226]
April. Italian play before Privy Council at Durham Place. [227]
Apr. 29 < > May 6. Greenwich. [228]
May 9–10. Visit to Leicester House (Earl of Leicester) . [229]
May 14–c. 25. Visits to Stoke Newington (John Dudley) , Theobalds (Lord Burghley, May 14 or 15, for 3 days) , Northiaw (Earl of Warwick) , Gorhambury (Sir Nicholas Bacon, May 18–22) , Fold? at Barnet (Mr. Waller) , Highgate (Thomas? Lichfield) . ”

“ First among the lay nobles he signed the Constitutions of Clarendon, he sought to reconcile Henry and Archbishop Becket, and was twice in charge of the kingdom during the king’s absences in France. The earl founded the abbey of St Mary de Pré at Leicester and other religious houses, and by a charter confirmed the burgesses of Leicester in the possession of their merchant-gild and customs. His son, Robert, succeeded to the earldom of Leicester, and with other English barons assisted prince Henry in his revolt against his father the king in 1173. ”

“ In 1570 and 1571, with much show of disinterestedness, Leicester strongly supported the proposal that Elizabeth should marry the Duke of Anjou. Private affairs doubtless encouraged this policy. In 1571 he contracted himself to Douglas Sheffield, widow of John, second baron Sheffield, and daughter of William, first lord Howard of Effingham. In May 1573 he secretly married the lady at Esher. Two days later a son, Robert [see Dudley, Sir Robert, 1573-1649] , was born, of whose legitimacy there can be little doubt. Apparently fearing the queen's wrath, Leicester never acknowledged this marriage. ”

“ But all the unpleasant rumours prove on examination to be singularly vague, and are just such as Leicester's unpopularity, caused by his relations with the queen, would have led his numberless enemies to concoct. It is difficult to believe that the alleged murder would have been hushed up when so many persons regarded it to the interest of themselves and the nation to bring it home to Dudley. The theory of suicide has most in its favour. ”

“ Then, on one memorable morning, when a hunt had been arranged, Leicester escorted the Queen to the castle garden, with another chase in view. Without premeditation, but urged on by vanity and ambition, his importunity became the language of love itself.
"No, Dudley," said Elizabeth, yet with broken accents. "No, I must be the mother of my people. Urge it no more, Leicester. Were I, as others, free to seek my own happiness, then indeed--but it cannot be. It is madness, and must not be repeated. Leave me. Go, but go not far from hence ”

“ Dudley Leicester’s a man in a thousand. I’m the only person that’s to blame. I tell you Dudley Leicester hasn’t spoken a word to me since the day we parted. I tell you I got him just that one night to show myself what I could do. He couldn’t help being with me; he had to see me home. We were all at the Esmeralda together, and all the rest of us were married, or engaged or coupled up somehow. ”