The intimate relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and her courtier Robert Dudley, the 1st Earl of Leicester, has fascinated people for centuries.
Though she never married (and famously declared herself the “Virgin Queen”), the last Tudor monarch maintained a close bond with the earl for decades – one that has inspired a score of literary and screen depictions including Elizabeth (starring Cate Blanchett and Joseph Fiennes) and Elizabeth I (starring Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons).
Now, an immersive artwork offering a fresh perspective on the relationship is to be installed at Kenilworth Castle, the former home of Dudley that Elizabeth visited 450 years ago in what became her longest visit to a courtier’s residence.
English Heritage has commissioned the artist Lindsey Mendick to create the work at the site in Warwickshire, where the Tudor queen spent nearly three weeks in the summer of 1575 – 10 years after she evaded Dudley’s marriage proposal on Christmas Day 1565.
It is believed that Dudley spent years developing Kenilworth into a “wonder house” for Elizabeth’s entertainment, at immense cost.
During her stay, he laid on lavish festivities, including fireworks, which were heard 20 miles away, and a garden created for her visit. All of this cost about £1,000 a day, the equivalent of about £7m in today’s money.
But unfortunately for Dudley, a rainstorm led to the cancellation of the final entertainment, which should have been a masque urging Elizabeth to marry him.
Mendick’s installation is to go on display from July 2025. The artist – whose previous work has explored the vilification of powerful women from Medusa to the Duchess of Sussex today – has worked with English Heritage historians. She said she was struck by the ruthlessness of Dudley’s pursuit of Elizabeth during her time at Kenilworth and the precariousness of the queen’s position.
The installation will present a retelling of the reasons why Elizabeth would not marry by using the stories of women from Greek mythology as warnings against marriage.
“As I read more about Elizabeth, I began to understand the profound vulnerability of her reign,” Mendick said. “She was not just the iconic queen with ‘the heart and stomach of a king’, but the child scarred by her mother’s execution and a woman surrounded by an ever closing circle of men in a perpetual battle of wits.”
Elizabeth and Dudley grew up together before she became queen in 1558 at the age of 25. Though she reputedly told him: “I will never marry”, he pursued her romantically for most of his life. The pair were violently attracted to one another, some historians argue.
When Elizabeth became queen, Dudley – previously referred to as “singular well-featured”, almost 6ft tall with long shapely legs – immediately received a court post (master of the horse) and became like a surrogate husband.
Day after day they rode and danced together, or whispered in alcoves. Rumours that they were lovers were rife, and not only at court. A woman known as Old Mother Dowe of Brentwood was jailed for assuring her neighbours that “My Lord Robert hath given Her Majesty a red petticoat” – that is, had taken the queen’s virginity.
This created a set of complicated circumstances. While Dudley lived at court, his wife, Amy Robsart, (whom he married at 17) generally remained in Hertfordshire.
When she was found dead with a broken neck in 1560, there was even gossip over whether it was an accident, suicide, or something more sinister. Some questioned whether Dudley had plotted to murder his wife because Elizabeth would not share him with her.
It is unclear whether Elizabeth ever seriously contemplated marrying Dudley. He was socially her inferior, and tainted by the accusation of removing his wife.
Yet Elizabeth would not let him go. “I cannot do without my Lord Robert,” she told the French ambassador, “for he is like my little dog.”
The queen was enraged when Dudley secretly married Lettice Knollys, one of her cousins, but they continued to maintain a close friendship until his death in 1588 aged 55, and it is thought that she always refused to settle for anyone other than him.
Elizabeth spurned all of her numerous suitors including Erik XIV of Sweden, Philip II of Spain, Francis, the Duke of Anjou, and Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex, who came later in her life and who she ended up executing as a traitor.
