Robert Dudley was the fifth son of Edward VI's most powerful subject, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Robert was brought to court and knighted during the reign of Edward VI. Marriage to a Norfolk heiress, Amy Robsart, followed. The Dudley family and its fortunes were suddenly eclipsed by the death of Edward and by the abortive attempt of Northumberland and his sons to depose Mary Tudor in favor of Lady Jane Grey. Robert, two brothers, and his sisters survived the Marian revenge, but not until the accession of Elizabeth I did he escape the shadow cast by his father's treason.

Elizabeth and Robert had known each other as children, and she was clearly drawn to him. She was lavish in the honors granted him, and rumor inevitably linked the two romantically. Thus when Amy Robsart died in a fall late in 1560, Dudley was widely suspected of having had...