Leicester, ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF, born about 1532, was the fifth son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and grandson of the notorious Edmund Dudley, who was beheaded for treason by Henry VIII. His father was executed for the part which he took in the cause of Lady Jane Grey (q.v.), and he was himself sentenced to death. He was liberated in 1554; and in 1558, on the accession of Elizabeth, a great career opened before him. He was made Master of the Horse, Knight of the Garter, a Privy-councillor, High Steward of the university of Cambridge, Baron
Dudley, and finally in 1564 Earl of Leicester. For these high honours he seems to have been indebted mainly to a handsome person and a courtly manner. In 1550 he had married Amy, daughter of Sir John Robsart. She lived in the country, and early in 1560 removed to Cumnor Place, Berkshire, the house of Anthony Forster, a creature of her husband's, where, on 8th September, she was found lying dead, with her neck broken, at the foot of a staircase. It was generally believed at the time that she was murdered, and that Dudley, if not Elizabeth herself, was an accessory to the crime. This belief receives some support from certain discoveries made in the archives at Simncas, which indicate that a plot to poison her was actually entered into before her death. Elizabeth continued to favour Leicester in spite of his unpopularity in the country and of his secret marriage in 1573 to the Dowager Lady Sheffield. In 1563 she had suggested him as a husband for Mary, Queen of Scots, and in 1575 she consented to be magnificently entertained by him at his castle of Kenilworth (q.v.). In 1578 he bigamously married the widow of Walter, Earl of Essex, and when the fact was revealed to Elizabeth, she was greatly, but only temporarily, offended. In 1585 he commanded an expedition to the Low Countries, of which next year he was appointed governor—an expedition that is notable chiefly for the unsuccessful siege of Zutphen, in the course of which Sir Philip Sidney, his nephew, met with his death. In 1587 he again showed his military incapacity in the same field, and had to be recalled. Yet in 1588 he was appointed to command the forces assembled at Tilbury, to defend England against the Spanish Armada. He died suddenly on 4th September of the same year at Cornbury, in Oxfordshire, of poison, said rumour, intended for his wife. See ELIZABETH, with works there cited; and the article 'Robert Dudley' by Mr S. L. Lee in vol. xvi. of the Dictionary of National Biography (1888).