Robert Dudley had known Elizabeth since they were children. Like her, he had only narrowly survived the political turmoil of Mary’s reign that had killed his father, the Duke of Northumberland, and his brother, Jane Grey’s husband Guildford.
The office to which Elizabeth appointed him in November 1558 made him the only man publicly permitted to touch the queen, when he helped her mount and dismount her horse. his wife Amy lived in the country, while Dudley was constantly in attendance on the queen. On 8 September Amy Dudley was found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs at her country home. Her neck was broken. There was no way of telling whether she had fallen, or deliberately sought to harm herself, or if she had been pushed; But among the causes of Elizabeth’s sorrow and tribulation, both personal and political, was the fact that her father had married her mother for love and lust, and then killed her. The connection between sex and violent death was inscribed deep in her history, and here, in Amy Dudley’s end, was another variation on the theme. Instead, she offered Dudley up as a husband for another queen. Remarkably, in a world where female rule remained a startling anomaly, Scotland as well as England now had a female sovereign. So far, the life of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots,
Robert Dudley, muhtemelen Elizabeth ile evlenmek için karısını öldürttü. Bu gelişme Elizabeth’i korkuttu çünkü babası Henry VIII de Elizabeth’in anası Anne Boleyn’e kötü davranmıştı. Çocukluk travması tetiklenmiş olabilir.