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By Cassidy CashDuring the Essex Rebellion, Shakespeare’s popularity as a playwright saw his company turned into a weapon against the Queen, and William Shakespeare narrowly escaped being tried for treason.The Earl of Essex’s stepfather, Robert Dudley (the Earl of Leicester and patron of Leicester’s Men, of which Shakespeare was a member) began his legendary mark on history as the Queen’s friend turned clandestine lover. Insomuch as the Virgin Queen entertained suitors, Dudley was the top guy in the running to make her rethink her stance on singlehood and get married. Dudley even proposed to Elizabeth one time over the Christmas holidays, at a festival held in her honor at Kenilworth Castle which some historians think an 11 year old William Shakespeare might have witnessed. Kenilworth Castle Ruins. DeFacto [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia CommonsWhen Elizabeth became Queen at the age of 25, she immediately appointed Dudley to a position of prominence in her government, making him Master of Horse, a position which required regular attendance to the Queen. Their obvious intimacy made a scandalous rumor mill absolutely ablaze with commentary on the Queen’s relationship with Dudley and made her personally vulnerable to the attacks from people like the King of Spain who had numerous reasons to want to discredit her. Surviving one massive scandal where a man arrived at court claiming, with credible evidence, to be the illegitimate child of Dudley and Queen Elizabeth, their relationship would now find sound reason to distance themselves from one another when Dudley’s wife died under suspicious circumstances. Amy Dudley died falling down a flight of stairs. Enemies of Dudley and the Queen claimed that either, or both, had plotted for Amy to die in order to allow the two to be together. Despite the fact that in reality, neither of them were likely to be involved in her death and investigations at the time concluded her death was accidental, the scandal was too large for the lovers to overcome. Portrait of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester (1532-1588). Kenilworth Castle. William Segar [Public domain]Elizabeth was obliged to step back from her relationship with Dudley in public, but in private they exchanged secret coded letters, met clandestinely in disguise, and she even is reported to have kept his portrait by her bedside. By 1575, Dudley had decided to try and persuade Elizabeth to marry him and he staged a giant proposal, which was truly a spectacular event for the entire county. She loved her visit there, and Dudley’s attentions, but she could not marry him. The scandal around Amy’s death, as well as the intense opposition from Dudley’s rivals could erupt into an all out civil war. Whether he was motivated by her refusal, or he had simply ended up in an unavoidable situation after a rash love affair, Dudley would marry Elizabeth’s lady in waiting, Lettice Knollys, in 1578, just three years after his proposal to Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle because Knollys was pregnant and insisted on a marriage. Elizabeth was furious, she attacked Lettice Knollys,...
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