What is this site about? Sometime in the late 1990s, reading about Queen Elizabeth I, I fell in love with the relationship of the queen with her “favourite”, Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester. Likewise, reading accounts of Lady Jane Grey and Edward VI, I became no less intrigued by Leicester’s father, John Dudley Duke of Northumberland. Both these men have suffered terribly at the hands of historians and popular prejudice, although over the last 50 years or so a lot of fascinating new scholarship has appeared on them and their times. Sadly, this is not well known to a general public; also, there remain many interesting documents, questions, and perspectives to be explored!
My name is Christine Hartweg; I was born in 1972, and I have researched a number of historical subjects since the early 1990s.
Twitter: @BuffHistory
Love this! Especially all the picture watching Robert through time.
Thank you. There will be more pictures!
I am a part of cast for the Virginia Renaissance Faire and I am going to be playing Robert Dudley in the upcoming season. I have been looking everywhere for pictures and information, since we try to portray the characters as accurately as possible and I found this site and love it! Great information and great references as well. What I found particually interesting is that you have a very big portrate of Robert in the white jerkin over the red doublet however you only show part if that very excellent portrait on the blog. Would it be possible to send me a copy of that full portrait in that size as that is the best portrait of him with his Master of the Horse chain of office and I’m trying desparately to find some details on that. Look forward to more great information! Thanks.
Hi, thank you very much! You can find the full portrait here: http://allthingsrobertdudley.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/leicester-1560s-by-van-herwijck.jpg. I used this file for the header detail, but did not enlarge it; that’s done automatically, apparently. Hope that’s of some help (I am going to post and write about that picture soon).